Chapter 19

The sickly sweet smell of burning flesh hung heavily in the air, and drifted down the road to the west. For two days, the enemy had marched into the wind smelling what they knew to be burning bodies. They didn’t know who had died or how many. The result of the assault on their noses, a constant reminder that they were marching into a deadly situation, was disheartening. When the forces arrived at the citadel, their moral plummeted upon seeing Sid’s army.

Five thousand men of Sid’s army were waiting for the slaver army. They were standing in front of a wall of cloth that hid the trebuchets from view by the enemy. The reason for the cloth wasn’t to hide the trebuchets, but to prevent the men operating the war engines from having to watch the results of their actions.

The General leading the enemy army sized up the situation in front of the citadel very quickly, but not correctly. He assumed that the walls to the sides were to provide cover for archers. He felt that the cloth was being used to keep the sun off Sid’s men. He immediately tasked three hundred men to attack each wall to dislodge the hypothetical archers.

The first line of men turned to their assigned mission. He watched them jump around the base of the wall for a minute before they managed to climb up to the top. When he saw his men atop the wall turning to face him with exaggerated shrugs of their shoulders, the General decided his forces had moved into place too quick for Sid’s forces to fortify those positions. He turned to the Colonel beside him and said, “That young pup doesn’t know to put his forces in place before the enemy arrives.”

“Yes, Sir,” the Colonel answered. He looked around and didn’t like what he was seeing. It was obvious to him that Sid had already engaged another force and had emerged victorious. Otherwise, there would have been no forces standing against them. He looked over his shoulder to the west to see if there was anyone behind them.

The General didn’t view the confined space as a problem. He ordered his men to line up three hundred wide and forty deep. They would charge at the weak forces that were directly in front of them. They would smash through the enemy’s line like a sword through water and then split into two forces to roll up the remainder of the enemy. Smiling he gave the orders to his Colonels. The Colonels didn’t have a chance to forward the orders to the men.

From his position on the wall of the citadel, Sid waved the green flag to start the bombardment. The small trebuchets launched their loads of rocks. It is very easy for the modern mind to undervalue an attack of that form. Thirty rocks, each weighing about a third of pound, were launched with enough velocity to rise into the air and then fall two hundred yards away. The momentum of the rock was sufficient to crash through a wooden shield before breaking the bones of the man underneath. Even after hitting a man, the stone would often carom in another direction taking out a second man. In modern terms, that rock was equivalent to a half of a brick falling seven stories and landing on a person.

The General watched the rocks rise into the air and then fall amongst his men. Men dropped to the ground all around him. Despite his shock at the nature of the defense, he knew that the only thing that would save them would be to close the distance between them and the enemy. He shouted, “Charge!”

It was too little and too late. The men around him ran forward to meet the enemy. Those out of earshot stood their position and fell to the falling rocks. Less than five hundred men ran forward with the General. It wasn’t until they were almost across the field that they realized they were a pitiful force facing ten times as many troops.

The General looked over his shoulder and saw his troops falling under the rain of rocks. He stopped running and shouted, “Halt!”

The men charging across the field with him stopped and turned to look at the General. Disgusted, he threw his sword to the ground and shouted, “I surrender.”

The men around the General followed his actions. From above, Sid watched as the few men standing threw their weapons down on the ground. He waved the red flag that would stop the barrage of rocks. His men moved out to collect the prisoners.

Masterson watched the battle from beside Sid. Nodding his head, he said, “That General is a little smarter than the last one.”

“He saved half of his men by surrendering,” Sid said in agreement. He had held off signaling the attack until the General had organized his forces in the hope of such an outcome.

“One more battle to go and the citadel will be secure,” Masterson said pointing to the south. They expected the southern forces to arrive the next day.

“Yes, the citadel will be secure for the moment,” Sid said. He looked off to the east and said, “We have an exposed flank to the east though.”

“We’ve left hundreds of groups of fifty and a hundred men in the cities, towns, and villages in the area that we’ve taken. We’ll pull them out of the center of our area and send them to the river crossings to the east. That will give us another five thousand men along our border,” Masterson said.

He was giving voice to a strategy that they were already implementing. Barson had been dispatched to send the word along the supply lines. In two weeks, men would be showing up along the river crossings to build fortifications. Soldiers would be showing up shortly after, to staff the fortifications.

“We’ll need to move into Danny Sun’s territory if we’re going to be successful in this campaign,” Sid said. Shaking his head, he said, “I’d hate to win every battle but lose the war.”

Masterson said, “I’m sure that some of his troops remain and a good percentage of his territory is still free. We’ll have to step in and stop the slavers from taking over that territory. We’ll move in from the north and work our way south until we encounter the enemy. While we’re doing that, we’ll collect Danny’s troops under our banner.”

Frowning, Sid looked over at Masterson and asked, “Who is this ‘we’ you keep talking about? We still have a large army to fight here.”

“I was thinking that you should send Hunter and Forester,” Masterson said. He looked down at the ground and then polished his fingernails on his shirt. He added, “You might want to have one of the best strategic and tactical minds in Chaos go with them.”

Grinning, Sid winked at Peterson and said, “I’m busy here.”

Masterson bristled and then realized that Sid was joking. Shaking his head, he asked, “What do you think of the idea?”

“It sounds good to me. We’ll just have to decide what resources you’ll get after the battle tomorrow,” Sid answered. For the past week, he had been sending out scouts to track the progress of the armies approaching the citadel. His initial estimates had been remarkably accurate.

Masterson said, “I’ll get to working out some plans.”

Sid nodded and watched Masterson head off to his quarters. Turning to Peterson, he said, “You know, we keep making plans for the overall campaign and we keep finding ourselves in a position where we can’t follow them. I wonder if Masterson has noticed that.”

“He’s commented on it several times,” Peterson said with a grin.

“I guess we’ll go through the exercise again in two days,” Sid said.

He looked to the south wishing he knew what was happening in that direction. Two weeks march south of them was another citadel. Taking it would give Sid control over half of his assigned territory. He sighed at the thought, and wondered how long it would take to win this war.

“What are you thinking about?”

“We’ve been fighting for eleven months,” Sid answered.

“That’s right. It was almost a year ago that we left the Jones Citadel,” Peterson said. He looked around and said, “You’ve done something pretty remarkable here. You’ve built up an army of almost twenty thousand men in less than a year. You’ve taken enough territory to become a king. In another eleven months, I’ll expect you to become a king.”

Looking over at Peterson, Sid asked, “A king?”

“Sure, you own all of the land from here to the Jones Citadel and bounded on the east and west by the Black and Green Rivers. That’s a huge territory and every man, woman, and child in it owes you for the freedom you’ve given them. That is enough to make you a king,” Peterson answered.

Seeing that the prisoners were being taken to the slave pens, Sid turned away from the battlefield. He shook his head and said, “I don’t want to be a king. All I want to do is defeat slavery and rescue a couple of friends.”

Fred shook his head at the lack of ambition that Sid had announced. He chuckled and said, “All you want to do is defeat slavery. I find that statement humorous. Before you came, I didn’t believe that anyone could do that. After being with you for so long, I’m convinced that you will do that, but there is nothing minor about that accomplishment.”

Looking over at Fred, Sid said, “We aren’t even halfway there. Tomorrow we have another battle and we had better be ready for it.”

Fred said, “Then I suggest that you get some rest.”

Later that afternoon, Sid was walking around the citadel inspecting the trebuchets. Albert was walking beside him and pointing out the signs of wear. After examining the tenth trebuchet, Sid asked, “What is your honest opinion of our readiness?”

“The large trebuchets are all in good shape. We haven’t used them that much. The small trebuchets should last tomorrow, but that is all. I wouldn’t trust them after the next couple of volleys,” Albert answered.

The wood in the arms was beginning to show signs of wear. There were minor splits that he had repaired by wrapping the wood with wet rope. When the rope had dried, it had shrunk, reinforcing the integrity of the beams, but it was a stop-gap measure.

“It will have to do. I don’t think that you’ll have to launch too many volleys tomorrow. Some of the men who had climbed onto the barriers escaped south. I’m sure they’ve told the approaching army what to expect,” Sid said.