Forlorn Hope - Chapter 10
The Siege of Silicia (Part 1)
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Tebin scurried up the ladder. A flaming ball roared over the wall. Men yelled for fresh arrows while plenty whistled overhead from the siege towers and enemy bowmen on the plains below. Tebin slotted the bundle of hundreds into the clay pot twice as wide as he but only half as tall. He pulled out clumps of twenty like picking flowers or seaweed and slid them into the quivers of the men nearby.
‘Come on! Come on! We need arrows over here!’ A man called from the south side of the tower, the sweat on his face shimmering in the moonlight.
Where is Jatan, Tebin wondered. He filled his hands with two quiver fulls of arrows and delivered them to the man shouting. Within moments three had been loosed over the walls into the dark mass of men below. A horrid crunch rumbled through the wall, loose mortar trickled from between the stones. Tebin ran to a merlon and tried to peer over to see but he was shoved back by an archer. The man collapsed a second later, an arrow in his throat. Tebin collected the unspent arrows from his quiver. He returned to the pot in the middle of the roof and grabbed another two sets.
‘Boy! Stop giving arrows to the shit archers!’ A man screamed from the floor below.
‘Sorry!’ Jatan cried.
‘Don’t apologise! Just don’t do it!’ The archers downstairs laughed, a grim sound in battle.
Tebin scanned the quivers along the north wall, then the east and spotting a few running low began bundling arrows into stacks of twenty. Rocks as large as horses arced through the clouded night sky and the sound of crumbling masonry echoed throughout Silicia. Flaming rocks seared the air and set blazes across the city illuminating the walls and baking the men along them. Tebin slipped twenty arrows into a man’s quiver and sprinted back to the pot for another twenty.
‘Quicker, boy, or those Gör Khāni will find you,’ another man snarled.
Tebin swallowed hard and stuffed his quiver full. The twang of bowstring was incessant, like locusts at the peak of summer. A sea of shooting stars appeared overhead.
‘Behind the wall!’ The serpentine commander shouted, shielding himself behind the pot of arrows.
Tebin dove behind a parapet, crushed between the stench of three men. The pitter patter of rain rippled across the roof leaving behind a bloom of feather tipped arrows. Six men lay groaning, arrows protruding from legs, arms, stomachs. Another three lay dead. Tebin scavenged the unspent arrows while other men dragged the injured towards the west wall were a wooden cover had been erected.
‘The Commandant should have had covers built over all the towers instead of trying to have arbalests installed on every one,’ the thin faced commander cursed. He looked to the south and hissed. An arbalest was aflame on a tower sixty yards down the wall. ‘Utter waste.’ A deep groove formed between his eyebrows, ‘Get back to loosing those arrows!’ His anger swapped to his men, some of whom continued to shield themselves from attack.
A man with grey in his hair leaned out over a merlon and loosed three arrows along the wall. Each thudded into something wooden, ‘That battering ram will be the end of us.’
‘Focus on the tower,’ the commander snarled.
The older man grunted and loosed two arrows at a time, pulling his bow to straining. On the fourth volley the wood snapped, the man fell back and the arrows toppled harmlessly over the wall. Laughed boomed. Arrows cracked against the stone, fireballs raged overhead, stones pelted the wall sending quakes through the whole city, yet here men were laughing.
Tebin felt tears well as laughter bubbled up his throat.
‘Think that was funny?’ The grey haired man found his feet and helped himself to Tebin’s bow. ‘You won’t be needing this. Refill my quiver, boy!’
Tebin swallowed his tears and laughter in one lump and shoved two dozen arrows into the veteran’s quiver. Others began to call for more arrows. The siege tower rumbled towards them, spitting arrows from a slit near its peak. Another volley of arrows glistened in the night sky. The commander yelled for cover. More men died. There was no time to think. No time to assess. Tebin had quivers to fill.
Thirty filled quivers later the siege tower halted a few yards from the tower. Another tower had reached the wall thirty yards along. Tebin squinted into the fuzzy distance, pocked with flaming torches, to see five more spread before Silicia. One stood burning a hundred paces from the wall. The gate crunched, the wall shook.
The siege tower creaked and a platform began to lower. Arrows flew out from the slits piercing necks and arms. The platform crashed down on the parapets and a rush of black armoured men swarmed out, moon swords swinging. The Silician’s loosed one final volley and Gör Khāni soldiers yelped, slipped and fell off the platform to hit the ground below.
‘Swords!’ The commander yelled. In one motion bows were holstered and straight-edged swords glistened in the torchlight. The commander armed himself and pushed Tebin behind him, ‘Run, boy.’
‘I can fight!’ Tebin drew his own sword.
‘Run,’ the commander’s long face lost all emotion as he stared at Tebin. He turned to face the enemy, ‘Hold the tower! Do not let these monsters take our home!’ He drew circles in the air with his sword and charged into the melee. Steel glinted against steel. Men cried. Blood sprayed, hot and wet, across the tower roof.
Tebin froze and looked out across the wall. The scene repeated every thirty yards, Gör Khāni men died by the hundreds, by arrow, sword, or fall, but it didn’t matter for there was always two to replace the one lost. While each Silician who fell was one less defender, one less father, one less brother. The wall shook, mortar dust rained from cracks in the wall. Was it the ram or a catapulted rock, Tebin didn’t know. A flag rose over the gatehouse, a long tailed banner of gold with an embroidered green horse head. Tebin ran and scurried down the ladder. A sickening crunch tore the air and the order to charge rang out from the gatehouse, but he didn’t know who ordered it. The drums beat faster, placed on rickety towers scattered across the city. The enemy had breached the city.
‘Retreat to the palace citadel! Retreat!’ Voices cried out, distant at first and then louder as the order was relayed through the streets and alleyways.
Tebin landed inside the tower to find men dead and dying. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘Fighting on the walls,’ a man with a wisp of a moustache said. He held is hand to his gut, an arrow blooming and streams of blood pooling about him. ‘The other kids have gone. Get to the citadel while you still can,’ he gnashed his teeth, sweat curled down his nose.
‘What about you?’ The man was dead, Tebin knew.
‘No hope for me. I’ve done my duty,’ he gripped his sword with a bloodied hand. ‘I’ll kill one more before I go.’ His other hand reached inside his armour and he snapped the chain of a necklace. ‘Take this, I don’t want to risk sticking around after I’m gone,’ he held out the bloodied silver chain with the twin crescent moons of Sel dangling from the chain. ‘Only thing of value I have left.’ Tebin held out his hand. The dying man closed the boy’s fist around the necklace. ‘Go!’ Sweat glistened on his forehead.
Tebin leapt down the stairs to the same sight until the ground floor where two dozen men waited, swords bared liked a wolf’s teeth. He squeezed through and burst out into the night. Flames roared up to heaven all around him. Homes, bars, storehouses, it didn’t matter, it all burned the same. Rocks and fireballs had reduced the city to rubble and bonfires. Clusters of buildings remained standing, but likely not for long. Tebin coughed and felt the urge for a swim in the sea to cool off, he’d never known a night so hot.
‘Retreat to the citadel!’ The order was repeated from atop a drum tower but no one moved from inside the tower. Battle raged along the wall, the clash of steel and war cries pulsing through the night. The echoes of battle crawled through the rubble strewn alleyways and along the road shadowed by the wall. The gate had fallen.
‘We hold them here. The more we kill, the longer we hold, the more time our wives, children, brothers and sisters will have. The longer we hold them the sooner Prince Lothan will arrive,’ the commander inside the tower said, his words low and solemn, barely audible over the din.
Tebin ran for the palace but the only route he knew was via the training ground. Smoke clawed the sky to merge with the clouds and suffocated his vision as well as his throat. Fires raged across streets and alleys where men lay dead and dying. The ground squelched from blood and sweat. Tebin ran. His arms ached. His legs ached. His neck ached. Sweat poured down his face and the sword weighed heavy in his hand. He tossed his helm and felt immediate relief, but it did not last. He strode on through fields of dead men and burning houses.
The guttural shouts of Gör Khāni brutes broke through the roar of fire and dying men. Two black armoured soldiers prowled toward Tebin searching the dead about the neck, wrists and belt. He ran into a nearby doorway, smoke puffing out around the door. The two enemy soldiers neared, fingers adorned with dozens of rings, their wrists ladened with silver and bronze. Scanning the street Tebin locked eyes with a boy and girl sheltering in the doorway opposite. He was younger than Tebin, but only by a summer or two, while the girl still retained her chubby cheeks and the fat hands of a babe.
The nearest soldier chuckled, crouching over a dead Silician and looting three rings. The Gör Khāni looked up, ‘How much you reckon?’ He barked to his fellow looter. He bore a scar across his cheek and his left hand was missing two fingers.
The other man turned and looked around before setting thin eyes on the boy and girl, ‘Not much. Too young.’
‘The girl is but the boy might fetch a price.’
‘Easier to kill them,’ the other man searched a dead Gör Khāni.
‘You’re right,’ the scarred man barely paused to consider. He rose and drew the moon sword from his back.
The girl screamed and hugged her brother fiercely but he had no weapon. The moon sword sliced through the air.
Tebin looked to the sword in his hand, there was no way. He tossed it and reached for the bow of a dead man. The thin eyed man shouted but it was too late. Tebin loosed two arrows into the scarred soldier. He stumbled and fell against the crumbling wall of the building. The girl screamed again.
‘You fiend!’ The thin eyed man screamed and charged at Tebin.
Tebin fumbled for an arrow but loosed wide. The moon sword glowed orange in the firelight as it rose. Tebin reached for an arrow. The blade sang. The bow creaked. Steel flashed. Arrow blurred. The Gör Khāni invader sank to his knees, an arrow in his throat.
Tebin sucked down short sharp breaths, his heart threatening to burst from his chest. ‘We have to go,’ he growled at the boy and girl. ‘Now!’ He found his sword, sheathed it, and refilled his quiver with arrows. Tebin grabbed the boy by the shoulder and shoved him toward the citadel, he picked up the girl and ran through the field of death and fire.
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Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for Chapter 11 next Thursday.
Outstanding battle scene! Perfect mix of chaos and description of the battle action.