Chapter 45: Battle for the Twin Cities, Part 1
As soldiers kicked the morning dew from their sabatons and other footwear, they looked nervously at the city they would be entering shortly. To many, its walls suddenly seemed taller. Defenders manning the ramparts were looking strong, motivated, and quite numerous. What had changed since yesterday? The conditional order to attack was already issued.
Some men pointed up at the sky over the city, drawing the attention of yet others. Apparently, a surprising number of bats or other such flying creatures were wandering in the air directly above the Union’s objective. Those winged creatures would bear witness to a great battle. Strange that they were lingering even as sun broke cover from behind a mountain to the east.
The rising sun was the trigger. The commander of each division would advance their unit in accordance with a battle plan drawn up by the Supreme Commander of this invasion force.
“Strange, I thought for sure we’d have received word back from the Lower Gordu by now…”
“…Sir?” the attendant queried his direct superior, the Supreme Commander.
“Nothing. It’s time.”
Indeed, his magnum opus would unfold before his eyes. He had no need to lift a finger from here on out. Everyone knew their roles. The history books would surely come up with some interesting name for this novel strategy.
What’s the correct way to take a city? Many methods had been attempted in the past, and a few were even successful. Stealth, subterfuge, overwhelming power… Each could work if the circumstances allowed. The ideal was to use all three, although that wasn’t possible here. The decision to expand the Union’s influence came suddenly and unexpectedly. Nobody had any time to prepare. The Union had almost nobody in the city who could cause a panic or sneak intelligence out. They’d have to outwit their opponents at the city wall.
“…Sir, how will we crack open the city’s defenses?”
“Weren’t you there for the war council last night? Why weren’t you paying attention?”
“…It went right over my head.”
The Supreme Commander sighed and launched into an explanation. “Well, it is a sneaky plan if I say so myself. I suppose those untrained in military strategy would have some difficulty following, but as my new attendant you really need to try harder.”
The attendant nodded sluggishly.
“As I said hours ago, the key is feints. The hardest part of defending a city is deploying your forces properly. If you don’t know where the enemy’s fiercest attacks will come from, you can’t minimize the impact of a numerical disadvantage.”
The Supreme Commander gestured towards the city and continued. “A big city like that has many weak points. If they were defending a fort, that would be a different story. They could just pile up all their grunts at the entrance and keep a keen eye on their surroundings. Here, we have at least four different ways of entering the city without even needing the help of our combat engineers.”
He then pointed at the division approaching the western gate. “Are they about to make a serious push to rush the defenders and bash open the gate, or will they suddenly peel off and race to their comrades at the north and south gates? Although the distance to cover outside the city is much larger than for the defenders, it’s actually easier to reposition quickly and maintain situational awareness of the battlefield without the clutter of buildings. That’s why I gave out so many instructions to the field commanders in advance. Only they know which gates will be truly tested, and in what order.”
“…It’s ingenious.”
“Well, not ingenious, but yes, I expect it to be quite effective. While the defenders are scrambling to keep up with our army’s intent, our units move according to predetermined orders without hesitation. We’ll quickly gain the positional advantage. If we take any serious losses here I’ll eat my hat.”
“…What if the enemy gets its hands on your predetermined orders? Are we able to adapt?”
“Ah, the fighting’s begun. Hm? How would they get their hands on my orders in the middle of combat?”
“…I don’t know. Maybe if a spy snuck into our army?” The attendant looked around dramatically but didn’t seem to find any spies nearby.
“Hah! If someone managed to pull that off here I’d buy them an ale at the first opportunity! Even so, they’d have no way to get the information back to Davidson and the city’s defenders. And even if they somehow managed to jump back into the city, it would take too long to reorganize their forces in accordance with the information. The city would still fall easily.”
“…I could go for an ale…”
“What?”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
“…Your talk about ale made me thirsty, but on the battlefield drinking is a mistake.”
“I said at the first opportunity. Obviously I won’t be buying anyone ale here in a grassy field. What’s wrong with you?”
“…What’s going to happen next, Sir?”
“It’s all written down right here. After failing to pay attention last night, perhaps you should read the plan carefully this time and commit it all to memory.”
The attendant nodded and turned to watch the battle unfold.
“Well?”
“…Oh.” The attendant walked over to the nearby makeshift table and pored over the unfolded document.
The Supreme Commander shook his head in disappointment.
As the attendant flipped the document over to see if it bore any writing on the back, a bat swooped down and grabbed the paper in its claws before racing up into the sky again.
“…Sir, your plan got stolen by a weird bird.”
----------------------------------------
“What’s this?”
A document landed on the ground right next to Lord Davidson. He picked it up and read through it.
“I don’t believe it… Is this some type of a trap?” He looked around at the battlefield from his elevated position, trying to match up what the Union was doing with what the written plans called for. “It seems to be accurate…”
“My Lord?”
“If this document is accurate, then we can anticipate the Union’s next moves. Quick, help me figure it out so we can adjust our defenses!”
The group got to work issuing new orders to various groups around the Twin Cities. This probably wouldn’t be enough to win the day, but they were desperate for any help they could get.
----------------------------------------
When the attackers finally breached the city’s defenses, thousands of bodies littered the bloody fields. The Union still held enough of a numerical advantage to take the city, but the cost had been much higher than projected. Several of the field commanders cursed the Supreme Commander under their breaths. His promise of a flawless victory hadn’t materialized.
Still, with the gate open, the defenders would lose their main advantage. As per the plan discussed during the war council, only one division stayed away from the breach. Instead, they dashed to the gate at the far end of the city to apply pressure. Either the city would commit too many defenses to the rear gate and ease the intrusion by the main force, or they would fail to defend the gate and watch as a separate force dug into their flank. The commander didn’t care which way things went so long as the Union’s total victory was assured.
“What do you think?” the commander asked one of his lieutenants.
“Uh, it’s not good. They have just enough manpower to stop us from assaulting the gate.”
“Yeah…”
The plan didn’t tell these soldiers what to do in this situation, so they decided to hold position and maintain the threat of an attack. Most likely, that’s also what the defenders wanted…
----------------------------------------
Soldiers flooded into the Twin Cities from the north, but the defending forces retreated rather than engage. This action left inhabited portions of the city undefended, but as expected, the invading army was not entering buildings to capture residents or razing the northern district. They simply reorganized as best they could and pushed farther into the city.
“They must already know we decentralized our command structure. They can’t defeat us simply by capturing a single building,” an aide advised Lord Davidson.
“Yes,” Lord Davidson agreed. “And their greed is keeping them from doing anything too destructive to the city. Still, I doubt I’ll be remembered fondly, seeing how I’m the Lord who abandoned the gate and ordered urban combat all throughout downtown!”
“It’s as you said, my Lord. Their written plans assumed we would deplete the bulk of our forces preventing further intrusion. By us letting them in, they’re forced to improvise.”
“But so are we! We’ve all but lost control of our force’s deployment at this point. All we have to fall back on is our familiarity with the city. And even if we win, I can only begin to imagine how much damage the city will take, and that’s IF noncombatant casualties are negligible…”
“Sir, there’s no time to regret your choice! You must fall back and trust your soldiers!”
“They weren’t trained for this type of engagement but all right. Let’s go.” The Lord jogged deeper into the city with a few retainers in tow. The battle was out of his hands now.
----------------------------------------
Each field commander pursued a different objective once entering the city. No longer beholden to their superior’s plan, they each decided to think for themselves. One pushed southeast to capture the eastern gate. Another pushed southwest for a similar reason. Others pushed south to take the city center which held the most important buildings. One elected to remain at the north gate and hold it. He had the easiest time. The rest quickly realized that it was difficult to keep their divisions together in an urban environment, one they had not trained to operate in with such huge numbers.
What had started as several organized columns of soldiers became clusters of attackers meandering randomly through the city streets, making their way south mostly with the guidance of the sun. A few soldiers had visited the Twin Cities before and led small groups of their allies in a more organized manner, but that simply resulted in them getting ahead of the main force and getting beaten back by the enemy.
Fortunately, the local citizenry was obediently staying in their homes or businesses and out of the way. At a glance, it didn’t seem like soldiers were hiding in the buildings within occupied territory, but there was no way to know for sure.
As the first wave of advancing Union soldiers reached the river which divided the city into two halves, the Twin Cities defenders suddenly held their ground.
“What do we do!?” one soldier asked another, no longer having any idea where his supervision was.
“They said to press south and crush the enemy as we went, didn’t they?” the other answered.
The two looked east and west along the river, noticing increasing quantities of fellow soldiers emerging from the rows of buildings and beginning to cross the river south to engage the inferior army. The river was absolutely littered with places to cross.
“I guess we fight.”
The true battle commenced right at the line that separated the larger northern and smaller southern halves of the Twin Cities. The width of the city and number of river crossings was such that nearly the entire defending army could engage while forming a nice concave around the approaching enemy, but only a portion of the attacking army was in range of their enemy at any time. With one division south of the city, a second holding the gate to the north, and one each seizing the east and west gates, the numbers were no longer tilted so strongly towards the Union. Further, the Holy State’s knights and other leaders knew where the engagement would happen all along so they had carefully organized and arranged the squads to maintain a minimal local command structure all throughout the lines of battle. Despite these advantages, it would still take incredibly good fortune for the Twin Cities to come out on top in this battle.
DM took in the sight from well above the city, courtesy of a bat. “…Time for a tentacle spectacle.”