Chapter 3: Siege (Part 1)

The wispy dust cloud rising above the hills bordering the Demula plains was the first warning Horusha had of the approach of the Semiduroin army. His sharp eyesight, honed by many years with the bow and arrow, estimated the distance, automatically, at eight karas; less than three hours’ march away, now. Silently offering well wishes, the gate commander of Demula’s gate fortress, the linchpin of the entire defense, hurried up one of the narrow spiralling stairs of the fortress, up into the keep in the centre the fort, and into the round tower at its very top, commanding a dizzying view of the entire plain before the Voruna capital, brightly lighted in the noon sun, high at its zenith.

He hoisted two flags up on the flagpole that stood high above the tip of the tower’s conical roof, bright red over bright yellow, the signal to the Prince, waiting in the citadel, that the enemy was near. The red below the yellow would mean that the enemy could be seen; time enough for that in a while. From one of the arrowslits he viewed the reply that was hoisted above the citadel’s highest tower—an Erennin banner, with a yellow flag above it. With the signal to defend the wall, the citadel gates opened, and men dashed out of it, fully armoured, racing to their places, while the city became a hive of action, men who were off-duty racing to their assembly grounds just behind the walls, doors of inns and houses and shops banging open as they raced to action. The walls quickly filled up with men; the twenty-pace wide ramparts upon the cliffs only sparsely defended, with ten soldiers every ten paces, but the fortresses guarding the gate, the harbour and the areas without cliffs east of the gate swarming with thousands of men, all holding falxes or waiting with shield and sword and spear to meet the assault against the forbidding walls protecting entry into the city. The womenfolk were nowhere to be found, mainly because Talamioros had ordered that they remain in their houses unless it be set on fire. From his high vantage point he could see the cloud of dust drawing nearer; already it seemed to be only two hills away from entering the plains.

The last five karas’ approach to the walls of Demula were made across the open grassland, and despite himself, a veteran of Falcorea Field and earlier, Horusha shuddered as he saw the black mass slowly making its crawl towards the isthmus connecting the city to the mainland. The Semiduroin were slightly shorter on average than the Erennin, slightly darker, and still slightly wild; like the Ismaransi if they had adopted military tactics, removed the tattoos from their bodies and put on proper clothes. Many of them carried ladders for the escalade, thirty paces in length, they were heavy and strong and required ten men to carry, wide enough for three men to climb side by side. Just in front of them were several thousand archers, their bows held at the ready, full quivers hanging at their side, or on their backs. Here and there he could see huge rams, tree trunks occasionally sheathed with bronze, being transported on carts. The Semiduroin were armed with a veritable arsenal of weapons, the spear being predominant, but swords, some obviously looted from Erennin corpses, and hatchets, of various shapes and sizes, were also easily seen among the crowds. They advanced in a neat line, forming up into battalions of thousands, arranging themselves in huge blocks on the plain, archers in front, ladders behind, and the assault troops following behind. Each carried a standard; their discipline was equal to the Erennin troops, standing silently, waiting for orders to move towards the walls of the massive gate fortress facing them.

Horusha heard someone calling his name. “What is it?” He yelled down to the soldier on the keep’s roof, just outside the lofty tower.

“Prince Talamioros is here, commander. He wishes to see the fortress commander.”

“Tell him I’ll be right down.”

Hurrying down the stairs, he exited the keep. Talamioros was standing at the battlements between the two great towers, holding a falx and a small buckler, his sword belted to his waist. He was well-armoured and helmetted. His recognisable grey warhorse was tethered to one of the parapet's merlons; it had surely come up by one of the wider staircases built into the walls—no spiral staircase in the fortress could possibly accommodate a horse. He was chatting with two of the soldiers standing at the battlements, but stopped as soon as Horusha approached. As soon as the fortress commander was aware the Prince had noticed him, he snapped to attention and saluted.

“I’m here to look at the enemy, and to see how the fortress holds out against them. Also, as you can see,” Talamioros said, hefting his falx, “I also wish to try my hand at fighting, although my job demands that I should stay out of combat. But I cannot resist.” He smiled, a broad grin that made Horusha notice that the prince was glowing, almost exuding a palpable energy that raised the spirits of everyone around him, increasing their confidence and making them grip their weapons with a restive impatience. “Also, more importantly, I believe my commanders should know what it is I plan. I came to tell you of it.

“You will have a thousand soldiers here in the fortress, five hundred on the walls to either side of the fortress, and another four hundred in the two great towers at the other ends of the sectors of wall.” He pointed to the left and right, at two towers, twenty paces tall and wide enough to hold over a hundred men each at the top level, that stood on top of cliffs that jutted out alongside the isthmus, so sited that any assault force would not only come under fire from the fortress but also from the towers, enfilading into their sides. Already the towers bristled with bowmen; the walls were covered with many more. Along the walls joining the towers to the fortress, too, a triple line of archers stood, ready to unleash devastating fire upon the enemy, protected from attack themselves by cliffs, already five paces high, just to either side of the fortress. Behind them, strewn across the spacious wall-tops, whole bundles of arrows, spare bow strings and bows were placed, ready for use. More were stored in the corridors and rooms that spread like a warren through the walls. Men were beginning to assemble the great crossbows that would fire stones, bolts and assorted other projectiles at the attacking enemy.

“You will fight with these men; every three hours your men will be replaced by another unit of identical numbers. You yourself will be replaced every six hours. The crossbow crews will be replaced every six hours, with you. If you need reinforcements, hoist a signal; I will be in the tower at the Great Circle in the centre of the city. I must be kept informed of what is going on, when I am not myself here already, fighting. I don’t suppose you need me to tell you that this is the most important point of the defence; if this falls and we cannot defend the breach, then Demula has fallen. You can rest assured as long as I have reinforcements I will give this fortress priority. I have a surprise in store for the Semiduroin once they have been weakened throwing themselves against these walls—and throw themselves against it they will. They have no other choice.”

Horusha nodded. Talamioros patted him on the shoulder, his palm making a sonorous ringing noise against the bronze armour. “I will remain on the wall; but not in command of the fortress. You will command as if I was just an ordinary soldier. I’ll leave when I want to, of course, but till then, you are the general.”

Then Talamioros went to join the soldiers waiting in their squads of ten, behind the lines of archers standing at the wall’s edge, and the conversation was over. Horusha returned to the keep roof, from where he could easily shout orders and be heard, and see the enemy’s actions with ease. Archers already lined the battlements five deep at every single place on the keep that could give them a view of the enemy, and up on the fortress towers, which the keep roof just managed to draw level with, several hundred more archers clustered, both on the main roof and in the smaller towers rising yet a few more paces in the centre of the already lofty constructions. Picking up a bow and a quiver of arrows from a pile of spares, he moved through the archer lines to the forefront. A Royal Guard, he nevertheless was equally skilled with blade and bow; and he preferred the bow to the sword these days, to be frank.

Horusha viewed with some impassivity the three battalions of men breaking away from the lines of squares darkening the plain. Moving quickly towards the isthmus, Horusha quickly calculated the distance, realised that the leading battalion were already within range ten minutes ago, when they were still almost four hundred paces away. The height of the fortress had imparted a mighty advantage to the archers’ range. Nocking an arrow to his bow, he raised it up into the air, shouting, ‘Archers on the lower wall, take aim at the archers in the front! The rest aim at the troops!’

The order was passed on, and in seconds every single bow from flank tower to wall to fortress was lowered to aim into the solid mass of men moving towards the gate, the bowstrings stretched taut, ready to unleash death upon enemy. Normally they would have raised their bows at this range, to make the arrows fly farther; but at this range that was hardly necessary; direct aiming and firing would suffice. The enemy began to dismantle the palisades set up in front of the gates, the entire assault slowed. Three thousand men were held up by a thin screen of wood, and the delay, as well as the very formation itself, men packed together in a solid mass as if they were in battle, would prove to be their undoing. Horusha did not hear the order he gave to fire; he was busy aiming into the mass of men taking axes to the wood. When the order came, the loud thwap of bowstrings sent a storm of arrows straight into the men, all aimed shots. The first row of archers, who had been the only ones firing, moved to the back through gaps in the lines, and the second row immediately fired. In an endless cycle, a hail of shot rained without respite upon the hapless Semiduroin down below, who, faced with such accurate fire from front, right, and left, broke and fled, throwing down their ladders and running, only to be cut down by aimed shots from marksmen in the towers.

The first palisade was down; not a single Erennin had yet fallen, whether by swordcut or arrow. But the Semiduroin had already lost most of their three battalions; Horusha could only count some seven hundred staggering, even crawling back to the lines. Some were still staggering and falling, an arrow in their backs where none had existed before. A man on a white horse rode up to the survivors; he seemed to be speaking to them. Riding through the battalions, he set five more in motion, gesturing wildly. This time the battalions came on at a slow jog as Horusha unleashed the arrows again, in flights this time, rather than row by row of archers. The arrows tore apart their attempt at covering their formations with shields, but they came on this time, determined to break through and assault the gates at all costs. Another five thousand more came running up to reinforce the attack; by sheer weight of numbers the assault force won through the palisades, even while being enfiladed by deadly, and now almost point-blank, fire. Arrows began shooting up from the Semiduroin formation as the ladder-carriers reached the walls. An arrow took an archer in the throat just four paces away from Horusha, and he quickly moved back to safety, conspicuous as he was, the only heavily-armoured archer on the walls. Raising the ponderous weight of the ladder took all ten men’s efforts, but eventually the first lines of men began climbing up the ladders.

‘Archers on the lower wall, continue firing from the keep! Soldiers to the front!’

As Horusha’s voice rang out above, the squads and companies waiting behind the archers quickly ran forward, arranging themselves loosely before the walls as the archers filed back through the soldiers, into the keep, from which they maintained a deadly fire through the arrowslits and battlements at the Semiduroin appearing above the walls. The assault was already beginning to falter; yet more Semiduroin came up, another five thousand of them. This time, though, their archers, protected first by shields, then by a breastwork of grotesquely mutilated bodies, gathered together and engaged the men on the flanking walls and towers in an arrow duel. As the arrow-storm falling on the Thelomanni slackened, a ragged cheer rose among the enemy, quickly gaining strength as they surged forward with new energy, racing up the ladders to engage the Erennin in battle.

The instant Talamioros saw the first ladder come up against the battlements, he moved to take his position before it, raising his falx to one side, ready to swing with all his force. The first heads appeared, they came three at a time. His swinging falx took off the heads of two of the men, an arrow streaked over his shoulder to lodge in the throat of the third with a soft thud. All three fell off the ladder at the same time, tumbling down into the mass of men waiting to ascend, eliciting mild screams and shouts of fright.

The crossbows were assembled; they began pouring forth an amazing volume of stones and bolts at the army waiting to ascend the walls. The arrows were taking their toll, but now that shields were raised and some Erennin archers had been killed, fewer fell, but still, some four thousand already lay dead, many had an arrow or two sticking into them.

All around Talamioros the battle was raging; he had been forced away from the ladders, and now men were pouring onto the fort. His falx had made the Semiduroin pay heavily, swings regular as pendulums beheading almost a hundred before one had managed to block his swing, leaping onto the battlements to engage the prince in combat. He was a good one, very good, in fact.

Talamioros found himself pressed back, away from the ladder where more Semiduroin were now leaping across the battlements to meet sword with sword. He had eventually killed the man; but not without a cut along his left upper arm that had long stopped bleeding, but still faintly throbbed. Dancing his deadly way through the noise and rage of fighting men and the whistle and thuds of crossbows and bows firing hotly, he retreived his shield. Holding the falx one-handed, he slashed his way through the crowd of Semiduroin, clearing a huge radius around his sweeping sickle blade into which no Thelomanni dared to enter. Lopping off a few more heads that appeared above the ladder for good measure, Talamioros dashed back into the fray.

There were almost twice the Semiduroin on the walls now as there were Erennin, but yet more were coming; the almost endless stream of men clogging the isthmus was not breaking and running, the arrows were not falling fast enough even though there were enough arrows left to kill the Semiduroin army twenty times over. Talamioros dashed towards the keep; the door was hurriedly opened for him, then shut again. Horusha was waiting for him; Talamioros shouted so that all the archers could hear.

“I want you to get burning brands. Set your arrows on fire and shoot them so that they lodge in the ladders. I want those ladders on fire. Now! This’ll never end, otherwise.”

As Talamioros dashed down to the ground floor, he observed from the corner of his eye arrows with flaming cloths dipped in pitch tied to them embedding themselves with a thwock into the ladders. With a nod he raced out of the fort, to the first assembly point, among some buildings thirty paces from the gate fortress proper. About a thousand men were waiting there, in the streets and in the buildings. They stood up and saluted as soon as Talamioros came into view.
“We need reinforcement. Go up to the gate fortress now. One of you, go get the next reinforcement group to move up. Hurry! We’re losing the fight.”

As the thousand men clattered off towards the gatefortress, Talamioros paused to wipe the blood off his falx, then followed. It was not going well; the defenders were being forced back towards the keep, and their numbers had seriously dwindled. The timely arrival of the thousand men, debouching from the numerous staircases hidden within the keep, behind the towers and simply in trapdoors in the floor, slowly, but gradually turned the tide as more and more of them appeared. When Talamioros joined in too, the defenders took heart once again, and with a cheer, they forced the enemy back. Forming a shieldwall across the fortress’ roof, the reinforcements, still holding their spears, advanced phalanx style while the survivors of the original group regrouped behind. Meanwhile, almost like a miniature Falcorea, Talamioros and the Guards among the reinforcements waded into the midst of the enemy, carving through them with falxes and swords. After what seemed like two hours, the last Semiduroin surrendered to the Erennin. Without ladders remaining, the only ones against the wall charred and burnt—the fire-arrows had been most efficacious—there remained nothing to do but for the enemy to retreat in utter disorder, pursued all the while by the arrows of the Erennin, once again fired with deadly accuracy.

Talamioros was covered in blood; little of it was his. Raising his falx, he roared, a wordless shout of triumph. And, among the littered dead, the survivors cheered as the arrows streaked past them overhead into the backs of the shattered Thelomanni.