Part 1
The fourth dawn since Alexander's ultimatum broke over Podem. From the walls, Bisera watched the Gillyrian army stir to life like some vast, golden beast awakening from slumber. Thirty thousand souls moved with the precision of a single organism, their bronze armor catching the early light until the valley seemed flooded with liquid fire.
She had not slept. None of them had—not since the drums began their relentless thunder at midnight, a psychological assault that preceded the physical one. The steady boom-boom-boom had wormed into every defender's skull, a promise of violence that frayed nerves already stretched taut as bowstrings.
"They're moving the siege engines forward," General Serko observed beside her, his weathered face grim beneath his helmet. The old soldier had seen more battles than most men had seen hot meals, yet even he seemed subdued by the spectacle unfolding before them.
Indeed, the Gillyrians had spent the night repositioning their war machines under cover of darkness. Now, in the growing light, Bisera could see the full scope of their preparations. Twelve massive siege towers rolled forward on wheels the height of two men, their wooden frames reinforced with iron plates and wet hides to resist fire. Behind them, a forest of catapults and mangonels stretched back like the ribs of some ancient monster. But it was the bronze siphons mounted on wheeled platforms that made her stomach tighten—the dreaded Gillyrian fire projectors, their nozzles wrapped in oiled cloth like sleeping serpents waiting to wake and spit liquid death.
"Bisera." James appeared at her elbow, carrying a tray with bread and watered wine. Even now, facing annihilation, he insisted on these small acts of care. "You need to eat something. You'll need your strength."
She accepted the cup gratefully, their fingers brushing in a moment of connection that sent warmth through her despite the morning chill. He wore the strange armor she'd had made for him—a combination of traditional mail and the mysterious black vest similar to the one that had saved her life earlier. The sight of him, ready to stand beside her despite having no obligation to this city, made her heart swell with both gratitude and something deeper.
"Look there," young Captain Yanko pointed toward the enemy command position. "The Gillyrian emperor moves."
Alexander had indeed taken the field, his purple cloak billowing as he rode his white destrier along the siege lines. Even from this distance, his presence was magnetic—soldiers straightened as he passed, their cheers rolling across the valley like thunder. Beside him rode a giant of remarkable beauty whom Bisera didn't recognize, a man whose bearing suggested a seasoned commander despite his relative youth. Most notably, he appeared to be ethnically non-Gillyrian.
"Igor, captain of the Imperial Guards," Serko supplied, following her gaze. "Alexander's trusted companion since youth. They say he's the emperor's shadow—where Alexander goes, Igor follows."
As if sensing their scrutiny, Alexander turned his mount toward Podem's walls and raised his hand in what might have been a salute or a final offer. The morning sun caught his golden armor, transforming him into something more than mortal—a figure from the old stories, when heroes strode the earth like gods.
Then he lowered his hand, and the assault began.
The first wave came not as men but as mathematics made manifest. The Gillyrian artillery opened fire with devastating precision, their calculations honed by centuries of military science. Stones the size of wine barrels arced through the air, their trajectories traced by Bisera's experienced eye even as she shouted orders.
"Southwest tower, brace for impact! Third century, shields up!"
The first stone struck the outer wall with a crack like thunder, sending up a choking cloud of dust and showering the walkway with chips of rock. Mortar cracked and spat. Wooden hoardings burst into flame where pitch took hold; men screamed as shards scythed through exposed flesh. Another stone followed, then another, each impact calculated to worry at the same sections of masonry the Gillyrian engineers had mapped during their three days of observation.
But Podem's defenders were not passive victims. At Bisera's signal, their own engines answered, sending lighter but more numerous projectiles into the advancing tower screen. Stones wrapped in pitch-soaked cloth hissed and smoked on impact—no match for Gillyrian fire, but enough to harry the crews and force them to slow their advance.
"General!" Captain Vesmir appeared, blood streaming from a gash on his forehead. "The militia on the eastern wall are wavering. The bombardment—"
"Hold them," Bisera commanded, already moving. She flowed along the battlements with an athlete's grace, leaping over rubble and weaving around panicking soldiers with the fluid efficiency that James had once compared to his favorite female athletes from his world. Her presence alone steadied men on the verge of breaking.
She reached the eastern section just as another volley of stones crashed home. A young militiaman, barely sixteen, stood frozen as a massive projectile arced directly toward his position. Without thinking, Bisera lunged forward, her powerful frame slamming into the boy with the force of a battering ram. They tumbled across the stone walkway as the boulder obliterated the spot where he'd stood, missing them by inches.
"On your feet, soldier," she said, hauling him up with one hand while drawing her sword with the other. "Death comes for us all, but not today if you keep moving."
The boy nodded, eyes wide with equal parts gratitude and awe. Around them, other defenders took heart from their general's fearlessness, rallying to their positions.
From across the killing field, a new sound arose—the methodical thud of boots on frozen earth as the Gillyrian infantry began their advance. They marched in perfect formation, great blocks of men flowing into smaller companies that moved with the precision of a closing fist. Shields overlapped to form a living wall, each emblazoned with the Emperor's golden eagle. Behind this barrier, spears jutted forward like an iron forest, while archers pressed forward under the cover of wheeled mantlets and armored carts. They came with the inexorable patience of the tide.
"Archers!" Bisera roared, and five hundred bows sang in response. Arrows fell like deadly rain, but the Gillyrian shields turned most aside. Still, here and there a shaft found its mark—a gap in the shield wall, an exposed leg, a throat above the armor line. Men fell, but the formation simply closed ranks and continued forward.
Behind the infantry came the true threat—the siege towers, pushed by teams of engineers protected by mobile wooden shelters. Bisera watched their approach with professional admiration even as she planned their destruction. These were no crude barbarian constructs but marvels of military engineering. Each tower stood five stories tall, with armored platforms at multiple levels from which archers could fire, and a drawbridge at the top that would drop onto Podem's walls, disgorging fresh troops directly into the heart of the defense.
"Scorpions, target the viewing ports and crews," she commanded. "Vesmir, prepare the incendiaries. We'll burn their sighting slots and blind their approach."
But even as her orders rang out, she saw movement at the Gillyrian command position. The burly general—built like a blacksmith with arms thick as tree trunks and a beard more gray than brown—raised a red banner. Immediately, the siphon crews sprang into action.
"Gillyrian fire!" someone screamed, and panic rippled through the ranks.
The first jet of liquid flame erupted from the bronze nozzles with a sound like a dragon's roar. It arced through the air, a ribbon of golden death that struck the wall twenty feet to Bisera's left. Where it touched, stone itself seemed to burn. Men caught in its path didn't even have time to scream—they simply ceased to be, transformed into human torches that tumbled from the walls in a grotesque dance of death.
"No water!" Bisera's voice cut through the panic like a blade. "Sand only—use the sand!" She had drilled them for this moment. Water only spread the cursed substance, making it rage higher and wider. Along the wall, soldiers rushed forward with prepared vessels, pouring sand over the spreading flames.
Another jet, then another. The siphons had been positioned with ruthless precision, their arcs overlapping so defenders must either abandon the wall or burn where they stood. The burly commander—General Theophilus, she recalled, magistros of the Empire—oversaw it all with the practiced ease of a conductor directing a symphony of destruction.
Through the smoke and chaos, Bisera caught sight of James. He had abandoned the relative safety of the position she'd assigned him and was sprinting toward soldiers trapped by an advancing tongue of fire. From his side, he drew one of his strange devices—a gleaming brass cylinder that appeared seamless, as if forged by no earthly smith. With a practiced twist, he unleashed a torrent of white foam that seemed to breathe winter itself onto the flames. The fire shrank back long enough for him to drag two men to safety. Her heart swelled with pride at his courage even as fear for his safety gnawed at her.
"The towers are accelerating!" Serko pointed with his sword.
Indeed, under cover of the Gillyrian fire barrage, the siege towers had doubled their pace. The lead tower, a behemoth decorated with the golden eagle of the Gillyrian Empire, was less than a hundred yards from the wall now. Through its armored ports, Bisera could see the glint of weapons and the shadows of men ready to storm Podem's defenses.
She made a quick calculation. The scorpions were having minimal effect on the reinforced towers. The fire arrows were being extinguished by water-soaked hides. They needed something more dramatic, more unexpected.
"Bring me a horse," she commanded suddenly.
"General?" Serko looked at her as if she'd lost her mind.
"Bring the horse to the western postern, now! And gather Velika with twenty of our elite guards. Have them meet me at the western postern."
As her orders were carried out, Bisera studied the approaching tower with the intense focus of a master tactician. The Gillyrians had thought of everything—except perhaps one crucial detail. The tower's great strength was also its weakness. All that armor, all those men, made it dangerously top-heavy. If one could somehow...
The horse arrived, a sturdy mare that snorted nervously at the smoke and chaos. Bisera vaulted onto its back with the fluid grace that had once made her the finest cavalry commander in the empire. Her elite guards assembled quickly, their muscular frames made even more imposing by their heavy armor.
"Listen closely," she said, outlining her desperate plan in quick, economical sentences. The guards' eyes widened, but they nodded without hesitation. They had sworn oaths to follow her to death itself, and she was about to test that promise.
Part 2
Alexander watched from his command position as his siege towers ground inexorably toward Podem's walls. Everything was proceeding according to plan—better than planned, actually. The defenders were crumbling under the combined assault of artillery and Gillyrian fire. Within the hour, his men would be on the walls, and by sunset, the city would be his.
Beside him, Igor sat his horse with characteristic stillness, those uncanny green eyes missing nothing. "The Lioness of Vakeria," he said quietly. "She's planning something."
Alexander followed his friend's gaze to where Bisera had mounted a horse on the battlements. "What can one rider do against our towers? She's desperate."
"Desperate people are the most dangerous," Igor replied, but Alexander was already turning his attention to General Theophilus, who had ridden up to report.
"My lord," the general said, his voice gravelly from years of shouting orders over the din of battle, "the lead tower will reach the wall within minutes. Shall I signal the assault troops to prepare?"
"Do so," Alexander commanded. "And have the second wave ready to exploit any breach. I want this done cleanly, Theophilus. The less damage to the city, the better. It will be ours soon enough."
The older general saluted and spurred his horse back toward the siege lines. Alexander had to admire the man's energy—at nearly fifty, Theophilus moved with the vigor of someone half his age, his tactical brilliance undiminished by time. It had been Theophilus who had identified the weak points in Podem's defenses, who had calculated the exact trajectories needed for the artillery, who had positioned the Gillyrian fire siphons for maximum psychological impact.
A cry went up from the walls, and Alexander turned to witness something that defied belief.
The gates of Podem had opened—not the main gates, but a postern gate on the western side. From it burst Bisera on horseback, followed by twenty warriors on foot, each carrying not weapons but thick ropes and grappling hooks.
"Is she mad?" someone gasped.
The small force charged directly at the lead siege tower, which was now only fifty yards from the wall. The Gillyrian archers in the tower immediately opened fire, but Bisera rode like a woman possessed, her body low against her horse's neck, weaving between the arrows with preternatural grace. Her guards followed, shields raised, several falling to the deadly rain but the rest pressing on with unwavering determination.
"Stop them!" Alexander commanded, but it was already too late.
Bisera reached the tower and leaped from her mount in a move that would have earned admiration in any arena. She caught the tower's frame fifteen feet up, her mana-enhanced strength hauling her body upward with shocking speed. The elite guards reached the base and immediately began throwing their grappling hooks, catching the tower's upper structures.
"What are they—" Igor began, then his eyes widened in understanding. "By the Spirit, they mean to pull it over!"
It seemed impossible. The tower weighed tons, was filled with men, armored and reinforced. Twenty soldiers couldn't possibly—
But Bisera had climbed to a critical junction where the tower's armor plates overlapped. With her sword, she began prying at something—a pin, Alexander realized with growing alarm. One of the main support pins that held the upper section to the lower. If she could remove it while her guards pulled...
"Artillery!" Alexander shouted. "Target that tower! Kill those men!"
But the catapults couldn't depress their angle enough to hit targets so close to their own siege tower. The archers in the tower itself fired frantically, but Bisera had positioned herself in a blind spot, protected by the very structure she was sabotaging.
The guards pulled with superhuman strength, their faces contorted with effort, veins standing out like rope beneath their skin. The tower groaned ominously. Inside, men began shouting in alarm.
Bisera freed one pin, then another. The tower lurched sickeningly.
"Theophilus!" Alexander roared. "The siphons!"
The siege master understood immediately, but Gillyrian fire was as dangerous to friend as to foe. To use it now would mean—
The tower tilted past the point of no return.
With a sound like the world breaking, the massive siege engine toppled sideways. Men screamed as they tumbled from platforms. The tower struck the ground with an impact that shook the earth itself, crushing dozens of Gillyrian soldiers who hadn't cleared the fall zone in time. Wooden beams exploded into splinters, armor plates flew like deadly projectiles, and a cloud of dust rose to obscure the carnage.
Through it all, Alexander saw Bisera leap clear at the last possible moment, landing in a controlled roll that carried her back toward her surviving guards. Thirteen of the twenty had survived the arrow storm, and they formed a protective circle around her as they retreated toward the still-open postern gate.
"Cavalry!" Alexander commanded. "Cut them off!"
A squadron of cataphracts spurred forward, their lances leveled. They would reach the retreating defenders before they could make the gate—
Thunder split the air, but not from the sky. From the northern hills that everyone had assumed empty came a cavalry charge. Several hundred riders, perhaps more, their war cries high and wild, the bells woven into their hair creating an otherworldly music that sent chills down veteran spines. At their head rode a figure in elaborate armor, tall in the saddle despite being a woman, her raven-black hair streaming behind her like a war banner.
The steppe cavalry struck the pursuing cataphracts like an avalanche. The heavily armored Gillyrians had no time to turn, no time to brace. The steppe riders flowed around them like water around stones, their recurved bows singing death, their curved sabers flashing in the morning light. In moments, the pursuit became a rout.
"Saralta," Igor identified, his voice carrying a note of professional respect. "The warrior princess of the steppes. So she didn't go north with the Vakerian emperor after all."
Alexander watched as the steppe princess personally cut down three cataphracts with movements that seemed more dance than combat, her blade weaving patterns that Gillyrian military doctrine had no counter for. Her riders were already wheeling, preparing to strike at the exposed flanks of his infantry, who had advanced too far in their eagerness to reach the walls.
"Sound the withdrawal," Alexander commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos with imperial authority.
"My lord?" Theophilus had returned, his armor splattered with blood from trying to rescue men from the fallen tower. "We can still—"
"We've lost the momentum," Alexander said calmly, though his dark eyes burned with frustrated ambition. "And we don't know how many more troops they might have hidden. Could be a few hundred, could be thousands. If the Vakerians have set a trap, I won't march into it blindly."
The bronze horns sounded the retreat, their notes carrying across the battlefield with mournful authority. The Gillyrian forces began their withdrawal in good order, their discipline holding despite the setback. The steppe cavalry harried them briefly but didn't pursue too far—they too were uncertain of the overall situation.
From Podem's walls, a cheer went up that seemed to shake the very mountains. Alexander could see Bisera standing at the main gate now, her armor dented and bloodied but her posture victorious. Beside her stood the man he knew to be the mysterious mage, James, his arm around her waist in a gesture that was both protective and intimate. Alexander had heard much about James from Adelais's reports. It was James who concerned him most—not because of his powers, which appeared to have mandatory limitations, but because of what his very presence implied for the righteousness of Gillyria's cause. After all, as Alexander believed, mortals could only plan while the Spirit decided. The fate of empires was woven by divine hands. Yet one question gnawed at him: why would the Spirit stand behind the barbaric Vakerians? Unless... could it be that Seraphina was an imposter and James and the Vakerians were simply misled? After all, demons were masters of deception, almost always posing as saviors. This thought provided Alexander with a moment of comfort.
"She fights like no woman I've ever seen," Theophilus admitted grudgingly. "Like no man either, for that matter. To conceive such a plan, to execute it personally... it's madness."
"It's genius," Alexander corrected, his tone carrying no bitterness, only professional assessment. "She identified our weakness and exploited it perfectly. And this Saralta... her timing was no coincidence. They coordinated this."
Igor leaned closer. "The men are shaken, my lord. To be repulsed on the first assault..."
"Then we'll remind them that the eternal city wasn't built in a day," Alexander replied, turning his horse away from Podem. "And neither will it be conquered in one. Tomorrow we try again, but with greater patience and caution."
As the Gillyrian army withdrew to their camps, Alexander looked back one last time at the city that had defied him. On the walls, Bisera still stood, now surrounded by her commanders. The morning sun caught her golden hair, making her seem for a moment like some war goddess from the old myths, terrible and beautiful in equal measure.
"You are formidable, Bisera of Vakeria," he murmured, too quietly for anyone but Igor to hear. "But talent alone cannot hold back the tide of civilization's return."
Behind them, smoke rose from the burning wreckage of the siege tower, a funeral pyre for the day's ambitions. The siege of Podem had claimed its first blood, but both sides knew this was only the opening movement in a deadly dance that would test every warrior's skill, every commander's wisdom, and every heart's courage before its end.
On the walls, James pulled Bisera closer, feeling her body tremble—not with fear but with the aftermath of an adrenaline rush that made modern extreme sports seem tame by comparison. She had just personally destroyed a siege tower and led a suicidal charge that had somehow, impossibly, succeeded. Her blue eyes met his, and in them he saw not just the warrior but the woman beneath, vulnerable and fierce and achingly alive.
"You shouldn't risk yourself like that," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion.
"It was necessary," she replied simply, but her hand found his and squeezed tight, a silent acknowledgment of the fear they'd both felt.
James was about to say something more tender when—
"My, my, did I miss something exciting in my absence?" Saralta's voice rang out with delighted mischief as she sauntered over, her curved sword still dripping crimson, the bells in her hair chiming with each step. "The great Bisera allowing herself to be embraced in public? And our divine mage looking quite... mortal at the moment."
Bisera immediately stepped back, color rising to her cheeks, while James blinked in surprise. "Saralta! I was just wondering—how are you here? Weren't you with the emperor marching on the capital?"
The playful smirk faded slightly as Saralta wiped her blade clean. "I was."
"Then what brings you here?" Bisera's tactical mind was already racing through possibilities. "Has the Emperor returned? Has the rebellion been crushed? What news of Arinthia?"
Saralta's dark eyes grew uncharacteristically solemn. She glanced at the celebrating soldiers around them, then back to her companions. "His Majesty remains north with the main force. As for the nature of that war—let's just say your little angel made my Rosagar cavalry rather... redundant. His Majesty ordered me to reinforce where battles are still decided by steel and tactics rather than divine intervention." She jerked her chin toward the retreating Gillyrians.
"What do you mean?" James pressed, hearing something darker beneath her light tone.