Chapter 26: The Battle of Blade
Soon after the outer defenses of Blade had fallen Ashram started to issue out the necessary orders to prepare for the final assault on the city. Under his guidance the Marmo army was forming up to storm the East wall of the city. It had all been planned out months earlier based on a diagram of the defenses drawn by one of Pirotess' elven spies; the preparations were flawless.
Ashram's plan actually went into action about three weeks prior. He had ordered three merchant ships from Alania to be refitted for a special mission. His intention was to use the innocent looking commercial ships to enter Blade's harbor and lie in wait until his army had reached this point. Then, when the timing was right, a brigade of Marmo commandos would slip off the ships and sabotage several key elements of the harbors defenses, allowing the Marmo fleet to sail right in.
With most of Blade's defenders focused on Marmo's army along the eastern wall, the northern port gate would be left lightly defended and vulnerable. The commandos would open up the inner gate and pave the way for shock troops from the Marmo fleet to breach the city.
Most of what remained of the Flaimesh fleet now resided in the harbor, Blade was their last refuge. The Marmo fleet had clashed with them in fairly regular skirmishes since they arrived in Flaimesh waters at the beginning of the war. As the Marmo army moved up the coast they captured the ports, giving the Marmo fleet more and more supply posts, while denying them to Flaim's fleet.
With the addition of ships captured from Kannon and Alania during the War of Heroes, Marmo possessed the larger fleet and held the advantage. The Marmo fleet, led by its flagship the Dragon's Claw, had managed to drive back the Flaimesh ships day after day. The few ragged, battled damaged ships that remained in Flaimesh navy were no longer a significant threat.
Still, Blade's harbor was the best and most secure in all of Lodoss. Unlike Agincourt, it had a large stone outer gate build three hundred yards from the shore and a stone wall around the entire port, it denied entrance to any unfriendly ships. In addition, it had two high towers on either side of the gate to watch the horizon for ships on approach, like an invading Marmo fleet for instance. These towers served as the harbors main defense with an entire garrison of troops stationed between the two of them.
There was also an inner wall and gate, connecting the city to the harbor, which allowed sailors and merchants access to the city from the port. If the inner gate wasn't secured, the Marmo invasion by sea would be stopped cold and a quick victory would slip through their fingers.
But even if that happened, Ashram had a backup plan. He would not let the entire campaign rest on the outcome of a gambit. His army wasn't just sitting outside the city as a distraction to the defenders. If the sneak attack by sea failed, he would attack with all his men and crush the enemy's defenses. He still had one final ace up his sleeve if assaulting the walls was his only option left.
That night the Marmo fleet moved in close to Blade under cover of darkness. The plan was to have the attack begin at dawn's first light. The alarm bells from the two towers were silent as the Marmo warships began to glide within striking distance of the harbor.
Everything seemed to be going according to plan; the Marmo ships began to enter the open outer gates of the harbor. The lead ships slid in silently, moving further and further inside. As the moments passed, they inched their way toward the inner gate. It looked as though things were working out perfectly, but then as the first Marmo ship was about halfway through the docks, the harbor an alarm rang out from the inner gate.
Something had gone wrong. The inner gate's wall began to fill with Flaimesh soldiers. Within moments, fires were being lit on the ammunition of the two catapults built into the main city wall. The Flaimesh soldiers were positioning and preparing to fire on the ships entering the harbor.
The large inner port gate closed tightly with a loud metallic clang, denying them entrance into the city. The Marmo warships that were already inside the port began the slow process of turning their massive vessels to retreat to the outer gate. The cumbersome warships were sluggish to turn however and the catapults from the gate began firing on them.
The ship closest to the inner wall was soon struck. Its mast was snapped in half and it began to burn furiously. The ship was lost; it was crippled without its mast and the hull was burning out of control. Men aboard realized it was a lost cause and jumped into the water below to escape the flames. The other Marmo ships continued to turn and retreat, the men in the water would have to fend for themselves. It was too dangerous to try to rescue them.
With the proverbial cat out of the bag, the crews on board the other warships made their way to the on deck ballistas and readied them to return fire. Fire arrows began to rain down towards the main gate from the two towers of the outer gate. Marmo archers in the towers were trying to cover the other retreating Marmo warships.
The lead Marmo ship that was already on fire was struck again by a second volley. The impact sent it out of control into another ship docked in the harbor. That ship also caught on fire. Fireballs started to streak across the night's sky in all directions in the harbor. In a way, the flashes of light caught up against the contrast of darkness were beautiful to watch in the distance, but they signaled defeat for Ashram and his forces.
The firefight between the ships, gate, and towers continued for several minutes until all the Marmo ships had exited the harbor. On its way out, the last Marmo ship paused to fire on the Flaimesh military ships docked in the harbor. The captain of that vessel decided that if they couldn't capture the harbor outright, then he didn't want to leave anything the enemy could use either.
The captain managed to set two of Flaim's warships on fire before the gate catapults started to zero in on his vessel. When a catapult volley splashed within twenty feet of the Marmo warship's bow the captain finally withdrew his ship the rest of the way out the gate and to safety. The damage was done.
The attack to take the city may have failed, but the entire harbor was burning out of control from the firefight. The Marmo soldiers that occupied the towers were forced to abandon their positions as smoke began to pour in. They took the long leap into the water below and were later plucked from the sea outside of the harbor by the waiting warships.
The fires raged all night and by morning the harbor was reduced to little more than burnt out wreckage. All the ships, including the Marmo infiltration ships, were completely destroyed and the tan stone walls were blacked from smoke damage.
Ashram groaned when he received the news. From what he could piece together from the reports, he determined his men must have failed to secure the inner gate and tipped off the defenders of the impending attack. There was no choice now; Plan B had to go into effect. Ashram ordered the portion of his invasion forces still onboard the warships to disembark and join the main body of the army outside the city wall.
By noon, the army was assembled and ready to attack. Ashram, along with Pirotess and Baltus, watched the hundreds of Flaimesh defenders file in ranks along the city wall. He could see the sun glinting off their helmets. The wall was also full of built in catapults, they were positioned every fifty yards along the top of the fornication. Baltus urged his horse forward, coming up right next to Ashram.
"My Lord if we attack the city of Blade now, we will be up to our eyes in blood." Baltus warned. "We will lose hundreds, if not thousands, of troops in the assault!"
"Perhaps." Ashram answered.
"This would be a good time to still have orcs in the army, if you put enough of them behind a battering ram, they can bring down the strongest gates." Baltus commented as he eyed the immense walls of Blade. "If we siege the city and wait them out it could take months. We don't have that kind of time in this desert sun."
Ashram didn't answer. He was getting irritated with his general's ongoing comments. Did he really have so little faith in him after so many shared victories? Baltus noticed he was being ignored.
"That's what Beld would have done back during the War of Heroes." He added.
"What Beld did back then and what we do now are two different things General, we will not rely solely on brute force as he did. We will use our wits to win battles." Ashram answered, somewhat annoyed with Baltus.
"But it could take weeks, even months, to wear them down waiting for them to run out of supplies." Baltus groaned.
"Hhmmpt." Ashram grunted. "I don't intend for this to take longer than two weeks at the most."
"How do you plan to accomplish this?" Baltus asked earnestly.
"Simple." Ashram turned in his saddle to look behind them. Baltus turned with him and saw nothing.
"What are we looking for…?" Baltus asked impatiently.
Ashram raised his hand and brought it back down in a chopping motion towards the city. A man standing on top of a hill behind them shouted, raising a red flag. A moment later, Baltus heard several swishing noises and something rushed quickly towards the city, far over his head.
Baltus could hear yells coming from the city wall. He turned and watched as the men along the wall began to scatter as large stone projectiles began to smash into the fortifications. One of the catapults on the wall was shattered into splitters was it was struck. The remaining catapults fired back in retaliation, but their projectiles fell far short of there intended mark. The Marmo army was well out of their range.
Baltus looked in shock at the show of force. Ashram urged his general to follow him back over the hill. As they crested the hill, six large siege weapons came into view. Their crews were hard at work reloading them for another volley.
"You may recall during our time in Alan, before we left for Fire Dragon Mountain, that I had our engineers start working on a little construction project for me." Ashram started. "Well the project was to design a newer, more powerful type of siege weapon that could batter down city walls at a great distance. I think this one is very effective; by far the best design they came up with. That is why I commissioned a half-dozen of them to be made."
As Ashram finished talking the weapons fired again, hurling rocks high into the sky at the city. The stone missiles came crashing down along the walls of Blade, killing defenders and knocking loose the stone bricks that made up the defenses.
"They are called trebuchets…" Ashram began again. "…and they will shorten our wait considerably. They have a range far greater than the city's defensive catapults. We can pound them into submission from a safe distance." Ashram smirked.
The bombardment continued nonstop for four days strait. Ashram moved the trebuchets to the top of the hill after the initial surprise volleys. Watching from a high vantage point, he noted where the projectiles were landing and directed his trebuchets into a tighter and tighter range until they were all fixed on a single fifty foot section of the wall.
The onslaught continued until the wall was battered down beyond recognition. By the seventh day, the trebuchets had punched a large gap into the wall. Ashram perceived that it was time to make his final push to end the war. He prepared his forces to move into the city, but before launching the assault he had to ensure that the defenders had several avenues of attack to worry about. That way they couldn't effectively concentrate their men in a single area.
To that end, Ashram had a battering ram in position to assault the front gate and several siege towers in place to hit the walls at various locations to draw as many defenders away from the broken section of the wall as possible when the bulk of his forces hit it.
"It's only a matter of time now Sire." Baltus announced as he mounted up next to Ashram. The ram was moving towards the gate and the towers towards the walls. "Take your positions!" Baltus barked to the men.
The infantry formed up into columns, ready to advance. The troops beat their swords against their shields and bellowed out a ferocious warcry that echoed throughout the landscape and off the city walls to intimidate their foes.
Ashram, at the head of the main cavalry body, drew his sword and motioned for the attack to begin. The horsemen started forward, followed by the infantry. The idea was for the heavy cavalry to punch a hole in the defender's line at the gap in the wall, thereby allowing the infantry to pour into the city.
He urged his horse forward, increasing the pace. The catapults from the city wall opened fire as they came within range. They did little to slow down the advance of Ashram's army. His men were moving too fast for the catapults to find their proper range.
Ashram carefully watched his siege towers as he closed in on the wall of the city. The towers reached the walls and his troops began pouring onto the walls. They were doing their job well, the Flaimesh archers were too distracted with them to fire a single shot at the more exposed men quickly closing in on the wall.
'Any moment now…' Ashram thought as he closed within a hundred yards of the wall. As he expected, arrows started to hail down on the gap of the wall from Marmo archers. They were thinning out the defenders some. He braced himself as he got within fifty yards of the wall. Just then, a final volley from all of the trebuchets came thundering down. Some of the missiles hit the walls bouncing right off and others flew into the city. One, however, hit home dead center in the gap. The force of its impact scattered the already confused defenders, who were desperately trying to block off the open gap in the wall.
It was a risky move on Ashram's part. If the timing was off just a little, the volley from the trebuchets might have hit as his cavalry entered the gap and the assault would have been a disaster. But as it was, it took the defenders completely by surprise, leaving them no time to recover before Ashram's knights overtook them.
As Ashram led his men through the gap, they came upon the Flaimesh infantry line crumbling in disarray. Ashram launched a spear at the first defender who came into his sight. The spear hit the man in the chest and he fell backwards.
Ashram's cavalry rode right over the panicking foot soldiers like they weren't even there and onward into the city. As they continued to penetrate further into Blade, the cavalry started to break up into smaller and smaller units to cover more territory.
Before long, Ashram was left with just thirty riders behind him. They came into a plaza near the center of the city, which seemed deserted. Ashram motioned for his men to stop, something didn't feel right. His instincts were well tuned; arrows began to stream down from the buildings around them.
Ashram shouted to his men to dismount and clear the archers out of the buildings. Unfortunately, one of the arrows found its mark. It hit Ashram, penetrating his armor mid-back. It didn't feel too bad to him though. Indeed, the arrow only made it about a half an inch past his armor. It didn't do any serious damage, but it still hurt.
After being struck by the arrow, Ashram ducked into an alley to avoid further attacks. Unfortunately, as he entered the alley he came face to face with nine Flaimesh foot soldiers that were running from the outer parts of the city to escape the onslaught of the main Marmo attack.
The soldiers came to an abrupt halt and drew their weapons. They sized up Ashram for a moment before deciding to charge at him. Ashram pulled the arrow out of his back, dropped it to the ground, and then drew Soul Crusher. He stepped right and chopped right through the first man's spear and into his chest as he tried to attack.
The next man had a sword and attacked from the right. Ashram met his blow and forced him backwards. The movement hurt, the arrow that had wounded him must have made it deep enough to find muscle. Another man came to attack Ashram as his back was turned; he was met with Soul Crusher's tip. Ashram had thrust it backwards without looking.
The other man who Ashram had forced back a moment earlier had recovered. But as he came to attack again a dagger struck him in the back of the neck, dropping him instantly to the ground. The next closest man met a similar fate, falling awkwardly in a heap to the ground.
Pirotess landed next to Ashram with a third dagger in her hand and a taunting smile for her foes. She let loose her third dagger before drawing her rapier and charging. The dagger hit one of the soldiers in the forehead. That man's legs slide forward slightly as his head jolted backwards from the force of the impact. Two more Flaimesh soldiers appeared from around the corner and came upon the pitch battle.
What remained of the Flaimesh soldiers at that point proved to be worthwhile to fight. The last of them Ashram fought seemed to have some real skill. At one point the formidable desert man came close to landing a killing blow, but Ashram ducked at the last minute though and thrust Soul Crusher into his chest, killing him. After the man fell, Ashram looked around to find Pirotess. When he spotted her he noticed she was smirking at him.
"What…?" He demanded impatiently.
"Paybacks are a bitch." Pirotess grinned. Ashram stood there confused, wondering what she was talking about. Then he happened to look over his shoulder and notice a chunk of his hair missing. Pirotess snickered.
Ashram just gave her a distasteful glare. He wasn't sure whether or not she was behind it, but he was certain she was enjoying it a little too much. After a moment, one of Ashram's cavalry lieutenants came into the alley looking for him.
"Sire, we've secured this block." The knight reported.
"Good, reform the unit and prepare to move out." Ashram ordered. "My Lady, this way if you please." Ashram motioned to Pirotess in a humorous manner. Before they got out of the alley Baltus arrived on horseback. He looked around for a moment and frowned.
"You are far too reckless Ashram." Baltus commented, noticing Ashram's wound. "We can ill afford to loose you at a time like this."
"I can't lead from behind." Ashram answered unmoved. "What of the battle?"
"They fall before us my Lord." Baltus answered. "I've just received word that their leaders have ordered the surrender, but there's still some fighting in the streets."
"Then let's put down what remains of their resistance and go confirm the surrender order." Ashram answered.
Three hours later on top of the Castle of Blade in the center of the city, Ashram preformed a ceremony to signaling his victory. He took a flag bearing the royal emblem of Flaim off of its pedestal and cast it into a nearby fire.
He replaced the Flaimesh flag with one bearing the Marmo standard. Below him, Marmo troops cheered in triumph.