Chapter 776: Siege of the lake’s city
The seventh day since the arrival of the royal host was marked by the grinding of wagon wheels and the thud of shovelfuls of dirt, as men toiled along the lines dug into the earth. Carts rolled in steady procession, heaped with soil, rocks, and debris, all to be poured into the deep ditches that encircled the city. The air was thick with dust and the smell of churned soil, mingling with the faint tang of sweat from thousands of laboring bodies.
Alpheo stood upon a small rise, his eyes fixed on the labor with the detachment of a sculptor inspecting the rough beginnings of his work done by the disciples
No assault worth the name could be mounted until the trenches were filled and the causeways built, allowing the great siege engines to roll forward to the very base of the walls.
It was, of course unfortunate that they had no cheap bodies to use as labor, as it had happened before on every siege.
He had, of course sent Egil around, but he had come back without any success in finding unemptied villages.
Which meant that they had to use their own soldiers which of course caused the work to slow down, given they couldn’t just send them with minimal protection , lacking the knowledge that if any died two more would take their place.
The camps themselves had luckily already been completed.
The noose was drawn tight; the enemy was hemmed in from every side. Yet construction was not without danger.
A significant portion of the army was tasked with guarding the perimeter at all hours, a precaution against the very sort of sortie that any commander worth his salt would attempt.
That precaution proved its worth on the second night. Under cover of darkness, the defenders made their move, hauling heavy planks to bridge the trenches and creeping toward the half-finished eastern camp. The night was still, save for the faint rustle of grass beneath their boots, until of course l the alarm came.
Scouts, prowling like wolves in the darkness, spotted the movement and raced to deliver word.
By Alpheo’s prior order, each sector was garrisoned with at least one legion, and in this case it was the Third Legion who stood watch. They met the sortie head-on.
In moments, the blackness of the night was shattered by the glint of steel, the roar of voices, and the clash of halberds against shields. The city’s defenders broke under the weight of the charge, their formation crumbling into panicked flight.
The Third, emboldened by their swift victory, pressed the advantage. They poured across the planks and into the very outer streets of the city’s approach, so close that the scent of the enemy’s cooking fires mingled with the smoke of battle. But their prize was snatched away in an instan, the gates slammed shut, heavy timbers crashing into place, sealing the city once more.
Denied the glory of storming the walls, the men of the Aracinea. vented their fury in the only way left to them, by slaughtering the stragglers left behind in the chaos.
Many had gone into battle stripped to their essentials, chainmail shirts , helmets shadowing their eyes, and the unmistakable silhouettes of their halberds, the wicked steel heads wet with the night’s work by the rise of dawn.
They were drilled to quickly form up in squads with the fastest equipment they could be put at the moment’s notice, and it proved effective considering they had single-handedly repelled the enemy attack.
By dawn, the field before the eastern camp was littered with corpses, the wooden planks still lying over the ditch like mute witnesses to the failed sortie.
Now however , as Alpheo’s gaze swept across the plains before the city, he saw no bodies rotting under the sun. He had ordered his own men to haul every corpse into mass graves beyond the camp. Disease was the real assassin in siege warfare, and he would not see his host wither before the gates because of a few bloated, fly-swarmed carcasses.
He tilted his head upward, eyes narrowing on the city’s high walls. His stare was greedy as he imagined his banner rising above them. And more than that, he imagined Lord Avar forced to stand in the shadow of that flag, forced to watch it billow in the wind while knowing he had been powerless to stop it.
The thought was still warming in his mind when a deep voice cut through it.
“Alph,” came the gravelly greeting. The commander of the First Legion, Jarza, gave a small nod in salute as he approached, dust clinging to the creases of his face. “Engineers report they should have the first tower finished by the end of next week.”
Alpheo listened, but his eyes drifted past Jarza’s shoulder. A cart creaked by, its wheels sinking slightly into the churned earth, stacked high with thick-cut timbers that smelled of fresh sap. It rolled toward the central gate camp, where the air was alive with hammer-strikes and shouted orders.
From outside, one could hear the rhythmic thud of mallets driving spikes, the rasp of saws biting through planks, the hoarse curses of engineers fighting both wood and stubborn laborers.
Yes, in a week the work would bear fruit. Then, the true work could begin. Some of the lords had already pressed him to launch a probing attack with ladders, eager to prove themselves. He had refused outright.
Foolishness.
Such an assault would achieve nothing but the stacking of corpses against the walls, and he had no desire to feed the defenders a banquet of dead men so early in the siege and for such a meaningless quest.
If they were to die , then at least they could serve a reason…
Jarza broke his line of thought. “Do you have any idea which Legion you’ll put up there?” He jerked his chin toward the camp where the tower would soon rise, though for now there was nothing but half-assembled timbers and the stink of pitch.
“Yeah,” Alpheo said without missing a beat, his brow lifting in mock surprise. “None.”
Jarza blinked. “Really? You surprise me. I have seen many legionnaires crave the honor of being the first to set foot on the wall. That’s a straight path to commendations and promotion.”
Alpheo turned fully to him, frowning as if Jarza had just suggested selling the camp’s horses for firewood. “Why in the hell would I throw our own men into a slaughterhouse? Do you have the slightest idea how much veteran experience would bleed out on those stones? Not to mention the officers, Gods know we’re short enough of those already.
And if they die, I’m left with drilling new ones. Which by the way it’s an issue I will have to face soon, you know considering I am a bit tired of being so tight of low-rank officers….
Then there’s the pensions, have you thought about that? All the wounded, all the dead… you’d be signing away half the treasury for the privilege of seeing our own men mangled for a ‘slighter chance’ at taking the wall.”
He snorted, short and sharp, before nodding toward a group of levy-men sweating under the strain of pushing another cart toward the ditch. “Look around. We’ve got a multitude of fodder for the wall, lords’ men, brimming with loot and drink from the march here. I’m sure they’ll be delighted to have the ‘honor’ of charging the battlements.”
A thin, humorless smile cut across his face. “The first days of the assault will break nothing except bones. Those are for wearing the defenders down, sapping their strength. That is levy work. If they manage a breakthrough, then and only then will the legions move to take , hold and expand what’s been won.
Until that happens, I’ll keep our best soldiers as far from the walls as I can. Elite are not be thrown around carelessly. I’ve no taste for wasting my own when the lords’s levy are standing right there, ripe for the picking.”
“I was under the impression we were pressed for time,”
“We’re not,” Alpheo replied flatly, his eyes still fixed on the distant walls. “Time is the one thing we’re not lacking. What we are short on is reason to rush headlong into a meat grinder.”
He gestured vaguely toward the carts and men below, their silhouettes weaving between the dirtworks like ants across a battlefield yet to bloom red.
“There’s no force alive on these plains that can challenge our position,” he added with quiet certainty. “So we’ll use that luxury. We’ll build the towers right, fill the ditches proper, and when we strike, we’ll do it without wasting seasoned men for the sake of spectacle.”
But, of course, he didn’t know.
He didn’t yet know that there was a force.
One already on the move.One that would challenge him, perhaps not now, but very soon.
There was a reason, after all, why the conflict of three years ago would be nicknamed The War of the First Coalition.
Symply put it would not be the last.