cabbagepreacher
patreon
Chapter CXLIV – For these be the days of siege.
🕑 Added 2025-07-20 09:43:11 +0000 UTC
44th of Spring 5860
Aroghlie, March of Zon’guldac
BOOM!
A line of cannons roared from the siege camp. Stone cannonballs whizzed past, only to harmlessly break on the walls.
Thwomp… BOOM!
A gunpowder-packed cannonball from Ayomide speeded past too – and exploded right on top of the wall, raining the garrison with shrapnel. “Jackpot!” shouted Ayomide.
“Perfect timing on the fuse. Cut it at the same size again.” Rabanowicz had followed the explosion with her new dwarf-approved pair of binoculars. She was assisted by Watanabe and a few other siege engineers, who were all administering this one canon. They all move in unison, allowing the canon to be shot every thirty seconds or so when their shot was calibrated. Since it was operated by air magic, the canon didn’t heat up, so there was no need to even cool it down.
Thwomp… BOOM!
This one, shifted a bit to the right, hit another section of the wall with shrapnel. Ayomide and co. swept the wall thoroughly, making sure that no sane men would try and garrison themselves on top of it.
With the walls cleared, Rabanowicz’s new old invention came rolling into view: the battering (?) ram. It was a closed triangular wooden structure with wheels, covered in fresh hides which were hard to burn. Without anyone on the walls left, there wasn’t much of anything that the defenders could use to defend against it. Not that they would feel the need to: there was no ram to batter the walls down. It was just a covered cart, with seemingly nothing related to battering or ramming. It travelled along the wall, the people dragging the “battering ram” dropping off wooden barrels connected by trails of gunpowder by regular intervals. Then the ram was dragged back to camp, a gunpowder trail following behind it.
Most of the camp had gathered into formation, getting ready for what was about to come up next. Rabanowicz had long taken a break after the cannon had been calibrated. She borrowed a linstock (a staff that holds a burning match) from the operator of another cannon, and she held it against the gunpowder trail which had been led towards the camp. Gunpowder, being a low explosive, burns very quickly rather than directly detonating like the high explosives which were a faraway dream for a place like Gemeinplatz. Hence the gunpowder trail didn’t explode, rather, a flame travelled through the trail until it reached the barrels.
Bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk!
The line of barrels under the walls quickly exploded, one by one, in spectacular flame-laden explosions. For a brief second the heavens and earth had seemingly become one. Everyone, even the enemy behind the walls, paused to silently admire the flames and smoke rising from the ground. A wave of heat hit their faces, ruining hairdos and knocking helmets off. Another layer of smoke and debris rose up when the slate walls collapsed from having its foundations knocked off.
Then all was silent again.
The men couldn’t even see the man next to them due to the smoke covering everything. All that was heard was a “Forward!” from Brown that caused them to start walking forward. The grass under their boots turned to burnt turf, then newly dug earth, then to slate debris. All that could be heard were boots crushing and kicking the debris along with coughing. The air was oppressive with how much smoke and dust it contained. First the troops climbed up the slope of debris, then slowly off, entering Zon’guldac. Slowly, as they went further, the smoke dissipated, which revealed how out of formation they had gotten in their march.
A flurry of arrows pelted the troops, who even in formation couldn’t exactly deal with projectiles. The pikes required two hands to hold which didn’t leave room for shields, and the troops of the Republic were generally lightly armed. The culprits were a line of archers standing on the road that led to the entrance of the underground part of Aroghlie. A lot of the troops were covered by urban buildings thankfully, but the street was narrow and not many men could push through it at once.
“So, what do we do? Overwhelm them?” asked Ayomide, who had entered the town alongside Brown.
“No, that’d be way too costly. We’d lose too many men trying to cross that road… just tail the musketeers, I have an idea.” Brown rode forward to give orders to the 1st Ranger Regiment who were all armed with muskets. Seeing all the smoke and debris cover their approach had given him an idea. Ayomide too took the horse to order the men around, for them to follow the 1st Ranger Regiment.
A group of musketeers, enough to block the street with a line two men deep, emerged to confront the bowmen. They formed a line, the first line kneeling and the second standing, as quickly as possible to not lose too many men to arrow fire. They shot at the archers, not wounding many from this far away range, but creating smoke from the gunpowder weaponry. Then a second line of musketeers appeared from behind the smoke, similarly hastily forming up and shooting their shot. The archers continued shooting into the smoke, but it was way harder to score a kill not knowing where the enemy was.
The musketeers continued emerging from the smoke and firing, their lines moving closer and closer to the archers as they moved up the street. Eventually the last line fired, and the next thing to emerge from the smoke were the pikemen who had been pouring sneakily through the smoke. The swords and knives of the archers were no match for the range of the pikes as they were overrun and killed.
The column of pikes moved up and up, to in front where the grand gate into the Aroghlie itself lay. Carved inside the mountain were another group of fortifications manned by the elves.
“So…” Ayomide didn’t even bother completing her sentence.
“Let’s wait for a few minutes. They should be here soon” replied Brown calmly.
A few minutes passed. Then a few more. Then screams and shouts came out of the wall fortifications, before the gate swung open and a group of dwarves came out by Whitebeard came out. “Sorry for the delay, there were a few too many collaborator dwarves who tried to stop us.” It had been nothing more than a brief underground urban skirmish though.
“Those underground dwarven tunnels sure are convenient” muttered Ayomide. The tunnels that they had made their escape had now been used for exactly the opposite.
“The dwarves are quite clever, thank the Lord.” Brown heaved a deep sigh as the siege was successfully complete. “Now, a sweep around the city to capture any stragglers, then we set up camp.”
“Aye, old man.” Ayomide rode away to make the required arrangements.
The troops dispersed to set up, with only the cavalry remaining in the streets to patrol for any elven troops. A group of curious dwarves, seeing that the battle was done, came out of the cave to see the flag of the Republic being hung over the gate. The flag now had four stars, having been prepared for the occasion of Aroghlie’s (re)capture.
Whitebeard looked at the seemingly banner flying on the dwarven gate. Most of the dwarves around her seemed not too happy with the seemingly foreign banner flying in their city. For now, they were way too happy to have the elves expelled to openly complain. Dwarven independence since time immemorial had come to an end, and… nobody cared too much.
“Oh well.” A simple shrug, as done by Whitebeard and many dwarves around her. She turned around, walking away to get sloshed at the nearest watering hole.
On the night of 44th of Spring 5860, taverns in Aroghlie reported record profits.
Comments
Anton Josef Bronola
BOOM!
