The ninth day of the siege of Snowehaven was the day the barbarians almost broke through.
They came at the third hour before dawn, three thousand warriors in the iron armor that the dwarven forges provided, their boomsticks loaded with the fresh powder that the latest supply wagon had delivered, their shamans chanting from the ridgeline behind the assault force in the low harmonic frequency that disrupted the iron stakes Snowe had driven into the ground to counter the shamanic vibrations.
The stakes had been holding for eight days. The shamans had spent eight days studying the stakes' pattern and the disruption frequencies they produced, and on the ninth night the shamans adjusted their chanting to the harmonic that the stakes' iron composition resonated with rather than resisted, turning the counter-measure into a conductor.
The ground beneath the eastern earthwork liquefied at the second hour.
