Toqa-Timur POV
Bilyar from two hundred meters on the south side looked different from Suvar. Not in the basic design, earthwork bank, palisade on top, towers, but in the scale of it and in how the garrison was handling the walls.
The earthwork was taller here. Toqa had been looking at it for days and he knew the slope by now, the packed earth rising from the ditch to the palisade base.
The ditch in front of it was wider, cut clean, with steep sides.
The men on Bilyar's walkways were watching the perimeter the way his steppe riders watched the terrain, constantly, without stopping.
When a perimeter rider came closer than two hundred and fifty meters, someone on the walkway shouted and two archers shifted without any visible exchange of orders.
Toqa had no fire projectors. They were at Bulgar, on field duty. Batu's reply to his relay had been what he'd expected to hold the perimeter and the maintain pressure.
He didn't argue it.
