Jasper watched from afar as Tsia approached the city, accompanied by what forces they’d managed to muster from the outlying villages surrounding Birnah. It had been even easier than he’d expected to garner support from the villagers as Sarganīl’s decision to abandon them to the Atrometos’ attacks had burned through what goodwill he had in a flash, while S̆ams̆ādur’s efforts to protect them had endeared him to all he’d saved. Even the men of Daḇur, much to his surprise, had agreed to join them as, with the mindworm dead, the commands he had given the guards of Da̱bur lost their hold, and they were chomping at the bits for revenge.

Still, no matter how much the villagers resented their lord now, treason was not a path embarked on lightly - and that was where Tsia entered the picture. As the daughter of their king, her presence turned an act of treason against Sarganīl into an act of fealty to their king.

Thus, as much as he hated to split her off from the rest of the party, Tsia had to go with the troops approaching the gate. Her role, however, was little more than a diversion; although they didn’t have a realistic chance to storm the gates, the mind mage and his ensorcelled soldiers would be forced to pay some attention to her and, if they were truly lucky, he hoped news of her arrival at the gates would spread amongst the people and incite unrest.

But their hopes were not pinned on Tsia. While the Sapīyan forces were arrayed outside the gate, S̆ams̆ādur and his men, along with Commander Marīltu, had landed on the abandoned isle and were already making their way through the sunken passage that led to Dūr-Sulmu. Ihra had already verified that the ward was still down and, surprisingly, only lightly guarded, so they should have little problem taking the castle by surprise.

What happened after they seized the castle would depend on whether or not they could attract reinforcements to their ranks. Marīltu and Asâta felt confident that the priests, who were immune to the mindworm’s mental charms, would be willing to join forces, and the commander even held hope that there still remained soldiers uncompromised by the mind mage who would rally to his banner. If they succeeded in gaining a few allies, there was a good chance they could blitzkrieg the city quickly enough to overwhelm the defenders at the gates and let Tsia in. But S̆ams̆ādur’s forces were just as much of a diversion as the princess' little army.

As Jasper and Marīltu had poured over the defenses of the city, he’d become convinced that there was no way they could capture Birnah. There was a reason the city had withstood a dozen major sieges from Stryn over the centuries without falling, despite the vast discrepancy in military power between the two states.

With the limited number of troops they had at hand, even if S̆ams̆ādur successfully seized Dūr-Sulmu, Jasper saw no scenario that would allow them to dislodge the ensorcelled soldiers from the remaining six castles that protected the city. Perhaps, if the citizens rallied to their cause, they could bottle the mindworm’s forces up in the castle, but that would leave them in an untenable situation when Strynn’s army rolled up to the gates. With six hostile forts at their back and an enemy outside, they’d be crushed like a bug.

Instead, Jasper felt that their only hope for victory lay in killing the mind mage as quickly as possible. Once he was dead, the control he wielded over the soldiers’ minds would be dispelled. Even if Sarganil persisted in his treachery against King Kabani, Mariltu felt certain that the rest of the commanders would refuse to open the gates to the forces of Stryn, once their minds were free.

But assassinating Rahmû was easier said than done. According to the commander, the mage had rarely left the security of Dūr-Rabû once he’d succeeded in compromising Sarganīl. He’d still accompanied the lord when he’d inspected the city’s fortifications or made appearances for necessary festivals, but on those occasions, he was protected by at least forty of Sarganīl’s bodyguards. If they wanted to kill him, they’d need to isolate him, and hence the plan had been born.

Jasper suspected that when Tsia showed up at the gates with a force that wasn’t strong enough to storm the city, Rahmû would see through the ruse. He’d hold back some of his forces, trusting in the walls to keep him safe, while he waited to see where the true attack landed. What Jasper hoped, though, was that the mindworm wouldn’t realize that the second attack was also a ruse. If they could get the mage to commit the bulk of his troops to stopping S̆ams̆ādur’s attack, there'd be a short window of opportunity in which to strike. There was just one facet of the plan outside of their control, the weather, and, fortunately, it had chosen to cooperate.

His hands twitched as he renewed the spell on himself and Ihra and glanced over at her. “Can you still see him?”

Her lips were nearly blue, and she rubbed her arms energetically as she replied. “He’s headed back toward the palace. You might have mentioned it would be freezing up here,” she complained with a scowl.

“I didn’t think of it,” he shot back. “This is the highest I’ve ever flown.” They were surrounded by a thick bank of clouds that had rolled off the river, threatening the city with an imminent downpour. The overcast sky had shielded them from sight, allowing them to position themselves directly above Dūr-Rabû with the soldiers none the wiser, but Jasper hadn’t accounted for the weather. It might be about to rain in the city, but the clouds were nearly fifty degrees colder, and Ihra, unlike himself, wasn't immune to the elements.

His spectral wings passed through her body unhindered as he flew next to her and grabbed her arm. Her lips began to turn red as he fed a small stream of essence into her, warming her body, and she flashed him a grateful smile.

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“I don't how you can even see the dude,” he groused, squinting ineffectually at the city stretching below them. "These people look like ants, and not even the big ones, but those tiny ones that are no bigger than a grain of rice.”

“If you invested in vision, you could see him too,” she pointed out.

“I’ll just have to settle for being blind. Guess that makes you my seeing-eye dog," he snarked back.

Ihra arched her brow. "You're calling me a dog," she asked with a dangerous tone, though there was a glint of amusement in her.

"Uh, let's just forget I said that," he replied hastily. Lapsing into silence, they continued to watch the city below, waiting for the moment of opportunity, until Ihra finally pointed to Dūr-Sulmu.

“There’s durgū fighting on the walls.”

“Do they have control of the castle yet?”

“No, but they will soon,” she replied confidently.

“And Tsia?” A flash of lightning on the ground below answered his question. “What the hell? Is she storming the zone?” The plan hadn't called for her to do anything more than make a feint at the gates, but the repeated forks of lightning that lit up the seventy-foot bridge that spanned the moat suggested that not only was she attacking with gusto, but she’d even managed to breach the first gate. Damn it - what is she doing?

Ihra shot him a knowing look. “Stop worrying - the princess can take care of herself. And besides, we have a job to do,” she added, pointing to the castle below them, where a small, black stream of soldiers exited the gates. “He’s sent out the reinforcements.”

They waited until the stream of guards had passed before diving toward the castle. Marīltu had assured them the city’s wards stopped a few dozen feet above the walls, tall enough to prevent any ladders or siege engines from mounting an assault, but open to attack if one could fly high enough to the sky, but Jasper still braced for impact as he neared the castle, afraid that there was a final layer of protection the commander wasn’t aware of.

For a change, though, his paranoia was unearned. No invisible barriers rose to greet them as they swooped above the courtyard and angled toward the western wing, where Marīltu said Lord Sarganīl and the mage had their chambers.

In a different situation, Jasper would have found the view breathtaking. Birnah was not a beautiful city by most metrics, but there was a certain brutal appeal to its monumental fortifications, and that was especially true of Dūr-Rabû. The greatest of the city’s seven fortresses, the palace’s walls were dazzlingly high. Jasper had once read that the highest medieval walls were 180 feet high, but Dūr-Rabû’s must have been at least twice that and close to fifty feet in width. A ring of eight towers surrounded the castle donjon, each equipped with rows of ballistae that could be swiveled to hit both the lands beyond the city's moat or to bombard the lower portions of the city if the outer walls fell. But sadly, Jasper had little time to appreciate the view.

Thanks to the reinforcements Rahmû had sent to stem S̆ams̆ādur’s assault, a single pair of guards stood watch on the tower rising from the western wing. Keeping beneath the clouds' cover until the final moments, Jasper and Ihra circled behind them and dove.

They struck simultaneously, glaive and dagger slicing into the backs of the hapless guards. Ihra’s blow hit true, piercing the man through the heart and killing him instantly, but Jasper was not so lucky. Despite punching through the guard’s ribcage, the blade somehow missed all his vital organs and the man stumbled against the parapet.

Determined to prevent him from raising the alarm, Jasper clamped his hands over the man’s mouth, wincing in silent pain as the guard chomped down on his fingers with surprising force. He ignored the pain, twisting the glaive’s shaft with a grunt of effort, and the man collapsed as he turned the blade in a circular sweep through his organs. With a second grunt, he pulled the glaive free, wringing his hand gingerly. "Damn it-"

“Stay down.” Ihra yanked him below the protective cover of the parapets and nodded her head mutely toward the tower on the left, where the solitary pair of guards had begun to make a slow circuit, turning toward them.

“Did they spot us?” he whispered.

“Don’t think so, but it was close.” Still on her hands and knees, she crawled over to the hatch guarding the entrance to the inner tower. Judging by the loud squeal it made when she opened it, Lord Sarganīl didn’t believe in wasting money on luxuries like oil, and Jasper tensed, half-expecting the guards on the other tower to raise the alarm. Luck was again on their side, though, as the only sound that greeted them was the angry gusts of wind that buffeted the tower, and the quickly increasing pitter-patter of rain.

They slid down the ladder quietly, closing the hatch behind them, and examined the room. A pang of guilt tugged at Jasper’s heart as he noticed a pair of cots on the wall opposite the ladder, and he wondered if they had belonged to the guards. He suppressed the thought quickly, reminding himself that their deaths were necessary to prevent the alarm from being raised, but it was a cold comfort.

There were two doors in the circular chamber, both, Jasper suspected, leading to the wall and another hatch that covered a ladder descending to the floor below. He opened it cautiously, bracing for the expected squeal but, as its hinges were protected from the elements, it remained silent. Peeking over the edge, he spotted a man hunched over a shabby desk with his back to the ladder. He started to read a spell, but Ihra was faster. Hit the ground in a silent roll, she scampered behind the soldier and drew Aphora's misericorde. A spray of blood spattered the desk as she ripped it through his throat, and the man slumped against the back of the chair, his eyes bulging out as he futilely tried to stem the flow of blood gushing from his destroyed tendons. Damn it. Jasper looked away with a grimace, unhappy at being forced to kill a man who was likely mind-controlled.

Ignoring the scene behind him, he examined the chamber with a quick sweep. Unlike the chamber, there were no doors to the right or the left. Instead, there were only two exits - a new door, with finely stained wood and hand gilt with gold directly in front of them, and another hatch that led down to the next floor in the tower. He took a step toward the door, but Ihra beat him to it.

The door glided silently over an opulent, scarlet rug, as she opened it a crack and peered through to the other side. “It’s clear.”