A siege was a miserable time to have eyes, ears, hunger, bowels. The one thing it was good for was entrenching Rastod's desperate hopes to get away from there. Out of Olern, out of the north, perhaps out of Kalnen altogether. He did not care for their Vilnas neighbours, but he was running out of care for his fellow Kalnas too.

  Rastod dropped the final chunk of flesh into his sack, may have been a leg once…or the torso of someone small. His vision grew blurry, felt as though all he could see was the red blood, seemed it was inside his eyes. A fuzzy figure stepped towards him, knelt and closed off the sack.

  He blinked away the crimson, sucked in a breath through his nose.

  "Thanks," he muttered to Kasia.

  Kasia, a fellow Uzin mercenary, hefted her own bag of misery, gave him a grim look that may have passed for a smile in these sorts of times. She was one of the few that seemed to care for the commonfolk of this city. The side of her face had a smear of blood, her short hair clumped together.

  Rastod flung his sack over his shoulder, gave Kasia a nod, and they started walking. At least while walking they did not need to look at the contents, though he felt it on his shoulder and back, and the gore they carried was far from the only mess.

  The Kalnas had no god, but Olern was a heavenly city turned to hell.

  If you squinted, perhaps gazed off into the distance towards the central keep, it was lovely. Wide streets, orderly homes of white stone and brown wood. He craned his neck, the sun shone down on a cloudless day. A small speck rose into the sky, moving gently through the air, passed before the sun. Someone with a more fortunate existence may have mistaken it for a curious bird. Rastod had learnt that lesson the hard way. The dark mark began to grow larger all of a sudden, its drifting becoming hurtling.

  Bells rung, distant shouts bubbled up, and he sighed. It would land too far away for him to do anything. Any shouted warning would go unheard. On the first days he'd run himself ragged trying to alert people, more often than not just meant he was the first to arrive at the carnage. Had never vomited so much in his life.

  So, Rastod turned from the falling boulder in the sky, and carried his sack of pulped human to the pit they'd dug the day before. Despite the distance, he heard the violent crack then crash, felt the jolt in the ground, heard the screams.

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  Another day in a siege.

  The catapults stopped with the sun. Was one of the principles that the sieging forces had relayed to the city the day they arrived. This Bieskul of Alzabin seemed mighty proud of his principles, but Rastod still spent the days comforting fresh orphans and scooping fresh corpses.

  Sieging will target the front walls only.

  Which was mighty convenient as Olern had only one permanent bridge over its great moat, and that happened to be at the front.

  Sieging will cease at night.

  Rastod enjoyed the respite, but assumed loading catapults by torchlight was a nuisance.

  All negotiation is encouraged and protected by oath.

  That one was fair enough, and he prayed that someone would negotiate something sooner rather than later.

  No Vessels will be used.

  According to Ezlos, the three mercenary houses camped on the plain before the city had limited Vessels anyway. Vessels were a twisted creation, Obaran youth from the south filled with flame and lightning then used as barely-living bombs. Rastod did not understand them, nor did he want to. Cruel tools of evil men. Speaking of which, the final principle.

  Give up Baron Arol and Dygan of Uzin, and you will have peace.

  Rastod had half a mind to march into the keep and extract the two men himself. He was quickly realising that while most of these mercenary leaders were bastards, this principled Bieskul included, some were real bastards. Both Arol and Dygan seemed to be of that type. Crawled out of the same fiery hole to bring misery to the good people of these lands.

  He sighed, finally reaching the square as darkness began to creep through the city. Ezlos was already in their usual spot, the front step of a burned-out house. Rastod eased himself down, enjoying being off his feet for the first time since first-light, and first-catapulted-rock.

  They sat in silence for a long while. Ezlos was mighty chatty when they'd first met on a campaign into Bok, had barely stopped talking to take a breath since. But even he grew more haunted with each passing day in this city. Rastod just felt numb, and angry, a curious mix.

  "Saw this…family today," Ezlos whispered. "Told them to run. But they had this…cart. Was piled up with lots of things, but also…the grandparents. Rock somehow took them all. Seemed cruelly accurate how it got them. As if retribution from a god."

  "Suppose it's better that way. Going together."

  "I suppose."

  Ezlos had shown him this spot on the first day, explained that he'd come here as a boy, a market used to fill the square, apparently, arrayed around the statue of a woman at the centre. No market stood here anymore. The buildings were abandoned, the cobbles dented and shattered, blood in the grooves between flagstones. It was peaceful, though, once the darkness hid the worst of it.

  "Someone needs to do something," Ezlos said.

  "Aye."

  Neither of them spoke, just sat there on their step, staring into the murk as scattered torches flickered to life across the city. The braziers atop the walls shone brightest, great pyres of orange only matched by the steady glow from the keep. Limited rations for the soldiers, even less for the civilians, yet he had no doubt that in the keep they were having a banquet right then.

  "Someone needs to do something," Rastod echoed.