Captain of a tower.  An honorary title, a meaningless duty given out to children of the plutocrats.  Children playing at war, most of them.  Not her, not this Guildmaster's daughter.  She took it seriously, had armed and trained the garrison out of her own pocket.  It had shown.<br/><br/>Of course no one was playing now, the horde camped outside the city walls had stripped away all pretense, all play.  The field battle of the week before - if that frantic addled chaotic mess could be dignified with that term - had driven home the reality of war to all within the city.<br/><br/>But the enemy was outside, and she was one of the people charged with keeping them out.  She glanced to her left as she stood at the tower top, another tower could be seen down the wall.  To her right, much closer, a gatehouse.  The gate most vulnerable to assault, as it happened.  A gate she was tasked to support, to protect.  And she would.  The men (and a few women) of her company were very well equipped, well trained, and reliable.  Their families were safe, spirited out of the city and safe - she had seen to that.  It had been easy, the city was a port and the enemy had no real navy, just a flock of fishing and trading vessels.  Their numbers made them dangerous, but real warships and blockade runners could push them aside, get past them.<br/><br/>At a cost.<br/><br/>Just like the land force, dangerous in numbers, not quality.  But quantity made a quality of it's own, and there were just so so many of them.  Their cookfires made the night glow, and they were building so many siege engines, they'd get some of them built right, even by accident.<br/><br/>Siege took time, and tlme... the enemy really didn't have it, not really.  By land, the cordon was secure.  At sea, the net had gaping holes.  Supplies could get in, noncombatants could get out.  For now.<br/><br/>So that left assault.  That took numbers, a willingness to die, and the enemy had both.<br/><br/>But the city had time and money.  Time to find allies, and money to buy them.<br/><br/>If the besiegers gave them the time.<br/><br/>If soldiers like  Tower Captain Quinta Jana could buy that time with blood and horror drawn from the enemy.<br/><br/>Movement in the enemy lines, a small party was riding forward, dangerously forward.  Stupidly forward.  No flag of truth, bravado in the face of the enemy.  Well.  The captain almost smiled, her dark eyes as cold and pitiless as the chips of obsidian they resembled.  She picked up her crossbow, made sure the quarrel was seated properly, sighted, sighted.  She doubted she could hit a rider, but a horse?  One horse caught her eye, a beautiful animal, well cared for and pampered.  Loved by the rider.  Now she did smile and her fingers tightened about the stock, on the trigger bar, and the crossbow kicked, a quarrel sped downrange and sank deep into a horse's neck, right where a big artery ran.  A lucky hit, a gratifying hit, all along the wall cheers rang out as the horse dropped like a stone.<br/><br/>Screams from the rider.  Man, woman, she couldn't tell, distance and grief and rage all distorted the voice.  She waved her weapon over her head, made sure the rider got a good look at her.  Her armor was distinctive, it had to be to give her troops a rally point, a person to look to for orders in the chaos of battle.<br/><br/>"If that doesn't provoke those yokels into doing something stupid, nothing will."    A disparaging comment from a city alderman who stood close.  She glanced at the older man, smiling slightly.  His escorting retainers laughed aloud.<br/><br/>Captain Jana just looked at him, teeth slightly bared in what only a fool would take as a smile.  The Alderman was a fool.  The Alderman, his retainers, none of them had been in the field the week before.  He hadn't seen chanting masses climbing over piles of their own dead to close with better equipped, better trained, outnumbered, exhausted City militia.<br/><br/>Training, equipment, a small number of cavalry, that was why the city still had an army to hold the walls.  Another city, a city that didn't take war as seriously as her home did would have fallen already as zealots surged through the gates mingled with fleeing militia.<br/><br/>"They'll come."  She said softly.  "They'll be stupid about it at first.  But they'll learn.  They have to.  What else can they do?"  And she laughed with real humor for the first time in days.  "Go home?  They have none to return to, not anymore."<br/><br/>The Alderman didn't have much to say to that, made his excuses and left.  Quinta Jana didn't blame him really.  The tower was about to become a dangerous place to be.<br/><br/>The captain turned her attention back to the enemy.  "All right you murderous yokels.  What do you have in mind?"