And happy Mammoth Monday to you all.

I just realized something this morning; when you are writing a sidestory to your main storyline and it caps 17k words with you only being about 2/3 done, then it might begin to push at the definition of a sidetory, unless of course you consider a sidestory to be defined as a story within the universe but that you do not need to read in order to keep up...

So with that note, I am blowing open the gates

Breaching the gates

Mercury POV(18 days later)
Mercury watched as Adûn made another pass on the walls of Viana, incinerating what fools that had dared to climb back up the walls either under harsh orders from their leaders or through some bravery on their own.

Below the walls, a massive tree trunk turned ram was used to break down the gates. Since Adûn and Loivissa made sure that no archers were on the walls to harass the dökkálfar battering down the gate, the men beneath the walls had nothing to worry about, other than breaking down the gate.

Mercury watched the events unfold as they did from atop his white horse from his position on a hill at the back of his army, where he was surrounded by his Varangian Guard. Though the danger of being shot at was minimal, and despite of the fact that he still had wards to divert any arrows that might have found their way to him, he did not really see any reason for him or his guard to be in shooting range.

It had been 18 days since his first visit to the ra'zac named Telcontar, 11 days since he set out from Tel Rascian with his portion of the southern army and it was only yesterday that he had begun laying siege to Viana and that his own navy had grown large enough to allow the Summerborn navy to leave the Sea of Tel to begin their raids on the coastal cities of Atkins.

They would not attempt to capture Atkins this time around, as it really did not have enough of value to them at the moment to warrant wasting manpower on it, but they were determined to neutralize any remaining threat from the island.

Another effect from Mercury's recruitment campaign was that Kilgharrah had been able to leave The Capital late last night, so Mercury expected to see him sometime this evening or tomorrow morning, depending on whether he stopped to sleep and hunt.

"The gate will not budge, your highness, it is being reinforced with magic. The men are asking what to do?", the advisor responsible for the Centurions near the gate asked.

"Keep ramming it", Mercury simply answered, "it will break sooner or later".

"Yes, your highness", the advisor obliged and forwarded his order.

If they intend to waste all of their mages' energy on holding the gate, then why try to hinder them?, Mercury mused, their archers cannot harm my soldiers, because of Adûn and Loivissa, and if they hope to hold out until the enemy army that was sent south to Druck gets here, then I am afraid to say that according to my latest reports, it was engaged and destroyed without any trouble by the southern part of my army not two days ago, although I have to admit that I did not expect my southern army to reach the enemy for another day or so.

At first, Mercury had been slightly irritated that this part of his army did not have any siege engines, as all of his previous ones had been transferred to the more needing southern part of his army, but since the enemy mages had insisted on wasting their energy on reinforcing the gate, it had turned out better than if he had been able to breach the walls immediately. All energy wasted on the gate was energy that could not be used against his troops when they entered the city, after all.

Since Atkins would not be a threat for much longer, combined with the fact that the enemy had to be panicking from their recent losses and thought more about securing their remaining lands than trying to sneak forces into Mercury's captured lands, Hydronium was no longer in any immediate danger of being attacked.

As a direct premonition of this, Mercury had ordered half the city's wall-mounted siege engines to be converted to mobile ones and then to head west to meet up with his army back when he was still working on his administration in The Capital, although since they were still 16 days away from Viana, Mercury doubted that he would have them until after he took Ottaviano.

There probably would not be much left of the Ra'zac Empire's army by then to use them on, but just in case that the ra'zac did manage to conscript quite a few more to their army, he would be ready for them, and in any case, their added firepower would make taking Terzigno and Ercolano much easier.

If the siege of Ottaviano proved to be quick and effortless enough, Mercury might even be willing to split his army in two again, although it was a greater risk this time around, as there would not be so long from the ra'zac strongholds to his individual armies, which meant that one half could be destroyed if the siege turned into a long-drawn affair and the ra'zac army made it in time.

Although with the added siege engines from Hydronium, it would be unlikely that the sieges would be long-drawn, which meant that if he could get either Kilgharrah or Loivissa and Adûn to go with the other army group, then the risks should be small enough to be worth it, if the siege of Ottaviano did not prove too difficult, that is.

Speaking of Loivissa, Mercury let his gaze wander to her petite form on Adûn's back in the distance, as they once again dived, only this time, Adûn smashed a guard tower to rubble with his tail. They were becoming finely tuned instruments of death, and although Mercury was overall glad for the fact that Loivissa no longer had a mental wound to be nursed after each major engagement, he could not help but feel that something precious was lost to her after each engagement.

I wonder how well they will do after the fighting is finally over, Mercury mused.

He knew that transitioning from a mental state of war to one of peace was not always the easiest thing to do, considering that he himself spent a little more than a century, and had a couple of mental breakdowns during the period, before he finally found a way to create balance within his mind.

This time would hopefully be different, as Loivissa was of a different constitution than Mercury, combined with the facts that this would not take as long or be as paranoia-inducing as the Shadow War, and that she was not mentally isolated in the crucial years afterwards, as he had been.

Perhaps it would be best for her to go home shortly after this war has ended, Mercury mused, although he knew that she had promised to stay here, I think that seeing her niece again would definitely do wonders for any lingering mental issues from the war, and since it will likely be a few years before this country is presentable enough to have her niece come to her, that seems to-

Mercury never got to finish the thought as one from his Guard suddenly shouted, "there is someone coming from behind us!"

Strange, the southern army should not be here for another 6 days, Mercury wondered as he turned around to look at the source of the man's exclaim.

What he saw however, was not the other half of his army, but rather what looked to be an enemy cavalry charge. They did not look to number above 200, but this number still far exceeded what could have been smuggled behind Mercury's lines without his notice.

"Bloody hell! Slava, take the others and run forward and set up a spear-wall with the Centurions at the back! You are in command while my Guard and I hold them off! Do not stop the attack on the city…and make sure to tell my apprentice that she is to not stop what she is currently doing to try and aid me!", Mercury shouted his instructions while turning his neighing horse around abruptly, before he grabbed a spear from one of his advisors, which was so long because of the dökkálfar height that it would make due as a lance, and shouted to his Guard, "spearmen to the front, swordsmen behind!"

Just as his roughly 40 Varangian Guards began to move into position at the top of the hill to give themselves a much needed advantage, Mercury rode past them in full sprint down towards the trampling hooves of the enemy with the newly acquired spear in position.

His Guard would never have time to get properly set up before the enemy cavalry would smash into them, so he had to give them some time to do so. In Mercury's mind, this was not some sort of bravery on his part, as he simply estimated that if he could gain a little more time for his Guard to set up positions, his, and his Guard's, overall chances of survival would be greater.

As he had anticipated, a lone enemy rider soon outran the rest of his men from his position in the centre front line to try and confront Mercury directly. Based on the far better quality of the armour that he wore than that of his men, Mercury had guessed him to be the enemy commander, and when Mercury so blatantly rode out to meet him alone, his sense of honour and dignity would likely force him to abandon reason and his men in favour of meeting the challenger head on, especially when that challenger was the now infamous Mercury Iridium.

The two duellists rushed towards each other at a breakneck pace; Mercury's enemy on his strong looking black horse with his steel armour and lance at the ready, and Mercury on his white still unnamed, as it to Mercury still only was a mode of transport at best and a source of meat at the least, horse in his complete customary black leather armour with his cloak bellowing behind him and the improvised lance also at the ready.

As the distance between them closed, Mercury mused how this scene kind of reminded him of two knights in a medieval jousting arena. The enemy certainly seemed to think of this as such, as he prepared himself to fight as an honourable knight would.

Too bad that Mercury did not care for such things.

From its place at his belt, Mercury drew the miniature crossbow that had been there for every engagement thus far, along with five extra bolts, though he seriously doubted that he would ever get to use them all in one single combat, and just as Mercury could see the surprise and subsequent indignation in his opponent's eyes, he fired the bolt.

Whether through some elaborate wards that his bolt was not powerful enough to penetrate or because Mercury was not used to firing from the back of a galloping horse, the bolt swerved off its course towards the enemy's torso and instead landed in the head of his opponent's black horse.

The effect was instant, as the horse crumpled to the ground and threw its now faster moving rider off in front of it, where he landed with his head at an odd angle and a clank of the metal cuirass that was pressing his head further into the ground, before he was covered by the body of his horse.

He was dead, no doubts about that, but the effects of his death reached beyond him, as the riders under his command stopped their horses in a moment of confusion and surprise at the sudden death of their leader. Mercury, seeing that this was likely to be the maximum amount of time that he could produce, quickly turned his horse around and sped back up the hill before the enemy riders would come out of their stupor and decide that vengeance was the best course of action.

Mercury only just rode between his now well-positioned Guard, which had formed a small half-circle facing down towards their enemy with the spearmen acting as the first line and the swordsmen as the second line, as a collective roar of rage from the enemy and a cheer from his own Guard at his actions converged.

The enemy started up their gallop again, but his little stunt had bought them the time that they needed, so as the enemy riders slowly picked up speed again, Mercury used the time to reload his crossbow. It was not particularly effective as a long-ranged weapon, like a bow or a regular sized crossbow would have been, but it had the distinct advantage of making Mercury able to surprise his enemies when they thought that they were out of range from his melee weapons.

He also had his shurikens, but those required just a split-second more of concentration to aim and throw accurately than an already readied miniature crossbow.

Finally, the two forces clashed on the top of the hill, and despite the precision strikes and steadfastly dökkálfar in his Varangian Guard, the enemy's superior numbers and sheer speed and mass of their horses slowly splintered his first line of spearmen with only a little more than a dozen fatalities on their side.

The second line of swordsmen were however ready to try and stem the tide by hacking at the enemy riders, as the height of the dökkálfar made them stand with their heads above the horses' heads, which enabled them to fight far more evenly with riders than humans or elves ever could have.

A little more than 20 fell at their swords, before the enemy eventually broke through this line as well. Mercury quickly stabbed the horse of the first horseman that came through the lines in the chest with his newly acquired spear, which made it, and its rider, fall down to the ground, but another quickly took his place.

With his lines broken, all ideas of organizing the fight disappeared, as it quickly evolved into brutal single-combat, combined with the sporadic groups that managed to cluster together before they were driven apart by the enemy numbers.

Mercury continued to fight from atop his horse, as trying to do so from the ground would be akin to asking for death to find him, but despite this evening out the odds of his actual fighting, it also worsened the overall conditions for Mercury.

Being the only rider among his men, making him quite easily recognizable as the one that killed their leader, Mercury also served as a rallying point for the enemy to converge on, while his own men were far too preoccupied with keeping themselves alive to even think of trying to force their way to Mercury's side.

Mercury swung his spear in a circle around him wildly with the intent to create space between his attackers and him rather than actually kill anyone. The swing only managed to make a gash in the side of an enemy horse that was not quite far enough away, but otherwise did no damage and his attackers soon closed in again.

The first to venture near him had to block Mercury's strike with his shield, but was unprepared when Mercury twisted the spear around and used the end of it to butt the rider's horse in the head, making it madly rear and throw its rider off, before Mercury thrust the tip of the spear behind him to the surprise of the enemy rider that had thought that he was undetected, as it penetrated his thin layer of armour and made him gasp as Mercury swiftly pulled it out again.

Mercury's wards had to deflect a strike from his left side, which Mercury quickly followed up by swinging the spear in that direction, though the intent was more to knock the rider off his horse than to injure him, as he did not have time to prepare for such a blow.

Just as Mercury turned around to see his new adversary fall off his horse, he discovered to his horror that his spear was not about to collide with the man's chest, as he had intended it to, but that it was instead about to be cut nearly in half by the man's already swinging sword.

Both the sword and the spear had too much momentum for either party to stop their actions, and as the sharpened edge of the sword connected with the blunt wooden shaft of the spear, the spear, having not been reinforced by magic of any kind, naturally was the one to give and was quickly cut in half.

Frustrated at the loss of his longer ranged weapon, Mercury threw the now useless bottom half of the spear at the rider that had cut it in half, which made a satisfactory crack as it connected with his head. Just as he was about to reach behind him and draw his sword, Mercury had to dodge another sword strike from yet another opponent.

Instead of trying to draw his sword again, which took precious time, Mercury instead reached into his belt and drew the crossbow and fired it straight at the enemy's chest, where it impacted and made him limply fall off the side of his horse.

Another thrust from his back with a spear that only missed his head by centimetres thanks to his wards, made Mercury abandon yet another attempt at trying to draw his sword with his free hand in favour of throwing his now empty crossbow at the enemy that had just tried to take him out from behind.

The crossbow impacted on the enemy's shield, where it unfortunately broke, to Mercury's chagrin, but by the time his now visibly pleased enemy got ready to make another thrust with his spear, he was suddenly sliced in half.

Standing on the other side of the now dead enemy's horse was a small group of Mercury's Varangian guards. The one that had done the slicing appeared to be the newest addition to his guard, also known as Vardo Lilirith, and never before had Mercury been so glad that he had in the end decided to induct him into his Guard.

"We cannot have you keep all the enemies to yourself; we want some of them too", one of them said jokingly.

"If you can take them before I do, then they are yours", Mercury tried replying in the same light-aired tone in an attempt to heighten their spirits, while he finally had time to draw his sword.

They quickly formed formation around Mercury's horse, with the two spearmen each taking a side, while the remaining three swordsmen took up positions behind and to the side of his horse, so that Mercury only had to concentrate on what was in front of him.

Using a sword, even one as long as Mercury's katana, from horseback was much different than using a spear, as the sword's limited range required you to either have your opponent ride almost to your side to effectively combat him or to make your own horse turn sideways to avoid having to reach past its head.

On more than a few occasions, Mercury resorted to using his quickly dwindling supply of shurikens to surprise and kill his enemies, but they quickly wizened up and Mercury was soon reduced to using the shurikens as a method of gaining a killing strike, rather than to actually kill someone, that is, until his supply ran out and he was forced to think of other ideas to surprise, or cheat his opponents, as some more honourable fighters would no doubt argue. If fighting fairly meant dying, then there really was not much of an insensitive to do so in Mercury's mind.

As the fight dragged on, the rows of enemies slowly grew smaller until Mercury could actually see where the rest of his Varangian Guard were. He counted about seven or eight other small groups, which had all formed circle-formations, as they had been drilled to do, and were hacking and slashing at the enemy horsemen that neared them.

His own group had only lost one member since its formation, an unfortunate spearman that had not been able to get out of the way as the mad horse that he had just pierced ran him over, but almost all of them were bleeding from some small or not so small wound, Mercury included, as he had gained a nasty cut on his upper right arm that made it next to impossible to use it and forced him to keep it steady in his lap so as to not worsen the wound.

The reason that no other major wounds had been inflicted on Mercury and his guards was that since all of them were mages, or as in Mercury's case; had his wards embedded into his armour and designed to not give out until a certain point was reached, which they had a while ago.

At this point, it did not matter though, as the quickly dwindling enemy horsemen also began to figure out that they were not nearly as many as they had started with being, now being reduced to less than three dozen, where only one dozen of those were still mounted, and after a few more had died in last ditch efforts to break through the circles and sow some amount of chaos, the attackers turned into routers.

About a dozen more were slain when they attempted to turn their horses and another dozen and a half fell when the spear-carrying dökkálfar decided to throw their spears after the fleeing horsemen. Mercury rode another dismounted enemy down as he quickly rode out and cut off the escape route of the last three mounted horsemen, which forced them to stop and then be caught by the chasing dökkálfar swordsmen.

Panting from exertion, Mercury patted the side of his horse, the hide of which had been stained red with blood, as he looked around the battlefield. From his first estimate, a little more than a third of his Varangian Guard was still in fighting condition, evident by them finishing off already dying enemies in either an act of mercy or retribution, trying to round up the horses without riders and rounding up any enemies that were not immediately about to die, while another third or so looked to be either making makeshift bandages to tend to their own wounds or to the ones that could not do so themselves, evidently being too exhausted to try and magically heal each other, and the last third was either dead or simply lying on the ground.

Nobody looked to have come out completely unscathed, though some escaped the fray with only small cuts and bruises. As Mercury watched a dökkálfar chase after a horse running wild, he noted how well his own horse had managed during the fray.

Despite it receiving a few slashes and cuts, as well as being forced to stamp the chest out on one unlucky enemy, it had never actually gone wild or panicked. Mercury patted its neck once more in appreciation for its efforts, while mentally noting that its value had now increased to not being immediately replaceable at the nearest town or city. Creatures with this amount of calm under duress were hard to come by.

Now that the fighting was finally over, Mercury finally had time to process just where these horsemen had come from and what their purpose had been. Based on the state of some of the horses and their riders, Mercury guessed that at least some of them had not been used as cavalry until now.

This made Mercury suspect that the reason for his southern army's hasty encounter with the enemy forces was because they had saddled up all available horses both war- and cargo-horses, which had then abandoned the main group to a slower overall pace, while they rode on ahead to attack Mercury's forces from behind.

This scenario then led to the suspicion that since there was no way that 200 horsemen could have broken Mercury's entire force, their only goal had been to clash into them from behind and kill as many as they could, which Mercury suspected would have been a lot if he had not decided to place his Varangian Guard on the only hill in the area to oversee the proceedings, which was coincidentally also so far behind the frontline that the riders would have remained completely undetected and would have then ridden downhill when they slammed into Mercury's exposed rear.

It was then that Mercury heard a trampling sound from behind him, and in an immediate reflex, he turned his neighing horse around with his sword raised to strike, when he noticed that the trampling was not from some unknown enemy, but rather what looked to be an entire Centurion from his main force.

"We were sent to tell you that the gates have been breached and to ask whether you need reinforcements?", the Centurinus of the Centurion said as he approached Mercury.

Mercury looked around the battlefield, which was covered by dead and dying horsemen lying next to their also dead or dying horses, while the few survivors were being squeezed together by some understandably not all too friendly dökkálfar soldiers, before he returned his attention to the Centurinus and said, "we are good, but some healers would be nice".

So, what did you think? Was it nice to see Mercury finally getting some action after such a long time of absence?