The Saldaeans certainly knew how to build fortifications. If only Ituralde had been able to persuade them to leave their hiding place in the city of Maradon and come help.

“Now,” Ituralde said, “where in—”

He cut off as something darkened the sky. He barely had time to curse and duck away as a group of large objects rained down, arcing high to fall on the upper camp, eliciting howls of pain and confusion. Those weren’t boulders: they were corpses. The hulking bodies of dead Trollocs. The Shadowspawn army had finally set up their trebuchets.

A part of Ituralde was impressed that he’d driven them to it. The siege equipment had undoubtedly been brought to assault Maradon, which was a little to the south. Setting up the trebuchets across the ford to assault Ituralde’s lines instead not only would slow the Shadowspawn, but would expose their trebuchets to his counterfire.

He hadn’t expected them to hurl carcasses. He cursed as the sky darkened again, more bodies falling, knocking down tents, crushing soldiers.

“Healers!” Ituralde bellowed. “Where are those Asha’man?” He’d pushed the Asha’man hard, since this siege had begun. To the brink of exhaustion. Now he held them back, using them only when Trolloc assaults got too close to the upper camp.

“Sir!” A young messenger with dirt under his fingernails scrambled up from the front lines. His Domani face was ashen, and he was still too young to grow a proper mustache. “Captain Finsas reports the Shadowspawn army moving trebuchets into range. There are sixteen by his count.”

“Let Captain Finsas know that his bloody timing could be better,” Ituralde growled.

“I’m sorry, my Lord. They rolled them down through the pass before we figured out what was going on. The initial volley hit our watchpost. Lord Finsas himself was wounded.”

Ituralde nodded; Rajabi was arriving to take command of the upper camp and organize the wounded. Below, a lot of bodies had hit the lower camp, too. The trebuchets could get the height and range to launch over the hill and fall down on his men in their previously sheltered area. He’d have to pull the lower camp back, farther across the plain toward Maradon, which would delay response times. Bloody ashes.

I never used to swear this much, Ituralde thought. It was that boy, the Dragon Reborn. Rand al’Thor had given Ituralde promises, some spoken, some implied. Promises to protect Arad Doman from the Seanchan. Promises that Ituralde could live, rather than die trapped by the Seanchan. Promises to give him something to do, something important, something vital. Something impossible.

Hold back the Shadow. Fight until help arrived.

The sky darkened again, and Ituralde ducked into the command pavilion, which had a wooden roof as a precaution against siege weapons. He’d feared sprayshot of smaller rocks, not carcasses. The men scattered to help pull the wounded down to the relative safety of the lower camp, and from there across the plain toward Maradon. Rajabi led the effort. The lumbering man had a neck as thick as a ten-year-grown ash and arms nearly as wide. He now hobbled as he walked, his left leg hurt in the fighting and amputated beneath the knee. Aes Sedai had Healed him as best he could, and he walked on a peg. He’d refused to retire through gateways with the badly injured, and Ituralde hadn’t forced him. You didn’t throw away a good officer because of one wound.