A Warrior's Redemption

by Guy S. Stanton III

  *****

  On through the night the bombardment continued, but it wasn’t until an hour before dawn that the walls at the focus of their bombardment began to crumble. The wall may have no longer been a match for the technology of the day, but it had been built thick and it was taking longer than I had thought to chew through it.

  I revised my time table of their breakthrough upwards into the afternoon. The town was rigged and ready for its final service to the Valley Lands. The soldiers left in the town were getting as much rest as possible, but it was hard given the constant pounding taking place. The sight of the great wall crumbling downward didn’t help the morale of the army either.

  According to plan, General Santaran had moved off in the night with his allotted share of the army to await the part of the plan that applied to him. The morning stretched onward slowly until it was finally noon. Dark storm clouds moved in and I prayed that it wouldn’t rain.

  The invasion would begin soon, as I didn’t think that they could take the walls down much further than the two wide gaping holes that they had already punched through it. The talus slopes of pulverized rock that had formed on either side of the wall shielded the lower section of the wall from direct bombardment.

  The barrage stopped close to five o’clock. They would come at us with infantry first because the steepness of the rubble slopes was too great of an angle upward, on their side, and downward, on our side, to successfully navigate with cavalry. The wall was still roughly thirty to forty feet off the flat plain of the pass’s floor. The objective of the infantry would be to first secure the two tunnel gates to either side of the pass and open them to bring their cavalry to bear against us.

  That wouldn’t be such an easy task though. Our warriors had worked all night long and into the morning filling the gate tunnels with the fallen stone from the wall ramparts above. It would take them a while to work at unloading the rock just as it had taken us a lot of time to put it there.

  The drums started up, signaling their advance. I turned to General Sanjo who stood beside me and offered my hand, “Good luck, General. Don’t stay too long in your defense position.”

  He nodded and started forward toward the line of archers. “General?” he looked back, “I know how much you want to keep the enemy from this city, but all you are to do is to allay their suspicion of another trap. Not to fight and die to the last man before the remnants of our ancestor’s shattered wall.”

  He nodded solemnly, “It will be done as ordered.”

  He turned back to his command and I mounted Flin. I made my way through one of the still open avenues through the city to the higher ground beyond. From my vantage point above and behind the city, I had a front row seat to watch the battle for the city take place. I wished that I was able to be down there instead of up here, removed from the fighting. But this was the way it had to be.

  I was the leader and it did no good to overly expose myself to either injury or death before it was time for such desperate actions. I could tell myself that, but my guts ached within me to be down there doing what I was asking others to do in my place. I contented myself with the knowledge that General Sanjo was an extremely capable leader. His warriors were the best trained in the army. They would make the price of capturing Kingdom Pass a bloody one for the enemy.

  The first long ranks of the enemy cleared the summit of the walls and started down through both gaps in the wall. They fell in a shower of arrows as did the ones after them and so on, but they just kept coming, getting a little farther down the slope with every minute that passed by.

  Siege apparatuses, using rock that had been scavenged from the wall during the night, fired their short range payloads into the undulating line of the enemy that continued to pour up and over the gaps in the broken wall. General Sanjo’s men were putting up a bitter defense at the base of our side of the wall. I couldn’t have asked for any greater effort than what they were doing, with barely seven hundred warriors, against an undulating line of thousands that continuously came pouring up over the top of the wall.

  Our warriors were falling though. Most of them from archery fire coming from archers hidden within the wall of shields that kept relentlessly pressing forward over the bodies of their slain. General Sanjo had held them impressively at bay for almost a full hour now, but his warriors were down by half, with more falling every second.

  “Sound the horn for General Sanjo’s retreat!” I barked out harshly, as the bitter taste of watching good warriors die lay heavy on my soul.

  They’d heard the call for retreat and I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the General call off the defense and order a retreat through the city. They retreated down the streets of the city, not bothering to put up any kind of organized retreat. From the perspective of the enemy, it would appear that they were routing in a panic to save their lives, when in reality I knew it burned at the heart of every warrior who was pretending to flee as they would have rather stayed and fought. But they were good warriors and they had obeyed their orders, which was crucial.

  The regimented enemy formation fell apart as they broke line to chase after our warriors, screaming derisively. They forsook an orderly occupation of the city in favor of a tumultuous onrush of jubilation at being the first foreign force to successfully step foot on sacred Valley Lander soil in over five hundred years. This is what I had been counting on and had needed to happen.

  Thousands of the enemy poured up and over the gaps in the walls, uncontested in their eagerness to claim the city, believing our will to fight was broken. The enemy troops rushed heedlessly down the streets in hot pursuit of our warriors. Suddenly ranks upon ranks of the onrushing enemy were cut down in a vicious crossfire of arrows that came from archers in concealed hiding within buildings or perched on roof tops along the streets.

  The enemy’s advance into the city temporarily halted in the face of the renewed resistance. The decimated enemy ranks swelled full again, fed by the endless streaming line of soldiers coming through the two gaps in the wall. They marched with shields held high down the streets of the city in a formation that could only be described as a mob.

  Soldiers broke from the mob into the surrounding houses and buildings in search of the pesky archers that were thinning their ranks down considerably. When the soldiers found them, bitter hand to hand fighting ensued, with no quarter given by either side.

  An aide to General Sanjo spoke up excitedly from behind me, “Sir! The archers in the city are not obeying their orders to withdraw as their positions are compromised!”

  “I can see that!” I replied grimly.

  “Sir, should I try to signal them or do something else to get their attention?”

  “Do? Do nothing. They're doing everything. They’ve made their choice. They know what’s at risk and they're paying the sacrifice needed to ensure a greater kill of the enemy.”

  The progress of the enemy was slow, but relentless. The continued selfless resistance by the archers was keeping the enemy packed together. They got packed even closer together by the pressure from behind of more soldiers from the wall, eager to get in on the fighting and share in the glorious victory that had almost been achieved. They were getting close to the barriers that had been erected at the ends of the streets on my side of the city.

  There had to be well over a hundred thousand enemy troops pressed tightly into the city, with more arriving every second. I tore my eyes from the steady progression of the enemy mob towards the outer limits of the city and looked back up to either side of the pass where the tunnel gate entrances were. I could see scores of soldiers feverishly working at removing the stones and debris that we had put there the night before.

  “Fire the city! Start at the end near the wall and then fire the barriers just before the forward lines reach them!”

  The command was relayed and a double line of archers the length of the pass stepped close to their fires and lit their arrows. Then, in unison, they pulled their bows up an
d released their fiery salvo high into the sky to streak out over the city. Catapults arranged along the entire line quickly launched their burdens of oil soaked bales, and even entire barrels of oil, into the city in close pursuit of the arrows. For several still moments, the flaming missiles arced across the darkened sky to land at the far end of the city.

  A murderous uproar flared within moments of impact. The arrows touched off fireballs of licking flames as they contacted trenches that had been soaked in oil near the gaps in the wall. Barrels of oil that had been buried under the streets, with only their oil soaked tops exposed, exploded into violent fireballs that blew hundreds of soldiers into the air, even as more fuel for the fire rained down from above.

  Hungry flames raced through the interconnected houses and the alleyways that bordered the main streets. They had been filled full of easily combustible materials. More barrels of oil exploded within houses, spraying their burning wreckage out into the packed enemy mobs trapped in the streets.

  The massive mob of soldiers huddled in the cities’ main streets tried to avoid the bordering houses that were wreathed in flames. Soldiers who had been in the houses and were now ablaze themselves, ran screaming blindly out into the streets catching those men on fire too.

  The utter pandemonium only became worse when the fire arrows and their accompanying fuel loads continued to land on top of them, turning even the streets into a hellish inferno. Panicked, the soldiers ran to escape the blaze by climbing over the barrier wall at the end of the city, which was set on fire moments before they reached it, making the way through it impassible. They went completely mad in their panic and tried to climb up over it, only to burn up in the attempt.

  More seasoned field commanders still on the other side of the wall, having expected a stiffer fight for the city, were not put off by the noise of what they thought was the typical sounds of war issuing forth from the city side of the wall. Their answer to the perceived sounds of resistance was to push even more troops up and over the wall in an attempt to simply overwhelm the enemy. As troops cleared the gap and saw the horror unfolding within the city they had no option but to press forward, for while it looked to be death to go on, it was certain death at the hands of their own friends if they were to retreat, as the order had been given that all deserters were to be killed on the spot.

  The continuing pressure of troops coming over the walls left no room for those packed within the burning streets to retreat. The troops being pushed over the walls fanned out along the bottom of the wall that was still free from fire, but the smoke was dense and becoming deadly. Crazed, they tore away at the stones blocking the tunnel gates.

  The saying that ‘War can be hell’ could easily be applied to the scene unfolding before me. It gave me no pleasure to watch what was happening. The only relief I received was that, for every one of them that died, it meant that our chances of surviving this war went up. That was all I could allow myself to care about. They had asked for what they were receiving when they had continually ignored our offers of peace. Instead, they had insisted in pursuing our destruction with all the force they could muster. This was war at its basic element, an all out struggle to survive, deploying whatever tactics it took to come out the victor.

  General Sanjo rode up to my position, bloody, but thankfully alive. “General, I think we’ve all seen enough of fire. Withdraw your warriors to the Shrine of Remembrance. I will join you along the way with my men.”

  General Sanjo saluted respectfully and withdrew to gather what remained of his share of the army. The bombardment of the city had ceased, as there literally was no need for more. The city was entirely engulfed in flames.

  No one caught within it could have survived the fiery inferno that gripped its ancient stones as it reduced them to ash.

  General Nadero rode up beside me expectantly, “General, you will provide General Sanjo cover with your cavalry for the first several miles, until he is safely on his way to the shrine. Then, according to plan, you will take your forty thousand cavalry north, making enough tracks as you go for a hundred thousand. After that, you know what to do. I pray to the Creator that He gives your horses wings, as without your success I fear we are all doomed.”

  General Nadero leaned forward in the saddle toward me, “I will be there Roric! Even if I have to run every one of our horses into the ground! I will be there!”

  “I hope so. Godspeed, General.”

  He saluted and rode off into the quickly approaching night.

  I waited until he had withdrawn before calling out, “Sound the signal for the water!”

  The horns sounded once more and then off in the distance more horns sounded. Long ago, two ancient rivers had carved out what today was Kingdom Pass. Each of the rivers had carved out deeper channels along the sides of the pass leaving the middle of the pass piled up with the debris of erosion. Before the wall had been built, the rivers were diverted by the use of dams down alternate courses and they now flowed to the sea instead of through the pass.

  For the past month, those alternate channels had been partially blocked off and the sides of the dams had been raised to accommodate the extra build up in water. The sound of the horns would soon be reaching those gathered at the dams. The walls of the original dams, already intentionally weakened, would collapse as the remaining key stones were pulled free and the force of the onrushing water would do the rest. Within an hour, two carefully sequenced tidal waves would rush back down their old river courses picking up debris as they went and smash into the city of Kingdom Pass and the wall beyond it.

  Everyone was gone on our side except for the retinue of warriors from Thunder Ridge and my own friends from the arena. We sat astride our mounts on the higher ground at the head of the pass. The flood waters would pass to either side of us into the city beyond. The enemy’s advancement into the city had stopped as the field commanders had finally realized that something was amiss with their bulrush-and-pick-up-the-pieces-later strategy.

  The many thousands of troops still on our side of the wall that hadn’t been consumed in the fire of the city were pressed into the deeper channeled sides of the pass to either side of the city. There was no fire there and it was still possible to breathe as they were on a lower level than the rest of the city. They could not retreat back over the wall because the heat from the fire was too intense for them to pass by, so they remained huddled in the corners of the city, desperately emptying the gate tunnels of the debris that had been stacked tight into them. The drama played on and I watched a once proud city burn to the ground.

  It was a sight that I would never forget, as the fires consuming the city were now backlit against the darkness of the night. Surely, by now, they had to almost be through the debris in the tunnels. Perhaps our plan of full destruction would not be carried out to the fullest in this last stage of the city’s death throes.

  I heard the cracks and booms of the onrushing water then and I almost regretted, as I had with the fire, what would befall the invaders next. But the water was an unstoppable force, even if I had wanted to renege on the plan now.

  The turbulent water plumes swept by our position on either side, one of the sides being slightly ahead of the other. Both turbulent forces of nature were at least thirty feet high and carried a payload of debris with them. There was a welcome coolness to the air as they passed, which was a relief from the heat cast off by the burning city. The onrushing tidal waters smashed through the obstructions barring its way and swept into the gathered ranks of the hysterically crying enemy; pulling some of them along in the strong current of water, even as it pulverized many of them where they stood. Those swept along sank beneath the water, as they were dragged down by their heavy armor.

  Moments later, those swept along were smashed against the great wall with concussive force. Massive plumes of spray shot upward and the water backwashed into the city carrying its burden of wasted flesh with it. The water continued to mount in the city as more water surged dow
n the old channels fed from the broken gaps in the dams upriver.

  Much of the low lying fires in the city were put out, sending off massive spitting clouds of steam, as they were contacted and extinguished by the surging debris-filled water. Several minutes passed by as a solitary struggle for life against both fire and water could be seen scattered around the city.

  Then it happened, like the cork being removed from an upturned water jug, the two side gates of the city exploded outward off their massive hinges into the packed crowd of cavalry that had been massed in front of the gates earlier, in preparation to storm into the city. Water shot out of the tunnel gate entrances under high pressure and two giant whirlpools formed on the city side of the wall as the water, backed up in the city, emptied out through the gates into the packed masses of the enemy beyond the wall, causing even more chaos and loss of life.

  The flood waters rushed down the pass as balking horses, some of them already riderless, ran amuck trying to escape the craziness that the sudden burst of water had inspired, even as more soldiers were swept along in the swift moving current. The resurgent rivers rejoined powerfully at the narrower bend of the pass and wrecked the advanced siege equipment, still arrayed there, that had just brought the once proud wall to its knees.

  The destruction of the city was complete, but it had reaped a bloody toll of life in the fight for its conquest. It was time to leave this place of death and shattered glory. I pulled Flin around and silently headed out into the night, followed by the rest of the small column that accompanied me. The heavens opened up and the rain that had threatened all day dumped down on us now.

  We rode slowly through the sheets of rain in the direction of the Shrine of Remembrance, there being no need to rush as any pursuit tonight was extremely unlikely. It wasn’t long after though, that I thought I heard something. I drew to a stop and motioned for the column to remain stopped, as I rode Flin towards a small grove of trees accompanied by a few of my friends. Riding through the trees, I stopped on the other side and waited for one of the persistent lightning flashes to light up the night scene.

  Crack!

  Boom!

  The shallow valley beyond lit up as bright as day for a moment and it revealed a telling tale. Massed columns of troops and flanking cavalry brigades were moving quickly through the wet night in the direction of Kingdom Pass. The Attorgrons had arrived.

  What a different tale it would have been if they had been able to join the fight and had attacked us from the rear. As it was, they had almost disrupted our retreat, which would have been disastrous for us. Renewed hope surged within me as I saw how the Creator’s hand stretched out in divine providence on behalf of our cause. My optimism wasn’t shared by the others though.

  “What’s the matter? Can you not see how the Creator is fighting for us?” I asked the assembled group of friends around me.

  Rolf spoke up, “It’s not that. The Creator is clearly at work on our behalf, I can see that, but look at how many of them there are Roric! That army numbers more than our entire Valley Lander force put together and they're not even the main body of the army! They still outnumber us by at least four to one! We have no tricks left to throw at them. How can we hope to defeat such a force as they still field in open battle?”

  I decided to share more of the plan with them, “Your lack of faith does not become you Rolf. It is not so grim as you believe, as everything is not what it appears to be.” I had their attention now, “The army you see before you is mostly a slave army. They number close to two hundred thousand men, but one hundred and fifty thousand of them are slave warriors. Only the cavalry are regular army and they're the least experienced soldiers that the Attorgrons have. They were only sent along in order to keep the slave warriors in line and for appearance sake. The Attorgrons distrust the Zoarinians motives about what happens after they have jointly eliminated us. They kept their most loyal and best trained warriors behind to defend their cities in case the Zoarinians turn on them after they're done with us. They view the slave army as expendable and unreliable, which they're partially right in believing. My uncle was in contact with their slave leaders, when he found out about their inclusion in the battle plan, and they reached an agreement of sorts. If we can make a convincing case for victory they will switch sides and join us in the fighting. After the fighting they have asked for, and will receive, refuge in the Valley Lands as free men and be given land of their own. After the war we will bring pressure on the Attorgrons to release the families of the warriors to them under the threat of invading them if they don’t. But we have to make a compelling case that its worth throwing in with us or they won’t join us and if that happens then yes, things are likely to turn out very grim indeed.”

  “Is that all you have up your sleeve?” Rolf asked, watching me closely.

  I shrugged, with a slight smile turning up the corners of my mouth, “It’s possible that we could receive some help from the Tranquil Islanders too, but that is heavily dependent on whether they can make it through the Zoarinian blockade in time and in any great number.”

  “It would seem then that there is reason to believe that the future can still have a fruitful outcome after all,” Rolf said, inclining his head slightly in a bow to me.

  “Yes, there is reason to hope yet and hope we shall, as it is all we have left, other than prayer and I recommend doing plenty of that. Come let’s get out of here and catch up with General Sanjo before they spot us.”