Sparhawk pushed Ulath’s injury to the back of his mind. ‘I think I’ve put my finger on some of Martel’s strategy, My Lords. He saddled himself with those Rendors for a specific reason. Rendors aren’t really very good at modern warfare. They don’t wear any kind of protective armour – not even helmets – and they’re pitifully incapable of any form of swordsmanship. We swept them off the top of that wall the way you’d mow a hayfield. All they really have is a raging fanaticism, and they’ll attack in the face of insurmountable odds. Martel’s going to keep throwing them at us to wear us down and to reduce our numbers. Then, after he’s weakened and exhausted us, he’ll throw in his Cammorian and Lamork mercenaries. We’ve got to work out some way to keep those Rendors off the walls. I’m going to talk with Kurik. Maybe he can come up with a few ideas.’

Kurik, as a matter of fact, could. His years of experience, and the reminiscences of grizzled old veterans he had met from time to time provided him with a large number of very nasty ideas. There were objects he called caltrops: fairly simple, four-pronged steel things that could be made in such a way that no matter how far they were thrown, they would always land with one steel, sharp-pointed prong pointing upward. Rendors did not wear boots, but only soft leather sandals. A generous smearing of poison on the pointed prongs made the caltrops lethal as opposed to merely inconvenient. Ten-foot long beams with sharpened stakes attached to them to protrude like the spines of a hedgehog and once again doctored with poison provided fairly insurmountable barriers when rolled down long beams to lie in profusion out in front of the walls. Long log pendulums swinging from the battlements parallel to the walls would sweep scaling ladders away like cobwebs. ‘None of these will actually hold off really serious attacks, Sparhawk,’ Kurik said, ‘but they’ll slow people down to the point where crossbowmen and regular archers can pick them off. Not very many attackers will reach the walls.’

‘That’s sort of what we had in mind,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Let’s commandeer the citizenry and put them to work on these ideas. All that the people of Chyrellos are doing right now is sitting around eating. Let’s give them a chance to earn their keep.’