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> In the last month of summer, the year of the New Calendar 193, the stalemate at Oldfort was finally broken. Three months into the siege III Legio’s artillery turned early that morning and fired two volleys of flaming pots and bundles of clothed hay into Richforest. The surprise ‘assault’ wasn’t a mistake and it started a wildfire that spread incredibly fast shocking both camps.
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> The reason for the uncontrollable inferno was that the previous night the trees had been doused with thick ‘black oil’, or some form of naphtha to a great extent. The strange mixture and its ingredients kept with the supply train in three special heavily guarded wagons that had arrived straight from Anorum and had been worked on for several months from engineers answering to Centurion Ramirus.
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> While the exact make of the substance used remained a secret few had access to, its effects were spectacular. The subsequent intense fire caused the exceptionally dry barks of the local trees to ignite immediately and it burned through them for kilometers until it reached close to Mabindon’s Falls and the banks of the river itself. There the forest was more difficult to burn due to the heavy humidity. It didn’t stop the fire outright, but it slowed it down until it went out by itself hours later. To the south where it had found more fuel it caused complete devastation.
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> In less than two days over half of Richforest had been burned or damaged. The firestorm forced the Lesia soldiers out of the woods and towards their central lines around the palisade. It also made it impossible to see most of the battlefield as the winds that were pushing the fire west for much of the morning turned around and drowned the valley in thick smoke for the rest of the day.
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> With visibility low, breathing made difficult and the men suffering in both camps, hostilities stopped for much of that day as everyone stood witness to the destruction. The Burning of Richforest as it came to be known caused a number of reactions that influenced the siege of course, but also the fighting further away.
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> The nearest of these battles was happening kilometers away around Wine Bridge.
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> There Lord Valens’ forces seeing the fires burning at the distance like a strange midnight sunrise and learning of Lucius forces being so near them were roused to a frenzy. Small groups started assaulting the lethargic Lesia forces across the river, the battle had turned into another stalemate here as well, urging their officers to order a general attack to break the siege.
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> Lord Grand (High) Baron Montague Valens who was having his hands full with the gradually advancing II Legio inside Cartaport, ordered his son Sir Antony who was defending that sector of the city to stop these activities from spreading. But word of Lucius arrival had ignited a sense of patriotism in the hearts of Cartagen’s citizens and its guards, which the rather conceited locals weren’t really famous for and Sir Antony was met with resistance. While no official order was given that exists in the record, the Cartagen guards attacked beyond the river, surprised the crews operating the Lesia machines –Lord Caxaton had brought a good number of them forward- and reached as far as North Division’s camp some kilometers away.
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> It was a stunning success that quickly turned into a nightmare. Part of a detachment from Armium sent to reinforce Sir Napoli and Crane came out of Richforest to their rear. It effectively cut them off the bridge trapping almost six hundred men in no man’s land. The Armium regulars had retreated from the burning forest and kept following the paths cut through it from Lesia engineers all the way to Lord Caxaton’s lines. It was a mistake as they were supposed to head east towards Oldfort but they got lost. Two thirds of the force went the wrong way amidst the chaos of the retreat.
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> Whatever the case may be they overwhelmed the men the Cartagen defenders had left to their rear and Lord Caxaton who had woken up that day being under siege himself suddenly had control of the bridge unbeknownst to him. In the confusion that happened due to younger Valens’ attack, Lord Caxaton’s force almost scattered. The supply train started moving back towards Sava and Flauegran which threatened to block the road as supplies were still coming the other way.
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> The force from Armium –already across the Wine Bridge- defended a desperate counter attack from Sir Antony. The latter realizing what had happened, immediately informed his father asking for reinforcements to free his men, but he was ordered to get everyone away from the Vine Garden –as the narrow land between the two bridges was called in the flat gorge left between East and West Tricorn Heights- and defend the Flower Bridge which was their fallback position.
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> While this was happening, Lord Caxaton was informed in turn that he had forces controlling the bridge behind the men besieging his camp. He roused his men, sent messengers to the supply train to stop it from retreating further and ordered a counter attack by all the scattered Lesia forces on the cutoff Cartagen guards. His orders were haphazardly sent out of the camp and by the time his men started reacting to them, the Cartagen guards realized they had been cut off and started retreating themselves.
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> They reached the Wine Bridge and a ferocious battle started there just before nightfall and well into the night. Lord Caxaton’s arrival the next morning would win Lesia an unlikely triumph. Not by getting control of the bridge itself, though it did bring them much closer to Cartagen- but with the destruction of a very big number of Valens’ north defending force. To plug the gap and defend the vital second bridge Lord Valens had to draw troops from the city itself and that left Cartaport increasingly isolated.
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> Lord Caxaton marched across the Wine Bridge and immediately attacked the Flower Bridge half a day later making the same mistake he had done months back at the start of the campaign. His eagerness to get more glory for his cadet house was uncharacteristic for a Lesia Lord, but then again he hailed from beyond Andalus River so his ilk was different.
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> Sir Antony redeemed himself heroically defending the second bridge, getting seriously injured in the process and forced Lord Caxaton to order a halt until his machines and main units arrived.
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> While the front was moving back and forth near Cartagen almost two days after the fire had started burning, in Richforest and the besieged Oldfort another battle was about to be decided.
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> A hardened force of Northmen fighters –part of the Legion Scouts, but separate from Kaeso’s Rangers- led by Logan ‘Gray’ Barret had penetrated the still smoking woods trying to flank Crane’s defenses. Oldfort’s commander had asked for the men to remain in the woods during the night, but most opted to stay at a safe distance. It wasn’t cowardice. They just couldn’t breathe and the firestorm could cut them off in minutes destroying them.
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> The Lesia patrols that finally returned when the fire passed by their positions found themselves assaulted by the ferocious and even outright murderous Nords. Built around Lady Faye’s warband Logan’s force was extremely capable in close combat fighting. They also worked and attacked independently following their leaders which caused numerous gaps to open in Lesia’s west flank.
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> Commander Crafterson who had arrived from Armium and then redirected to Oldfort to assist Crane gathered his force at the edge of the burned, still smoking and unsuitable for battle gutted forest. He was missing a big chunk of them, lost during the previous day, but still managed to create a capable blocking force. Sir Napoli who was at the center of Oldfort’s defenses was informed of the happenings and ordered his own force –guarding the palisade- to turn towards the forest. Sir Riveras was caught by surprise as he was with his knights’ hours away not expecting a development and dismissing the reports of a ‘deliberate wildfire’ as outright ludicrous.
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> While Logan’s men were wreaking havoc on the burned ground inside the woods, Kaeso’s rangers on the opposite side of the battlefield were attempting something even more difficult, high up on Oldfort’s rocky slopes.
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Dosser
Roadblock
Part III
-Bloody Rocks-
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Third Month of Summer 193 NC
Near narrow path
Oldfort
Kingdom of Regia
Third month in the siege
The Ranger popped his head from behind the sharp-faced boulder’s edge and glanced at the dark parapets. The open stone-riddled terrain created a natural lip from the base of the walls to the start of the vertical drop of the northern slopes that offered little cover. They needed to cross that part and reach the far corner of the walls where the east mountain came within seven meters from them.
A made out of stone stability curtain had been built there, six meters in height and reinforced with chains, to keep the vertical mountain wall from coming down on the castle. Beyond that where the plateau flattened out creating a mouth in the castle’s east side no such precautions had been taken. The mountain sides had cracked creating a massive rockslide at some point –the date had been mentioned in the pre-mission briefing, but Dosser had dosed off during that part- that had stricken the walls there causing massive damage.
While the opening had been cleared in the years that followed and was used as warehouse and rear area, the walls had been only partially rebuilt. The west gates protected the castle’s opposite approach as one had to scale even more difficult terrain to reach it from the rear and the south. Lesia had taken the gates that way in a surprise attack, but with Cranes improvements and Lucius' angle of attack this wasn’t feasible this time.
So Kaeso’s men had climbed the mountain path the local goats used to do it another way.
“Don’t see them,” Goff whispered in Kiri Dosser’s ear. He was supposed to keep his bow on the parapets to hopefully take a keen-eyed sentry out. With the fire raging to their west and everyone’s eyes there perhaps no one was looking their way.
Still it is a very risky bet to take this, Dosser thought and wet his lips with his rough tongue.
“Fucking blind moth’rfuker,” Placus grunted from somewhere near. He hadn’t forgiven Goff still for fatally injuring Lund back at the Groin.
“Shut yer mouths!” Kaeso hissed stooped twenty meters away looking back at them. “I want a runner to reach the corner and aim a bow on that corridor.”
“Where’s the rookie?” Placus said. “You. Arius.”
“Fuck off Placus,” Arius snapped. “I trained as a legionnaire ye ignoramus cuck!”
“Can you use a bow?”
“What’s that got… can you?”
“Now, ye don’t turn the query on me—”
“What did I just say? Why are ye cunts still talking?” Kaeso grunted irate and pointed a finger at Arius. “Get under that corner!”
“Piece of cack. Ruffian,” Arius murmured under his breath, the curse directed at a smirking Placus and then started sneaking towards the ramparts. The few lights on them spread about, the shade of the mountain walls thick and the most illumination coming from the firestorm raging some kilometers below their feet and to the west.
“Dosser,” Kaeso hissed and slapped the backs of two of the rangers in his own group to follow after Arius. “The moment he touches that wall, you get ‘em all across the opening on the double. Unless they start firing at him, then we’ll reconsider.”
“Ha-hah,” Placus guffawed nervously.
Dosser grimaced and checked his gear. They all had darkened hemp robes over their armour and had wrapped their weapons not to gleam in the night, but now every man was getting them out. He repositioned the bow on his back, the scar on his cheek itching. He ignored it, tied the cords tighter on his covered with a dirty cloth helm and took a deep breath, his eyes on the running stooped Arius and the other two.
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“Don’t see any movement,” Goff informed them speaking subdued as the sound carried on the vertical slopes. There was noise coming from the castle itself and lights on the walls facing the fields and lower where the palisade’s tower was. No commotion on their side of the battlefield and the thick smoke was slowly obscuring everything coming their way.
“He’s at the wall,” Placus reported.
The words repeating around by the rangers hidden in the dark.
Kaeso raised his left arm and gestured for him to move.
Here goes, Dosser thought half-standing with a soft groan. Our turn to be served.
“What ye think is for dinner?” Placus asked who had the same gloomy thoughts as him probably.
“Plenty of yellow turds pretending to be potatoes,” Dosser hissed, gave the signal and started running towards the stone walls of Oldfort.
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Dosser run with his mouth clenched in a permanent snarl, avoiding to breathe, heart beating in his chest and his feet navigating the treacherous terrain on instinct. The fucking walls further away than what they appeared from his safe spot. The parapets old and mouldy, the stones sporting dark cracks on them where the light touched them. Not a lot of touching was done, the lights few and between, the parapets empty of sentries seemingly.
Arius looking energetically first above him, the ranger had put his back on the base of the wall and then south behind that corner to the narrow corridor under the stone blanket/curtain the engineers had used to keep the mountain back.
“Ugh!” Placus grunted behind him, probably turning an ankle and Dosser glanced nervously at the parapets again, almost turning his. He stumbled forward, arms flailing wild and quiver rattling on his back like a dancer’s sistrum without the juicy parts.
“What is Dosser be doin’?” Goff asked seeing him dancing spastically in front him.
“About to crack his head on them boulders,” Placus informed him.
Dosser didn’t, managing to find his balance, scrapping a hand on the sharp rocks and stopped four meters from Arius to take a rugged breath in. He kept his eyes on the top of the wall, the pause momentary to get his bearings, listening to the sound of footsteps approaching from behind him.
Arius gestured for him to move again and Dosser nodded, made a step forward, saw the light blasting out of the dark passage growing and stopped again. He opened his mouth to warn Arius, but paused as he was still standing in the open and reached for his bow.
“Shit,” Placus said behind him.
The light came at them, creating shadows on the stone vertical slant and the walls. Dosser fumbled with his bow, got it over his head almost taking his helm out and reached for an arrow. Arius saw him stalling still exposed, made to repeat his warning, but then probably noticed thirty rangers standing frozen behind Dosser and whipped his head around to glance behind the illuminated corner.
A Lesia guard gasped in shock seeing his head peeking out of nowhere, a hand on his chest where his heart was. The guard survived the heart attack and glared at the now empty corner.
“Who goes there?” He asked angry, the men of his patrol stopping behind him alarmed. “I’ve seen yer stupid head! Don’t try to hide now!” the guard growled angry at the sudden scare.
Arius remained silent, slowly drawing his shortsword out of its sheath, his friends doing the same. Dosser still frozen in the open, but standing in the relative dark, nocked his arrow numbly, sweat rivulets running down his face and raised it slowly at the exposed and well-illuminated guard.
“Get out from behind that corner soldier!” the guard barked loudly and then his eyes looked in front of him –the distance about seven meters- and saw a grimacing Dosser aiming his bow at him. “Allhells…” he cried out doubly scared, just as a nervous Dosser loosed the arrow.
Dosser missed everything, his arrow hitting the rocks and breaking apart, but the guard turned into a porcupine as most of the rangers behind Dosser had the same idea as him and better aim.
Eh, most of them. An arrow did glance off his helm rattling his brains. A centimeter lower and Dosser would have been a goner.
The guard went down without another word, but the rest of his patrol that were standing behind him raised quite the ruckus.
“ALARM!”
“TO ARMS!”
“INTRUDERS!”
Were the most commonly used words.
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“UGH!” Arius groaned losing a finger to a slash, his shortsword plunging between the soldier’s clenched teeth and breaking through creating a mess of a wound. Dosser reached for another arrow as the rest had charged towards the patrol, but by the time he got one nocked the soldiers had been cut down.
“WHAT’S GOING ON THERE?” someone asked with an authoritative voice from above.
“Everything is fine!” Placus yelled back at him, bloody sword in hand and face covered in gore.
“Who are you?” the man from the parapets asked not convinced and a light shown down on them.
“YER SISTER!”
Dosser turned the bow on him and fired an arrow. He missed again, suddenly his aim gone to shite, but the arrow hit the merlon, found the crenel and smacked the sergeant on the helm above the ear.
Someone fired back at him, the arrow flying wide and voices were heard calling men to arms.
“RUN!” Kaeso yelled sprinting towards them with the others. “ALLGODS DARNIT! MOVE YE FAT CUNTS!”
Shite, Dosser cursed and run to the now dark passage after the others. The place narrow, his boot first slipping on gore, then stepping on a broken lantern and flames dousing his pants. They run out of the corridor parallel to the east walls and found an open area with some buildings at the back, more walls to the west and an open door.
Not that high an obstacle this, but still, a wall is a plaguing wall, he thought and slotted the bow over his head as he obviously didn’t have the eyes for it that night. He reached for the sword he’d taken from that mercenary back at the Groin and it felt good in his hands.
What didn’t feel good was the soldiers coming out of that door, some still looking to put their helms on or fix their harnesses, with one even coming out without any pants on.
“AT THEM!” Kaeso barked and shoved him forward, a bolt whistling over his head and taking a ranger standing behind him in the face. Went clean through.
“FUCK!” Placus bellowed. “They got that shit,” he explained ducking under a slash, afore punching his shortsword in a soldier’s gut to the hilt.
A rotating ballista was his meaning. A smaller weapon, just a bigger crossbow really, you didn’t have to carry, not that you could. Still plenty nasty to defend against.
“CHARGE!” Kaeso bellowed seeing the writing on the wall.
Dosser run into the thick of it aiming for the guy without the pants. He had a pair of boots on, skinny hairy legs a pale color. He slashed at him, but the soldier dived out of the way. A friend of his took offense and charged at him with a bloody spear. Dosser jerked right, the point nailing his mail and spinning him around. He twirled on his feet, a darn fine pirouette and hacked at a gawping at his acrobatics Lesia soldier. Black blood leapt into the air, turned red when it splashed his armour and robes. Men yelling, groaning and jolting right and left.
The spear wielding thug came again and he turned to slash at him, felt the blade bite. A curse rang, then a grunt, something slapped him in the face and he ducked after it did. Blood in his eyes and the ground slippery. Head full of wails and cries of misery. Dosser slid on a bloody hand, a ring still adorning the middle finger, ducked under that son of a goat with the spear again and swung around trying to find his footing.
He almost swallowed his tongue in the attempt to shove some air into his lungs.
The soldier followed him determined to poke him with the spear, as he’d picked out Dosser from a score of men at the near to skewer.
“Eat cack!” Dosser spat and slashed wildly to keep him away, but the man had the reach and gave him a stab bellow the left chest. The mail splitting and the leather yielding, the tip of the spear hitting a rib. “Mother…” he growled through his teeth and jerked away, the walls and the old citadel at the distance looming over him. The gates and the lights mixing with the dark and the men dancing all about him.
Slash, snarl and blood spattering the rocks.
Dosser reached for a dagger he kept in a sheath on his belt, blood and sweat in his eyes. The helm turned slantways restricting his vision even more.
Blasted cheap gear!
“EAHRG!” The soldier bellowed lips split in a manic snarl and charged him leading with that spear. Fucking blooming turd, Dosser cursed anxiously retreating, giving up on unsheathing the dagger. The Lesia soldier took two large strides halving the distance and then an arrow sprouted out of his right eye, another struck him over the nose and popped out the back of his helm.
The second arrow turned him around it did and the man managed a couple of more strides afore he went down fully dead.
Good fucking riddance!
“Hah! We both got him!” Goff guffawed five meters behind him. “Friendly fire!” he explained. Dosser shook his head, then slapped his own helm once to set it straight and run towards the contested gates to help the others.
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A bull of a man bodied him with a shield, the rim splitting his upper lip and cracking a tooth. Dosser hacked at the shield, the blade banging on it and almost slipping from his numb fingers. The Lesia burly defender pushed a sword out aimed for his stomach, but he put a hand on the base of the blade before the hilt, the edge cutting through his glove. The man pushed again, Dosser kept the blade from plunging in his guts with a gnarly snarl, but the fucking sword moved forward slippery as it was with his blood.
His opponent turned the shield to smack him in the face again and Dosser hooked his blade over it and started moving it about in the blind. He got his helm with a clang, then slashed at the tip of his nose, the burly man’s sword ever pressing forward and the mail Dosser had on yielding inwards. Dosser kicked a boot-wearing leg out, found a knee and felt it crack under the iron hobnails. The man groaned, blood covering his face, the slashed nose spraying gore on them both and tried to retreat.
Dosser didn’t want to let him go, but the sword slipped through his bleeding hand. He cried out, the pain blinding and went after the hobbled soldier. He hacked, but found that shield again and turned aside to round him up. A fancy dressed officer almost taking his head off, the blade whistling in front of his eyes. Dosser cursed ineligibly, reached for the dagger whilst jumping away, but realized he was missing a finger in his bleeding hand. The pinky, but still it was a shock.
He got over it in the quick, the dressed in fine robes officer slashing at him again. Dosser blocked with his blade, made to turn it aside, but the officer was a better swordsman than him and slashed the ranger across the chest.
Dosser stumbled back, his armour in ruins, the leather underneath it split and a cut stinging just under that. He roared, more scared than angry, but it worked. The officer paused his attack, probably realizing he was too exposed in his night clothes and Dosser hacked at him. His opponent turned it aside, but Dosser’s blade found his chest on the return and split it open.
The fancy robes ruined.
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“Get in the yard!” Kaeso yelled from the door, the bells ringing in the castle and the light of dawn hidden behind the mountain. But there were more soldiers coming out of the barracks and forming up to come to the gates.
“Better to hold them at the gates!” Dosser barked, blood in his mouth and tying a piece of bloody robe over his severed finger. “Fuck’s sake! You’ll have us all killed!”
Kaeso grimaced and eyed the Oldfort’s soldiers preparing to push them back.
“Three hours,” he told him through his teeth. “At least.”
We need to hold until Lepidus is here he meant. His heavy legionnaires following after them up the slopes, but having more trouble moving as fast.
“Eh,” Placus grunted, surprisingly unharmed for the amount of gore he had on. “Goff!” He barked up the wall they had managed to take over. “It’s not a woman’s tit! Hells are ye fondling it for?”
“I’m reloading ye blasted idiot!” Goff yelled back at him busy working on the ballista.
“Just aim it at the enemy and fire! Look to hit something this time!” Placus growled, as the rest of the rangers looked for shields and spears to defend against the coming heavier infantry. “NOW YE BLIND FUCK AFORE THEY ARE ON US!”
“This turned out pretty gnarly, eh Decanus?” Arius asked with a grimace coming to stand next to him in the second line, himself missing a finger as well, but still breathing.
“The Ice Lake was gnarly,” Dosser mumbled, his lip flapping and the pain blurring his vision. “This is pretty standard stuff.”
> In a daring surprise assault that was his bread and butter, ‘Frostworm’ Kaeso took control of the backyard gates at Oldfort and part of the rebuilt east wall. He kept it doggedly for four hours, until the first reinforcements arrived under Lepidus. The little known outside III Legio’s circles battle of Oldfort’s backyard, or ‘Bloody Rocks’ as it came to be known was a legendary feat of will for his unit who lost fifty six killed and thirty injured before it was over, effectively almost getting wiped out. Kaeso would lose his left arm in the fight for the east gates, but despite the stories you might hear from veterans of the eighteen months campaign, the Centurion’s assault was just a distraction in the Praetor’s plan.
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> The more important Logan’s wild charge into the Lesia regulars west flank at about the same time, had managed to break through down in the valley and forced an anxious Sir Napoli to commit his reserve troops there to keep the bloodlust Northmen from taking the palisade.
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> It gave the fast marching Gato and the First Cohort the chance to cross the Dead Zone, under the cover of smoke and with the help of Durio’s engineers that repaired the terrain before them. The First Cohort and Second Cohort to its left side, marched on the palisade taking advantage of the flanking actions of that morning and the firestorm.
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> This was the most important action of the day.
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> The packed lines of legionnaires were met by a bombardment from the machines Crane had installed on the walls both from Oldfort and the wooden wall, but kept on under a hail of arrows, rocks, iron bolts and exploding pots through the smokes. ‘For twenty hellish minutes,’ Trupo commented a month later, ‘the killing was one sided.’
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> Then, it evened out.
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