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Legatus Nonus Sula
Maiden’s War
Part II
-Bloody week-
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> Lord Charles Van Durren, the Kingdom of Kaltha’s new Master of Silence, elevated to the position after Lord Sigurd’s ‘rebellion’, sensing victory in the Wyvern’s Throne succession question, turned his greedy eyes on Pascor and Lucius. The youngest of Lord Albert’s sons with support from Sir Jan Van Durren, now new Baron of Riverdor’s Castle and the High Magister Kelholt’s Golden Spears was instrumental in pushing for the use of ‘Uher’s Light’ on Colle.
>
> Due to timing and distance the ‘weapon’ was first used on Pascor, but not with the same devastating ‘success’ mostly because it lacked the presence of its ‘inventor’ in the field. The infamous Wim Luikens, a student of the alchemist Rogier Rosman and now responsible for at least eight thousand civilian and soldier deaths -a third of Colle’s population, had traveled to Colle to personally oversee the ‘experiment’ after escaping the city of Alden through the skin of his teeth years earlier during Lord Nattas ‘Long Knives’ event.
>
> Lord Charles himself traveled to Tollor where he sided with Duke Hoff’s naval assault and landings idea, over his own bigger brother’s direct approach. Lord Henk Van Durren had used the weapon on the first days of the war pushing Pascor forces over the river, but due to its ‘sensitive’ nature and the fear of a ‘freakish’ accident -though also due to him just not having enough of it is this writer’s humble opinion- he’d reserved its use after the first week. Sula had kept the weapon away from his men outranging the First Foot engineers firing from the battlements and the siege of Pascor devolved to raids across the no man’s land with meagre results. Lord Henk had tried to land a few kilometers to the north of Serene again, but Sula wasn’t going to allow him to set a foothold there and flank Pascor’s North Gates, so the attempts were mostly fruitless.
>
> So Duke Hoff went ahead with his well-thought out naval plan, using Tollor’s thus far idle troops and marines. The weather that had miraculously left Pascor dry for much of the fall, while half of Jelin had all but drown in water, decided to confuse the matters for Tollor’s navy with heavy mist just as the operation started four weeks into the siege.
>
> The assault called for a quick journey around the Wolffish Isles and an attack either at the small main isle’s port, or Pascor’s if they caught Lord Ton unprepared. Most of the fleet was used for it, but only three large transports followed the flotilla around the Isles. With almost twenty smaller and bigger vessels this lake fleet was nothing but a distraction. They had orders to avoid a naval battle with the dangerous Pascor fleet that would operate much closer to home waters and to flee for Asturia’s lands if a landing was impossible. The bulk of Tollor’s transports and fishing boats that had made the journey the Duke had kept to surprise Lord Ton.
>
> The week of the assault Lord Charles with two of Wim Luikens best students, remarkably not members of the Golden Spears despite the religious Order’s heavy presence around the weapon, cleared the ‘Deliverer’ for operations again. The reason for the month of delay unknown today and varying from a religious matter of the Order, to the machine being unable to handle more than a couple of throws, or the simpler scarceness of the ‘secretive’ material as I have stated above.
>
>
[https://i.postimg.cc/MHm78Yhk/PARCOR-CITY-PLAN-v2.jpg]
Main gates Guardtower,
IV Legio’s center,
City of Pascor,
Last month of fall 192
Part of the larger Battle of Serene River, (No man’s land, the main gates)
also known as Siege of Pascor.
Maiden’s War, the start of fifth week
“Legatus?” LID officer Bolton asked keeping his voice low and Sula opened his tired eyes to stare at the reddish and purple sky. Sunrise is close, he thought and grimaced in the attempt to straighten his hurting back. Martha had gone into labor two days earlier, a very difficult one, but she had pulled through and delivered two boys, seconds apart from each other. Although they were twins, the tiny rascals had shared Sula’s and Martha’s hair. A washed-out blond for the first boy, he’d named Virgo to honor his late father and his mother’s scarlet red, Martha had named Jacub to honor hers.
Despite Dottore Borealis pessimistic predictions due to her age –Martha was almost twenty eight- the mother made it, but it had taken a toll on her. The Dottore had stayed with her through it and in a sense he had made it as well, as Sula came close to having him executed a couple of times.
“Any movement?” he rustled rubbing his face and looked out of the crenel for the lights in the First Foot’s advanced camp. A rough rampart really to protect themselves from the shelling Boston had inflicted on them daily. The people of Pascor had dug out every boulder they could find and the ‘rock finding’ activity was perhaps one of the more profitable jobs during the siege, along the ale and whore business.
Lord Ton had been impressed so much by the profit margins that he almost reconsidered giving permission to a visiting from Valeria priestess of Naossis to open a small temple there. Eventually he didn’t and the brothels remained illegal in Pascor, though it appeared almost every soldier seemed to know where exactly they were.
“The Fleet left the port again,” Bolton informed him. “We could use those men in the field milord.”
“It’s Lord Ton’s city,” Sula reminded him. “And they might try something else seeing as this isn’t working for ‘em.”
“This will never end,” Bolton murmured crossing his arms.
“All wars end eventually,” Sula replied hoarsely, his back cracking and the armour heavier after two restless nights. “Just not at your convenience. Any luck in convincing the Mayor to send more patrols into the Fenlands?”
“They’ll never do it,” Bolton said and crooked his mouth. “Scared shitless of the Hag.”
“You’ve seen her yes? It was Lord Ton’s sister,” Sula rustled, thinking on the witch’s words.
“Clear as day, though I had no idea what the girl looked like afore.”
“Eh, nasty business this, difficult to justify,” Sula murmured.
“What did Lord Lucius say?”
“Hold firm,” Sula replied.
Lucius was traveling towards Framtond’s tributaries. This could either end in triumph, or with every one of them on the torturer’s table. The scaffolds and hanging metal cages ‘decorating’ the Mayor’s palace an ominous reminder on the hazards of failure.
“They are moving again,” Bolton pointed out. “It’s the brief orders that scare me the most milord.”
“Wake Centurion Boston up and send a runner to Lord Ton,” Sula ordered gruffly and slapped both his cheeks to rouse himself proper. “I want an answer on those troops so I can pull the Fourth from the blasted village!” he added with a grimace. “They might wait for ice and winter to arrive, but I ain’t spending winter in Pascor with a sick wife.”
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“The bloody mist is thickening Legatus!” Centurion Didicus reminded a scowling Sula.
“I’m aware Centurion,” Sula grunted, clenching his jaw. The First Foot had taken advantage of the low visibility and crept up closer to the walls. Their darn machines had followed. Now their shots were landing with much more success. Centurion Boston’s engineers answered from the walls and the Guardtower, but they were firing blind and Sula worried a nasty surprise, or two, might come their way afore winter. “I’ll have Decanus Papus and Baro hit them from the side of Citadel, along with Gatrell’s cavalry, put them in a pincer and rip their gonads out.”
“Avienus has horses to relay the message,” Dumont informed him. The Decanus was stationed at the distant North Gates to be in contact with the Fourth Cohort and their cavalry camped outside the walls on that side of the city.
A month sleeping in the field and the livestock roaming there –mostly mountain goats visiting from the distant peaks- the noble knight had turned into a wilder bucolic version of himself, according to the words of his aide. Sula liked Gatrell’s character for finding the best in any situation.
“We might need something faster to signal them,” Sula murmured. “The temple’s bells.”
“You’ll use Uher’s Voice to start a military maneuver?” The sober Mayor of Pascor Vance Sequer queried with a frown.
“The god’s reach is mighty,” Sula countered tauntingly and the Mayor nodded.
“I’ll talk with the magisters,” he yielded evenly.
Not easy to rattle a man that has decorated his palace with scaffolds.
Sula grunted and looked for the Lord’s man, Lord Ton was more worried about a potential naval battle than the army at his gates. Sir Blenk who was at almost every meeting with Sir Dolf taking it upon himself to lead the navy with Captain Assen and Menneken, grimaced under his scrutiny.
“They can’t break through Legatus,” Blenk insisted. “The mud will swallow them.”
“We’re in the same fucking spot Blenk!” Sula blasted him.
“No we’re not. We paid the blood tax to the Hag,” Blenk argued bitterly and the machine that had stayed silent for weeks blew a hole in the upper part of the wall next to the Guardtower, the loud explosion sending material on a house twenty meters away near the river street and half-destroying it. Two Pascor soldiers were killed outright, Sula finding a bloody couple of pieces of one of them when he rushed to the scene, just a mangled left arm attached to half his melted torso absent any internal organs and a boot that still had a foot in it.
“They fucking moved that thing closer,” Dumont cursed eyeing the gory remains.
“The fact they are using it again is the biggest snag,” Sula muttered and stared at the frowned Sir Blenk. “Will the citizens fight with us?” he asked.
“This is our land Sula,” Blenk replied gravely. “It might not look much to you, but it is all we have. Death won’t cower us. Out of the mud we came and there we shall return afore we give it away.”
“Let’s hope we don’t,” Sula retorted with a grimace of disgust at his fatalistic attitude. The man was grieving family no one argued that, but Sula had a new family he wanted to kind of keep alive for as long as it was possible.
> The first day of that week the First Foot engineers operating the ‘Deliverer’ fired seven or eight times and managed to destroy a portion of the outer walls facing the river, part of the main gates fortifications and gut the guardtower. The heavy mist that came instead of a thunderstorm, or even the first snows helped the attackers approach and fire at the still visible target that was the city walls outlined by the oil torches used to relay information.
>
> Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
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> The weather had turned against them in that part of the battle, but on the scale it was still even, though the Legatus didn’t know that.
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> Sula stopped the lightshow seeing the damage done, spent the night finalizing a plan to attack the advancing soldiers utilizing the ruined part of the walls near the Fenlands, after sucking them inside the walls. He placed the First Cohort in the center behind the destroyed part of the fortification, along a detachment of Pascor’s soldiers. He left Carus’ Rangers on the walls along with Centurion Joe Fallon’s legion slingers, but Pike’s Rangers and Marlene’s Brutes he kept in reserve as Sula needed a mobile force inside the city to plug any potential collapse. The citizens had been mobilized, but a man with a shaft, a shovel, or a spear can only do so much.
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> The idea was to counterattack with the Second and Third Cohort, push back the First Foot’s waves of soldiers and smash their south flank facing the delta to reach their rampart hiding their machines.
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> It was the flank that had seen no action due to it being a muddy, insect infested terrain, covered in cattails, reeds and thick weeds, the better terrain located near the walls and Lord Ton’s citadel.
>
> The First Foot marched under the cover of the mist as the sound of the walls coming down had been heard clearly and encountered no resistance, but the occasional arrow pot-shot coming from the walls finding someone unlucky. Sula pulled his own machines away from the walls and barricaded the main streets leading to the gates and the destroyed part of the fortifications. A brave commander without a doubt, he left control of the Second Cohort to a hardened Centurion out of Demames named Opiter Carbo and took position next to Centurion Whitt of the Third Cohort out of Halfostad, his wife’s people. It is this scholar’s opinion that the ‘Cultured’ Third Cohort would have fought for Lady Martha even without the Legatus presence.
>
> But it was a meaningful and welcomed gesture.
Sula could barely hear the bells ringing inside the city. The clanging of blades and the manic yells of thousands of armed men parked in a very small piece of land had drown out everything. Well, but for the officer’s barks for the legionnaires to keep the steady forward momentum.
“AT ‘EM BOYS!” Whitt bellowed, just outside the marching rows of soldiers coming up behind the engaged first line. Sula five meters behind, next to a nervous Decanus adding more men and shields to push the backs of those in front of them through the Issirs.
“THEY’RE PULLING THE MACHINES BACK!” Optio Valens yelled from the half-collapsed walls. He meant the Scorpios the Issirs had started pushing forward to bring inside the city, when Sula’s counterattack from three sides had caught them flatfooted.
“PUSH!” Whitt barked hoarsely, shields banging, men screaming, blades smashing on helms and chests. Thuds and clanks. The sound of cloth and flesh tearing. The enemy hidden in the heavy mist and the mud that greeted them when they stepped outside the walls, soft and well-trotted already turning to a soggy as much as sticky mire that sucked your foot in.
And wouldn’t let go.
Sula turned feeling a hand on his arm and saw Dumont’s helmed head.
“Get that sword out Pete!” Sula urged him with a fierce smile. The Legatus much preferred this brutal, but straightforward solution to their problem, with friends and brothers in arms at the near than dying of worry staying idle behind the walls of the gloomy city.
He hated Pascor with a fierce passion by now.
“Decanus Baro stayed at the Citadel,” Dumont yelled in front of his helmed face.
“Papus?” Sula asked with a frown and glanced at the wall of legionnaires pushing through the soldiers of the First Foot that had tried to enter the city through the ruins of the main gates.
“He has engaged the south flank, but can’t move forward with the men he has!”
“What in Tyeus’ spear is wrong with Baro?” Sula growled and turned to tap the shoulder of Centurion Jim Chad of the Third’s 2nd Century. The sturdy Northman from Halfostad stopped with a frown until he recognized the stocky figure of Sula. “Pete for fuck’s sake!” Sula blasted his longtime friend, who seemed to have trouble getting it out.
“There is fighting… inside the city,” Dumont reported and Sula’s mouth went dry. “Baro is trying to keep them out of the Citadel.”
“CENTURION!” Sula barked irate.
“Sir?” Chad asked standing not a meter from him, despite the ruckus of heavy fighting he could hear Sula plenty well.
“Tell Whitt to break through to that machine, chop it to pieces, kick, or eat it, but not allow it to fire again, or get pulled to safety!” Sula ordered the nodding Centurion and then turned to the expecting Dumont.
“I have horses behind the gates and notified Marlene,” Dumont assured him. “We just have to march all the way back inside Nonus.”
Sula opted to sprint the distance in full gear instead. Martha and the boys were inside the Citadel, along Lord Ton’s young wife, but Sula didn’t give a damn about the girl that had started Maiden’s War.
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Grime Citadel was lit up and glowed ominously in the thinner mist coming from the Fenlands. Strangely the visibility was better nearer the bogs that started not a kilometer from the ruined part of the wall and the gates. Sula rode to the scene and almost got killed immediately falling on a group of heavily armoured infantry, the boiled leather cuirasses covered with chainmail shirts, the rings painted with grotesque, single pincers creatures and many ceratinous legs.
There’s your Tollor lads.
Damnit, Sula cursed catching the shaft of a harpoon afore it gutted him with his left hand. The Tollor marine yanked it out of his grip, tearing at his gloved palm and Sula twisted on the saddle bringing his horse between them. The Crab soldier stabbed the animal’s chest and the horse reared in pain almost throwing him off the saddle. Sula grunted, kicked a leg out as he turned and caught the enemy marine on the shoulder shoving him back. He jumped from the saddle, landing heavy on the fine gravel Lord Ton had used for the wedding and almost got skewered again by another Tollor soldier that charged at him from the sides.
Sula slapped the nasty harpoon away with his hurt hand and dragged his own blade on the man’s face cleaving flesh away from skull. The mutilated soldier gurgled spraying blood from everywhere and dropped to his knees. Sula put a hobnailed boot through his weakened cranium with another forward kick, killing him on the spot and hacked the kneecap out of his returning first opponent. The Crab went down as well his knee giving out and Sula finished him with a blade through the gullet.
“Limp-dicked cowards are retreating!” Marlene yelled colorfully, a fierce manic grimace on her flushed rather ugly face, the large Northern female hurling her battleaxe in a two hand throw and stopping one of the running away enemy soldiers. She caught him between the shoulder blades and the man gasped in shock, afore stumbling forward and crashing on his head.
“Legatus, allgods damnit Nonus!” Dumont cursed reaching him, the man still on his own horse. He sighed seeing Sula was unharmed despite his horse bleeding out a couple of meters away and added. “They didn’t penetrate too deep.”
“Hmm.”
“You’re bleeding. Better check that out.”
Eh, a heavy breathing Sula thought wiping the gore off his blade, not of the same opinion.
“Where’s Lord Ton’s men?” He asked eyeing the lone figures of Tollor’s raiding party disappear into the mist of the Fenlands. “Find me Sir Blenk, or the Mayor!” he ordered and started towards the Citadel and Baro’s 2nd Maniple of the First Century that had blocked the access to the interior of the estate just behind the gates. “Anyone went through?” Sula asked the sweaty Decanus.
“They were heading for the city sir,” Baro replied. “But we managed to intercept them.”
“Everyone just up and left?”
“Difficult to know, I don’t think so.”
“Damn it,” Sula cursed and spat down, getting little out of his dried up mouth. “How did they do that Decanus?”
“I’ve no idea sir,” Baro replied. “Should we go after them?”
Sula stared at the expanding bogs starting just where the south walls of the mire-infested city ended. That’s a very big chunk of land and we’ve no idea how many are in there, he thought. Shitty, bug-infested land, but big as a motherfucker.
“Dumont find out what is going on with our center. That’s a whole lotta booms I’m hearing and they aren’t coming from the sky,” he ordered his aide with a deep sigh and grimaced seeing the hefty Marlene approaching with an armful of ring-adorned ears she expertly tied in a necklace with a string and a bloody needle. Fuck’s sake. Take the jewelry, leave the god-darn ear behind woman! “Anyone alive?” Sula croaked more than a little disturbed at the ghastly sight, but too drained to argue with the warband’s leader.
“Nah,” Marlene replied and used her teeth to tie the knot and finish her ‘necklace’. “They died pretty fast milord.”
> Duke Hoff’s risky feint was a partial success. It would have been a complete knockout punch given the timing, but several unnatural occurrences interfered inconveniencing the Lord of Tollor to put it mildly. His fleet reached the Isles undetected, but then got plagued by a mist so thick it was impossible to navigate through and it turned the flotilla immobile soon after. They spent the night tightly bunched up together just outside the small port of Wolffish isle, the biggest island in the small chain surrounding the Fenlands.
>
> In the early morning they sent a couple of ships to search the nearby waters and just as they approached the shores, Sir Dolf’s patrolling Pascor fleet caught them when the mist dissolved without warning. The two fleets had almost run into each other and after a brief shock to tell friend from foe a vicious naval engagement begun not ten miles from the port.
>
> While this was happening Tollor’s marines landed on one of the smaller islands near the usually sunk at this time of year path leading to Pascor’s soft underbelly, probably with the help of bribed locals, marched through the terrible terrain sticking to the old road for hours and reached the elevated central portion of the Fenlands. They set up a camp there, about three hours from the shores and their boats. These inner isles, were a wilderness basically, but the locals living on the outer Isles, the ‘Fish Folk’, knew how to find the way out of them and Lord Ton had made considerable efforts to create a workable road initially, before giving up. He realized that whatever progress he made during the lake’s summer, the bogs would undone in the winter.
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> A large raiding party scouting ahead, found the road to Pascor and they decided to test its defenses early the next day. The rest of Tollor’s considerable landing force cleared the path towards their camp working fast and sent word to Duke Hoff that they could launch a substantial coordinated attack within forty eight hours, if the signal was given. The scouts sent to infiltrate Pascor got overzealous in their butchering and plundering ways alerting in turn the heavily engaged Sula of the danger to his flank. Sula pivoted part of his force to plug the hole and managed it, but a lot of raiders had entered the city in the chaos.
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> In the center Sula had surprised the advancing First Foot and pushed them back in disarray, some centuries reaching Duke Henk’s rampart and attacking its machines. A bloody scrap was fought near the steel, giant ballista-like Deliverer, with legionnaires trying desperately to break the sturdy machine, losing valuable time and stalling their assault on Henk’s hard-pressed force.
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> The Duke that had just defended a heavy cavalry charge by Sir Gatrell on the north side of the battlefield, rode back hard and ordered his reserves forward. Sula’s forces that had pushed and split the First Foot away from the walls and towards the river, got pushed back in turn and with the south flank crumbling as the Pascor officers had overreacted to the raiding party leaving a single maniple holding the line, Prefect Jacobred ordered the Legion back.
>
> A relieved Henk didn’t order a pursuit towards the walls of the city, as his force had gotten mauled hard in the mist that had covered the center of the battlefield specifically, but opted to regroup near the bridge trying to salvage as much of his war machines as he could. The Deliverer was spared, much to Sula’s dismay, when he was informed of the last part of the day’s activities, despite considerable losses in men from both sides.
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> Ironically while the heroic attackers and defenders near the calamitous machine had suffered equally –with more legionnaires killed near it than anywhere else in the field especially in the four explosions that decimated half a maniple- the desperation of the defenders that hurled the weapon’s ammunition to stop the Legionnaires stubborn advance had dire consequences for them as well.
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> An unnamed legionnaire hurled a javelin that killed one of the weapon’s operators just as he was about to use whatever it was they were using in the device on them. The operator, one of Wim Luiken’s most promising students, was shoved backwards losing control and the subsequent massive chain of explosions killed nine out of ten engineers standing behind him ready to throw their load as well and thirty bystanders. It teared them apart in so many pieces it was difficult to tell one from the other. The tenth member of their team just dissolved, leaving not even a hair behind.
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> Try hard as he did, Duke Henk got no one competent willing to risk his life on the machine again and decided to proceed with Lord Hoff’s plan that was a combined assault on Pascor from two sides, provided the bulk of the landed in the Fenlands large marine force moved en masse this time and in the hopes that the fleet would manage to open another front at the rear pushing Pascor’s defending fleet aside.
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> As much as these things habitually go, these were a lot of hypotheticals Duke Henk was counting on breaking his way and the stubborn Sula had showed him already that the IV Legio was a very difficult nut to crack. Also as difficult Pascor was to defend, given its modest fortifications in contrast to most other Issir, or Lorian cities, it was much more difficult to attack or control.
>
> Without permission…
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read it at Royalroad : https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/46739/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms
& https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/47919/lure-o-war-the-old-realms
Scribblehub https://www.scribblehub.com/series/542002/touch-o-luck-the-old-realms/
& https://www.scribblehub.com/series/547709/the-old-realms/