Smoke braided itself with the dawn and made Lucheng look older than it was. From the ridge, Ziyan saw the banners first—cheap cloth on rude poles, but too many of them. The gates were closed, the outer ditches churned to dark mud by hooves and boots. Refugees streamed past her horse, faces turned backward as if sight might drag the city out of danger.
"They came in the night," a boy panted, stumbling as he tried to bow and run at once. "Ladders like teeth. Lord Meng shut the gates. Please—please—"
Feiyan was already moving. "Shuye. The wine boy."
Shuye peeled off without being told, dropping low along a wall's shadow the way a memory learns to hide. Wei and Li Qiang flanked Ziyan as they cut through the tangle of carts and fear, toward the postern door set into the buttress where mold lived well and inspectors did not. Two quick taps, one long. The slit opened, an eye widened, a bolt drew back.
"Inside," the wine boy hissed, already frightened of how loyal he was being. They slid through as the outer ditch took a new volley of fire arrows. The postern shut with the sound of a breath held.
Within the walls, the city had been distilled to its uses. Buckets made a chain from river to stair. Children ran messages with faces too intent for their years. The garrison's tunics were mismatched and stained, but their hands did not shake—yet.
Lord Meng waited in the barracks yard, fur robe thrown over armor that had not been asked to wake in a decade. His eyes were as tired as the city.
"You were right," he said without greeting. "Risk does not knock. It walks in and sits."
"Then stand," Ziyan said. "Where?"
"East wall," the captain answered, pointing with a bandaged hand. "Rams on the postern gate there. They think it's weaker. Ladder crews on the north. Fire pots are low."
"Split," Ziyan said. "Wei, east. Li Qiang, north. Feiyan, with me. Shuye—pitch."
"Pitch," Shuye agreed, teeth flashing, already gone.
They reached the stairs as the first ram struck—a low animal thud under wood's groan. Men in Zhang's colors cheered to hear a gate remember pain. Wei took the parapet at a run, spear leveled, voice carrying like a bell that refused to crack.
"Hooks!" he roared. "If it moves, pin it. If it breathes, make it choose not to."
The first ladder came up like a lie. Feiyan stepped into it, blade a whisper, rope parting where hands believed. It slid back into its owners, and their shouts turned comic for a heartbeat and then stopped being funny. Wei's spear took a man square in the chest, lifted him, and set him back down on the wrong side of breathing.
Below, the ram found rhythm: thud, breath, thud. The gate's braces wept dust at each blow. Ziyan looked down the line and saw fear finding places to live in men's shoulders.
"Buckets!" she called. "Oil on the ram—now!"
A boy no older than Lian'er might have been dragged a half-cask to the crenel. His partner, shaking, pried the lid. Ziyan took the rope herself and together they tilted. The oil fell in a shining sheet; the next torch gave it a name. Flame ran along the ram to the men who loved it and taught them regret.
The east wall held, but the north sang trouble. Li Qiang's shout carried—one word: "Ladders!"
Ziyan ran. Feiyan flowed beside her, already three steps ahead in the mind, finding where the fight would be worst and reserving herself for it with cruel economy. The north parapet stank of smoke and men. Li Qiang stood like a doorframe in a windstorm, blade measured, movements clean, killing as if he were carving away everything that did not belong to the wall. Ladders hooked, unhooked, came again. Hands reached over the merlons and found steel waiting.
"Fire pots!" someone yelled. "Where are the—"
"Here," Shuye grunted, hauling a crate by its rope sling, face blackened with soot, grin feral. He smashed one pot against a ladder's rungs; pitch flowered, flame took, screams came up through the rungs the way sap climbs.
A grapnel clanged, bit. Three men surged over the parapet together, eyes fixed on Ziyan's cloak as if bounties made aim truer. Feiyan stepped into the first and opened his throat with an economy that might have been tender in another life. Ziyan met the second, parried, let his momentum carry him past and down. The third was quick—too quick. His blade nicked her sleeve, heat along skin. He grinned, and then Wei's spear, thrown from the east like a promise kept, took him just beneath the collarbone and made a new story of his breath.
"Pay me later," Wei panted, vaulting the merlon to retrieve his weapon.
"Survive now," Ziyan said, and the corner of his mouth confessed agreement.
They fought until the moon shook itself free of smoke and looked embarrassed to have been watching so long. Twice the ram found new rhythm on the east; twice the oil learned their names. Three times the ladders came higher than comfort allowed; three times Li Qiang's voice cut doubt smaller than the step beneath a boot. Shuye, mad with purpose, hurled pots in a cadence that matched the kiln's old song and laughed like a boy who had found out fire liked him. Feiyan moved where the wall thinned, where men faltered; her blade wrote small, decisive corrections in the world.