74 - Trapped Part Six
In this man-to-man battle, the soldiers of the New Legion use their two-handed weapons. As has already been shown, these are much more effective against the tree ladders, but they also have a longer range and are more difficult to repel than the short swords that are the soldiers main weapon.
With great effect, the soldiers wave their weapons, while they are protected by their heavy armor. The advantage of the harnesses is that they do not have to use shields, which would force them to use the smaller weapons. Now the Chakras are usually still climbing the ladders when they are in reach of the soldiers of the New Legion.
Still, the fight doesn't go entirely in favor of Raidon and his men. Although he planned to lead the fight, Raidon is soon embroiled in one-on-one combat. Because of this, he sees too late that on the wall east of the gate a bunch of Chakras have defeated three of his soldiers. Because of this, they now have the chance to get more warriors on the wall. When he realizes what is happening, there are already at least ten warriors on the wall and the three soldiers have been thrown off the palisade.
Fortunately, the squad leaders of the reserves see what is happening. Without asking for confirmation, John rushes up the ladders with his squad. While he climbs up with half of his squad on one side, the other half takes a ladder at the end of the wall. This allows them to keep the Chakras from gaining more space on the wall.
As reserves they have kept their large shields with them, and now they make a small shield wall with two men next to each other. Slowly they push forward, causing the Chakras to be pressed into each other. The Chakras are led by a giant of a man, who has scars everywhere. As a slave warrior, he has almost no equipment, and his weapon consists of a huge club that looks like it had recently been a branch on a tree.
Earlier, this man knocked the first soldier off the wall with his club and now he is trying to do so again. Unfortunately for him, John has seen what happened before and is able to brace himself before the club hits his shield with tremendous force. He almost loses his shield, and his entire left arm has become numb in one fell swoop. As a result, he cannot use the usual tactics by striking his opponent with his shield. Clumsily he sticks his sword at the Chakraan. Miraculously, he manages to hit him.
However, the Chakraan doesn’t even flinch. Once again, he uses his devastating power to strike straight down with the club. At the last moment John manages to throw his shield up to absorb the blow, but he is knocked to the ground. Blinking his eyes to clear up the dizziness, he waits for the next blow.
Instead of a blow, however, he is pulled to his feet while another soldier takes his place. The soldier had reacted quickly and used his crossbow the moment John was knocked down. The great Chakran warrior now lies next to the palisade on the ground with a crossbow bolt in his chest.
Shortly thereafter, the entire wall is back under control and most of John's squad can take their place as a reserve again, while three of them take their place on the wall.
The other reserve squad, meanwhile, has offered help in another place, and the whole Chakraan attack seems to be collapsing. Nearly four hundred warriors are left dead or wounded while the rest retreat. Less than half of the garrison army is still able to fight, even though they have only managed to get to the top of the walls one time. Most of the dead and wounded are slave soldiers, which make up three-quarters of the garrison. However, the professional warriors know that a similar fate awaits them if they attack a second time.
A delegation of warriors talks to their commander to leave this invasion, as it is called, to the army of Fort Shi. They argue that the slave soldiers are unable to take a fortified position without proper siege material. Their captain is also not eager to bring in his warriors himself and soon sounds the retreat.
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Sergeant Alderman wakes suddenly thanks to the noise in the fort. All over the place warriors run everywhere, there is swearing and things are knocked over.
Alderman sticks his head out and calls out to the first warrior who passes him.
Stolen story; please report.
"What’s that noise? Come on, tell me!"
"Falwyn has attacked the empire! Everyone has to get ready to leave within the hour."
"Falwyn and a counterattack? That hasn't happened during this entire war. I'm coming!"
Immediately Sergeant Alderman closes his door and gets dressed.
Not much later, Alderman is dressed and busy chasing his men on. At that moment, the message finally arrives for him to get ready to leave.
"Nice timing." He hums.
"Sorry sergeant, in this chaos some orders have been sent to the wrong units. Almost every man we have is deployed to punish this invasion immediately."
"Do you happen to know where they attacked? I thought we had more than enough armies in the north to pit three warriors against each of them. Or are they on their way through the wasteland?"
"No sir, they came by sea. Those strange warriors who have been such a problem before have taken the village of Olanca. The garrison that was stationed nearby tried to scare them away, but lost more than half of their warriors. The messenger was talking about an army of at least one or two regiments, and who knows how many more are coming while we are waiting here!"
"Come on, calm down. Within the hour we’ll be on our way to chase those guys back to their own lands."
"Indeed! The general is sending fifteen regiments on horseback to exert pressure as quickly as possible. Thirteen regiments of infantry will follow at ease by foot, to ensure that they don’t get strange ideas at the border. The fort is manned by the last regiment of infantry."
"Well, I just hope that the general is right and that a large part of their army is indeed part of that invasion. A single regiment cannot do much more than slow down an attack."
"That's why the infantry follows at half speed, sergeant. The general really knows what he's doing."
Not much later, Fort Shi seems to be abandoned. Of the nearly twenty thousand soldiers who were here recently, less than a thousand remain. Part one of the plan of the New Legion seems to be working.
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"So, Priest Gareth. You look like you had a party yesterday. Do we have anything to celebrate?"
The captain of Centurion, Captain Brandon, often pokes fun at Gareth. This time, however, he's not entirely wrong, as Gareth is very tired. For a few nights now, he can hardly get any sleep. Every night he is tossing and turning late into the night. Even when he finally falls asleep, he has the craziest dreams. With a deep sigh, he replies:
"If only that were true, Brandon. I haven't been able to sleep normally in days. Those dreams I told you about a few days ago continue. I keep feeling like I'm forgetting something, or that I need to do something important."
"I sometimes have that feeling. Most of the time it resolves itself."
"Exactly what I thought. But this has been going on for almost a week."
"What if it has to do with Mithras? Since you've become a priest, you've experienced weird things before, haven't you?"
"Well, not since I've officially become a priest.. Apart from this weird feeling that is."
"Wait, you've had this since you became a priest? Then I'm probably right! If I were you, I'd go through those books of yours again. There's probably something in there somewhere that you need to know."
Not much later, Gareth is sitting at his desk staring at a stack of books. After all the time he has spent here trying to become an official priest, he is here once again. This time, however, there is no book that lights up to tell quickly what he wants to know.
"That would have been too easy," he sighs, "maybe Mithras wants me to learn everything, and not just the facts that are important at the moment."
With visible disgust, Gareth returns to his studies.
Less than an hour later, Gareth has found what he was looking for.
"The clairvoyance of the priest is limited to unconscious knowledge and premonitions of serious danger to official units within the legion of which the priest is attached."
"In other words, those dreams tell me that one of our units is in trouble." He immediately tells Captain Brandon.
"But you don't know which unit, or any other information? Like where that unit is?"
"The unit is easy to guess Brandon. As you can see in the book, these are official units."
"And the only unit we've officially put on paper is Raidon's first company." Finishes Brandon Gareth's sentence. "What do you want me to do with this information? We know Raidon is somewhere at the southern border, but we don't know where exactly. In addition, he has five platoons with him, and we can at most prepare one or two extra platoons. And that only if you and your acolytes can finish enough harnesses."
"As far as I'm concerned, we should send every soldier we can find to Raidon. I did not get this clairvoyance without reason. In addition, I have been suffering from it for some time, so I think that means that the danger is very real."
"Gareth, you know as well as I do that we can't send everyone to Raidon. We also have other obligations. In addition, the first company is only one unit. Even if we lose the entire unit, the legion and thus the religion of Mithras will continue to exist here through us."
"You're right, but I still think we should do everything we can to send help to Raidon. I'm going to start working on those harnesses right away, you make sure to have those two extra platoons ready to deploy when we have more information." When Gareth then walks to the door, he turns around one more time. "And if you can, have someone inquire in Aran. Or even better, send a messenger to Raidon to tell him about this."
The rest of the week Gareth is hard at work blessing the stock of harness parts that his acolytes have been making. Thanks to the stock that was ready, he can pronounce the blessings one after the other. This means that he is speaking almost non-stop, which has a clear effect on his voice. The night he has pronounced the last blessing, his voice breaks, and the next morning he can only express a soft squeak.