Varvara's fiancé Pyotr, who encoded the telegram, is jailed on suspicion of treason. Fandorin is charged with finding Anwar and uncovering the Turkish plot. Because of the diversion of the Russian army to Nikopol, Turkish troops arrive in Plevna first. The French reporter, Paladin, sneaks into the Turkish camp and determines that only a small number of troops are in the town. Based on this information, the Russians attack Plevna, only to be bloodily repulsed because Paladin's data were incorrect and the Turks are there in strength. The Russian army then settles in for a siege. The Russians' first attempt to break the siege of Plevna ends in defeat when the Turks, who somehow have advance knowledge of the Russian attack plan, concentrate their artillery on the Russian formations before the Russians have a chance to move forward. Fandorin immediately suspects Colonel Lukan, who predicted to Varvara that the attack would fail. He asks Varvara to follow Lukan back to Bucharest and investigate him, but that effort ends when Paladin kills Lukan in a duel over Varvara's honor. Investigation of his possessions shows that he was indeed taking money from a mysterious J. In the following attempt to storm Plevna, Sobolev leads his troops in an attack that breaks through Plevna's defenses and actually enters the city, but he is unable to advance further due to insufficient strength. He sends several messengers to headquarters to request reinforcements, but all are killed in the fray. In the end, Count Zurov breaks through to the Russian side, but after meeting the journalists at their observation outpost disappears on his way to the headquarters and Sobolev, out of ammunition, is forced to withdraw. Later, a search party finds Zurov murdered on the battlefield, apparently stabbed by gendarme Colonel Kazanzaki, whom dying Zurov managed to shoot. Pyotr unsuccessfully tries to hang himself, feeling responsibility for the carnage and defeat as he left the telegram unguarded when he went to welcome Varya and then sent it without checking; for the spy, knowing the not too strong Russian cipher, it was easy to replace it. Three attempts to storm Plevna having failed, the Russian and Romanian armies besiege the city. By December, the Turks inside Plevna are starving. Varvara, on her way back from the hospital where she had been sent due to a case of typhus, encounters McLaughlin, the Irish reporter, who informs her that he has been tipped off that the Turks will surrender that night in a distant sector.