File:: Siege.survival.gloria.victis.v2021.12.07....

Bertram froze. He didn’t reach for a sword; he didn’t have one. He reached for a heavy shard of masonry. He turned slowly to see a young Ismarian soldier standing in the doorway. The boy couldn't have been older than sixteen, his armor two sizes too large, his eyes wide with a terror that mirrored Bertram's own.

His objective was the old apothecary. The garrison on the walls was dying—not from arrows, but from the rot in their wounds. Without clean bandages and fermented herbs, the city would fall by dawn. File: Siege.Survival.Gloria.Victis.v2021.12.07....

He slipped through a breach in the courtyard wall, entering the "No Man’s Land" of the city’s lower district. The moonlight was a traitor, casting long, sharp shadows that could hide a scavenger or an enemy scout. Bertram froze

The iron-clad boots of the Ismarian invaders thundered against the Great Gate, a rhythmic heartbeat of impending doom. Inside the inner ward of Edring, the air tasted of wet stone and old smoke. He turned slowly to see a young Ismarian

Bertram didn’t look at the gate. He couldn’t afford to. His war was fought in the dirt.

Bertram reached the ruins of the shop. He moved aside a heavy beam, his breath coming in ragged white plumes. There, beneath a pile of shattered glass, he found it: a sealed jar of medicinal alcohol and a bundle of dried feverfew. It was a king’s ransom in a city of beggars. A floorboard creaked behind him.