I must admit, when I posted it, I hadn't really clocked on the 7 vs. 60 bit either... I'm sure there's lots of room for leeway, though.
While I can see the spiritual aspects of siege-warfare (malevolent spirits plucking huge boulders out of the ground and scouring the walls with them) I do like the sorcerous approach to siege engineering, revelling as it does in the sheer magical geometry of it all.
Interestingly, sorcerors might have their own timetable for actions, prediting with uncanny certainty that a fortress of the dimensions of Whitewall, matched with the resources available, will fall on the X phase of the moon, Y cycles hence. People may grimace as I draw another military example, but I do it with a potential to evoke, not delineate! :o)
In our own world, siege warfare in its early modern apogee, in the later 17th and early 18th centuries, was full of procession, ritual and ceremony. The complex geometries and predictions of people like Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban and his mentor, Pagan (perhaps the best named general ever?), were founded in esoteric emprical tables that predicted with arrogance how long it would take fortresses to fall using their methods.
Their confidence was unshakable. Coming back to Whitewall, tardy sorcerous siege engineers may in their own way develop similar patterns of hubris. On the one hand their peparations, strange rituals and quest for magical geometrical perfection will infuriate commanders. On the other, their overcomplex predictions on the length of operations, derived from musty Grimoires and the proven efficacies of the siege of XXXX in YYYY, might clash against the celestially derived predictions of the poor Buserian chap... for a nice bit of command conflict.
For an intriguing example of a more vitriolic siege engineer, people might be interested in the character of a certain Menno van Coehoorn.
Cheerio,
Stu.
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