Chapter 17: The Siege of the Red Duke

  The following day was a blur of frantic activity and the roar of a desperate crowd. Nearly three thousand civilians, with carts piled high with belongings, streamed out of the three great Eastern gates under Aeron’s command.

  It was a scene of chaotic sorrow as they abandoned their ancestral lands, leaving behind fields awaiting harvest and hearths grown cold. Overnight, the Red Duke’s valley turned into a hollow shell, populated only by soldiers and the silent, unyielding stone walls.

  Richard could not come to bid Aeron farewell. He was consumed by the task of spreading his meager forces across the fortifications. A thousand men manned the Western gates, where the catapults were concentrated to face the pirate onslaught. Three hundred guarded the Eastern gate against potential mountain ambushes, while the remaining two hundred—half of them heavy cavalry—split their duties between escorting the refugees and acting as a mobile reserve.

  By late afternoon, as the last packhorse cleared the gates, the silence that settled over the valley was heavy and haunting. Torches flickered atop the ramparts; by Richard’s order, each man lit three, spaced evenly apart, to deceive the enemy scouts into believing the garrison was triple its actual size.

  Throughout that night and until the following noon, the enemy remained invisible. Scouts returned with baffling reports: the pirates had vanished, as if swallowed by the earth. While the soldiers whispered of a miracle, Richard Tuckerham, with twenty years of blood and politics behind him, knew better.

  At dusk, black clouds choked the sky, but no rain fell. The air grew frigid as a thick, unnatural fog rolled in, clinging to the earth. The Red Duke’s mages struggled to push back the mist, their power barely able to clear more than half a mile of visibility.

  Suddenly, a flock of birds erupted from the woods, shrieking as they fled over the city. Richard drew his bow. Beneath the mist, he felt the ground begin to thrum. He loosed an arrow into the white void of the forest. It didn't strike the earth; it thudded into something solid that collapsed with a heavy groan.

  "Sorcerers are veiling them!" he roared. "Fire into the mist!"

  A rain of arrows whistled from the ramparts. The fog wavered and broke, revealing dozens of corpses—some clad in the telltale blue robes of mages.

  The "clouds" stalled. Then, a primal roar shattered the stillness of the western approach. The mist evaporated as the enemy mages abandoned their shroud, unleashing the vanguard. Over three thousand pirates, holding wooden bucklers high, charged through the arrow fire. They swarmed the first wall, screaming as they hammered at the gates. Even as boiling oil rained down and boulders crushed their ranks, the barbarians pressed on, stepping over the mangled remains of their kin.

  Richard signaled the catapults behind the second wall. Thump! Thump! Thump! The earth groaned as massive stones ground the pirate vanguard into the mud.

  By late afternoon, the pirates withdrew, having lost hundreds in just a few hours. Their ladders were broken, and their siege rams were charred husks. As night fell, they retreated two miles to camp.

  The Red Duke had lost six men to a surprise volley of throwing axes. After a brief ceremony for the fallen, Richard sent a messenger to the pirate camp, offering a truce to allow them to recover their dead. In response, the pirates hacked off the messenger’s hands, cut out his tongue, and sent him crawling back.

  Enraged, Richard ordered the pirate corpses beheaded. He had their heads strung together on long ropes and dragged to the enemy camp by his heavy cavalry. At midnight, Richard personally led a hundred riders in a lightning raid, burning the pirates' supplies before vanishing back into the darkness.

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  The next morning, the pirates returned to the walls, exhausted but fueled by a feral rage. They attempted to scale the walls using iron grappling hooks, but Richard was prepared. He had ordered the stones coated in lard. Hooks slipped, and those who managed to climb were met by the long spears of the garrison. By midday, another thousand pirates lay dead, while only fourteen Lorencine soldiers had fallen.

  By evening, as the pirates prepared a desperate third wave, the sound of drums thundered from within the city. Richard led a sudden sortie, smashing the pirates in their own camp. He personally sent an arrow through the throat of their leader. When the five hundred elite soldiers returned safely to the gates, the enemy camp was a blood-soaked ruin.

  That night, a small feast was held for the defenders. Richard let them celebrate, but his heart was heavy. He knew these three thousand pirates were merely the bait. Twelve thousand Imperial troops and the rest of the pirate horde were still coming.

  By the fourth day, Richard calculated that the refugees had safely crossed into Tar’Muffin. But this threatened the soldiers' morale. Without families to protect, they began to wonder if they were merely dying for a pile of old stones and a sense of pride.

  At dawn on the fifth day, a long, low horn blast echoed from the distant mountains.

  Richard watched as dust clouds rose from the horizon. Unlike the chaotic pirates, these ranks moved with terrifying discipline. Six thousand fresh pirates formed perfect blocks, followed by the nightmare: twelve thousand Imperial Black Armor troops. They pushed massive siege engines—towers and catapults that dwarfed anything the Red Duke possessed. At their center, the glint of staves signaled a massive coven of mages.

  The combined roar of eighteen thousand men and hundreds of horns nearly broke the spirits of the thousand defenders. Richard saw the color drain from his soldiers' faces.

  Suddenly, a different horn blast rang out—not a threat, but a challenge. It came from the highest, innermost wall. A man stood there, raising the Tuckerham blade high, screaming a single command: "To the death!"

  Aeron had returned. He handed the massive horn back to the giant Ifindo and waved to Richard on the second wall. Richard smiled, and a roar of renewed courage erupted from the battlements.

  "I thought you were chasing a princess?" Richard shouted as Aeron joined him on the front lines.

  Aeron smirked, signaling the archers to loose a volley. "After seeing the people across the border, I left Master Hagoth and the cavalry to settle them. Ivyl, Ifindo, and I came back. Don't think I’ve given up on Chiryl," Aeron emphasized, "but you were right. I am a knight. I must protect my country."

  Thwack! An enemy arrow struck Aeron’s helm, knocking him backward. Ivyl Wall burst into laughter even as she cast a protective ward.

  The siege turned into a meat grinder. Day and night merged into a cycle of fire and blood. The Imperial mages launched flaming boulders at the innermost steel gate—the only part of the "Invincible City" that could be broken.

  By the second week of relentless assault, the original pirate host was nearly extinct. The battle had become a direct confrontation between nine thousand surviving Imperial troops and the remaining five hundred Lorencine defenders. The first two walls had fallen despite Aeron and Richard’s heroics.

  They stood now at the final gate. Nearly three hundred archers lined the high wall, while the remaining two hundred and fifty men braced behind the steel doors.

  Three days later, the inevitable happened. As Aeron dozed fitfully after a night spent fighting off giant spiders summoned by the Imperial mages, a thunderous CRACK shook the foundation. The secondary gate within the Great Steel Gate shattered. A siege ram punched through the timbers.

  "They're in!"

  Blood sprayed as the two forces collided in the breach. The Imperials were far more numerous, but the narrow opening forced them to fight one-on-one. Ifindo, using a broken gate timber as a club, smashed through the black-armored ranks. A blinding white light erupted from Ivyl’s staff, vaporizing dozens of attackers and forcing the Empire to recoil.

  Hours later, the Empire returned with their mages. They loosed bolts of lethal energy into the city. Ivyl and the few remaining Duke's mages could only deflect the worst of it.

  "Target the mages!" Aeron screamed to the archers above.

  But the Empire was ready, using massive, four-man pavise shields to protect their casters. As Aeron rallied his men for a counter-charge, a stray red bolt—escaping Ivyl's control—hurtled toward him.

  BOOM! Dirt exploded, and Aeron was thrown through the air. The Holy Sword Tonga, tucked against his chest, took the killing force of the explosion, but the blast left his head ringing and his vision blurred.

  As he struggled to his feet, squinting through the dust, he saw a strange shadow circling the sky. He rubbed his eyes, thinking it a hallucination, but the shadow didn't vanish. Richard was frantic, gesturing wildly for him to look up.

  A massive lion with eagle wings and piercing emerald eyes roared, diving through the wind and a hail of arrows, straight toward him...