The Radiant War

Chapter 29a

     The Tower's north doors shook as some tremendous force struck them from outside. Doors that had required two men each to move shuddered and rattled on their massive steel hinges like window shutters in a hurricane, making everyone in the hall jump in alarm and terror. “What in the name of...” began Balvern.

     Before he could complete the sentence the doors shuddered to another blow even mightier than the first, and that was followed by a third and a fourth. A regular pounding as something was hammered against the doors from outside.

     “They're using something as a battering ram.” said Amberley. “Something heavy...”

     Captain Machett edged warily to one of the tiny peepholes in the doors, ready to jump back if there was a Radiant there waiting to cast a curse on him. He put his eye to it, watched for a moment, then jumped back, his face red with outrage. “The Greene Cannon!” he said, spitting the words like a curse. “They're using the Greene Cannon!”

     Everyone in the hall shared his fury. Of course, there was nothing else it could have been. The Greene Cannon was one of the very first cannons to ever be made, shortly after the invention of gunpowder, and had been used by Field Marshall Montgomery Greene to deliver a decisive victory against the armies of Belaxia two hundred years ago, when Marboll had been a regional capital of Carrow. Ever since then, the cannon had been on display in Victory Park, two miles to the west. A war memorial and a tourist attraction on which half raised animals had climbed and on which pigeons had left their droppings.

     The art of metallurgy had been in its early days back then. Steel had been brittle, less resilient than the metal used to make modern artillery, which meant that the Greene Cannon had had to be three times the size and weight of a modern cannon hurling a ball of the same size. A modern cannon, used as a battering ram against the north doors, would have taken all day to break through them. The Greene Cannon would be able to do it in much less time.

     “This is an insult!” cried Machett, his hands balled into fists by his sides. “A deliberate humiliation! To use a symbol of one of our greatest victories as a weapon against us...”

     “It really doesn’t matter what they use to kill us with,” replied Amberley. “They probably don't intend for it to be a humiliation. For them, it’s probably just the most convenient tool.”

     “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

     “It's still going to take them a while to break through,” said a member of the Tower garrison. “Those doors are eighteen inches thick.” He kept glancing over at the King as if he couldn’t believe they were going to die together. He, a common soldier, and the King! His face was glowing with pride as if he couldn't imagine any greater honour. “We've probably got hours yet...”

     Even as he spoke, another tremendous blow struck the doors, and this one caused the bolt at the top of the left hand door to burst out of its mounting with a shower of tiny chips of stone. Freed from its restraint, the top of the door was visibly pressed inwards and a groan came from the huge timber barring them closed, along with an audible crack as something began to give. The next blow caused the bottom left bolt to shift, one of the mountings pulling half an inch from the wall, and another cracking sound came from the timber.

     “It's not the strength of the doors themselves that matters,” said Amberley matter of factly. “It’s the strength of their hinges and mountings.”

     “Brace them,” ordered Leothan.  “Find something to brace them with.”

     “What with?” asked Amberley. “Tables and chairs? There's nothing here that’s anything like as strong as what's already holding the doors in place.”