Chapter 18

The planning meeting had just ended when fifty mounted men rode up to the citadel on horses that were nearly exhausted. After a short exchange with the guards at the gate, the riders were directed to where Sid was staying. They rode through the streets at high speed, rather than the sedate pace that would be normal. The leader jumped off his horse and ran into the building searching for Sid. He burst into the room and, spotting Sid, he said, “There are fifteen thousand enemy troops headed this way. They are a week east of here, and are marching quickly.”

The entire group of men seated around the table stared at the messenger in shock. It took Sid a moment to recover, while his mind struggled to come to grips with the news that a force that size was headed their way. During the months of fighting, they had tackled forces up to three thousand. He calculated that they had already dealt with close to fifteen thousand enemy troops.

Turning to Connor, he said, “Sent out scouts to the south and west. We’ve got to make sure that there aren’t any other forces bearing down on us.”

Connor nodded his head and rushed out of the room. Masterson was staring at the table top and asked, “Where did they get so many troops?”

The rider said, “Just before we spotted the army moving this way, we got word that Danny Sun’s army was destroyed in a battle, two weeks ago.”

Sid leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. Holding his clasped hands in front of his mouth, he said, “We’ve been estimating their army to be a hundred thousand in size. We’ve taken out fifteen thousand so far. I have to assume that the other generals had similar results. That should mean that the army has been cut in half. Despite that, they are able to pull together fifteen thousand men to face us. It doesn’t add up.”

“They must have a larger army than we estimated,” Masterson said feeling sick to his stomach. The idea of six thousand men trying to hold off an army of fifteen thousand, was too horrible to contemplate. Looking over at Sid, he said, “We are going to have to retreat.”

“We can’t do that. Fifteen thousand men will chase us all over Chaos,” Sid said.

“Do you know how hard it will be to hold off fifteen thousand men from inside this citadel?” Masterson asked. It had taken them two weeks to bring down the walls of the citadel. Another army might have taken a little longer, but the walls would have come down at some point. This army wouldn’t even have that problem. There were four areas that had been destroyed and not yet repaired.

“Yes, I do,” Sid answered. He knew it would be better to engage the enemy using their guerilla tactics, but he didn’t see any choice in the matter. Then Sid turned to Masterson and asked, “How long do you think a siege of this citadel would normally have taken?”

“Well, probably a month or two.”

“How long did it take us?”

“Two weeks,” Masterson answered.

“The enemy is expecting us to be outside the walls of the citadel, with our backs to their forces,” Sid said. Staring off into space, he said, “I bet that another ten to fifteen thousand are moving in from the south and at least five to ten thousand are moving in from the west. I’d bet they were planning on hitting us like three hammers, with the citadel serving as the anvil.”

“We’re dead,” Masterson said.

“They don’t know the anvil has been neutralized,” Sid said. He reached over and grabbed the map that they had been using in the planning session earlier. Standing, he spread the map over the table. He said, “Let’s assume that we have forces approaching from the east, south, and west. It won’t do them any good if they arrive at different times, so let us assume that they are all headed here with the intent of showing up in a week.”

“Seems reasonable,” Masterson said.

Sid pointed to some locations on the map and said, “We destroy the bridges and ferries along this river. That will slow the forces coming from the west. If they use boats to ferry over, it will take forever to get that many men across the river. They’ll have to construct a temporary bridge. I figure that should delay them by about three days.”

“So what,” Masterson said sounding very frustrated. He pointed to the south and east before adding, “There’s nothing to slow down the other two groups. So rather than facing thirty five thousand troops, we’re facing twenty five thousand.”

“We set a fire to the south,” Sid said pointing to the map. Turning to the messenger, Sid asked, “What are our men doing to the east?”

“They are heading here,” the messenger answered. He looked around the room at the tight faces wondering if it would have been better for them to head north rather than here.

“So that will give us about nine thousand troops to stand against fifteen thousand,” Sid said looking over at Masterson.

“Still, we’ll be facing too many enemy troops. Even with us bottled up in this citadel, we’ll eventually be facing fifty thousand troops,” Masterson said.

“We aren’t going to be inside the citadel,” Sid replied with a smile as a plan formed in his mind.

“You said that we weren’t going to retreat,” Masterson said.

“That’s right. We’re going to engage their forces outside the walls of the citadel, before they have a chance to organize for a real battle,” Sid said. Turning to the messenger, Sid said, “Tell me all about the force that is heading this way.”

A week later, Sid stood on the walls of the citadel watching the enemy troops arrive. Three thousand of the troops had moved into the cleared area around the citadel. There was no way for the enemy to know that Sid had cleared away the trees from that area just to make room for them.

His forces were on the field facing the enemy with their backs against the walls of the citadel. They were lined up in groups of a hundred with twenty men across the front and five men deep. Seven thousand troops created seventy such groups. The tension among the men grew as they found themselves facing three thousand soldiers standing in a line that was three hundred soldiers wide and ten deep. The rear ranks were still filling while more soldiers slowly joined those on the field.

From Sid’s position, he could see a long stream of men moving down the tree lined road to the battle field. It was an impressive line of men being six men across and two thousand men long. As impressive as the sight might have been, that paled compared to the noise of that many men marching in step.

Sid waved a green flag to signal to his men that it was time to start the battle. There were no yells of excitement or battle cries. The only sound that filled the air was that of the trebuchets firing. A hundred of the small trebuchets started pelting stones the size of a fist on the enemy troops even as they moved into formation. Ten large trebuchets tossed stones twice that size down the length of the road. Once started, the rain of stone was constant and devastating.

Standing beside Sid, Fred watched the rain of stone. With a shudder, he said, “Those poor bastards.”

Sid understood Fred’s statement. Four thousand freed slaves had worked day and night shaping the battle field. Huge thick walls prevented the enemy from spreading out over the field. Three thousand men were squeezed into an area the size of a football field. The small trebuchets had been set up to provide total coverage of that area. The effect was complete devastation of the forces bottled up in that area.

After ten minutes had passed, Sid waved a red flag and the trebuchets stopped firing. Looking across the battle field, Sid shook his head. Turning to Masterson, he said, “That’s a quarter of their men out of commission.”

Peterson stared across the field in horror and said, “I’ve never seen anything like that.”

“We still have ten thousand enemy troops out there,” Sid said. Although that was a huge number of troops, the odds had just changed significantly in their favor.

“The riders are ready with the ‘Molotov Cocktails, ‘“ Masterson said. He’d never heard of such a thing, but a demonstration of their effectiveness had convinced him that Sid’s plan was going to work. The Chaos version was a clay container filled with oil from a ground seep rather than gasoline in a glass bottle.

“It is almost time to slice ‘em and dice ‘em,” Sid said. Fifty riders would move out and toss Molotov Cocktails into the line of enemy troops, cutting off a thousand of them from support. Two thousand men would move in and take care of the thousand troops. First they’d hit the troops with a barrage of arrows and then move in using the Zulu tactic that had been so effective in taking the citadel. They would back off and then go after another thousand using the same tactic.

The men watched as Sid’s troops moved out across the field to take prisoners. It wasn’t long before they marched back across the field with a hundred prisoners. The number of men who had survived the pelting of rocks was shockingly small. Masterson said, “I can’t believe it.”

A messenger climbed up to where Sid was watching the battle. Breathless from the climb, it took him a minute to catch his breath. Once he recovered, he said, “It looks like our attack killed a general and four colonels. We captured one colonel.”

Sid nodded his head thinking that he would have Masterson interrogate the colonel. He said, “We can expect another ten colonels to be riding with the rest of the troops.”

“The scouts are looking for them,” the messenger said. They had been given orders to capture or kill as many of the higher ranking officers of the enemy army as possible.

Turning to Masterson, Sid said, “I expect that half of the remaining forces will survive to retreat. They’ll either move back east or join the southern forces. If they join the southern forces, that will slow them down by another day or two while they reconsider their plans for us. We can expect the western forces in two days.”

Pointing down the road, Masterson said, “They aren’t turning back. They’re charging.”

Sid turned and looked at the troops running towards them. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He shouted, “Those idiots are committing suicide!”

“Not if we keep standing here doing nothing,” Masterson said.

Turning, Sid grabbed the green flag and waved it again. A minute later, the trebuchets started firing loads of rocks on the advancing army. The charging troops didn’t stand a chance. Sid watched as hundreds of men fell as the stones rained down amongst them. The handful that managed to make it across the field was met with overwhelming force. It was a slaughter.

Masterson shook his head and said, “The ones in the back don’t know what happened on the battlefield. There’s no one in charge to order them to stop.”

Sid was reminded of lemmings charging off the cliff. Each lemming would follow the one in front; unaware of the doom that awaited it. Watching as the enemy men raced down the road, Sid said, “This is insane.”

Thirty minutes later, the enemy stopped their attack and retreated. Less than three thousand had held back. Sick to his stomach, Sid looked over the devastation that was the battlefield. Close to nine thousand were dead or wounded in the field. Bodies were piled in front of the citadel and the road leading to it. Another two thousand were dead or wounded from the slice and dice operation. A thousand had fled into the woods where they were being hunted down.