Chapter 16

Masterson, Peterson, Connor, Albert, Barson, and Olaf were gathered in the command tent waiting for Sid. They were about to embark on their first siege of a citadel. It was a massive undertaking. For the first time, they were facing stone walls that were eight feet thick and twenty feet tall.

“Those bastards fired at us when we went to parley,” Sid said upon entering the tent. He was furious and stopped by the table to pour a glass of watered wine. His horse had taken an arrow. He’d still be out on the field if it hadn’t been for Fred charging out with a spare horse.

“What happened?” Masterson asked.

“They fired three volleys of arrows at us,” Sid answered. He took a sip of the watered wine and tried to calm down. The last thing he wanted to do, was make a mistake driven by anger. Taking a breath, he said, “Convince me that we are ready.”

Looking over the map, Masterson said, “Intelligence says that there are a thousand troops inside the citadel. They’ll be backed up by a citizen’s militia. The field slaves will be herded together in pens and watched over by overseers. House slaves will probably remain in the houses of their owners. In all, we can probably expect to face about eighteen hundred men.”

Albert said, “The siege engines are ready. We’ve got the large trebuchets, battering rams, and ballistae in place. I figure it will take one week to break through the wall.”

“We’ve got eight thousand troops,” Connor said. Pointing to the map, he said, “We have forces in place to repel any raids that they may launch: here, here, here, and here. Men spend eight hours on duty. We’re rotating them through three shifts.”

“Our food supplies are solid,” Peterson said. Olaf and Barson nodded their agreement to his statement.

Pointing to the map, Masterson said, “We’re going to take down this section of the wall over the next week and keep it open using the ballistae. We won’t attack right away. Instead, we’ll turn our attention to this section of the wall and take it out. About the time that section of wall comes down, we’ll attack the front and rear gates with the battering rams. If all goes according to plan, we’ll have four entries into the citadel.”

Nodding, Sid said, “We’ll have a four to one advantage in men.”

Masterson smiled and said, “Don’t forget the women. I’ve got a quarter of a brigade of women troops that I’d put up against a full brigade of men.”

Looking over at Masterson, Connor asked, “They are that good?”

“You better believe it. They train every spare minute they have. I started them with spears. After a month, they took over their own training. Now they’ve moved onto swords and battle axes. They’ve kept the horses captured in battle, and ride like an experienced cavalry. I use them when I need a small number of very motivated forces,” Masterson answered. He couldn’t imagine the kind of hate that motivated the women to go to such extremes.

Looking over at Connor, Sid asked, “What about our special forces?”

Knowing that Sid was referring to the folks who had slipped inside the citadel, Connor said, “They are in place. The night before the main assault, we’ll set fire to the tower on the hill. They’ll get us another two thousand fighters although I can’t say how good they’ll be.”

Sid understood what Connor meant. Among the men there, they had agreed not to speak of that portion of the plan aloud in case there were spies. Two dozen men and women had entered the citadel when the surrounding countryside was fleeing. They would free the field slaves from their pens during the attack. Nodding his head, Sid said, “Good.”

“So can I start?” Albert asked.

“Yes,” Sid answered.

Albert started to leave, but paused when Olaf said, “Barson and I will return to the camp to check that our supplies are being cared for properly. We’ll make sure that everyone gets a blue arm band.”

“Go ahead,” Sid said. He watched the three young men leave the tent. Turning to Peterson he said, “They impress me more and more every day.”

“You’re impressed? I’m considering returning to the Jones Citadel and retiring because of Barson and Olaf. I’m doing nothing,” Peterson said. It was a slight exaggeration, but it wasn’t that far from the truth.

Turning to look at Connor, Sid said, “Albert was a surprise. You weren’t all that enthused about him when we left the Jones Citadel.”

“I know. I didn’t have all that great of an impression of his leadership abilities when he signed up. I put him in charge of the non-combatant freed slaves, just to keep him out of my way. The next thing I knew, he had built up an operation that was incredible,” Connor said. He attributed it a little to working with Olaf and Barson, but the young man had shown a lot of initiative in many other areas. Albert’s siege troops were as well trained as any he had ever seen.

“Yes, it is an incredible operation,” Sid said wryly.

Masterson said, “Each and every one of the men you recruited from the citadel is good. They are basically running this army.”

“I know,” Sid said thinking that his uncle had left him an amazing legacy. These were the sons and daughters of men and women who had served with Gerald. Loss of men in a battle was inevitable, but they had only lost three of the initial group over the course of war. For individuals without fighting experience, that was an amazing fact.

To describe the siege as boring wouldn’t be accurate, although for most of the troops there was nothing to do except watch the citadel. Twenty four hours a day, twenty pound rocks were launched at the walls of the citadel. Occasionally, the enemy would send out a party in an attempt to thwart the siege. For a half an hour there would be a spate of excitement.

On one of those occasions, Sid had a chance to see Masterson’s quarter brigade of women in action. The strategist had not been exaggerating their ferocity on the battlefield. Sid had been shocked at how easily the women had killed. It was also obvious why Masterson liked them so much. The way they fought fit in well with his personality.

At the end of a week, one section of wall fell just as Albert had predicted. The enemy attempted to block the breach with wagons and other items. The small trebuchets firing stones and the ballistae kept the men from achieving their task until it became obvious that they were using slave labor. Several of the slaves saw a chance at freedom and ran across the battlefield. Four of the nine who ran made it to safety.

It took a day to take down the trebuchets and another day to set them up again so that they were attacking a different section of the wall. The pounding resumed and continued for the next six days. On the sixth night, Sid had them set the tower on the hill on fire and roll out the siege rams.

A simple siege ram is a large log with one end carved into a point hung on a frame on wheels. A more complex siege ram has a roof to protect the individuals working the ram from attack from above. The ram that Albert built went far beyond that. It had a roof and sides to provide protection from all directions. The roof was layered with wood and slate. The slate was to prevent it from being flammable.

The siege rams were heavy monsters that took most of the night to roll up to the front and rear gates of the citadel. Twenty men inside each ram started the battering ram swinging from the frame. The first contact with the gate was just a little love tap, but once they had it going the sound of each strike reverberated over the field. The gates were strong, but not strong enough.

The defenders tried to displace the siege rams using standard approaches. Arrows rained down upon it and were deflected by the slate roof. Boiling oil was poured down and the slate roof kept the oil from penetrating into the working area. Even when lit, the double roof kept the majority of heat away from the interior. It wasn’t until they started dropping rocks onto the top, that the slate was cracked; and by that time, it was too late.

Sid and the group gathered near the trebuchets, were waiting for the rams to complete the breach. Hunter led the group that was waiting to charge through the first breach. The small trebuchets were being used to launch burning oil pots that would take out the wood used to form a defensive line at the original breach. Masterson and his women were waiting at the rear gate for the ram to complete its work. Connor waited at the front gate.

By noon, both gates had failed. When the section of wall in front of Sid’s men fell, he’d had a man raise a flag. It was how the other groups would know that his section of wall had been breached. There was a short delay until flags flew from Connor’s, Hunter’s, and the other trebuchet positions. Quiet descended upon the battlefield as trebuchets stopped firing and the battering rams pulled back.

At the sound of a dozen horns, Sid’s army swarmed towards the citadel. A thousand men charged each breach. From the center of the citadel a great roar was emitted as thousands of slaves found themselves released from the pens that had held them. The occupants of the first pen released by Sid’s agents helped free other slaves. Through the night, word had been spread not to attack anyone wearing a blue armband. The liberators were wearing blue armbands.

The townsfolk, overseers, and refuges found themselves facing thousands of angry slaves armed with clubs. The militia recognized that they had an enemy in front and behind them. Although one group was a well disciplined army, it was the freed slaves that were more frightening. The freed slaves were killing anyone who was not wearing a collar or a blue armband. Of course, the militia knew nothing about the blue armbands.

With Fred to his right side, Sid charged through the opening created by the trebuchet. He was surrounded by his forces despite an attempt on his part to take a lead position. Fred had slowed him down, and the men had moved double time to pull slightly ahead of him. Sid suspected that it was intentional on the part of Fred and his men.

All of the men were on foot. Adding horses to the mix would have resulted in chaos that was more likely to backfire than be effective against the enemy. The large oversized shields had been dropped in favor of the smaller oval shields. In the close-in fighting, the smaller shields would be more effective against the overhead strikes of sword and battle axe.

Sid had borrowed a fighting tactic from the Zulus. The first aspect of that was the adoption of the smaller oval shields. The second aspect of that was having the men cut their spears short. The third aspect had been hours of drill on how to block a blow with the shield that was followed with a stab of the shortened spear. The drills had confused the men, but they had practiced as expected.