Xarkly 12610 Share Posted November 14, 2022 SONG OF THE BLACK CHAPTER VIII: DULES BESIEGED A Lord of the Craft novella set in ancient Ruskan lore. Previous Chapters: Chapter I: Osyenia Chapter II: Lahy Chapter III: Mejen Chapter IV: Soul & Sword Chapter V: The Eyes of Ruska Chapter VI: The Shadow of Dules Chapter VII: A Pact of Glass Josef Tideborn and Dragan Skullsplitter, the mercenary captains in charge of the defence of the Trade City of Dules - the most vital city in Ruska - are left scrambling when the impossible happens after the armies of Vladrik Nzechovich and the Karovic Princes, both of whom are competing to control the realm, strike a temporary peace to attack the city together. After a naval assault on the city's harbour, in which Ratibor Skysent fells scores of the city's defenders, Josef Tideborn realises that the city won't hold under these circumstances, but it becomes clear the bickering Electors of Dules, most of whom are merchants and not soldiers, lack the foresight and grit to do what needs to be done. Music - Play & Loop All Spoiler The three Stagbreakers attacked at once. Ratibor’s sword descended in a blur of steel, slicing through the shoulder of the first Stagbreaker as he raised his axe to swing, and he went down as Ratibor pulled his blade back to clang against the warhammer coming from his left. His sword parried the hammer cleanly aside, leaving the attacker open to a clean riposte through the neck. Ratibor slammed his shoulder into the hammerwoman to shove her off his sword just in time to intercept the spearman charging down the deck; his sword clashed into the spearhead to deflect it away from his chest, and he moved his blade into the path of the spearman’s neck. Blood sprayed onto Ratibor as the Stagbreaker stumbled forward, and fell with a gurgle. “IS THAT ALL?!” he bellowed to the deck of the ship littered with dead and dying, both his fellow Karovic soldiers and Stagbreaker mercenaries alike. “HAS ANYONE ELSE THE BALLS TO CHALLENGE RATIBOR SKYSENT!?” “I - I don’t think anyone else can hear you, my lord,” came a faint voice behind him. “No, I don’t suppose they can,” Ratibor sighed in agreement. He stood on one of many Karovic carve ships that congested at the walled harbour of the Trade City of Dules, where the mercenaries of the Stagbreaker Company, hired to defend the city, had been fighting off Karovic naval advances for days -- today was the fourth assault. All around him, soldiers fought and died on other ships, but his was pitifully empty. “You know, Vlasta, usually squires help their Bogatyrs. Fighting three at once is a challenge, even for me.” He turned behind him, where his squire squatted over a Karovic soldier with a stomach wound pumping blood slumped against the ship’s mast. It was true that Vlasta of Osyenia had saved the Karovic Princes from a ruinous defeat at the Battle of Mejen, but since Prince Kosav had assigned the girl to train as Ratibor’s squire, he had his doubts about whether the girl was cut out to be a Bogatyr. For one, her combat training was minimal, and she certainly lacked the stomach for battle and bloodshed that most warriors took years to develop. Despite her scale-mail and helmet, from which strands of her dark hair stuck out, she did not look at all like a warrior with her wide eyes, pale face, and the trembling fingers with which she was trying to tie a makeshift bandage around the soldier. “I - I’m sorry, my lord,” she stammered as he tried to knot the bandage. “I - I just - Zedov got cut in the stomach, and I -” “Zedov looks like he’s got a slashed gut, Vlasta,” Ratibor explained calmly as the sounds of battle continued to ring out all around them. “You can’t just stop to treat the wounded in the middle of battle. Prince Kosav wouldn’t be pleased with me if you died on my watch. His Highness seems rather fond of you.” “I-I know.” Vlasta’s movements did not stop, though. Blood trickled from Zedov’s mouth, and his twitching lips were the only sign that the fellow was still alive. “But if I can just … if I can just finish …” Ratibor sighed as he approached. In one swift motion, he raised his sword, and thrust into Zedov’s heart. With a faint breath, the soldier went still, and Vlasta gasped as she recoiled backwards. “There, problem solved. He’ll be rewarded in the Skies, and we’ll be joining him soon if you don’t keep your wits about you, Vlasta.” If the girl had been distracted before, now she was on the verge of a panic attack as she sucked in rapid breaths. Clicking his tongue irritably, Ratibor offered her a hand, and when she did not take it he grabbed her by the wrist to hoist her upright. “Are you having second thoughts about this squire business already?” “I … just wasn’t expecting …” “The blood? The bodies? The smell?” Ratibor flicked the blood off his sword as he looked back over his shoulder. Volleys of arrows fired freely overhead from Karovic ships further back in the fleet, keeping the artillerymen on the harbour’s walls pinned down. “Well, for what it’s worth, most people say the same thing. It’s what separates the weak from the strong. The weak let it rattle them too much -- they lose their nerve, they get sloppy, and they get killed. The strong find some way to take it in their stride, and they live to the battle where it gets a little easier, until they’ve seen enough battles where it doesn’t bother them at all.” “S-some way to take it in my stride, my lord? Like what?” she asked as she picked up her shield from beside Zedov’s body. Ratibor frowned as he watched the sail of a nearby ship catch fire. “Well, everyone has their own method.” He gave her a flat look. “It’s not too late for you to go back to the command ship, and I’m not saying that to discourage you -- it’s for your own sake. I’ve seen enough prissy children of nobles who don’t know what it really means to be a Bogatyr, and they die because of it. If I can spare you from that, I will. There’s a reason the songs don’t sing about the blood, the bodies, and the smell.” Instead of answering, Vlasta ran to the edge of the ship, and vomited overboard. “Well,” Ratibor grumbled, “I guess that’s that, then. I’ll help you find Stanislaw and get you out -” Vlasta turned back to him, and despite the fact her face was pale as snow, her eyes had a ragged, determined look as she fastened helmet back on. “J-just had to get that out of my system, my lord. I-I’m with you. I promise, I-I can do this.” For a moment, Ratibor only watched her. Maybe I misjudged her. He had seen that look in her eye in others before, and he knew that the girl was smart enough to know that real battle wasn’t like the stories. Hmph. I wonder if it’s like the others I’ve seen with that look. She’d rather risk enduring this than return to whatever life she had before. Well, I suppose I can’t say no to that. “Come on, then,” he said at last. “Our crew is dead and the ships nearby aren’t faring as well as us. Stick close, and try to stab something so you can get used to it.” Without waiting for her, Ratibor took off at a run. He kicked off from the gunnel of the ship, and leaped over the gap of rushing, bloody water to the neighbouring ship. Here, Karovic soldiers in chainmail vests and red-black colours clashed against Stagbreaker mercenaries in mismatched armour - except for their broken-antler pendants - and ranged from dark-skinned Tarcharmen to pale Waldenians. The fighting paused as the combatants looked to Ratibor in surprise at his sudden arrival. “If you do not believe in the one true God,” Ratibor began as he brandished his blade, “now would be an excellent opportunity to start before I send you to him.” One of the Stagbreakers spat through his helmet, and Ratibor leapt into action. He glided forward, snaking his sword past an axeman’s guard and into his forehead. The Karovic soldiers pressed the attack with him, but most of the Stagbreakers fell to his sword. His usual technique of striking vitals - the armpits, neck, and, if they were not heavily armoured, the heart - when a foe raised their heavier weapons to swing worked as well as ever, and it was not long before his sword was caked red once more. Everyone has their own method. His own words echoed in his head as his sword struck true time and time again. While the Stagbreakers may have been a mix of many different races, they all looked the same to Ratibor when he went for the kill. In his mind, their faces blurred, forming the broad and scarred face of the first man that Ratibor had ever killed -- the man on which his moniker, and his fame, was built. Each time he struck, he imagined the accursed face of Burgov Godsbane, and with that image came the raw reminder of that man’s evil. With that fixed in Ratibor’s mind, he never faltered. He finished off the last Stagbreaker with a kick that sent them reeling overboard, and the Karovic soldiers let out a cheer. Ratibor, inhaling sharply, turned to find Vlasta hunkered behind her shield with a dry sword, but he supposed that was to be expected. The girl will learn with time. Better she just survives for now. “Bless you, Skysent!” boomed a man with a bloodstained beard sticking out from the winged helmet that marked him as an officer. “We were getting a little overwhelmed just then!” Ratibor recognised the beard and the husky voice. “God will not let mere sellswords defeat us, Egriev,” he replied matter-of-factly as his eyes scanned the chaotic sprawl of Stagbreaker and Karovic ships congested side-by-side at the mouth of the walled harbour. “Have you received any orders from Stanislaw or the command ship? Things seem to have gotten out of hand.” “No, lord.” Egriev shook his head. “We -” The ship suddenly heaved violently, throwing Ratibor and the others to the deck, as wooden splinters shot out. When Ratibor looked up, he found the shaft of a six-foot ballista bolt skewered into the deck near the bow, and the ship began to tilt sideways. “A ballista?! Damn it, the archers were supposed to be keeping their artillery pinned!” As he grappled to his feet, he squinted up at the harbour walls where Stagbreakers rushed back and forth between. Those walls were fitted with scorpions and even ballistae that could sink a ship with just a few shots, but Karovic archers were meant to keep them under constant fire so that the ships could advance. The volleys had stopped, though, and now artillery crews were busy reloading the ballistae. “So much for that plan,” Ratibor grumbled. “One of the Stagbreaker ships must have reached our archers. If we don’t disengage soon, they’ll sink us all. Egriev, I - …” He trailed off as his eyes caught one figure on the walls who was not running about, but instead observing the battle with crossed-arms. Ratibor recognised the fellow with his thinning pale hair and the silver-worked breastplate. That’s the Stagbreaker captain! That’s Tideborn! Ratibor had vaguely heard that name before, but he had heard it a thousand times over since they had begun their siege of Dules. Josef Tideborn, the cunning behind the Stagbreaker mercenaries and one of the leaders of Dules’d defence. If I can reach him … “M-my lord?!” Egriv called over the sound of fighting as he grappled with the mast to stand. “Take my squire and fall back to the command ship, Egriev,” Ratibor said through a grin. “I’m going to go take a trophy.” Ratibor Skysent “A clean hit, boss!” “Good!” Josef Tideborn called over the sound of battle as he stood atop the harbour walls of Dules, watching the ships clash in the water below. “Free-fire at any Karovic ship until it sinks! Utwulf, have the scorpions crewed! Andolf, send out the reserve ship!” “Yes, boss!” Grunts of assent echoed as his Stagbreakers on the wall carried ammunition and cranked the steel limbs of the ballistae back to reload. Until a few minutes ago, the Karovic archers had kept them pinned, but now that Josef’s sailors had boarded their ships, he was free to rain death from the walls. Same as the other three times. Like clockwork. This was the fourth Karovic attack Josef had repelled from the harbour since the Princes had made their little agreement with the Nzechovich a week ago, but it was getting more taxing with each assault. We’ve been doing well in the circumstances, but we won’t hold out for more than a few weeks with this rate of attacks, he thought wistfully as someone yelled ‘FIRE!’ and a ballista bolt sundered another Karovic ship. It’s just a question of how long the Karovic and Nzechovich can stay friends. When Josef and his Stagbreaker Company had been hired to defend Dules, he had hoped the civil war between the Karovic and Nzechovich would weaken whichever side eventually attacked the city. Given their bad blood, he had assumed any kind of cooperation between them was impossible, and now he was paying dearly for that mistake: while the Karovic fleet attacked the harbour, his co-captain of the Stagbreakers - Dragan Skullsplitter - fought off Vladrik Nzechovich’s enormous army land assault on the city gates. What to do, what to do … He had hoped this would be his last war, and the treasures the Electors of Dules paid him with would be enough for him to retire into luxury, but now the alliance between the Karovic and Nzechovich was really making him work for his pay. Maybe it will still be my last war, just not in the good way. As another volley of ballistae bolts fired, Josef spotted a Karovic soldier in a feathered helmet leap from one sinking ship to another, cutting down two Stagbreakers without barely breaking his stride, before jumping to yet another ship. What do we have here? The warrior vaulted onto the ship closest to the harbour wall, nearly directly beneath Josef, and began to climb the rigging to the crow’s nest at the top of the mast. What on earth is he doing? His impressed smile widened as the soldier, ignorant to the bolts flying, reached the crow’s nest that placed him nearly on the same height as the harbour ramparts, and the fellow locked eyes directly with Josef. A second later, the Karovic swung himself over the crow’s nest, and began to run along the beam of the sails before he jumped. The Stagbreakers operating the ballistae and scorpions stopped their reloading in surprise as the Karovic landed with a roll atop the walls, a mere dozen feet from Josef. Josef whistled as the man came to his feet with his sword at the ready. His Stagbreakers had drawn their weapons, too, and began to slowly surround the Ruskan before Josef raised a forestalling hand. “That was quite remarkable, friend. Did you come all this way to see me?” The fellow grinned under his faceguard, and levelled his bloody sword towards Josef. “It’s Tideborn, right?” Josef smiled and spread his arms. “The one and only! What is your name, warrior?” Despite his smile, his mind raced. He jumped right into the middle of a dozen Stagbreakers on his own… While hundreds of Josef’s mercenaries fought on the water below, he kept only a mere handful with him on the wall - he had not exactly anticipated an attack like this. Blood dripped from the other man’s sword. “I am Ratibor Skysent, warrior of God, and blade of Prince Barbov! Surrender this harbour to me, Josef Tideborn, or I will kill you and give your next-in-command the same options!” “Skysent, eh? I’ve heard of you. You’re the holy warrior that killed Burgov Godsbane all those years ago, right? Canonist priests never shut up about you.” That was nothing to scoff at -- Burgov Godsbane had been one of the most terrifying and cruel raiders of his day. Even Dragan had wanted to stay clear of that man’s territory. Hm. He must be good, then. “But you might need a hand from God for this one. You’re alone, surrounded by twelve of my men.” “That just evens the odds a bit for you, Tideborn. Besides, every minute your men spend away from the ballistae is another minute our ships will push into the harbour.” Josef’s eyes slid back to the water, where ships continued to sink and burn as his Stagbreakers clashed with the Karovic attackers. “Hm. You’re not wrong about that.” His ballistae had already sunk a few Karovic carves, but if he did not keep supporting his own ship from the walls, there was a good chance the Karovic would breach the harbour’s mouth. “You’re strong, famous, and sharp, Skysent! You must be a real catch.” The Bogatyr’s smirk widened. “I have my vices. Are you prepared to fight, Tideborn?” “I am. Utwulf, continue firing on the ships. Leave Skysent here to me.” His troops nodded hesitantly and resumed their posts as Josef drew his own sword, clean and polished. I only need to hold him off for a minute or two. With the ballistae firing, the Karovic will have no choice but to retreat. Skysent here will either have to jump back to his ship, and get left behind and surrounded. Like Ratibor, he levelled his sword at his opponent, and the midday light shimmered on its edge. In his decades as a mercenary, Josef was an adept fighter himself, but he suspected that might count for little against a Bogatyr as renowned as Ratibor Skysent. With that, Ratibor advanced at full charge. Josef caught the Bogatyr’s swing on his own blade, but the sheer impact sent him five steps backwards. Ratibor followed-up immediately, and Josef’s arms ached from the vibrations as he barely managed to turn the follow-up thrust at his neck aside before hopping backwards again. A minute or two?! Damnit, I’ll be lucky if I hold out thirty seconds! Ratibor still grinned under his faceguard as he began to close the distance at a slow walk. “I think you might be a little too old to still be on the battlefield, Tideborn.” Josef managed a smile of his own through clenched teeth. “I think you may be right.” They clashed again in a shower of steel sparks. Josef’s sword creaked as he parried one, then two, then three successive strikes at his shoulder. Wait - he’s only going for my vitals. He’s not trying to wear me down or bleed me. He stepped back a split second before the tip of Ratibor’s sword almost scored his throat. He’s so confident in his ability that he just goes straight for the kill. Maybe I can use that. “Tell me, Skysent,” Josef began as he heaved for breath. “What was it like to fight Burgov Godsbane?” “That was a long time ago.” Ratibor’s voice abruptly lost the amusement it held just moments ago as the Bogatyr shifted into an attack stance. “I’ve sent plenty of others to the Skies since then.” Not much longer. The ballistae fired again, sending wood flying into the air as they drilled into the ships below. Any second now, and the Karovic will be forced to retreat. “Bugrov was one of the greatest warriors of his day,” Josef went on. Maybe I can indulge him. Get him to gloat. Something to buy time. “You must have been barely past boyhood when you slew him, right? How -” His plan had the opposite effect. With a suddenly straight face, Ratibor shot forward and swung horizontally at his neck. The blade shaved off some of Josef’s hair as he ducked under the blow, and sent Ratibor back with a kick. “Woah, woah!” Josef called. “What, you don’t like talking about it or something? I thought that’s the reason you were famous! Ratibor Skysent, blessed by God to strike down the pagan warlord Burgov Godsbane, terror of western Ruska!” Ratibor’s expression had gone still. What’s up with him? He was all guts and bravado just a minute ago. Instead of answering, he shifted his footing to prepare to charge again, and Josef braced himself. Whatever about the man’s reaction to Burgov Godsbane’s name, Josef would not last more than a few more clinches with the Bogatyr. Before Ratibor attacked again, though, a warhorn peeled out from the ships below, and Josef almost laughed with relief. Frantic shouts fellowed as Karovic soldiers tried to secure their ships and row backwards, out of the blockade and back to safety. “You going to join them, Skysent? You could stay to try kill me, but you’ll get left behind.” Ratibor’s smile returned, though weary and begrudging. “I was a little too slow, it seems. Let’s finish this next time, Tideborn, ai?” “Next time.” Next time, I’ll make sure I have fifty reserves at my back so you can’t come near me, you madman. “It’s a date, Skysent.” For a moment, it looked like Ratibor might try get one last blow it, but as the echo of a drumbeat sounded on the ships - meant to coordinate rowers - he grit his teeth. The Bogatyr turned, and leapt from the wall back onto the beam of the ship he had jumped off. He almost lost his balance, before he jumped from the beam to the rigging, and then slid back down the ship as if it were nothing. “**** me,” Josef glowered. “Five pounds of silver if anyone can hit that man!” His crew took the challenge eagerly; they hounded Ratibor with bolts from scorpions and ballistae alike, but none caught him. Leaving a trail of sundered and sinking ships in his wake, Ratibor disappeared into the mass of retreating Karovic, and just minutes later, all their ships had pulled back out of range. Laughter and a chant of victory from his Stagbreakers followed, but Josef dropped his sword and leaned against his knee with a deep breath. “Now that,” he said to himself under his breath, “was a little too close for my liking.” Josef Tideborn Spoiler Thirty-four. Dragan Skullsplitter stared down at his open palm, at the chips and scars accumulated from years of battle. Thirty-four more dead today alone. Dead at my hands. The sun had begun to set over Dules, and so the Trade City was bathed in a burnt orange light as Dragan and Josef trudged through the courtyard of the Elector’s Palace in the heart of the city, surrounded by pale walls and onion-domed towers with tiles of every colour of the rainbow. Members of the Dulen Guard, in their blue-gold jackets and breastplates, clutched their halberds with visible tension as they watched Dragan and Josef move across the massive mosaic of blue and gold tiles in the middle of the courtyard, and no courtiers had ventured far from their apartments since the start of the siege. As if the Nzech or the Karovic will be skulking around the courtyard while the wall still stands. Pfft. These people know nothing about war. Dragan, on the other hand, knew too much. His eyes drifted back to his hand again, which he had scrubbed clean after defeating the Nzechovich assault on the city gates earlier that day. I killed thirty-four Nzechovich today. That adds on to the total of seventy-eight from the past three days, so … “Hey, Josef,” he rumbled as the two of them neared the steps of the Palace proper. “What’s thirty-four plus seventy eight?” “What?” grunted a distracted Josef, before he knit his brow. “Uh, one-hundred-and-twelve. Why?” “... No reason.” Dragan’s frown deepened as he stared at his palm. I’ve had to kill one-hundred-and-twelve of the little Nzech’s warriors in just four days. How many more days to go? As they started up the steps, he glanced back to Josef, who kept scratching his neck under his cloak. “Something bothering you?” “A couple of things,” Josef grumbled. His eyes were narrowed in that way they always were when his mind had hit a brick wall. That seldom boded well. “Some damn Bogatyr near took my head off today at the harbour, for one. Ratibor Skysent -- you heard of him?” “Rings a bell. Can’t remember where I heard it.” “Ah, he’s some holy warrior. Canonists adore him, they say he performed a miracle by killing Burgov Godsbane with nothing but a knife.” Dragan blinked. “He’s the one who killed Godsbane?” That was no meagre feat -- ten or fifteen years ago, Burgov Godsbane had been a pagan raider that had terrified western Ruska. From all Dragan knew, he was a daemon in battle, and a daemon in actions. “And he killed him with a knife?” Josef shrugged. “So they say, only he went all cagey when I brought it up. Either way, point is that the attacks on the harbour are getting dicey. Our artillery is whittling down their ships, but they still almost got in today. It’s becoming a battle of attrition.” The pair of them stepped through the massive arched doorways into the Palace’s grandiose entry hall, all sparkling white marble with gilt and silverwork on nearly every object. A fountain sat in the hall’s centre - an indoor fountain! - mounted with the marble likeliness of some long-dead Elector, while, from every inch of wallspace, the portraits of other rich, pompous Ruskans stared down at Dragan. As a sellsword, he appreciated wealth more than most men, but this … it was all too much. “Master Dragan! Master Josef!” piped up an officer of the Dulen Guard, marked with a feathered helmet as if he was a real soldier, who stood waiting in the entry hall with an escort of halberdiers. “Welcome, sirs. Please, the Electors are --” “Well, the gate’s held up fine so far,” Dragan went on. The officer almost threw himself aside with a yelp to make way for Dragan as he continued without pause. “I can send Cardolf and Voli’s units to reinforce you at the harbour.” Josef pursed his lips, then shook his head. “No -- I suspect Vladrik is holding back in his attacks. He’s hoping the Karovic will put in the leg-work at the harbour, and we’ll send reinforcements there just as you’re suggesting. Once the gate’s defences are lowered, he’ll hit us with everything he has.” “It’s … possible.” Dragan had held the city gates for four days now with relative ease -- for an army of thirty-thousand, Vladrik Nzechovich had not put up much of a fight. With the Dulen Guard awkwardly trailing behind them, the two of them continued down the lavish hallway, at the end of which stood the imposing doorway to the Elector’s Chambers. “So … we can’t win a battle of attrition, and we can’t win an open confrontation against their numbers. What’s the plan, then, Josef? How do we win?” Josef’s face was a thundercloud as they reached the doors. “I’m working on it.” More Dulen Guard - only this lot had the rims and edges of their mail gilded - stood by the doors with their salets lowered. After sharing a look, and glancing behind Dragan and Josef to their defunct escort, each pressed a hand to the huge doors, and began to push them open. The burnt light of the sunset, admitted through massive windows from the Chamber, accompanied the sound of arguing voices in the room beyond. Still pointedly ignoring the Dulen Guard, Dragan sucked in a bracing breath. He truly wished that Josef would handle all the talking with the Electors, but Josef insisted that Dragan always come along. He did not need to elaborate -- people always behaved differently when there was a seven-foot tall Waldenian warrior in the room. That point was well proven as the two Stagbreakers stepped past the door, and the voices grew quiet. The Elector’s Chamber was a round room of mostly gold-and-white colours, with a domed ceiling that stretched dozens of feet overhead. Vistas had been painted on the ceiling tiles, and so a scene of a sprawling and bloody battle around a golden-walled city stared down at Dragan. Although the most impressive painting, it was but one of many that coloured the walls with their enormous windows. The evening set flooded the marble floor, on which sat the polished semi-circular tables around which the Electors gathered. Dragan made no secret for his disdain for the Electors - or most of them, at least. From his own minimal understanding, and what Josef had explained, historically Dules had been ruled by a Prince, but not a hereditary one; the heads of the city’s wealthiest families held the esteemed office of Electors, who voted on who would ascend to become the Prince of Dules. For generations, the Electors had competed and plotted among themselves to place their favoured puppet on the throne, but that had all ended when some Nzehcovich king - one of the Nestors, Dragan thought - finally brought Dules under the Ruskan crown. Since then, it had been unbroken tradition that the Electors elected each Ruskan king to the title of Prince of Dules, while governance of the city was left to the Electors themselves. Unbroken tradition, until now. Now, as the Electors have endured several succession wars that had impacted their precious trade, they were trying to break away from the control of the Ruskan Crown by taking advantage of the chaos in the realm. Only, none of them have actually agreed who should be Prince. That was the least of their worries, anyway -- their carefully-hedged bets and exorbitant spending on mercenaries were now crumbling in front of them. Reluctantly, Dragan followed Josef’s lead as he bowed his head to the eight people spread around the table, some standing, some sitting; some young, some old; some calm, some agitated. None of their eyes regarded Dragan or Josef with much fondness, though Dragan did not quite understand - on one hand, the Dulen seemed to lavish in the fact they could pay an army of mercenaries to do their fighting from then, but then other times they seemed unhappy with their dependency on them. “My lords, ladies,” Josef drawled smoothly, and his voice carried through the massive room. “Pardon our interruption. We were told to come straight in to give our daily report.” “ … Yes, well,” an aged Elector in a puffy navy coat who somehow managed to make his wispy patch of silver hair look regal broke the silence as he eased back into his seat, “has anything much changed?” “The trajectory of the siege remains the same,” Josef went on in that same unflappable voice. “We -” “Save predictions and ‘trajectories’ for now, Tideborn,” cut in a slender woman with glossy black hair who Dragan thought was far too young for her cold, authoritative voice. “Facts will suffice.” “Facts,” Josef repeated, just a touch tightly. “As my lady wishes, then. We currently have fourteen of our squadrons defending the south and eastern gates, under the command of our co-captain Dragan. The steeper terrain has deterred any attacks on the north gate so far, and in any case, we’d see one coming well in advance, so we have two reserve squadrons …” Dragan tuned out as Josef bleated out the same numbers of soldiers, of garrison placements, and enemy attack patterns as he had every evening since the siege began. The Electors wanted to hear the same things every time, and thus far, they had done nothing about Josef’s warnings, which he, as usual, tacked on at the end of his report. “I know you did not ask for conjecture, my lords, but as your military advisor, I must once again stress that at the current rate of attacks, the combined Nzechovich and Karovic attacks will break through sooner or later.” Mouths opened and eyes hardened around the table, but it was another young woman - this one with short brown curls and cheeks that still looked like they held a trace of baby fat - who spoke. “I think it is high-time we listened and acted on that part, my lords.” Dragan was not much for names, and he had little regard for these pompous merchant lords, but he had a begrudging respect for that young woman -- Yaina, if he recalled. Even at their earlier meetings, before the Nzech-Karovic assault began, she had always exhibited the most sense out of her lordly counterparts. Granted, the bar is not set very high. She had been the one to help give Josef and Dragan complete control of the outer defences, and she had unsuccessfully petitioned her fellows to send the Dulen Guard to reinforce those defences. “Hmph. Are you going to propose we place the Dulen Guard under the authority of sellswords again, Lady Yaina?” sniffed Wispy-Hair. “It’s about time we did something with them,” Yaina quipped back. “We’re under siege, and we just keep them standing around the inner city doing nothing.” “They are on standby in case the city itself is breached!” retorted Wispy, and some of the other Electors rumbled their agreement. As if they would make any difference in that case, Dragan groaned silently. If the walls are breached, then it’s over for these fools anyway. As it had at every other meeting, the disagreement spread into a chaotic argument among the Electors, leaving Josef and Dragan simply standing there. “I’m not sure how much more of this I can take, Josef,” he sighed quietly to his partner. “If this is our last war, it’s not nearly as much fun as I hoped.” A part of that was a lie -- Dragan no longer found any war fun. Yet still, he wanted to leave the legacy of the Stagbreakers on a high note, not the doomed defence of Dules at the whim of merchants playing at kings. “Me neither, old friend. But I think I might be coming close to an answer,” Josef whispered back. “An answer?” “To your question before we arrived. How are we going to win?” “That so?” his eyes trailed across the room, across the arguing Electors, as the light of sunset began to grow dimmer and dimmer. “What are you thinking?” “Nothing particular,” Josef murmured innocently, “only that a good mercenary has a tendency to end up on the winning side.” 17 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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