The Radiant War

Chapter 21a

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

     King Leothan felt a great weight beginning to lift from him. He looked out across the countryside. The ravages of war now reached all the way to the walls themselves. Once beautiful trees were now nothing but skeletons of scorched wood, and the soil, damp from unseasonal rains, were churned up by the passage of horse drawn artillery and the detonation of artillery shells. Even the walls of the city themselves had taken damage. The occasional enemy shell had, by some fluke of ballistics, reached all the way to the city and had opened a great cavity in the lichen and moss covered wall. The wall was thick enough that it hasn’t yet been breached, but once the enemy could bring their artillery close enough to hit it reliably and consistently, it would fall within just a few hours. The King felt nothing but a great exhilaration, though. They were in the endgame now. One way or another, the war would soon be over.

      “They're occupying our trenches?” he said.

     “They are. Not all of them, but enough. Our spies say about a thousand Carrowmen are digging their own trenches to the north, on either side of the Torrich road, and there’s another brigade digging in beside the Ryback sewage works, but by far the majority are occupying the trenches our own men just vacated. Nobody likes unnecessary labour, it seems. Not even in times of war.”

     “I wonder whether any of our little booby traps scored any enemy lives.”

     “We may never know. Their real function was just to stop them becoming suspicious, though, and it seems to have succeeded. If they killed a few men in the process, that was a bonus.”

     The King nodded. “We have much to be thankful for,” he agreed. “So. How long until we can spring the trap?” He turned and looked the other way, over his beautiful city. Almost empty now. Most of the civilians had been evacuated out, along the road the Carrowmen had left open for them. Some had stayed, of course. Mostly old people lacking the energy for an upheaval in their lives. People who would rather die in their own homes than suffer the anxiety of strange surroundings and uncertain times. And, of course, there were criminals who saw the situation as nothing more than an opportunity to loot and pillage. Even as he watched, he saw a man being marched out of a tobacco shop, his hands manacled behind his back, by a pair of guardsmen. Everywhere else, though, the streets were empty. No pedestrians, no wagons or carriages. A great silence hung over the city, broken only by the sighing of the wind and the distant sound of artillery fire.

     “That's the question,” said Amberley, his practical mind immune to such distractions. “They're still moving in, so we can't do it yet. We wouldn’t get them all. If we leave it too long, though...” Even as he spoke there came a dull thud from beyond the city walls. A much closer artillery round being fired. The King’s bodyguard ran forward, pressing him down to the stone walkway of the wall's top and sheltering him with their bodies. The shell hit somewhere distant, though, and the crump of the detonation was hundreds of yards away. There were more thuds as more shells were fired, though, and the King was unceremoniously hauled back to his feet and ushered to the stairs back down to street level.

     “As I was saying,” said Amberley, as calmly as if they were sitting in the palace with glasses of wine in their hands. “If they get artillery in position to hit the city walls and open a breach, they'll probably all come rushing through into the city and the trap we've laid will be left behind them.”

     “Was that...” said the King with sudden anxiety.

     “No. Just some eager young Corporal who got his cannon into place earlier than everyone else and thinking to impress his superiors with his military zeal. It won't be long, though. Maybe only a couple of hours. I have people watching them. I'm assuming that their entire army will want to invade the city en masse, to minimise the impact our defences can have on them. If they do, we'll be able to time the strike for maximum effect, take out as many as possible. Ironically, the one thing that could throw a spanner in the works would be if, as a result of poor discipline and bad communications, one division invades the city while the others are still settling into the trenches. It would be a horrid joke if it was the enemy’s ineptitude that became our undoing.”