Night fell. The walls glowed with fire.
The fire of preparation. Cauldrons of oil sat on braziers every fifty paces along the northern parapet, the liquid shimmering with heat. Men stirred them with iron rods, keeping the temperature steady. Too cool and it would not stick to armour. Too hot and it would ignite before it reached the ground.
Below the wall, logs lay in rows on the northern slope. Heavy timber, stripped of branches, lashed in bundles of three. Ropes held them against iron stakes driven into the rock. Cut the ropes, and the logs would roll down the slope and into whatever formation of men was climbing toward the wall.
Archers stood behind the defenders, elevated on wooden platforms Daidalos had built two weeks ago. They could shoot over the heads of the front line, into the men on ladders, before they reached the top.
The kill zones were marked. Twelve men. Twenty paces apart. Three paces back from the parapet. The gap between them was the trap.
