The horns, drums, and marching feet of the army outside are nearly deafening.

Outside, hundreds of heavily armed and armored men and women, four mages, a cleric, three war trolls, half a dozen trebuchets, three ballistae, two covered battering rams and dozens of tall ladders are crossing the open fields around the city to reach its walls.

The walls of the town are thirty feet high, and thick enough to ride a horse on top of them, but there are only twenty soldiers to defend the wall's entire length - everyone else is too ill to move, much less fight.

The plague the enemy mage planted in the water supply nearly did the whole work of the siege for them. Only you, your companions and a handful of naturally resistant citizens are still standing. The ritual your cleric is attempting to perform should be able to heal the whole city at once, purging it of disease, but it will take at least an hour to complete. You need to fend off the advancing army until then.

Good luck.