A four-story cage of black iron creaked down the eastern slope, rolling over frozen mud and splintered trees.
Four teams of armored draft oxen strained against heavy chains, their breath pluming white in the freezing morning air. Surrounding the iron tower marched four thousand fresh ducal infantrymen from Siege General Vorn’s twelfth wave.
Their heavy iron mantlets overlapped in a dense, bristling shield wall that blocked all conventional arrow fire from the ramparts. Sixty heavy ballistas mounted on wheeled carts creaked forward behind the infantry, their six-foot iron quarrels aimed directly at the White-Lotus gatehouse.
Atop the tower’s open observation platform, General Vorn stood beside the swaying bronze bulk of the Soul-Shatter Bell.
The scarred general looked like a ghoul in the gray dawn light. His ruined shoulder was bound tightly in iron splints and heavy wolf-pelts, while his good right hand gripped a massive spirit-iron mallet engraved with blood-runes. Around the base of the bell, fifty imperial chanter-priests hammered small bronze gongs in discordant, frantic unison, feeding their dark spiritual energy into the cursed artifact.
“Keep the shields tight!” Vorn barked at his officers. “Don’t break formation until the bell tolls! When that old swordsman collapses, the entire gate will be ours!”
