“Ah, here we are. That little city we will conquer,” General Goss remarked on his horse with a broad grin on his wrinkled face.
He was looking at Dido from afar behind his massive army of 45,000 men. In his mind, he had already conquered the city. In fact, the war was already a foregone conclusion. According to his intel, three houses within the Kingdom of Egra were going to raise the flag of rebellion. Their own defense force was going to be around 20,000 men. They would need to either split their defense force or deal with the rebellion first before arriving here as a reinforcement. They would be weakened and would also be late. There was absolutely no way that the city would be able to withstand their siege for months.
At least, that was their belief.
Looking back at his lieutenants which included lords, he cheerfully asked, “Do you want to bet on how many days it’d take for the city to fall?”
The men laughed gleefully.
“Seven days!” One of them exclaimed.
“Nah, three days!” Another joined.
In the end, they all laughed in unison. In spite of their cheerful banter, no one expected an easy siege. The Flissing was known for their defensive abilities. But they were certain that the city would crack due to the sheer numeral advantage and other factors. They planned to choke the city from all sides, and they did just that. From the very first day, the siege was very intensive.
The first day of siege went exactly according to their plan; soldiers were deployed and encircled the whole city. They sent a demand for surrender which was rejected by being unresponsive. General Goss waited two days before getting angry for not being replied to. This was perhaps the first mistake since the Flissing earned two days of time by being unresponsive.
It was the third day of siege where the real besieging began therefore.
From his luxurious tent afar, he was observing his soldiers readying battering rams to tackle city gates. His spies informed him that their gates were double layered, and all of their gates were literal iron bricks. In contrast, their battering rams were made of wood with only the tip of the ram being covered with an iron layer. In other words, he was informed that their battering rams were not going to be very effective.
“Why aren’t our battering rams made of iron just like theirs?!” He demanded an answer from a scholar who was in charge of assembling siege weapons. The scholar was on his four and had his forehead touching the ground, fearing his wrath.
“Sir, such a siege weapon would be extremely heavy to move around, not to mention -”
“ENOUGH!” The general bellowed. “Guards! Drag this traitor out of my sight and behead him!”
A pair of guards right outside of the tent entered promptly and grabbed his arms, forcefully dragging him out.
“Sir! I’ve done nothing wrong!” He shouted in his defense, and he was correct; he did nothing wrong. It was Marco Goss himself who ordered the construction of the battering rams to be as cheaply as possible. The man simply followed his order. Of course, the general had no recollection of giving such an order. He genuinely did not remember.
Meanwhile, Finn was standing on a side, silently observing the event unfold. He did not disagree with the general’s decision. Instead, he changed the subject.
“General, your orders?”
He had known Marco Goss for over a decade and worked with him in the previous war against the Kingdom of Egra. He knew Marco’s personality well enough to avoid any conflicts with him.
“Useless incompetent imbecile…!” Marco cursed silently. Then he raised his voice. “No matter! The city will still fall! Climb the walls!”
Finn showed no objection. In fact, when the general was fired up like this, this was the best course of the action. Additionally, there was nothing else they could do anyway. The walls of Dido were so tall that arrows from below were largely ineffective. Additionally, defending soldiers were not standing closely toward the edge of walls where arrows could reach. They appeared to have deployed spearmen with a long reach, further making arrows useless. Therefore, all things considered, climbing walls was the only visible way.
Two days passed since the order to climb walls was given. Finn was observing the siege from afar alone. General Goss was busy indulging in his luxury; he loved his wine and roasted chickens. In fact, the guy was going through four bottles of wine and two whole chickens a day. They had to bring several supply wagons dedicated to his luxury. One of the wagons was a caged one full of live chickens inside.
Sighing, he folded his arms watching the siege. There was already a small file of corpses at the bottom of the walls. Not a single soldier was making it to the top of the walls. As soon as they reached the top, they were pierced by spears in either neck or head, resulting in fatal wounds. At one point, he began counting the dead bodies.
“Fucking hell, too many to even count…,” He said to himself.
In spite of what Marco Goss had everyone believe, the siege was not going well in his eyes. The battering rams were burnt to crisp already, which didn’t surprise anyone because they wouldn’t be effective either way.
“Who makes city gates full cast iron?”
The concept itself was ludicrous to begin with. It was possible, but it would have taken so much money, time, and effort to make such gates. Maintenance itself wouldn’t be easy, either. Iron rusted. The only way to prevent rust was coating it with oil. Even then, rust would eventually weaken its structural integrity at one point. He didn’t even want to think about reinforced hinges to withstand the sheer weight.
“Perhaps, they enacted such gates for this war only…”
If true, then it must have meant that they were preparing for the invasion for God knows how many years.
Rubbing his temple, he sighed with exasperation. “General Goss, this war is not going to be easy. I hope you realize that soon.”
Sadly, it was only Finn Askin who foresaw dark clouds approaching them. Every other lord was just enjoying their lives in the rear of the battlefield.
From that point in, he stayed on edge of the battlefield, ready to flee at a moment of danger. He wasn’t sure what they were about to face but he couldn’t shake off this ominous sensation that they were going to lose badly. Logically, it did not seem possible that they’d lose given the numeral advantage. However, it was clear to him that the Flissing had a plan of some sort which they had been undertaking for many years.
On the tenth day of the siege, General Goss called for a meeting.
“What is going on here?!” He demanded an answer from those who gathered. “I am not seeing any progress at all!”
Finn, standing way back, scanned those in front of them. Two of them were pale as ghosts, apparently hungover. General Goss himself was already drunk and it was only morning.
Matheo Mosele, the lord of Tonga, spoke up. “General, we will construct more ladders and push harder.”
Finn had been observing the siege from a distance. In his knowledge, no lords were ever involved in the actual siege. All of them were indulging in pleasure. Matheo was no exception although he was mostly sober unlike others. Still, even he did not partake in the siege itself and was simply observing from afar like him.
“Do it with haste!” Marco barked angrily. “For fuck’s sake, it’s only Dido! It should have fallen already!”
Finn had been counting casualties in secret, and the casualties exceeded 1,500 so far. He wasn’t about to let that be known however, not especially to the general. He’d be punished for that.
“What are our casualties?!” The general asked, and nobody would answer. “WHAT. ARE. OUR. CASUALTIES?!”
One of the lords answered reluctantly, “Perhaps, two hundred? Probably less.”
Finn face-palmed internally. Have they not seen the literal hills of corpses? If it were down to him, he would have changed the tactics now. Climbing walls wasn’t obviously working.
“Build more ladders now! And PUSH ON!” The general barked.
Storming walls was the most basic way to besiege a walled settlement. It was also the most damaging way to besiege as well. It was never a clean and easy affair with high casualties guaranteed.
Under normal circumstances, it should have worked regardless due to the fact that all four walls were being climbed non-stop. Some soldiers should have made atop and caused havoc, allowing more to join in and eventually overwhelm the defenders. However, from his own observations, the first step was not happening. Not a single soldier was making it atop of the walls. Their fire arrows weren’t helping morale also since burning flesh made some puke. The siege was not going well. Still, he was fairly confident that Dido would eventually fall. It may take far longer but it would fall because they were completely isolated. Even if their reinforcements arrived, they would simply defeat them at which point Dido would have no choice but surrender.
Therefore, in spite of the ominous feeling he was getting, he had to push on. Everything pointed to the defeat of the Flissing. He was just being paranoid, he believed. He was aware that he was a very cautious person.
In the end, he decided to do his own thing behind the general’s back. He chose to poison the water source. This was not a recommended way to tackle a settlement one wished to conquer and rule because a lot would die from the poison, earning unnecessary resentment. Regardless, they had to win by any means necessary at this point.
Poisoning water sources was an easy affair as long as they could locate a ground water source. He picked a close, yet safe, spot from the city and had men dig a large hole until water would begin to form at bottom. Once they found water, the next step was throwing feces and rotting flesh into the hole, mixing with water. This tainted groundwater would eventually make it to their wells. Location was very important for this because of the flow of groundwater. If one location didn’t work, they would need to try another location. Basically, they would need to try at least once in all directions until they hit the jackpot.
Finn hoped that the first attempt would work. Alas, nope. Even after three days, nothing seemed to be occurring within the city. Therefore, he tried another location and then another. Nothing worked. With each attempt, he wasted three days.
“Don’t tell me that their water source is isolated?!” He came to a sudden realization after his fourth attempt.
Isolating the water source was a monumental task to carry out. They would need to dig very deep along their walls and then use brick and mortar to fill the base. Then they’d need to fill it with clay from both sides to hinder flow of water further. He had heard of performing this task for a fortress, but to a city? It was more than a monumental task. It would have taken them -
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Decades,” He uttered in shock. “The Flissing has been waiting for this for decades!”
He was feeling goosebumps all over his body. If the Flissing had been preparing for this occasion for decades, it must have meant that the Kingdom of Egra as whole must have been preparing.
“No…, no, no.” He held his head in his tent, sweating with his pupils dilated. “Guard!”
A soldier in half plate entered. “Sir?”
“Gather our men now!”
The guard looked confused. “Pardon, sir?”
“Is it possible to gather our own men?”
He looked troubled. “They are already a part of the siege army, sir. I don’t think that’s possible…”
“Damn it!” He slammed his desk.
“Sir?”
He was going to leave the battlefield because he had the faintest idea of what was about to come; he had absolutely no idea. What he knew for certain that was something bad was going to happen to them. He had brought 3,000 men and couldn’t just make an announcement for his men to gather so that they could merrily leave. It had to be done discreetly. Even then it wasn’t going to be easy.
“Send a message to the general that I have fallen ill and wish to withdraw from the battle.”
“Sir??” The guard looked utterly confused. Seeing his bewildered reaction, he realized that his excuse was not going to work.
In the end, he was unable to leave the battlefield. Instead, he did the next best thing, relocating his own camp further away from the main camp. Thankfully, nobody important noticed his actions because they were busy with their own affairs. Furthermore, although very slowly, he started to recall his soldiers. He knew he wouldn’t be able to gather all three thousand but intended to muster as many as he could.
“WHAT. IS. GOING. ON. HERE?!” General Goss bellowed, throwing an empty wine bottle into the ground, shattering it. He called for a meeting once more after twenty five days had passed. The hill of corpses had become a small mountain at this point, making the loss clearer for everyone to see. Unknown to all but Finn, their loss had increased up to 5,000 men.
Nino Helnwein, the king’s delegate, stepped forward. With a bent right arm toward his chest, he spoke, “General Goss, it has come to my attention that most of us are too casual about this conflict.”
Finn agreed wholeheartedly in the back. However, Marco Goss took it as an insult instead.
“What do you mean casual? Are our men slacking? I don’t think so. Or are you questioning my leadership?”
The men were not slacking. Rather they were being killed left and right. The spirit was there, but the method was not adequate. Would Nino say that bluntly? He could not. Goss was the supreme leader. The lords were welcome to give him advice, but the ultimate authority was with him. It wasn’t as if he was chosen without merit, either. Out of 45,000 men, 20,000 men were his own and he provided most, if not all, supplies from his domain. By seniority and contribution, he was chosen to lead this invasion. Additionally, he was known to loathe the Kingdom of Egra also. The Siwen royal court had no reason not to choose him. In hindsight, they ended up giving him too much authority to a point that nobody could argue with him.
“General, please at least be sober,” Nino carefully suggested. “That is all I ask of you.”
Every lord in the tent was at fault because no one was even daring to approach the battlefield itself. Finn was probably the only one who got as close as possible to poison water. However, even he never really joined the siege. It was fine that leaders didn’t join the battlefield, but they should have at least done their due diligence via a trusted source. None of that was occurring within this group of lords.
To make the matter worse, in Marco Goss’ drunken mind, the battle was already over, and he had won. The reality was becoming a bad dream for him. A part of his delusion came from his advancing age. He was 64 at the moment and was going to retire after this war. In his mind, he was going to retire as a hero of the realm.
Being deeply offended by his remark that he was always drunk, General Goss grabbed a chair nearby and threw it at him. Thankfully, being drunk and all, his aim was way off. But it did not change the fact that he intended to hit Nino, who was the king’s delegate. The relationship between the lords broke down on that day. The meeting was adjourned shortly later. The general continued to indulge himself in wine and chicken, and other lords did their own things, away from each other. Perhaps thankfully, the soldiers were completely unaware of the fact that their chain of command was broken down. Sadly, this also meant their order of “climb the walls” remained intact with no one bothering to add any further instructions or alter the plan. Finn was probably the only one who lamented the incompetence. If there was one good news, for him at least, was that he was now able to recall his soldiers back with relative ease. However, in the grand scheme of things, his army of 2,500 men, down from 3,000, was nothing. Regardless, once he gathered his men back, he planned to retreat to his domain upon a sign of trouble.
And the sign of trouble arrived in a way that he never, ever, saw coming.
It was around midnight. The men were resting, and most of them were in deep sleep due to the fact that a night siege was commenced a day prior. The general had run out of patience and was barking at soldiers to push harder. Understandably, everyone was beat and was soundly asleep. In Finn’s camp which was a short distance away from the main camp, his men were standing guard vigilantly. Since they were no longer a part of the main camp, they had to look out for possible monster attacks at night. However, with over two thousand men, they weren’t too concerned. Regrettably though, a few stray soldiers were picked on by werewolves at night.
“Sir, we see a light,” A guard right outside of Finn’s tent notified him.
“A light? What light?” Finn, at the moment, was writing two letters. One was meant for his domain. He was going to tell them to be ready for their return. The other letter was meant for the house Goss in preparation of what to come. He wasn’t going to tag along with General Goss’ army at this point. While he had kept a friendly relationship with him, he did feel that he had gone too far in this war and was going to petition for his removal. The general was set to retire anyway, thus he figured he’d butter up his successor by accelerating his retirement.
“Um, sir? The light is getting brighter.”
Frustrated by the lack of detailed explanation of this “light”, he grumbled as he stood up and walked toward the exit. Even before he would exit, he could see the light the soldier was talking about.
“What…?”
There was a bright green light that was becoming brighter by seconds. It was a mere dot from his distance, but he could see it was getting brighter.
“What… is that?”
“Sir, I have … no idea.”
The bright dot appeared to be on top of a wall at Dido. Finn was an earth mage himself but had never seen anything like that. In his knowledge, no magic would shine like that. Then all of a sudden, the shining dot moved toward the direction of the tent where General Goss was staying. The ball of green light accelerated toward the tent so fast that all Finn saw was the dot flying forward and then creating a wall of smoke and debris. Instinctively, he covered his head and got down with a shout.
“What the?!”
He felt a jolt from the ground, and there was a loud bang when it happened.
“Are we under attack of some kind?!”
No one around him was able to give him an answer. After the commotion was over, it took a while for them to truly realize what had really happened. Only when the sun’s ray was lifting darkness from the ground, he was able to piece together what happened. The tent where General Goss was standing was … gone, simply vanished, with a small impact crater in its place.
The lords gathered at the spot and were simply dumbfounded.
“What happened here? I demand an explanation!” Nino Helnwein demanded. When there was no immediate answer to his inquiry, he exclaimed. “I asked what happened here! Somebody has to know!”
The tent was gone; it literally vanished.
Matheo Mosele pointed at something. “Is that… his arm?”
There was a severed human arm holding a roasted chicken leg in its hand a short distance away from the crater. The severed part was charred, thus there was no blood.
“The General could be alive nearby! Search the vicinity!” Nino barked out an order. He was the king’s delegate and was the second ranking officer. Therefore, the lords obeyed his command for the time being.
The search revealed a severed leg which was also presumed to be Marco Goss’. In conclusion, the general was considered dead. Upon this realization, Nino called for an emergency meeting in his tent.
“Who killed the general?” was his first inquiry to the gathered lords.
Finn was the first to speak about what he saw on that night. He explained the shining bot on top of a wall from Dido, and how it struck at the general’s tent at a surreal speed.
Nino grimaced upon hearing his recreation of the event.
“Lord Askin, you are implying that they somehow killed our supreme leader.”
Nino wanted a different version of the event. The fact that their general was killed by their enemy was not something he wanted to swallow. Catching his message, Finn changed his story to something he’d accept.
“I, I saw a magical great bear that shot an exceedingly large fireball right at the general’s tent. Alas, when I spotted the monster, it was already too late. My apologies.”
Nino looked around with a glare. “You’ve heard of Lord Askin. The general was killed by a monster.”
Matheo shook his head discreetly. Finn did the same but only in his mind.
Once the fact that General Goss’ demise was confirmed and the story behind his death was established, Nino brought up the next topic: Who was going to be the next supreme leader of the army. He quickly nominated himself for the position.
Finn was bewildered by the fact that Nino wasn’t even trying to find out what really happened that night. A magic of some sort vapourized their general, and he wasn’t even trying to get the bottom of it. It could have been a new weapon, he thought. Being a scholar himself, he was aware of a new invention from the Kingdom of Egra. It was called exploding fire crystals. He convinced himself that what he saw on the night was a variation of the crystal. How it worked, he would have loved to know. Regardless, it seemed clear that what Nino wanted was leadership which he wasn’t even going to contest. He had neither seniority nor contribution to become the leader of the army.
Predictably, Matheo and other lords contested Nino’s desire to replace General Goss and they started to argue with each other. Leaving them alone, Finn quietly withdrew himself from the tent.
They had been besieging Dido for over 30 days, and the city showed absolutely no sign of falling. Whatever advantage they had was quickly running out. They had to expect reinforcements from the Egra soon. Sadly, Nino didn’t prove to be any better than Marco Goss. Once he got himself the position of the supreme leader, he started drinking his days away. Finn even thought that perhaps the position was cursed or something. Either way, the bottom line was that nothing changed.
Then, as expected, an enemy army was spotted.
“Hahaha!” Nino laughed pleasantly in his tent. He had called for a meeting after receiving words that enemy reinforcements had arrived.
“Eight thousand!” He continued to laugh and repeated, “Eight thousand! What a joke!”
The expected size was around 20,000. Realistically, they expected 15,000 due to the rebellion they enticed.
“I guess it was hard for them to have quelled the rebellion, eh?” He remarked with glee. They were going to face them head on and simply encircle them. This was a common tactic when a larger army was facing a far smaller army.
And they did just that. The enemy army was melting down like a piece of butter on a hot frying pan. Observing the battle from afar, Finn smiled, feeling that perhaps he was wrong to have been feeling doom and gloom. Dido had to surrender once enemy reinforcements were literally obliterated.
“Hmm?”
All of a sudden, two small groups were approaching the battlefield from East and West.
“What? Who are they? Where have they come from?”
He wasn’t even concerned; he was just curious. They looked to be very small groups. What could they possibly do? Then, it happened. The small groups began unleashing all kinds of area effect magic spells right onto the battlefield, indiscriminately killing anyone who were unfortunate enough to get caught in the spells.
“Oh, my God!”
He realized. He realized that this was the ominous sign he had been waiting for. For a moment, however, he couldn’t take his eyes away from the massacre. In a twisted way, he found it beautiful. The four elemental magic were being displayed right in front of his eyes. He didn’t see anything like this in his whole life. He soon snapped out to face the daunting reality. Their army was being literally slaughtered. It wasn’t just their army. The enemy reinforcements were being slaughtered as well. If the reinforcements were meant to be sacrificial lambs, that meant -
“Oh, no,” He blurted, “Oh, noooo.”
Counter invasion came to his mind like lightning. Their 45,000 army was soon no more. The Siwen dynasty had spent years gathering that many. It wasn’t just gathering men, either. They trained them, equipped them, and set supply routes for them. The army was literally everything they had. They poured all their resources into the creation of this force only to see it being obliterated in a span of less than an hour.
If there was a silver lining, it was that he still had his 2,500 men. He had to return to his domain ASAP and protect it.
“Men! We are leaving! Make it fast!”
Other lords did the same except they didn’t have any army to bring home. They were fleeing with a handful of personal guards. What none of them did was send a messenger to the capital, informing of the event.
Finn’s almost fully intact army proved to be utterly useless. Not only did the army slow him down, by the time he and his army reached Vrnojka for resupply, the city had already fallen to Atra. He could not believe his eyes when he saw the flags of Atra waving on the walls of the city. This was the center of the Goss family’s domain. Of course, that was just the beginning of bad news. His army had already run out of supplies a day earlier and they were already starving. Having no way to resupply, they had to just push onto his domain to the West in an empty stomach. In hindsight and shock, he blissfully forgot to foresee the predictable possibility that his city might have fallen to Atra also. Even if he did realize, there was nowhere for him and his army to go sadly.
Teleni was a beautiful settlement right by a large lake. It was a city of 30,000 and was known for its breathtaking scenery, especially in the morning where there was a layer of light fog across the lake which extended toward the city. Obviously, none of that mattered when Finn and his now 1,500 men arrived back home only to find the flags of Atra on its walls. Having starved for over a week, none of them had any strength to fight, let alone go on. He fell onto his knees like a possessed man and screamed his lungs out like a madman while pulling his hairs out.
If he escaped with his trusted bodyguards on horses instead of traveling with his army, they may have beaten the Kingdom of Atra in speed and may have reached his city in time to escape with his family or may have made a deal with Atra in exchange of guaranteeing his safety.
Alas, it was all too late; his noble days were over. He would be lucky to save his life.