Year 12.328 After the Founders Autumn 61.

The city of Arrianne was in huge uproar, the armies of the Lusians were about to arrive and everyone was wondering what would happen next.

Most of the inhabitants used to be part of the Lusian kingdom and so many were unwilling to fight Kniva’s Army, but rumours about the recent victory, full of bias and misinformation, was dividing some opinions.

Some of the rumors said all the prisoners were killed mercilessly, others were about how brutal the looting was, or how both women and children were being quartered for fun.

Of course, almost all of those rumors were lies propagated by Oderickian agents, in order to throw chaos to the local populace that is not friendly to them in the first place, and stop them from helping the enemy army outside. From the shadows a battle of information and sabotage was happening everywhere in the city, agents from Cassandra had infiltrated Arrianne long ago and they had the sympathy of the locals.

One day a fast courier arrived in the city, exhausted, feeling secure now that he arrived inside the city, decided to get a bit of water in a pub nearby, for his canteen was dry for at least half a day.

In the pub, he ordered some quick ale, water or wine, whatever the pub owner had the courier wanted it fast. The pub owner asked if he had money on him, for the man was in tatters and could be confused with a common mercenary anywhere.

The courier got angry and began to demand his drink in shouts, saying he was interrupting an important event to the royals themselves, and ordered the pub owner to hurry up and the courier threw coins at him, the man did so although reluctantly for the angry man did pay.

The courier, after getting his drink, drank it in a few gulps and demanded more, this time a bit more satisfied. After 2 more drinks, thecourier finally left and was ready to make his delivery.

Unfortunately for the courier, in the next day, his head would be displayed on the town plaza, as punishment for letting his message get tampered with, for the seal in the important message he was carrying was broken.

The agents of Cassandra, “borrowed” the message while he was drinking his fill with the help of the pub owner himself. The core of the message was : “No reinforcements from the king shall march out for at least three weeks”. This, to the pub owner, was a form of revenge, for he lost his wife and child to a sack that happened when this city was taken by the Oderickians, he and many in this city were willing to risk themselves just to see the Oderickians suffer, and they, unlike the overall masses, were organized.

As soon as the Lusian army arrived at the gates of Arriene, they began efforts to blockade the city, however almost immediately they found a problem: in order to fully blockade the city and assault it at all sides they would first have to cross a river that run through the city and also formed a moat around it. They broke their bridges and prepared some defences on the other side of the shore in the known fords close by, so if the Lusians wanted to fully blockade the city, they would have to separate the army in two and they would be unable to reinforce one and the other quickly.

Still, since no major reinforcement would come, they decided to do it anyway, although they would do so by sending most of the spare horses in the army to northern side of the blockade, the one inside the enemy zone of control, so they could move quickly and and scout more often for the Oderikian king might not come, but who knew if a Oderickian powerful noble would act by himself and try to relief the city? They might not be able to destroy the Lusian army on the northern side but they would inflict quite a bit of damage.

It took an entire day just to set up the army on the north and south of the city, with that finished they began the preparations to assault the city. It was announced to the army that they would take the city in less than 3 weeks, basically revealing the entire intel they got from the spy in order to raise morale.

“3 weeks hum? Is it enough time to take this fortress?” Wondered DIas, who had never partook in an ancient siege like this.

“I don't know Dias, but if father thinks it is then I would not doubt him, he is far from reckless.” Teia was the one who responded.

“But how will we be able to mount the walls? with laters alone will be really difficult, and there’s the moat and the flowing river to worry about.”

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“You will see Dias, i Believe it will be easier for you to understand if you just observe, another reason father brought us here was to learn too.”

“I See...”

The worry Dias had didn't just come from his lack of experience, but also from observing the surrounding area. The area around the city was basically empty of trees and any form of lumber in order to make siege engines, so they would have to travel far just to bring some wood.

However as Diaz was pondering this, large caravans full of wood began to pop out from different directions, with the people then being just common man, not soldiers.

‘Looks like his Majesty has made an agreement with some other party.’ Thought Diaz.

It was true, Kniva made contact through spies in order to talk with local merchants and commoners with some degree of respect, in order to smuggle in some wood when the Siege began. These men were people who still supported Lusian rule rather than Oderickian rule in the region, and there were many of those.

The main reason for their support for the Lusian cause had little to do with nationalism, but rather a much more common reason in all times of history for anyone to support one side rather than the other: Taxes.

During the Oderickian take over, sacking and pillaging did occur, however it was limited in scale and happened more in large cities,mostly to those of less status, so those of more power and influence had little reason to actually oppose the new regime as long as they were left alone, while the peasants could be simply “put on the line” with force until they calmed down.

However, the Oderickian king, who was the direct ruler of the newly acquired lands, had raised taxes to large levels, causing problems for both peasants and the local elite. The levels of hunger increased and several local businesses were starting to fail, so many resorted to the black market in order to survive.

The previous military engagements against the Lusians were extremely costly for the Oderickians, so they were immersed in debt at the time while the Catalunia region, although rich, was now in chaos and returning little profit due to the devastation of the time and tax evasion. In order to ensure no tax evasion and to obtain funds to pay their creditors, the Oderickian king decided that since the region was so rich and was also newly added, they had to pay a larger cut and also for the local defence that now had such a large presence there.

Thanks to these events, Kniva had no problem with local espionage, the acquisition of resources or even volunteers.

When the resources arrived and were unloaded, Diaz saw another thing which would change his perception of this world: the usage of magic in order to build structures. They were still making siege engines like he would expect from feudal times but the speed they were building it and the quality was very different.

The lusian army quickly set a sizable battering ram made out of hardened dry wood, which the mages had helped cut, dry and even harden by using magic. In order to cut they concentrated large amounts of mana, stored in thin lines in the wood, and made to explode, so it would resemble a localized explosion. In order to dry they simply poured mana in the whole wood and made it very hot while keeping the wood pressurized in order to not make the expansion due to heat make it brittle. In order to harden it they simply used flames in the desired part so it would fire-harden it.

It was impressive to Diaz how these “medieval” people managed to be so sophisticated even though they little understood what they were doing. After studying a bit of this world's magic, Diaz began to suspect that although much of their magic seemed mythical they did have scientific explanation to their actions, which unfortunately the same people still did not comprehend it in detail so they did things mostly out of millenias of trial and error.

Both ladders and some battering rams were ready by the end of the day, Diaz, in order to understand better the ins and outs of magic offered a hand in any way he could to the mage corps, who honestly didn't know what to do with this overly eager youngster. Nonetheless, with permission from the king, they instructed Diaz about some basic spells he could use to help them, like “heat creation”, to Diaz this felt much like the internships he sponsored to youngsters before.

Meanwhile, the enemy on the city saw the quick pace of the lusians in building the engines of war that would break their defenses. After they sent a sizable part of their forces to join the vanguard of the Oderickians, who were massacred by Totila, the city of Arrianne had little more than 3.000 men defending it, with a handful of mages.

Usually in these situations, the Oderickians would have expelled the Lusians in the city in order to avoid treachery, but to this day the vast majority of the city population was made of Lusians. Too few Oderickians moved to Arrianne, most of them were the families of the soldiers garrisoning the place.

In this situation, and with the agents of the king moving behind the scenes fermenting rebellions inside Catalunia, the Oderickians had many reasons to fear the Lusians outside and inside, with the only thing keeping them from wavering being the strong walls and fortifications of the city, which were formidable.

With Ladders, Battering rams and a huge advantage in mages, the Lusians began the offensive the day after they arrived.

And so it began, the Siege of Arrianne.