Forlorn Hope - Chapter 11

The Siege of Silicia (Part 2)

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The dawn came from the west. The orange glow of a new day had a stream of acrid black smoke accompanying it. Prince Lothan galloped through the night at the head of his horde, there was no other word for it. Thousands of mounted warriors, from nomads to settled folk, fishers, potters, hunters, and soldiers. The earth quaked with their fury and their mounts felt the urgency of their riders, never tiring. Lothan’s saddle and legs were thick with blood and sweat, not his but his horse’s. The Ostalori mounts, famed throughout the known world and almost exclusively used by the Temple of Sel, sweat blood and never tired. The slower horses of the Baku had fallen to the rear guard, yet still they charged. Each man had three mounts, so two could at least have a rest from their rider for a few hours. Watering holes were evenly spread, lakes, streams, and wells dotted the peninsular and Tukan son of Tukan knew the location of them all.

The stars to the east twinkled out one by one as the sun rose, beaten in radiance for once. The western dawn showed its hellish flames licking up to threaten the heavens. No one spoke. There was no strategy to it, not now. Lothan did not lead an army but a living thing, a beast made up of thousands of beasts driven by rage and fury with one thought. Revenge. The left hand could not understand the right and the head could not speak to the heart for all their tongues were disparate but they felt as one, they understood as one, they saw as one.

When the walls of Silicia emerged from the horizon, the flames three times as high, a shudder rippled through the horde. Once white stone was charred and cracked. Towers lay in ruins. The statues of Sel and Sar stood, gleaming and whole, amidst ash and cinder. There was no time to wonder how. The gold and green banner of Gör Khān flew over the gatehouse behind the god and goddess, framed by the flames of war. The roar of flames and the din of combat hung in the air like a monotonous chant while drums beat steadily. Siege towers burned against the walls and upon the plains, trebuchets sat still, while a slow and even march pounded the ground. They will hear us approaching, Lothan thought, though it did not matter. Either the enemy heard or they did not, Lothan’s answer, the horde’s answer, was the same. Charge. Mere miles separated Silicia’s last hope from its certain doom.

Thousands of men besmirched the plains around Silicia, garbed in black and wielding moon swords. The sun peeked above the eastern horizon and glinted off the blades, shimmering like a field of candles. There was no time to take stock, no time to strategise, each moment not spent galloping was a moment gifted to the enemy to prepare. Prince Lothan dug his heels into his mount and nocked an arrow to his bow. Thousands of Gör Khāni soldiers marched for the gate into the city, their units snaking in perfect marching time to enter the city and scour it for defenders and resistors that hid in houses, tunnels, and elsewhere. There were homes to loot, women to steal, and men to kill. Lothan scanned the field of invaders for signs of a command tent, a platform, a yurt, any sign of the Great Emperor or commander. There was none. Trebuchets and catapults lay silent, their engineer teams resting from the night’s siege. The enemy camp was nowhere in sight and Lothan wondered if the enemy had marched non-stop from Gör Khān. He raised his bow, knowing his enemy were mere mortals and not demons of the underworld. There was a mighty creaking echo behind him as his horde drew their bowstrings.

The flank of the nearest enemy unit turned, looking to the rumbling ground. He yelled but few heard him over the twang of bowstring and whistling as thousands of arrows pierced the air and arced through the fading night. The pitter patter of rain was accompanied by shrieking men. The Gör Khāni captains and colonels began bellowing orders. Chaotic, contradictory orders. ‘Form up here.’ ‘Make for the gatehouse.’ ‘Form a semi-circle.’ ‘Retreat to the main camp.’ Lothan nocked a second arrow and let death’s song soothe his nerves.

After the fifth volley he holstered his bow and drew his sword. The men around him, Hufin, Rugad, Tamon, and Gotang closed ranks, the men beside them followed suit until the whole horde was shoulder to shoulder. One enormous beast. Bone and steel crunched as momentum spurned them onwards through rank after rank of disorientated invaders. Black helms vanished beneath the warhorse. Moon swords snapped. Before he had reached the gates of Silicia the army of Gör Khān was in flight, at least a small portion of it that had yet to enter the city proper. Prince Lothan led the charge deep into the enemy and onward to where the Village of a Thousand Villages had stood, before the people were sheltered within the city. The sun graced his face with warmth and joy when he burst out the back row of black clad invaders. Lothan wheeled around, the cavalry tracking him, and rode for the gate. The ground was thick with steel and blood. Dead and dying men groaned while too many horses whinnied from broken legs and slashed flanks. Men from Ostalor, Baku, Yalldar and elsewhere lay amongst the dead and dying, far fewer in number but too many for the Prince’s liking. There was no time to stop, no time to mourn. He raced ahead and swung for the neck of a bewildered invader, his helmeted head grimaced as it flew through the air to land in the belly of his disembowelled comrade.

Beneath Sel and Sar, Lothan offered a prayer. A short and desperate thing with mumbled words and phrases. The gods would understand, he knew. His cavalry shuddered and contracted to enter the city. Many of Tukan’s nomads began looting the corpses and killing the stragglers. Baku riders burnt the siege engines and chased away the engineers. The Prince could not bare to look back, not yet, there was too much to do inside the city where flame and smoke, narrow alleyways and muddied streets, lay in wait to confound him. He prayed he would make it to the palace citadel in time, that the gates would hold, that Xun-Ma Rei would survive, that his father would still have his head. He prayed he had not failed his people.

Fires raged on all side obliterating the sky and dowsing the streets of Silicia in a grim lustre clogged with black smoke. The streets, cobbled or not, were thick with blood and corpses. Rubble lay strewn on every corner and most alleyways had been sealed shut by buckled houses. War drums lay split and pierced on piles of timber, their drummer’s bodies twisted from the fall. Prince Lothan stared directly ahead, the fire pulsing in his ears so loud it drowned out all other sounds, his lungs ached, and sweat dripped from every pore. He wished Chatogan was with him to lift the mood. Tamon was no help as he hid tears with his sleeve while Hufin and Rugad focussed, like Lothan, on what was before them. The archway of fire, booming with noise and heat, was joined in chorus by guttural cries and the crunch of a battering ram. Lothan’s horde had split down all the passable roads, some where likely knee deep in combat already while others could merely hear what was to come. How many thousand remain? It didn’t matter. Couldn’t matter, not in the midst of the fight.

Prince Lothan urged his steed into a gallop, his sword swirling golden flame upon the steel. The horse leapt over burning timbers and surged into the backs of the Gör Khāni ranks. Hufin appeared beside him, slashing left and right while his steed trampled and bit at the enemy before before him. The blood-sweating steed slowed, the press of bodies to thick. There were no alleyways to flee down, no gates to flee out of, no plains to flee over. The enemy, black clad and bloodied, turned to fight knowing death awaited them.

Lothan swung left and right, parrying curved blade after curved blade, striking at necks and shoulders were he could. His Ostarlori warhorse kicked and bit, snorted and whacked its head at those invaders who ventured too close, standing eight foot tall few approached from the front but wounds gathered on its flanks and hindquarters. The mount bucked and walked backwards but there was no where to go. Lothan’s cavalry was trapped between burning rubble and legions of enemy souls.

‘My Prince!’ Tamon’s voice was hoarse.

Lothan ignored him, focussing on the flashing blades descending upon his legs. A sudden panic took him, archers! He scoured the distance but the smoke and flame obstructed his view. The plumed helmets of the Gör Khāni grew in the shadowed smoke, giant and menacing. A trick, he knew and took comfort in the smoke that obscured his vision also obscured the enemies.

‘My Prince! We must turn back,’ Tamon shouted over the din. A coughing fit followed. ‘There’s a path to the south!’

Nothing wide enough for us all. Better to stand and fight here, Lothan thought though the words would not come, could not come. The acrid smoke clawed his throat and stung his eyes. The hind legs of his steed buckled and he tumbled backwards to land on a pile of trampled men. His horse, free of his weight, found its feet and kicked wildly at the Gör Khāni soldiers but without Lothan’s blade to deflect the moon swords it did not last long. Lothan scrambled to his feet, thankful for the brief respite the ferocious and loyal steed had provided. Hundreds of Silicia’s supposed rescuers were on foot standing upon the bodies of man and horse alike. Lothan looked back. He still had cavalry, many rows behind and trapped by the fires that had spread to engulf the road behind. Tamon was off to one side, gesturing for the alleyway. Some were following, most were not. I don’t know where that leads, if a building collapses… he rebuked the thought and focussed on what was ahead of him.

‘Prince, without shields or proper armour those long reaching blades will tear us apart,’ Rugad leaned close, his voice a deep rumble of stone. Smoke smeared his face along with congealing blood and sweat. If Lothan didn’t know he would think the man a demon.

‘All we have to do is get close enough that length doesn’t matter. The street is narrow, the smoke thick. Archer support will kill their men as much as ours and without the space to manoeuvre I doubt the polearms will be much use,’ Lothan coughed warm, black mucus into the palm of his hand. ‘This smoke will kill us before long, the only way is through.’

‘The only way is through,’ Rugad repeated. ‘The only way is through,’ he bellowed. ‘The only way is through,’ Hufin joined Rugad’s call.

‘The only way is through,’ Lothan repeated as loud as his aching lungs allowed. He advanced, the men with him.

The Gör Khāni line undulated trying to form some semblance of defence. Lothan strode forward, shoulder to shoulder with his men, over the dead and dying. The first swipe of moon swords came, high and heavy like an axe. Lothan heard the screams of dying men as he parried a curved blade just above his head. He rushed forward, grabbed the long polearm in the middle, and skewered his attacker through the neck. The stench of sweat and blood overwhelmed him but there was no where to go. Men crashed into men, using their elbows and fists more than their swords. Stomach turning crunches of broken bone and splintered armour thundered down the line. Lothan grappled the dead man off his sword only for a fist to slam into his jaw. Ringing filled his ears and stars seared his vision until he felt a hand around his neck, he emerged on the surface of shock and slammed the hilt of his sword into the man’s wrist. It snapped and the man screamed. Lothan slashed wildly and caught the enemy across the nose and eyes. He collapsed. Another filled his place.

Scrambling over the bodies, knuckles drenched in blood, his clothing sodden with sweat and worse, face black with smoke, Lothan advanced. The once horde, now infantry, though there was little semblance of order, better to call them warriors, duellists, wolves, advanced in pockets and retreated in pockets. Knives and fists became the order of the day and neither offered a swift death. Slim, curved knives slipped between lamellar plate to gut men while fists wailed on eyes and ears.

Lothan advanced, ‘The only is through.’ He whispered, spitting out a wad of blood. He wrenched a helmet backwards, choking its wearer, and planted his fist in his face. Warm blood and mucus burst out from the soldier’s nose. Thrashing, the Gör Khāni man planted two wild punches into Lothan’s gut, a kick to his knee. Lothan crouched and charged, tackling the man at the waist. The crunch of steel and bone sent a shivering pain up his hand and into his arm. A finger was broken but the pain dulled to join the others in his head, his gut, his legs. Grappling the enemy between his legs Lothan wrapped his hands about his neck and squeezed. A minute passed before Lothan was thrown backwards, a boot whacked him across the face and he fell, dizzy, to land upon the body of a Yalldari warrior.

‘Prince!’ Rugad roared.

Lothan lay dazed, the shadow of Rugad standing over him. The man wielded two moon swords, spinning the polearms in wide arcs to create a ring about him.

‘Get up!’ Rugad jabbed his heel into Lothan’s ribs.

Lothan grunted.

‘I said get up!’ His heel jabbed twice.

Lothan surfaced, the roar of fire, the stench of blood and sweat, reaching to his heart and mind to spur him awake. Leaping to his feet he found a sword, a curved sickle-like weapon Tukan’s band used.

Rugad tossed one of his moon swords like a javelin, skewering two men through the chest and sending a dozen more tumbling to the ground. ‘Hufin!’ He barked and coughed.

Lothan scanned ahead and beside him. They’d advanced a paltry ten feet. The dead and dying were evenly numbered but the Gör Khāni began to keep their distance. A field grew between the two armies, six feet wide. Men rose from the field of dead to limp to their respective side. Swollen eyes, smashed noses, broken wrists and ankles, the injuries were brutal. More brutal than a swift gash across the neck, at least that killed you quickly.

Hufin gathered men about him and emerged from the Silician line smeared with blood and soot, only his eyes shining white. The cavalry had gone and Tamon was nowhere to be seen. Lothan looked ahead, ‘The only way is through.’

Rugad roared wordlessly and charged, the first swipe of the stolen moon sword taking three heads. Lothan swiped with the sickle sword, the shape bizarre to him yet it cut through lamellar, given the right angle. Guts spilled out of his first victim, the stench of shit overwhelming the scent and taste of smoke. Lothan balked and aimed for the next man’s shoulder. The blade caught on a lamellar plate and tore the chains and leather binding to cut deep into the collar bone. Stuck, Lothan planted his foot on the man’s chest to wrench the sword free. Blood fountained from the man, chips of bone scattering across Lothan’s face, as the man fell back with a wheezing sigh. Hufin was with them then, along with a press of men that surged forward and shunted the Gör Khāni back.

Another ten foot was gained, yet the cost was ten times as high. The Prince had long lost his sickle sword in the femur of some poor fool and grappled with a man taller and heavier than him. Tearing off his helm he tried to gouge the man’s eyes but felt the butt of his head smash against his cheekbone. Lothan reeled backwards, grasping for something to halt his fall. He fingers caught on a belt and he yanked himself upwards, head-butting the taller man in the chin. Lothan saw stars and his enemy spat teeth. Lothan sighed and raised his fists.

The ground rumbled, the crack of the battering ram pierced through the rabble of battle. The ground rumbled harder and the crying of dying men echoed from the back lines of the Gör Khāni position. An explosion of wood, the snapping of iron, boomed and a cheer accompanied the laments. The ground rumbled hard enough to shake Lothan to his knees. His enemy tripped over a dead man’s arm and fell. Smoke twirled overhead, as if caught by the wind. Baku and Yalldari war cries thundered from deep in the smoke and the ghostly apparitions of charging horses tore through the smoke.

Lothan leapt to his feet, ‘The only way is through!’ He bellowed and charged, kicking the taller enemy in the head as he passed. He scavenged a straight-edged sword. Rugad was beside him, Hufin too. The men of the Silician Peninsula gathered and charged. The invaders fell, confused by the cavalry charge and unable to fight on two fronts.

‘My Prince!’ Tamon coughed. He leaned heavy in his saddle, he and a hundred horsemen gathering beside the enemies battering ram. The palace citadel had been breached.

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