The morning was cold enough to freeze the breath in a man's lungs, but Lysander had been on the walls since before dawn. He walked the parapets with his cloak pulled tight, counting the stones that needed repair, the sections where the mortar had crumbled, the places where the ancient walls had grown thin. Hector walked beside him, silent for the most part, his eyes moving over the defences the way a farmer might survey a field before harvest.
"The northern section is weakest," Lysander said, stopping at a point where the wall dipped slightly, a sag in the ancient stone that had been there since before either of them was born. "If they bring rams, this is where they'll hit."
"We've reinforced it twice."
"It won't be enough. Not against fifty thousand men." Lysander looked down at the ground below the wall, the rocky slope that led up from the plain. "We need something else. Something they won't expect."
"Such as."
