Skybound - Chapter 4: Siege

Stev Aras stood over a table upon which had been placed a faded but intricately detailed map of Fort Expedition and the surrounding terrain. Locations of Deskren siege equipment, encampments, catapults and trebuchets were marked with flattened metallic chips. The city had felt little burden in the first days, well supplied and well defended by the warding towers, but every day more supplies and troops and materials arrived for the Deskren, barges trickling up the river. At the same time the defenses required mages to be on duty to maintain the barrier, and every day of bombardment burned through their stocks of potions, elixirs, crystals, and other viands typically necessary for maintaining strenuous feats of magic in the absence of a Tower connected to the ley lines. The Deskren commander had opted to play the long game instead of simply charging in with overwhelming numbers. They had surrounded the city and began a slow but steady bombardment of stones and intermittent magical artillery. The attackers could rest and resupply at their leisure while the defenders could not.

Food was the least of Stev’s worries. Just over two weeks had passed since the Deskren arrived, and both the Magisterium’s Enclave and the Swift Waters Embassy had burned through nearly a third of their reserve stores of crystal and potions. The attack had been timed perfectly, and the Swift Waters delegate had nearly had an apoplectic fit when it was discovered that someone had altered records and they did not have half as many potions in their local storage warehouses as what should have been there. He was no formally educated military commander, but even he could see the writing on the wall. The nearest reinforcements would have to travel nearly two thousand miles and could not possibly arrive sooner than eight weeks from now, merely ten days into the siege. That time could be shortened by magic and mass area skills, but not by a huge margin, and not for the numbers of troops it would take to pry the Deskren from around the walls.

The Deskren filled the valley around the fort, a sprawling horseshoe camp that curved across several leagues from the eastern cliff-face all the way around to the northwestern border of the Wildwall. Only Expedition’s location as a stopper in the south end of Expedition Pass had kept it from being surrounded completely. The residents of the city had felt contempt for the attackers at first, sure that their highest levelled champions would return, led by Terisa and loaded down with crystal and witchwood and magically infused monster materials. With Teresa on the parapet of the old fort’s tower, Althenea in her hand, the Deskren would have soon found themselves little more than fodder for his mother’s next level. On her own, a single classer that powerful would simply have been targeted for immediate assassination, but Stev’s father, Foz, was half-Ursaran, a berserker, and a partial regenerator on top of that. Assassination attempts had in fact happened over the years, and those unfortunate souls who made it through the city’s wards typically ended up eaten. At least partially. An Ursaran berserker in full rage typically didn’t distinguish between types of meat until after the bloodlust was sated.

Much to Stev’s shame he had fallen victim to the same hubris of the city, smugly waiting in surety that the Expedition would return. That attitude lasted nearly a week past the first snows of the high pass, but when an early blizzard roared its way across the peaks overlooking the fort, that hope finally fizzled out. The city was well and truly on its own, as the pass would not open up again until spring, barring a Greater Working of spellcraft requiring mages in numbers they simply did not have.

As dire as the situation seemed with their dwindling supplies, all hope was not lost. While no shipments or help could make its way into the city to aid the defenders, the same was not true for the Deskren. Stev gazed down at the map, letting his mind and thoughts relax as he considered the lay of the land. The land between the fort and the River Swift was dotted with hills and gullies and groves of trees he had spent his entire childhood wandering with his sister and friends. Many other residents of the city shared similar familiarity with the local area. What held his attention in this moment was the square metal chip, coated in shiny yellow lacquer, placed fortuitously close to not one but two separate washed out dips in the earth. Spring melt was chaotic on the heights, and small streams swelled every spring to rush their way to the larger rivers below. And while a red chip would have noted a trebuchet or siege tower, and a green one an officer’s tent or mage quarters, yellow had been the color his advisors had chosen for the Deskren supply convoys. Several of them were situated further out of reach, but this one was tantalizingly close. A risk, but one that could be lessened by the right people with the right classes, led by someone who knew the terrain. Stev was considering a smash and grab. A small and very fast group to sneak through the gullies and washouts, past the Deskren picket, and grab as much as they could and burn the rest before vanishing back into the terrain to return to the city with the spoils.

He had the people, and ones with classes extremely suitable to the mission at hand. What he did not have, technically, was the ability to hold the gates if he thinned out his people that much and then raised the barrier to let a group out. But there were two unique classers in the city who potentially could hold a gate with minimal support, at least for a short time. Unfortunately, both had been involved in an altercation the very day before the Deskren first arrived, and now languished in the stockades after levelling a shop and collapsing a section of street into the sewers below. Stev had petitioned for their release, but the city’s elected Council had balked, feeling like their authority was being encroached in a time of crisis.

While the city had an officially elected council of sorts, the true leader of the city of misfits had for decades been his rather famous and famously powerful mother. As long as the council kept itself to civil business such as roads and sewers and construction projects, his mother left them alone. The moment they tried to start telling people what do to, she typically shot them until they stopped. The Huntress was not here now, however, and the city was besieged. Stev was sure there was some sort of profound philosophical point to be made about human behavior and fear making people less intelligent, but he had neither the time nor the patience at the moment to chase down such musings to add them to his scribblings kept in a small notebook in his satchel. 

The current source of his irritation was a councilman whose name Stev could not even remember, barging into the impromptu command center of Fort Expedition’s hastily assembled militia. “Absolutely not!” the man nearly screeched. “They are not to be released until restitution to the shop owner is paid! Not to mention fines for the damage to the street and the collapsed sewer below!”

Stev sat back with a sigh, looking up at the councilman. Surrounded by an enemy, and one that inevitably enslaved any who surrendered, had pushed many of the people of the city to a state of fear bordering on irrational terror. Especially those like the councilman who had Classes that were relatively weak on the combat and survival side of the spectrum. Unfortunately for the councilman, Stev did not have time to spend wrangling his way through red tape and smoothing the ruffled feathers of a few puffed up bureaucrats. Not while stones were bouncing off the city’s barrier, shaking dust from the rafters as they spoke. 

Stev finally resigned himself to dealing with the consequences later, and borrowed a tactic his mother was nearly infamous for in some circles. The gnome-engineered, spring loaded bolt-driver built into the armored vambrace covering his left arm suddenly made several clicks and gave off a soft whine before one final click noted it had finished reloading. The firing mechanism itself had been silent, as always, although the guard outside had been alerted when the bolt slammed into the wall behind the councilman with a THUNK!

The now silent councilman slumped to the floor, blood trickling down the front and back of his tunic. The guard stopped with one hand on his sword, and Stev was afraid he would have yet another corpse in his office before the man chuckled and relaxed.

“Wondered how long it would take you to do that,” said the guard. “I take it the mission is a go then? The boys are eager to strike a blow, huddling behind the barrier is wearing thin on most of us.”

“It’s a go,” confirmed Stev. “You get the word sent to make ready to lift the barrier by ten feet. We’ll need a hundred volunteers to mount a charge as a distraction.”

“And you?”

“I,” replied Stev, suddenly nervous with dread, “am going to go let my sister out of jail, and hope she doesn’t try to kill me.”

===============

Princess Maréchal Claire Descroix watched the domed barrier protecting the city ripple, the magic emanating from the towers shifting visibly as something changed within. She had held back from an initial assault of the walls, well understanding the futility of charging against the shield while the defenders were well rested. That would merely have squeezed her own people into tighter masses for Expedition’s more powerful ranged classers to decimate with impunity. She had withheld her own magical artillery as well. While fireballs and lightning bolts would have strained the defenders much more quickly, it would have exhausted her own practitioners as well. Instead she had let her mages rest and ordered trebuchets constructed. Rocks were far cheaper than mana potions.

This was something she had been waiting for. She had plenty of rocks, and a steady supply chain with more supplies and troops arriving every day. The River Swift was aptly named and did not typically freeze over until the very coldest weeks of winter, and the transports had simply kept arriving on schedule. Keeping a constant bombardment on the barrier day after day had cost her almost nothing, and the defenders within had no means to resupply. She knew they had to be feeling the strain by now, and so she was ready when the lower edge of the barrier shimmered, rippling and curling up onto itself as a section nearly two hundred paces across lifted away in front of the western gate.

“Looks like that’s the smallest gap they can open, ma’am.” Adjutant Brechallan Turmeyr, her long-time aide-de-camp and one of the few she considered a friend, helped her don her lamellar coat and handed her a burnished steel helm as he spoke. “Just as you predicted. But we are ready.”

“They’ll aim for the trebuchets,” she replied, gathering up her staff and securing her baton to her belt. “Their mages have to be getting exhausted keeping the shield towers active. If they can stop us from dropping rocks on them for a day to rebuild, it would get them some rest. I did not expect this so quickly, so be ready for anything.”

“They may think it’s better to risk a sortie early, before they’re more worn down,” replied the Adjutant as he secured his own sword.

She felt as much as heard the thumping rattles and clunks as the gate behind the barrier began to rise. “Heavies to the front, protect the trebuchets” she snapped, crisp but without shouting. Brechallan did shout as he repeated her orders. “Let them wear themselves out against our Ursaran. I want a squad of mages with me.”

“We’re hitting the gate?” The Adjutant’s question came through a grin, eager and expectant.

“Any of their heavy hitters we can take out now we won’t have to fight later,” she confirmed. Her silent escort of Imperial Guardsmen flanked the Princess Maréchal and her Adjutant as they left the clearing near the command tent. The sound of a horn came from somewhere behind the gate, the barrier above muddling the acoustics so it sounded tinny and more distant than it actually was. A mass of armed fighters charged out, moving faster than mounted cavalry. Skills and enchanted gear in full effect, they crossed the ground in an effortless sprint, slamming into the massed wall of Ursaran heavy infantry with an impact that could be felt even hundreds of paces away. Screams decorated the evening then, a backdrop of blood and terror that for all its terror gave Claire thrills of exhilaration. For better or worse the waiting and drudgery was put on hold now, and it was time for action.

“There are only two to hold the gate,” said her Adjutant. With spells flying over and through the scrum so close to her position, she could just make out two figures standing in front of the heavy portcullis at the entrance to the city. “That means they are powerful. Be careful, ma’am.”

He snapped out more orders, but Claire’s attention was focused on the two figures. A tall and slender form in a grey tunic with leather breeches. She wasn’t sure at this distance but it seemed as if he had a strip of cloth tied across his eyes, and he stood calmly with both hands resting on the hilt of a sword, the tip resting on the ground in front of his feet. The other figure was equally striking. A shorter woman, hair a wild and curly mane and clad in a loose leather shirt and a loincloth of some animal hide. Without shoes or weapons, it seemed at first glance.

“Four squads of Gendarmes, Adjutant,” she said, paying heed to the feeling in her gut that the pair may actually be as dangerous as they looked. “Be prepared to disengage, I’m not throwing away this siege on a fool’s charge if they prove more than we can handle quickly.”

============

Taz Aras bounced on her toes, eager to vent her rage on the approaching enemies. Her brother had taken more after their mother. A calm temperament --save for those few moments when it wasn’t-- and a level head were the best ways she could describe Stev. Taz, on the other hand, took after Foz. She had gained the [Aspect of Ferocity] at a young age, and staying cooped up within the city under the barrier wore on her temper like an itch she couldn’t scratch. She knew the reasons they could not simply charge out and fight against such numbers, but that did not make the inaction any easier to bear.

Which was how she had ended up arrested by the watch, overreacting to a comment from a total stranger leading to a tavern brawl that levelled a local tailor’s shop before dropping her and said stranger into the sewer when the man had used gravity magic and ripped a section of the street right out from under them. It wasn’t until both of them were restrained in suppression cells by the city watch that she had finally calmed down enough to actually listen. How was I supposed to know he sees through a gravity sense when he said I had nice mass? Anyone would have misheard that!

Her brother letting her sit in the cell for four days before getting her out was another issue entirely, and one she would have still been furious over if not for the enemy troops that were now approaching. Nothing would make her feel better than an honest to goodness fight, and now one was coming to her! She could even put up with having to partner up with her previous so-called partner in crime, Xerrioth. Who was apparently a gravity mage of some sort, even though he used a sword instead of casting grand spells. Most of the time. She certainly hadn’t expected the stones of the street to suddenly fly apart, and her own response had been to use her own skill, [Brutal Slam] to try to knock out her opponent. Already caught up in [Berserker’s Fury], she may have overdone it a bit, taking out the already weakened supports holding the street up above the sewer. But really, he shouldn’t have surprised me like that!

“I can sense many approaching,” said Xerrioth, almost too calmly for Taz’s comfort, hands never leaving the pommel of his sword. The blade was mottled black and grey, very roughly forged out of an extremely heavy alloy of some sort. He had ignored all questions about it, although it had taken a higher levelled Captain of the city watch to pick it up and carry it to the stockades upon their arrest. The weaker guards had been unable to accomplish anything other than lifting it partially off the ground, and none could actually carry it. The Captain, whose name Taz never got, had actually broken a sweat, carrying it across his shoulders like some sort of heavy timber.

“You can sense them, but not see them. How will you keep from knocking me around with that monster blade the same as them?”

“I told you before, your mass is different. I won’t mistake it.”

“We just have to hold them til the others get back from breaking a trebuchet or three,” said Taz, “but maybe I’ll show you why my ‘mass’ is so different. My pa’s half-shifter, and I got some of that in my blood.”

“I look forward to it,” said Xerrioth, raising his head as if listening. The oncoming infantry levelled their spears, and the officer behind them lifted a glowing staff overhead with both hands. Light threaded through the enemy troops, increasing their speed and strength as the closed with a charge.

Power rippled outwards then, neither from the enemy nor from Xerrioth, but from Taz herself. She had not lied when she spoke of her father’s bloodline, and her calloused bare feet crushed the gravel as her body began to bulge and swell with more muscle. Her shirt suddenly felt tight against her chest and shoulders, and the familiar popping in her jaws as her teeth elongated was a welcome pain, feeding her rage. Her heart beat with heavy thuds and her joints felt as if they were tearing apart. Taz could not fully shift, like the Ursaran of the legends told by her father’s people. But she could get almost halfway there. The Deskren charged…

And met the roar of the [Grizzly Knight].