Voyage of the Shadowmoon

Chapter One VOYAGE TO ZANTRIAS The walls of Larmentel had withstood the invading army of Emperor Warsovran for five months. Stone gargoyles poked tongues and bared buttocks at the besiegers beyond the outer walls, as its nobles sipped wine from glazed pottery goblets shaped in the likeness of the severed head of the invading emperor. Their confidence was justified. Larmentel had stood unconquered for the entire six hundred years since its foundation. The city lay at the center of the continent of Torea. It was both beautiful and massive, with a high, crenellated outer wall circling the cisterns, market gardens, and storehouses that supplied its citizens. The citadel wall protected the inner city, where temples, palaces, and mansions built of white stone blocks rose in terraces to look out over the surrounding plain to distant mountains in the northeast. Larmentel was rich as well as powerful, and had been built to be pleasing to behold as well as strong. The warehouses were mighty domed cathedrals to honor prosperity, all built of white stone. They were clustered in the center of the city, as if they were palaces in themselves. Einsel and Cypher watched the progress of the siege engines in the predawn light. They were standing just outside the range of a good crossbow in competent hands. Having lost a lot of men to direct assault, and several unwisely rude diplomats to direct negotiation, Warsovran's commander was resorting to machinery to take the walls. The three siege engines were towers of wooden beams, armored on three sides and crowned by a hinged bridge that would let the cream of Warsovran's storm climbers charge across and establish a bridgehead on the walls. The three towers were rolled forward together, approaching the wall like ponderous, powerful titans. "When I see engines such as these, I sometimes doubt the power of our leaders' brains," admitted Einsel, who was Emperor Warsovran's court sorcerer. "When I see engines such as these, Ialwaysdoubt the power of our leaders' brains," Cypher replied. Both men were dressed in drab armor, with only the colored plumes fixed to the back of their helmets to distinguish them as nobility. After all, there was no sense in calling attention to oneself on a battlefield, where officers and nobles were prime targets for marksmen. Einsel's armor was ill-fitting, as he was somewhat shorter and thinner than most warriors. Indeed, he reminded many of a child dressed up in his father's war gear, but nobody said it aloud. This was actually his first time on a battlefield, which was a sign of how desperate the situation had become. On the other hand, Cypher was as concerned about his identity as his safety. Beneath his helmet his face was veiled with maroon cloth, leaving only his eyes visible. The towers were almost close enough to drop their bridges onto Larmentel's walls when the thing appeared, a delicate-looking structure of beams and ropes, rather like the head and neck of a gigantic wading bird. It hoisted a huge beam of wood with stylized eagle talons on one end, and lowered it between the middle tower and the wall. Moments later two similar cranes stopped the two other towers in exactly the same way. "The problem would seem to be that the honorable profession of applied engineering was invented in Larmentel's university," Cypher said. "Ah, the University of Larmentel, I did my degree in etheric shaping there," sighed Einsel, whose mind had drifted away from the battle. "A truly lovely place." Larmentel contained one of the five universities in Torea, but rather than being all dingy halls and overgrown, rambling colleges, the University of Larmentel was a cluster of slender, graceful towers jMcMullen, Sean is the author of 'Voyage of the Shadowmoon', published 2004 under ISBN 9780765347138 and ISBN 076534713X.