The Radiant War

Chapter 19a

     “It's time,” said Field Marshall Amberley.

     King Leothan nodded silently. They were standing on the city walls. Below them, the outermost suburbs of the city were still and silent. The residents, everyone who lived outside the wall, had been evacuated inside, some by force. There were always some idiots who refused to leave their homes, even when there was an all conquering foreign army on its way. Leothan had some sympathy for them. Most had spent their whole lives working to pay for their homes, to pay off the huge debts they'd earned buying them, and then there was the work they'd done to redecorate, add extra rooms for adopted animals, repair weather damage. It represented a vast investment that left them almost as emotionally attached to the bricks and mortar as they were to their loved ones. Asking them to abandon them, even in order to protect their families, was, in some cases, simply asking too much. It had to be done, though. Carrow was coming.

     On the horizon, the smoke of battle was rising in dozens of places, and the thumps of artillery shells could be heard like the irregular heartbeat of some huge, infinitely destructive monster. Ten miles away, the once beautiful Helberion countryside was now a nightmare of mud and smoke through which human beings crawled like worms past the ruined corpses of farms and small towns, and Leothan was about to give the order to bring that nightmare right up to the very walls of his city. All the houses he could see below him, all the schools and small shops and taverns in which people had enjoyed tankards of ale while discussing kickball and local politics in happier days, they were all about to be destroyed by Carrow artillery fire while what remained of his army would return fire from the walls, from where he was standing at this very moment. The wall, built two centuries ago, was designed to defend against catapults and battering rams. It wouldn't last long against modern artillery fire, but if everything went the way they hoped, it wouldn’t have to.

     There were Radiants out there, he saw. Above the battle. The new ballistae had kept them away for a while, and the King had been grimly amused to see several burst into flames as the long bolts with their payloads of burning, oil-soaked rags had torn through their flotation sacks, igniting the hydrogen gas. Very quickly, though, the creatures had adapted to the new weapon. Reports had come in of several Radiants cooperating to carry large rocks in their tentacles which they had dropped on the Ballistae from a height of several hundred feet. It was hard to be accurate from that height, even for a Radiant, and it had taken several attempts for each Ballistae, but one by one they had been smashed by the falling rocks.

     Attempts had been made to save the last ones by hitching up horses and trying to pull them away as the rocks fell, but the Radiants had adapted yet again, with up to a dozen of the creatures dropping several rocks at once. One aimed at the ballista itself and the others aimed at possible avenues of retreat. Again, it had taken several attempts for each weapon, but one by one the beautiful, magnificent symbols of human defiance had been destroyed. Leothan tried to console himself with the thought that they had served their purpose, though. They had convinced the Radiants that they'd tried to hold their positions around the city as long as possible. When the defenders retreated back to the city, all their enemies, Carrowmen and Radiants alike, would think that they had simply been left with no choice.

     “Is there any sign that they've figured out what we're doing?” he asked. “Any sign they’re suspicious?”

     “Our spies report nothing,” replied Amberley. “We won't know for sure until we see whether they occupy the trenches we're abandoning.”

     “Someone must have commented on their positioning,” said the King. “Our trenches are far from the ideal places you'd put them if your only thought was to defend the city.”

     “You'd need a good knowledge of strategy to spot that,” replied the Field Marshall, though. “Carrow has numbers, but their men just aren't as good as ours. If they only outnumbered us two to one we'd have licked them long before now. Sent them scurrying back to their own country.”