The northern wall had become a battlefield of wood, stone, and patience.
Nine siege platforms remained behind the Greek palisade. Some were being repaired. Others stood beneath canvas covers, their wheels removed and their frames strengthened by exhausted carpenters who had barely slept since the last assault.
Beyond them, Troy waited.
The Greeks had taken the outer wall of the northern sector, but the inner defenses still barred their way into the city. Every attempt to push farther had met resistance from defenders who knew the ground, understood their own killing zones, and could move men along the wall faster than the attackers could replace them.
The northern approach had been chosen for a reason. The ground was broad enough to move the platforms, and the slope allowed men and equipment to approach the fortifications without being trapped between the beach and the stone.
No other sector offered the same advantages.
That was precisely why Odysseus had begun to distrust it.
