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of the wagons stopped in the camp to unload supplies. The rest continued over the ridge, down the other side, up; they came to a stop just below the top of the ridge that separated the camps of the two armies. The riders dismounted, started unloading. Two hours later the pile of lumber was gone; where it had been stood two trebuchets, just downhill from the archers on the ridge.
Elaina turned to her sister.
"Monsters. Where did Stephen get siege engines?"
"From a siege. Small engines get disassembled for the parts. Trebuchets are mostly wood, heavy to carry. They didn't get around to burning all of it."
The engines assembled, Caralla rode over to talk to Stephen.
"Brother says you damn near got him drowned."
Stephen looked up. "Did it work?"
"Whole middle section out."
"And Egil got a bath. Don't see what you're complaining about."
* * *
The next morning, Gavin woke to voices near the tent. When he came out, Kyro and a cluster of legionaries were staring at the opposite ridge.
"Archers still there?"
"Yes. Something new. At the west end—look."
The flagpole was almost a mile west of the enemy position. As Gavin watched, a flag ran up it, blew out in the wind—red. It dipped, came up again, down. A minute later it was followed by a pale blue flag; that one dipped twice. Then red again.
"Who the hell are they signaling to?"
Ten minutes later, the pattern was clear—two different flags, varying numbers of dips once the flag was up. Gavin shook his head, looked up and down the enemy position—nothing. Hoofbeats.
It was Ivor.
"Splashes. In the river. I think they're throwing at the bridge. Don't know where the engines are, how they're aiming them."
Gavin watched the flagpole a moment longer, turned, stood watching the river. A minute later he saw the splash, a little upstream from the bridge. A minute later another, downstream. He turned back to his officers.
"They must have trebuchets just the other side of the ridge—any farther they'd be out of range. Someone in cover farther west on this ridge, beyond our lines. He signals where the

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