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

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.

The soldier looked at the jar in Bertram’s hand, then at Bertram’s hollowed cheeks. He didn't raise his spear. Instead, he reached into a pouch at his belt, pulled out a stale crust of rye bread, and tossed it onto the dirt between them. File: Siege.Survival.Gloria.Victis.v2021.12.07....

Bertram clutched the bread and the medicine to his chest. He hadn't won a battle, and he hadn't ended the war. But as he climbed back toward the safety of the keep, he knew he had survived one more night. In Edring, that was the only victory that mattered. His objective was the old apothecary

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. The soldier looked at the jar in Bertram’s

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. 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.