[Rimetrolls] Day of a Siege

[Xarkly 12580]

RIMETROLL EVENTLINE

DAY OF A SIEGE

Spoiler

 

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"Push, Farald!"

 

"I am pushing!" he hissed back through grit teeth, and then heaved a sigh of relief when the wheels of the cannon finally pushed out of the cart-rut it had gotten stuck in. Despite the exercise and his fur-lined Haense Royal Army beret and cloak, he was shivering. The winter cold still showed no sign of abating, and Farald - like everyone else - blamed the Trolls for that. "Rot," he breathed. "This is suicide."

 

Beneath her own beret, Lyssa narrowed her dark eyes at him. "What, pushing the cannon?"

 

"No," he shot back. "Just ... this," he spread his arms to gesture all around him. Lyssa turned, frowning at the siege encampment being erected just two miles south of Krusev. Despite the cloaked shapes of HRA soldiers moving all around them, hoisting up sharpened stake-walls and hastily-constructed log watchtowers, there was very little noise. Nobody spoke, and nobody wanted to. Beneath berets or half-helms, stark faces stared out with grim eyes, and Farald imagined he looked the same. His eyes drifted past the cannon to where Lost Krusev stood to the north, its ice-glazed walls gleaming in the warmthless sunlight. Farald did not want to see the ruins, but he could not keep himself from looking at it no matter how hard he tried. It was a stark reminder of the upcoming battle. And our upcoming deaths.

 

Lyssa mimicked his sigh, her gloved hand resting on the cannon barrel as she too looked towards Krusev, black cloak twisting around her in the wind. Occasionally, they could hear distant growls from Krusev, and those sounds always made the soldiers freeze in their preparations and looked towards the ruins in alarm. "We're doomed either way," Lyssa said bitterly. "We either starve, or we fight them." 

 

"A slow death or a quick one," Farald muttered. There was little hope it would be anything but a death at this stage. As Farald saw it, they had been lucky to survive against the Trolls for this long. Most fights had been against no more than half a dozen, and they had always had walls to hide behind. This time, they were attacking the Troll's defensive position in the ruins, and reports from Ser Cedric's scouting expedition glanced the Trolls well over twenty, if not thirty. Like I said, he thought as he exhaled misty breath. Suicide.

 

Wordlessly, the two of them hunched over and began pushing the cannon again. Are we really doing this? Farald asked himself. Despite how assured he was that any assault on Krusev would be doomed, he was eerily calm. He did not understand why he was not shaking, what he was not puking his guts out, or why he was not panicking. He did not understand why anyone was not panicking. Dead men walking. That's what it is. We're all just dead men walking.

 

Finally, they brought the cannon to a stop in a gap between the stakewalls where it had a perfect view of Krusev, and they fastened it into place before they straightened up. "Listen, Lyssa ..." Farald began slowly as he stared at the ruins once more. If I'm going to die ... if this is really going to be the end ... I might as well tell her. He thought if he could just do that much - if he could tell her how he really feels after their years of service in the HRA side by side .... he might be alright. He make be able to make his peace, and give his life for what little it was worth.

 

She turned to stare at him, her usually-stern eyes wide with the same subtle fear that had gripped the entire Army. Her eyes were so blue, like the frost on Krusev's walls.

 

"I, ah ... I just ..." Farald began. "Before this siege, I just wanted to say -"

 

"HEY, YOU TWO!" came a sudden bellow from a sergeant nearby who was overseeing a knot of younger soldiers trying to hold up a log-watchtower that had not been secured properly. "COME HELP!"

 

"Rot," Farald cursed, his short-lived courage seeping out of him.

 

"What ... was it you wanted to say?" Lyssa asked softly, but a second later there came another impatient yell from the sergeant.

 

"I'll, um, I'll just tell you later," Farald said dismissively. Lyssa seemed to give him a sad frown, before the two of them took off towards the watchtower.

 

As they moved, Farald spared one last glance towards Krusev. Even from here, he could make out the gargantuan shapes of Trolls waiting to squash them. Then, he looked up at the pale sky, marred only be a few streaky clouds.

 

You had better let me live, he prayed. He doubted God was listening, though.

 

If he was, then he would never have let things grow this bad.

 

 

[CopOwl 1668]

HRA Soldier Lynette Stewart growls under her breath to anyone listening. She takes many deep breaths, knowing what he brothers and sisters in arms are going through and feeling at that point in time. She looks out over the bleak Attenlund landscape, her face a knot of grim resolve and unconfined frustration. "I know that they're dying out here! We're dying out here! But Krusev is more important than this!! People are starving. Meanwhile we sit here with plenty of food supplies, nice comfortable tents, and hordes of trolls willing to protect us and fight along side us. I can't just let everyone at home die.. There are plenty of us here, why must the Haeseni Special Ops forces remain.." She growls angrily, fists clenched as her nails dig painfully into her palm. Eventually her eyes fill with tears as her eyes look out at the infinite flatness of the swamp water and her voice speaks again, initially solemn but growing in intensity. "If... If I go home.. And.. And he's.. And they're dead. I swear, I will saw every last troll in half. And no person, no being, nothing will be able to control my anger and cease my path of complete obliteration. Or they will become simply one of the fallen." The woman, desperate to return home to aid her fellow soldiers in battle, cries out in rage from her seated place in the middle of the swamp. Eventually she rises, after a moment to return her face to it's normal grim exterior. "Someone is dying today. Whether they like it or not."