A district that had once sat dreary and lifeless, its feckless inhabitants content to waste away to nothing in the absence of work or sustenance, was now roused to frenetic action in the wake of the city’s preparations for war. Where once stood ramshackle shelters of soft, rotting timbers and roofs of molding thatch, arranged in choking thickness strangling the routes used by passersby, now were wide open spaces strewn with active construction projects. As the city turned its remaining industry towards war, the populace that still possessed strength enough to wield spear or bow was hastily banded together. With the open coffers of the imperial treasury and mountains of work to be done, the able bodied inhabitants of the outer city were revitalized, finding a place in the Home Guard which sought to employ them as both laborer and soldier.

The infirm inhabitants of the outer city, those lacking the strength or will to serve in the Home Guard, were expelled, supplied with stores enough scrounged from hastily cultivated fields to ensure their survival, but sent far to the east where they might find themselves of greater use than in the soon to be besieged capital. The legions deployed to the borders, and more vitally the second and third legions that were already actively marching westward towards the capital region, had been given orders to begin building up their forces en masse. Their status as large, established military organizations teeming with disciplined men, would allow the legions to train new inductees with efficiency and swiftness far surpassing that of the hastily assembled Home Guard left in the capital. They would put those displaced from the capital city to far more effective use than the Home Guard, with its impending deadline of the city’s invasion, could manage.

Now bereft of their former inhabitants, the abandoned shelters of the outer city were largely demolished, clearing the way for new constructions. Parade grounds were erected across the district to provide spaces for the newly inducted members of the Home Guard to train, the shouting of drillmasters and training soldiers travelling far in the now clear and open spaces. Barracks and Armories were built surrounding each parade ground, far sturdier than the dilapidated homes of the now displaced, they served the now greatly expanded requirements of the city’s defenders with space for quartering tens of thousands of men and storing their equipment.

Each of the ten companies of the Home Guard were housed within their own suite of parade ground, barracks, armories, each attended as well by scores of storerooms, cooking halls, and all assortment of supporting buildings necessary to ensure their operation. Each of these military bases was scattered throughout the city to ensure a relatively even degree of support to the entirety of the outer city. While sturdy, they were built of hastily assembled stones and timbers, considered not as any manner of permanent construct but with the intent to abandon them as swiftly as the fight for the outer city was lost, so as to prevent their stores from being captured by the enemy. Ample stores of dried thatch and barrels of oil would ensure their rapid engulfment from thrown torches and lanterns during the planned retreat.

The emplacement of the quarters for the men of the first company of artillery, serving under captain Brookens, was a notable exception to this arrangement. Rather than being organized in a singular base located in the outer city, the company was housed in small encampments spread around the inside of the city’s curtain wall. Each encampment consisted of several tents for the housing of men, a large pavilion for officers and the conduct of the company’s affairs, large wooden storehouses for supplies of shot and gunpowder, and several wooden fascimilies of the cannons emplaced upon the curtain wall. These wooden constructs served well to train newly inducted members of the company in the operation and maintenance of the city’s armament of cannon.

The cannons themselves were emplaced atop the wall, partially shielded from view by stone crenellations specifically designed for the protection of their crew while allowing considerable angles of fire. Alongside the emplaced cannon were staches of gunpowder and shot, enough for several volleys, deposited in wooden sheds built atop the walls, conveniently shielded from the rain. Occasionally, the boom of cannon fire echoed across the city as the masters of ordnance conducted ranging fire in preparation of the battles to come. Runners from the company actively scurried about as they ferried shot and powder from the encampments to the guns themselves to replenish their local supply.

Dozens of other impermanent encampments had likewise been assembled, their positions organized in a haphazard fashion across the entirety of the outer city. They consisted of vast arrangements of small sleeping tents and grand, gaudily dyed pavilions, all dug into whatever cleared land had been found by their occupants. These were the locations the local nobility had arranged for their armies of peasant levy and professional retinue to quarter, each encampment possessing a capacity measured in the thousands of men. While brought together, these men may significantly outnumber the Home Guard, by clever planning of the layout of each company’s parade grounds and barracks alongside the positioning of newly erected fortifications, these encampments had been carefully isolated from each other to mitigate their potential for collective mutiny.

On the outskirts of the outer city, many of the abandoned homes were, instead of demolishment, reinforced, with newly constructed facsimiles of homes being added to conceal the preparations of the city. These constructions were arrayed in a twisting and winding maze, even more bewildering than that of the natural urban sprawl of the city, accumulated over centuries of haphazard expansion, had accomplished before. The mazes were refined further with road blocks of rubble and fallen timbers, in some cases blocking access to a road entirely while in others merely narrowing it enough to impede the progress of the invaders and to form a natural chokepoint. Hidden routes were arranged within the maze, linking to shaded shelters in which men of the Home Guard could lie in wait, biding their time until the right moment to strike unseen against a foe hopelessly lost within the maze.

Nathaniel strode the now broad avenues of the outer city, travelling in the direction of the parade grounds of the first company of foot. Ethan Garrow, its captain, was a level headed man, bright and surprisingly unambitious, and would be able to afford an honest assessment of the Home Guard’s capabilities where the more impassioned of its captains could not. As he walked, he passed by dozens of men seemingly engaged in endless amounts of activity, whether they be part of the work gangs sawing wood or placing stones, patrolmen casting suspicious gazes about and enforcing order in the outer city, or drunk peasants, members of the nobility’s levy, wandering about confusedly with naught work to accomplish. Their gazes were mean in many cases, unhappy at their circumstances, and with many dreading the inevitable invasion, but overall, they worked with rigor and purpose, a feeling alien to that blighted district even a month prior.

Having been born in the countryside himself, Nathaniel had never before seen the outer city so full of life. By the time he had seen its walls for the first time during the civil war, it had already been the site of several skirmishes, exuding an aura of hopelessness even more oppressive than the slowly withering atmosphere of the outer city during the reign of the Empress. To see it so full of life was a joyful occasion, even under such dire circumstances, as it had likely been during the founding years of the Empire before the corruption of the aristocracy had set in. As he drew near the parade grounds of the first company of foot, the sounds of hammering and shouting orders of workmen were drowned out by the cries of men and the clashing of steel.

The parade grounds occupied a wide open area, with space enough for the thousands of men of the first company of foot to train. Currently there were only a few hundred, the rest presumably having completed their formation training and either been rotated into the labor gangs for the preparation of the city’s ad hoc fortifications, or out practicing maneuvers beyond the city’s defenses. The men present were broken up into groups of around two hundred apiece, organized in long and thin ranks about the width of the city’s outer wall. The men were practicing the thrusting of their spears, targeting straw dummies arranged before each one. Several sergeants walked amongst the ranks, bearing halberds they dressed the ranks, batting and cajoling the men into proper formation whilst simultaneously demonstrating the correct thrusting form.

While their discipline still seemed lacking with both ranks and technique less than perfect even after several weeks of training, the men of the Home Guard largely looked fit to, at the very least, man the walls in times of siege. While the relative diminutive length of their spears would put them at a severe disadvantage in the field against their foes, whose much longer pikes could assail their formations at no peril, for the purposes of the city’s defense they were far more ideal. Short in length, they could be easily hidden inside the homes constituting the maze like defenses of the outer city. They were far more maneuverable than cumbersome pikes, allowing their use even in the close confines of the narrow alleyways of the city. They could also be wielded with ease in the close confines atop the city’s outer wall, allowing the men to form up and present a forest of ready steel to any that dared to scale the walls. They would be an able militia in the days to come, perfect for the defense of the city, even in these far from ideal circumstances.

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Reaching a large tent positioned near the rows of barracks housing in a far corner of the parade ground, Nathaniel entered, its vibrantly colored flaps bearing the sigil of the Empress moving aside to let him pass. Inside the tent an unimpressively built blond man sat, hunched over various reports on his desk and quietly muttering to himself. As Nathaniel approached, the man did not seem to notice him, entirely absorbed in the material.

“Anything interesting Ethan?” Nathaniel asked demurely, his fist landing lightly on the desk, thoroughly rattling the papers, and making the man, first captain of foot Ethan Garrow, jump in his seat.

“Ah it’s you Nathaniel. If it would not be too much trouble… perhaps make a noise at the entrance next time. If it had been night and a candle had been present, you may have just cost the Empire weeks worth of patrol reports.” Catching himself with a hand lightly placed over his heart, Ethan responded.

“These are the reports from my men sent on patrol throughout the outer city, very little of note has been witnessed. At most, there has been the expected friction between the lot brought in by the local lordlings and our own men. Those peasants seem neither well disciplined nor well trained, if I may add. While I am certainly thankful for the addition of their numbers to our forces, I am rather dubious of their fighting prowess.” Taking the time to ponder the reports he had been digesting for hours, Ethan provided a short summation.

“That is only to be expected, those men are farmers and shepherds, rugged men a lot more used to rough conditions and distance from authority and safety than the soft lot you’ve been saddled with. I wouldn’t expect the nobility to possess the capability to train bands of such men to any great competency as a real army, not those louts from the capital region at any rate. But those men have been raised in villages far from the waiting swords of the city’s protectors and have trained all their lives in the art of the bow following the old traditions. The Empress needs them for that prowess, not for their discipline or any ability to take the enemy in the field. They are set to defend the earth works in the first waves of the enemy’s attack.” A glint of mirth appeared in Nathaniel’s eye as he touched upon the deliberate frustrations piled upon the mustered nobility.

The Home Guard was greatly lacking in men capable of acting as skirmishers, a much needed role for the defense of the earth works and the frustration of the enemy’s artillery. The conscripted rural peasantry, long trained from boyhood in the art of the longbow by tradition, even as their lords were forbidden the right to levy, were a perfect match for that particular niche. It was even more fitting as their deployment to the earth works would keep the various marshaled nobles far from each other’s support, and conveniently in the region likely to experience the first, and greatest, losses.

Spearmen arrayed in formation as following their instruction as inductees of the Home Guard would inevitably have great difficulty navigating the maze like defenses of the outer city, leaving stragglers to be helplessly cut down by pursuing enemies as they effected their retreat. But the rural peasants mustered by the nobility, fiercely independent and used to traversing the wild uneven terrain of the forest, would surely possess skill enough to navigate the narrow passageways with ease in the planned retreat to the interior of the outer city once holding the earth works became untenable. Circumstances had fallen such that the nobility could be kept at arm’s length from each other and with forces weakened by attrition in battle against the foe, whilst preserving the bulk of the Home Guard’s forces and greatly limiting the loss of life necessary for their plan. The coincidences lining up so perfectly for the defense of the city brought a rare smile to Nathaniel’s tired face.

“You are certainly not wrong of course. I wish only that they could more ably control their men. Dozens of fights break out nightly between our respective forces, and the intervention of my patrolmen to break up those fights only invites further resentment and possible acts of retaliation. It is taking a great deal of manpower just to maintain order, and the injuries mounting upon both sides merely serve to weaken us in the face of our great enemy.” Ethan’s face broke into an expression of worry as he recounted the violence and disordered conduct that had lately befallen the city. While present in any army, drunkards violent enough to cause serious injury regularly would be ruthlessly punished within the Home Guard, brooking no trouble that could endanger its combat readiness.

“Well then, I suppose it’s a good thing this will all be over soon, one way or another then? They are the men of the nobility, and only their lord has the right to their punishment for such minor crimes. It won’t do any good to stir the waters now, we have a war to win and cannot tolerate any internal conflict between the city’s sole two forces of defense.” Waving his arms in a wild gesticulation of his own exasperation at the present circumstances, Nathaniel acknowledged Ethan’s worry dismissively with his response.

“I will just have to hope that the water does not get stirred on the eve of battle then.” Ethan replied, covering his face with his hands as if his inability to see the reports would erase their content from reality.

“Now onto other matters, how do you believe your men are proceeding with their training? I have observed plenty walking through the city, but I would like to hear your thoughts.” Ending the topic with a shrug of his shoulders, Nathaniel inquired upon the state of the Home Guard.

“Where to begin, I wonder. Things have proceeded apace for their training and outfitting. We have been provided material enough to fully equip our projected twenty thousand men with spear or crossbow. Of that twenty thousand, the majority are armored in combination of mail and cloth, with a few thousand clad in brigandine or plate. They are well versed in the limited formations we have required, small blocks the width of a city street to hold the chokepoints in the outer city and organized ranks for holding the walls. However, their discipline is somewhat lacking and I despair at their ability to hold fast in the face of a determined enemy, our forces lack the experienced sergeants with which to firmly instill order. I do not expect them to endure whatsoever in the push of pike, but I am sure you are well aware of the vulnerabilities of their armament. They will never be able to take to the field, and if they survive this battle they will need to be retrained and reequipped before being able to join with the legions. I expect them to perform… adequately in our current plans for the defense of this city, but their shortcomings will make any defense past the fall of the outer wall inadvisable to say the least.” Ethan’s expression was one rather less than optimism for their chances as he relayed the status of the troops, his eyes casually scanning through training reports set aside on his desk.

“I expected as much but fear not, as Lord Protector of our great and noble Empire, I will not allow the lives of this city’s defenders to be callously thrown away. While I sincerely wish and pray for their victory in the coming battle, you must make ready to flee at the right moment, lest the Duke slay to a man what may very well become the heart of the Empress’s future defenders.” Acknowledging the unfortunate reality present with a grim expression, Nathaniel’s solemn voice rang out, beseeching Ethan to bear the planned retreat in mind.

“I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your understanding, Nathaniel. These boys are young and foolish, caught in a war without hope, and they do not deserve death without chance to struggle for life. If we cannot slay the Duke outright, we will firmly bloody his nose, and when we return we shall cleave his head from his shoulders and trod upon his corpse!” Enthusiastic, almost shouting, Ethan returned Nathaniel’s promise with a renewed pledge of support and a fire burning in his heart of desire for their half trained force of peasants to accomplish something to scar the pride of the hated man that had betrayed them all.

With a nod of his head at the enthusiastic display on the part of his subordinate, Nathaniel left the tent, confident in his knowledge of the current state of the Home Guard. While they were far from the most effective fighting force, they would be able to, in conjunction with support by the forces of the local nobility, sufficiently perform in the fighting to come. He had observed all that was necessary to develop a sense of the city’s preparation for war. To place the finishing touches on the plans he was devising for its defense, a visit to the Empress would be needed. She had promised him upon their last meeting to search for such workings through which she could support their forces in the upcoming battle after all. Despite the advantage of the defense, and the numerous fortifications erected against the enemy, he knew that circumstances were such that it would take every weapon in his arsenal to force the enemy into even a pyrrhic victory, and he could not afford to leave even a single sword sheathed in the coming conflict.