Time: During the siege of Turonis
POV: Random Officer
This siege is a farce, sure we have to give an example for those who want to rebel but 300.000 troops against a town that doesn't even has a town's guard large enough to protect the whole town?
Or are they wary of The Goddess? Or Clair if I'm right with her name. I've heard she's living in Turonis. And it might be true that she's strong and is surely a better leader than most nobles. Not that I would say that out loud. But if it comes down to reality she's also only one person. How will she be able to stop us? If she's even here. The whole war is an excuse to slaughter non-humans and innocent people. And I think the true reason is for enlarging the territory of Kirk and Raska.
Not that it matters, I'm a soldier and my job is it to do what I'm told to do. So I did what my superior officer said and sent the slaves troops out. They'll find traps and will wear the enemy out.
They aren't able to fight against trained soldiers, but Turonis doesn't have trained soldiers.
“Sir, the slaves are out!” Said a soldier who came running to me.
“And? Did they manage to reach the wall?” I asked.
He started to look nervous and fidgeted.
“Speak!” I demanded and he did, it's just that I didn't want to hear what he said.
“Sir, the slaves fell down almost immediately and then flew over the wall. They didn't even reach the outer defence line. We haven't learned a single thing about their defences,” he said and looked down.
“Fell down?” I asked.
“Yes sir, they just fell down and were out cold. We don't know if they are dead or alive. We only know that they are now in the hand of our enemies and that they didn't achieve their task,” he said and stood still. Waiting for more orders.
°Sigh° “ Okay, I'll go and inform the General. Dismissed,” I said and turned around to go to the tent of the General and our commanders.
This army consists out of a bunch of many nobles and their personal troops. All under one general, but at the same time only loyal to their own commander. I'm a soldier under the command of the General and as such tasked with relaying commands between the different noble commanders, who then relay the command to their superior. Mostly barons or dukes.
I stepped inside the tent of command and stood at attention until someone was friendly enough to look at me.
There were three people inside, the General, his direct subordinate and a baron from Kirk. The baron was a pudgy man. He didn't look like he was trained in any form and was constantly eating something.
The General on the other side looked like a trained soldier in his late forties. He was clad in a plate armour and looked constantly ready to fight. A true general, which is also the only name we call him.
Our unit, “21. Army of Raska” is trained in sieges and we even had some skirmishes at the border to Duren. Not many, but still enough to learn the downsides and hardships of war.
His direct subordinate, who's called Vortus, is a man who doesn't look older than 23. He wore a leather armour with daggers on his side.
I heard he was raised by the General himself and was found during a counter attack from the demons. They raided a human village near the border and he was one of the only survivors. It's said that he protected his sister from three demons with only a dagger and was so heavily wounded that he didn't recognise us as we found him. His sister is now a nun of Siria and lives in Lichtstadt.
“Yes, Dreik?” Asked Vortus after a moment. Vortus is a good commander and knows every name of us higher officers.
“Sir, report of the failure of the slave unit. I was informed that they simply fell down and then flew over the wall inside of Turonis. They weren't able to scout the defence line of the enemy,” I said and stand in attention.
“Fell down and flew over? Are you kidding us?” Asked the pudgy noble.
“No sir, the report said that they all fell down and weren't able to move. They then flew over the wall and we lost contact,” I replied and looked to the front.
“Were they able to get information about their defences?” Asked the General, who was now looking directly at me.
“No sir, they were taken out before they reached any defence lines,” I said and waited.
“Hmm, send some small units from count Dusk. They aren't really useful for anything else than canon fodder. And I want you to supervise them directly. You aren't allowed to attack, but watch what happens. I'm wary of the woman called Clair. Reports state that she was able to single-handedly defeat our special forces. They didn't use mana inhibitor magic, but still something like this isn't something taken lightly. Inform me if you get sight of her,” he said.
“Sir, yes sir,” I said.
“Dismissed,” he said and I turned around and walked to the tents of count Dusk.
I watched as the troops of count Dusk died. They weren't as bad as I was told. Some of them were really good mages. And they reacted quickly as the first of them fell down into a pit. They closed said pit with sand and then continued. A few tried to shoot fireballs over the city wall, but those were quickly taken out by the mages from the magic academy.
The defenders had bows and crossbows. And were able to defend their position. Well, it wasn't really their achievement. We only sent a few thousand and those were only meant to breach their first line of defence. They weren't even equipped with the right weapons to overcome the walls. Yet they achieved more than they should be able to. Turonis isn't a town that can withstand so many soldiers. This Clair is most likely helping them. They shouldn't have so many distant weapons. Turonis isn't normally in need of so many bolts and arrows.
We didn't risk a night raid, too dangerous for our own troops.
I spend the night with a woman from the pleasure camp. Not the best but still better than being alone.
The next day we were able to reach the town walls. But this supposed to be easy siege turned into a blood bath the moment we tried to attack for real.
At first, I didn't notice what happened. Until the screams reached me. Not the screams from our enemies, no the screams of wounded men came from behind.
I turned around and saw what happened, the sun was almost blocked, so many arrows were in the sky. And they all hailed down on our unprepared camp. I quickly took a shield and run to the General. Men were falling left and right. These arrows weren't shot with accuracy, but they didn't have to. There were so many that everything got hit. Tents, men, horses, the ground simply everything.
I reached the General the moment our mages were able to raise a wind barrier. The General and Vortus stood behind a defence line and were organising more troops.
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I was able to see the enemy from this position. They were many, it even looks like they had as many troops as we. But they were still too far away to make out any specific designs or signs of their origin. These must be troops from Solo or possibly Aeron? But I heard Aeron has no army.
“Sir!” I said and waited for orders.
“Dreik, good you're here. You'll have to go to baron Falk and tell him to send his troops to us. We will organise us and then move forward. We can't sit this out,” Vortus said and then turned around to shout more orders.
“Yes, sir!” I shouted and run in the direction of baron Falk's tent.
We quickly formed ranks and then moved out. Our camp isn't a good fighting ground and would only hinder us from moving freely.
We marched in the direction of the enemy, under the protection of the wind barrier. Fully equipped and ready for battle. But we weren't ready for this battle.
Suddenly fireballs came out of the enemy lines and hit our wind barrier. I don't know much about magic, but wind and fire aren't a good mix. The fire gets more often than not stronger. And it was also in this case that the fire got stronger. Our barrier turned into a wall of fire and we were enclosed in a hot and burning globe.
We weren't able to see shit and it only got worse as suddenly our barrier broke.
No, it didn't broke. I saw barriers that were overcome by magic, and this didn't happen with our barrier. Our barrier simply vanished, as if it doesn't have enough mana to stay active. Which shouldn't be the case in such a short amount of time.
Fireballs and arrows came through and began to burn or maim our soldiers. Yet again we weren't prepared for what came next. A large amount of cavalry came running at us. They all looked the same and the scary thing was that they didn't scream a single word. A normal cavalry was loud. The horses are neighing, the soldiers scream and the hooves are trampling the ground. But this cavalry was silent, except for the hooves.
They hit us hard and pressed deep into our lines. We simply hadn't enough spears against so many horses. Luckily I was far in the back of our troops and as such wasn't overrun by them.
And again the general showed his skills and why we're calling him general. He quickly shouted orders and it looked like we are able to push them back.
However, the second wave followed after the cavalry. Thousands of dwarfs who were clad in the same full body plate armour. Equipped with axes, hammers and swords. They quickly helped their cavalry and killed our men like on mass. Behind them came normal human soldiers, also looking the same. Why do they all look the same?
Our mages tried to cause havoc in their lines but were attacked from the enemy archers. They quickly fell under the onslaught of arrows and spells. Barriers simply didn't work and their arrows didn't seem to run out.
We sacrificed a few ten thousand soldiers to form a line behind our own front fighters and were then able to attack back. The fight kept on and many of us were already wounded from the surprise attack at the beginning. I noticed that the enemy wasn't bleeding and I remembered stories about the golems from the great wall that is protecting Aeron. Are these soldiers golems? If so, how many does Aeron have? These must be at least 250.000.
I also saw strangely clothed enemies who were fighting our officers and stronger soldiers.
They jumped around and attacked often in small groups. Never staying in the same place and quick to retreat after their kill.
This simple and easy siege turned into a bloody battlefield and we were losing.
The battle held on for hours and our support camp fled before us. We stayed to give them time.
I also had to fight at the end and the enemies were strong. Not overwhelmingly strong, just strong. Not the least bit tired and constantly attacking. However, their hits weren't stronger than the hits from a normal soldier. At least the hits from the human-looking soldiers. The dwarfs had a strong arm under their armour and these jumping strange soldiers were too fast for me to follow or even attack. They luckily never attacked me.
Then came the order for retreat and we fled. At first in order but then more and more simply run away.
We ran for hours and then came to halt. Most of us were separated. Luckily I was somehow able to find the General during our flight. He had many wounds, but none of them were lethal.
“Dreik, you're alive. Good,” said the General as he saw me.
“Yes sir, I was further behind, near baron Falk and relaid orders,” I said in a sorry tone. Not that I'm really sorry, I'm glad I survived that.
“Yes, yes. What the fuck happened. At one moment we were normally attacking Turonis and then Boom! An army simply came out of nothing and attacked us with soldiers who precisely countered our own troops,” he said and clapped his hands to further show the swiftness and suddenness of this attack.
“I don't know sir, but I have a theory,” I said and he motioned me to continue.
“I think these were troops from Aeron. Their so called golems. I mean those who are also protecting their walls,” I said.
“No, those weren't their golems. I have read reports about them. These “Protector Golems” as we're calling them are way stronger. And I don't mean the difference between a new soldier and a veteran, no I mean the difference of a newborn baby and a dragon. A single Protector Golem is strong enough to kill a horde of Tier 3 monster, alone, and these Protector Golems are also able to heal wounds.
No, these golems ,we encountered today, were of a different kind. Which is good and bad at the same time. Good because they are only as strong as a normal soldier, well they normally are. There were these jumping golems, those were as strong as an S-Rank adventurer, but were also view in number.
Bad because we now know that Aeron is able to deploy golems beyond their wall and in an unknown number on top. We will go back to our main base and report about our battle. We can't risk a second battle without any new orders and we already lost a lot of men.
Go sleep, we'll march tomorrow morning,” he said and I reluctantly left.
How many golems does Aeron have? Are there more kinds of golems? Are they stronger? What are their intentions? Do they want to kill us like we tried to do with them?
Is this war doomed from the start?
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Only a small chapter. I don't think that a second POV or the continue of the story would match this POV and would only kill the current “feel”.
Opinions?