In every other situation in the Drenai series, up to and including this book, in which a commander finds himself stuck in a barely-defensible fortress with insufficient forces and surrounded by a foe which vastly outnumbers his army, he rallies his men, he convinces them not to flee, he stands, he fights, there's a big siege, much ass is kicked and much heroism ensues.

And of course, in every one of those cases, the commander in question is male.

I'm commenting here to correct this part, because I do Gemmell a disservice here: there is another situation, earlier on in the Drenai series, in which a female commander is at the helm during a siege, and she doesn't dismiss her forces and get raped to bits. She, of course, is Rayvan, commander at the Siege of Skoda in The King Beyond the Gate.

I should point out, however, that there is a mild difference between the two situations: Rayvan is middle-aged, grumpy, and a bit plain. Tanaki is young, flirtatious, and hot.

So I'm not convinced my argument is necessarily weaker for this.