August 12th, 2016 of the Gregorian calendar
In the dead of night the grass slowly swayed in the cool fall breeze and a owl in the distance could be heard, letting his wise call be heard by all. By a small stream a lone deer made it's way to the edge and dropped down to drink in quite mouthfuls. All was fine until a loud thunder could be heard, it jumped in fright and thought best to leave in the other direction where the storm came from and in that direction a glowing orange light contracted with the night sky.
That said light was a massive fire and that fire came from the city of Italica, and the sound wasn't thunder but rather gunfire. At the Eastern gate Company A of the 1st battalion, 27th regiment A.K.A Wolfhounds along side the Italica militia were holding off the latest wave. The fighting at started at around ten at night and now it was four in the morning with the tired men fighting off both the enemy and their drowsiness.
Johnson wondered how the hell these people could send wave after wall of troops to be slaughtered only to have a new one at the ready, granite every attack came about an hour of each other giving the defenders time to recover but they could hold forever since the Americans were running low on ammo and the few men in the militia fighting continued to dwindle.
"Huh-a shit! Cursed out Cork, "Im out." Zhao then stuffed his hand into his ammo pouches and pulled out three separate clips of ammunition, with a standard of thirty rounds each. "Thanks Corporal, I ow you one." Zhao tired let out a sigh. "Don't mention-AAH FUCK!!" Without warning an arrow came flying and landed right into his helmet, thankfully stopping it before it could penetrate but hurting his neck in the process. "Everyone get the hell down now!" Should Collins as he inspected his second in command, "Jesus christ man...that hurt." "Well be glad it didn't go through your skull." He patted his comrade on the shoulder who was rubbing his own neck.
"Zhao, can ya still fight?" "Yeah, i can." He got back into position to hopefully shoot the man who'd had dared try to kill him. Soon the machine gunner got back to work with tracer rounds dancing in the dark. Johnson after silently concluding he was fine also got back to fighting.
Despite their shields obviously not protecting them the bandits foolishly got in a tight formation with shields covering all sides but of course a hail of bullets turned them into wooden Swiss cheese. Johnson being both tired, stressed and so focused at the formation that he didn't see a small group of men with a latter until it was right into his face, flinching and startling him. "The fuck?!" He looked down to see a man in Roman like Saderan armor with a sword in his hand, the American had to move back as to not get slashed and aim his rifle, pulling the trigger-Click.
At the worse moment ever his gun ran out, giving the bandit time to climb up but as soon as he was level Johnson bashed his face with the butt end of his carbine again and again until he had dropped the sword, the bandit looked back just in time as the private pulled out his Beretta M9 and put a hole in his skull. With a heavy kick Johnson sent both the dead Saderan and his ladder tumbling like a falling tree.
"Watch out! Their climbing the Goddamn wall!" He yelled as he aimed down and took potshots at latter group, killing all of them. The American soldier knowing full well he ran out of ammo for his primary put in on his should and placed another mag in his pistol.
By this time the wave had finally retreat and the gunfire slowed to a stopped, they'd held out again but for how much longer?
-Meanwhile in the Formal place
Colonel Thompson was stressed, sure he was stressed out a lot by paperwork given to him, sure he was stressed by the responsibility of all the lives underneath him and their occasional antics but this would surly give him grey hairs. His watch read four thirty-two and the reason he wasn't passing out was his constant supply of coffee and the maids' tea which he was very grateful for. His soldiers had been fighting for eight hours straight and while there was a waiting period before another would attack, always they were being harassed by volleys of arrows and the occasional catapult let loose.
Moans of the wounded could be heard from the ball room where both local doctors and his medics had turned it into a hospital to treat their patients. Not want to lose his sanity by sitting around he went back to his radio to call HQ. "Alpha-1 this is Werewolf-1, where's those damn reinforcements, over." There was a second before a voice on the line answered. "This is Alpha-1, help's an hour away from your position over." Thompson sighed with relief, one an hour but could his men last that long before their ammunition ran dry, many were forced to mainly rely on their sidearms and grenades.
"Is there any way of getting supplies before that?" "Negative, most are unavailable or wont get there in time, over." He grabbed the bridge of his nose in frustration, "copy that, out." Once communication has ended he put his head in his hands, mentally cursing the fucks for not getting men his mean at the very least a air drop with ammo, was that really to much to ask?
"Quid est quod arca loquitur?" He nearly jumped and tiredly looked to see the princess, she looked just as tired as he was. "Um...this is a radio. "Then he repeated slowly, "Ray-dee-ow." "Ray-dee-ow?" She copied near perfectly, he nodded that her accent didn't sound anything Italian but somewhat similar to greek. "Yes, that's how we talk to each other far away." The colonel motioned his hands to help her better understand him.
"Oh, ut hoc artificium quomodo sit. Haec magica attrahenti est!" He knew she had said something about magic so she still ready didn't know what this was. "If you think that's magic, just wait until you learn about the internet." He said underneath his breath. But suddenly a shorter, slightly younger girl with golden brown hair and big green eyes came into the room.
"Pernicies! celeriter veniendum est, hostes magnam contra portam orientalem oppugnant!" "Quid est?!" Without hast both women ran out, 'The hell was that?!' Then one of his soldiers came running in, "Sir, we believe the enemy are sending their biggest attack yet at the eastern gate!" "Shit...Send a second of Company C to reinforce it's defense!" "Yes sir." The soldier left in hast, leaving Thompson with a crisis. He just prayed to god that if they attacked then his men could hold until reinforcements could arrive.
-Back at the Eastern gate
The Americans and militia were getting weary, they had been hearing the sound of drums for minutes for god knows why. Ammunition was dangerously low and many were ready to simply fall over because of their lack of sleep.
"Yo Micheal." Johnson turned to right to find Cork looking back at him with tired eyes, "I..I feel like shit." His words were drawn out and looked as if he was holding back a yawn. "Don't we all, anyhow. You got your launcher?" Cork nodded, "Yeah Ive been saving that." Cork had tucked away a M320 single-shot grenade launcher, being prolifically trained to use the weapon.
"But be serious, why the fuck are they beat drums. I don't know if they plan on attacking or keeping us away?" Said Johnson as he looked to far off tree line. Then Cork got a stupid idea, he sot up so everyone could see him including the enemy. "Hey! Thanks for the music! Ha Ha HA!!" Johnson in a flash grabbed him and threw him onto the ground, "What the Fuck?! Are trying to paint a target on your chest dipshit?" Then a whistling sound pierced through the air, Johnson looked up and his blood froze. Thousands of Fire-tipped arrows flying at their direction.
"Get down!" Screamed a soldier as everyone took cover, Johnson tried to make himself as small as physically possible to avoid being hit. He in his cover saw a soldier be mercilessly pounded by at least a dozen arrows, another screamed as one went into his arm, the wax burning his skin and flesh.
After what seemed like forever they stopped, the world for a second halted as well. Slowly he and his companions got up and looked around, he saw the sky turn from black to a dark blue but then the drumming that persisted stopped. In response soldiers aimed their weapons at the the tree line, waiting for any sign of movement to blast them away.
"capitibus me adducere!!" A rough voice could be heard, followed by what only could be described as screeching straight out of hell. A wave of men came rushing forward thirsty for blood and vengeance for their fallen comrades. This wave was far larger then any of them combined and a few men much larger then the rest welding Axes and sledgehammers. "All forces engage!" Ordered Felkin who had joined them personally for this fight.
Sporadic arrow and gunfire torn men to shreds and those not instantly killed were simply trampled over, but they didn't stop. Johnson had only two mags left and took his shots slowly and accurately. "Here you go you fucks!" Yelled cork as he shot a grenade round which easily killed maybe a dozen men and wounded many more. It didn't take long until the reach the gate, pounding it and howling like rabid dogs.
"Everyone fall back!" Shouted Felkin and the American low on ammunition and soon to be overran retreated to their second line of defense just behind the wall. Johnson heard a scream behind him and turned just in time to dodge a blade aimed at him, quickly thinking he head-butted him, breaking his nose. In a hasty bid of survival he unchivalrously kicked him in the jewels and spat in his face. With him both temporarily blind and disabled, Johnson pulled out his Knife and attempted to stab him but the bandit managed to grab his wrist.
The two immediately began a to fight over control of the knife with Johnson trying to keep and the bandit to take it but the former took a wrong step and the two fell down to the group with a loud thud! 'Ah fuck.' Due to a immense pain he was in, he noticed the bandit was also in pain but more importantly the knife was just feet from them.
As soon as they saw the knife both they as best as they could crawled their way to the knife but the bandit was faster. Drunkly his opponent got onto his knees and took a try to stab him though luckily the soldier rolled out the way, the combat knife being jabbed into the dirt. "Cacas!" He yelled, he looked at Johnson with red eyes and again make way to stab. "Dicer-Hhmm!!" His mouth was covered a knife was swiftly stabbed into his neck, he struggled for a bit before going limp. "Thank's Corporal." "Just get up."! Said Zhao as he lend a hand.
-A mile away from Italica
At two hundred feet Hawk hated being woken up so early, they'd left the base at four in the morning sharp and had been in the air for an hour and forty minutes. He lead a wing of seven Apache helicopters along with being supported by nine A-10C Warthog and twelve CH-47 Chinooks filled with extra troops and stretches. The 1st battalion of the 27th regiment, 25th division had got themselves stuck at the city of Italica, a vital trading hub of the Saderan empire and apparently the princess of the empire herself was also there.
"I see the target at three o'clock, over." He said through the radio, "Rogor that." The A-10s began to bank into a dive, aimed straight for the men bottleneck at the gate of the wall. "Alrighty weapons free!" What followed suit was nothing sort of a massacre, whole swaths of them were simply turned into small bits of flesh by the iconic 30mm rotary cannons.
Immediately the enemy troops begin to scatter but the Apaches swooped down and rained down death. "This is Archangel, Im seeing some movement in the tree line, preceding to engage." An helicopter hovered over the forest and fired salvos of rockets onto the ground below recking havoc in the enemy's encampment. "Watch your fire inside the wall, we've got friendlies in there over." Commanded Hawks as he flew over the wall and let talons mow down Saderans on the wall, even taking out a Ballista being loaded. "Enemy AA emplacement destroyed!" He cheered as he remotely turned the chain gun on a rather giant man and ripped his upper torso to shreds. 'Fucking hell.' He thought, he pulled on the joystick and pulled up to get a better view, 'I don't get payed enough for this.'
-Fuaneos 13th, 687 of the Imperial calendar
Piña had never been so high before as she never or dreamed of riding a wyvern or other creature but now she was thought thisone was made of metaland flying much, muchfaster. Right next to her washer personal servant and friend Hamilton along, while in front was two men with a thick band just above their elbowsthe letters "MP" on them. 'Perhaps they are royal guards?' she though to herself. Meanwhile Hamilton had hear eyes thoroughly shut, Piña knew she had a fear of heights. She remembered back when they were children her father as a birthday gift let her ride a griffin, it hadn't been a minute and the little girl was crying to come down and since that day was terrified of even climbing a ladder.
"Um..how long until we get down?" Hamilton asked, one of the men replying, "In just a minute we'll be at Alnus." 'That quick?!' She knew she shouldn't been surprised by this for she'd seen the destruction that a force only the size of ten centuries and their flying chariots could do to a enemy forty-five times stronger. The images of mangled bodies literally piled onto each other, the buzzing of flies and the smell of rotten flesh decaying in the hot summer sun. From the reports the Americans estimated that 27,000 of the bandits had become among the dead and a little over four thousand more in captivity with many wounded.
They'd made a treaty with Italica stating that the city in exchange of being used as a staging ground for further operations and a tax exemption of their goods would be under American protection, as well as allowing Italica to be sovereign. Not only that they asked for the prisoners to be treated well, something unheard of on Falmart. Usually when a army surrendered they were either used as ransom or enslaved.
Now they wanted to talk to her for what she didn't know, perhaps they wanted to use her as ransom for peace with her father or be forced to be one of their concubines? A shiver went down her spine just thinking about. "We're here." The same man said, "Please don't take off your seat belts until we come to a complete stop."
This contraption bumped as it touched the ground and slowly the the spinning swords came to a halt, as instructed she untied herself from the thin black leather. "Hamilton, you can open your eyes now." The frightened girl did as told and finally began to relax, "Thank the gods." She like Piña unbuckled herself, both being helped off and onto solid ground.
"Would you kindly follow us." Said the other guard, motioning them to follow. Their encampment was familiar yet so different, it walls were in the shape of a square and made of stone with watchtowers on each corner, tents littered the area with one having a small red cross in a circle. Inside were people in white clothing tending to one of their own who had an arrow in his shoulder, the healers yanked it out and the soldier screamed but one of them put a cloth on the would to help minimize the bleeding. Just behind that was two large barracks and their strange artifacts that sat like statues but most importantly the gate, the thing that started it all...
The soldiers let Piña into to a strange building with glass doors, what made it weirder was that it wasn't lit by candles but by glowing white balls hanging on the ceiling. There were people walking about in their strange clothes speaking in their strange language. Soon they arrived at a wooden door, one of them turned a handle and pushed it open, relieving a aged man with greying blonde hair and bright blue eyes in clothing that was a mixture of many shades of green.
The door was closed behind them before the two guards stood at either side with their arms to their sides and stared ahead, the man in front of them slowly got up and walked to them. "Hello, you must be Princess Piña. It's my pleasure to meet you in person. I'm general Kowalski." He like Colonel Thompson took out his hand to shake and she being polite shook. "I see you speak my language." She observed, he gave a light chuckle. "Ya, I studied plenty of Latin before I came here." "Latin?" These people were strange indeed. "That's what we call it back home, language of the Roman empire and I couldn't help but noticed your writing system is strangely similar to Norse. But that's not why I wanted to see you today, I want to talk about potential a peace treaty."
'They want peace? But they have the ability to wipe out whole armies!' Kowalski walked back to his desk and picked up a piece of paper handed to her and the princess looked carefully at it, amazed on how perfect the letters were.
'They want a hundred leagues of territory surrounding Alnus with a ten league demilitarized zone where no forces shall be stationed, the Empire to except fault for the war, give up any war criminals and...' her heart stopped, 'And pay 300 million Suwani!!' She looked to Hamilton who hade a similar look of horror, Kowalski simply looked at her like it was nothing.
"There...there must be a mistake, 500 million is simply too high!" "Why do you say that?" He asked in a cold voice, "We can't pay that! Even if we took every piece of gold in existence it still wouldn't be even enough and we'd go completely bankrupt paying a fifth of that. And do you mean of 'war criminals'?"
"A war criminal is someone who breaks the laws of warfare like raping, pillaging, enslavement and torture of prisoners, murder of civilians and so one. And the I don't make the conditions, the politicians do." Piña had to make at least some of the terms favorable or else the Empire would be torn apart by it's neighbors. "W-what about a trade agreement or-or slaves-" "Slaves? Heavens no! My country doesn't have slavery and don't wish any, ." 'Impossible! Every empire that wishes to thrive must have some.' "Then do you want tributes tributes for your nobles?" "No, we don't have them. My country is not a monarch but a constitutional republic by the people for the people."
'These people are mad! How can a barbarian state give us such horrific loses?!' She took a deep breath, "I'm sorry but the Empire simply cannot except this treaty's outlandish terms, especially terms from barbarians." The general's face was calm yet his eyes were furious, "These are reasonable terms back where I'm from, you're not sure yet then please follow me." He said calmly, he walked past them and opened the door with the two Saderans hesitantly follow unsure of his intentions.
They once again entire the hall way but make a right turn and enter a room with a large table and a map of Falmart but it's extremely detailed, like if it was taken from the view of the gods themselves. "Please sit down." Piña and Hamilton each take a seat next to each other as Kowalski walks to the other side of the room to a small black artifact, the man presses something and a like shoots from it onto the wall their facing. "This is what we call a movie, because the pictures on the screen are moving." He explains as he turns off the magical light in the room leaving on the 'movie' to light up the room.
Then it suddenly a picture appears on the screen or rather a vision of men in green clothing, surrounding a few of their war engines. They matter and as one of them pulls a level opening a circler hole, inserting a metal cylinder with a pointing tip like the end of a spear, and then placing a bag of sorts behind it. One of them takes a rod and rams the objects inside before another closes the opening, all of them are doing this while yelling in their language. Then one them screams a word and one of them pulls a cord, the war engine letting out a thunderous sound as the snout moved back and the other crews repeat. 'A ritual?' It then switch to a view of the field surrounding the base of Alnus hill showing an army much like those regularly seen on Falmart, then it clicks; it was the allied army her father sent. In a few seconds they are engulfed in flames as they ground they stand on explode.
Then it pans to three iron elephants with their snouts in the air making that same loud noise, repeating like a beating drum. Once again it changes to an earthworks, soldier using their black staff, gold things flying out from the side every time it is used. Pat! Pat! Pat! Ratatata!!! Pat! Pat! Their weapons jump with the front of the staff sometimes going up, nothing like the Empire's weapons she knew off.
It switches again but now it's of their chariots, there boxy and have poles which together make a circle in from a grey thingy, it aimed up and let's out a Brrrrrrt sound, red dots flashing out. Immediately the vision points up to a formation of wyverns who are shot out of the sky like flies.
'Is..this their full power?' But it unfortunately wasn't done yet, it showed a nighttime sign. Suddenly popping noises could be heard as green flashes flew down range with floating little stars in the sky that turned night into day. She could she the silhouette of men who were cut down, horses that bucked off their riders and axillary monsters were down to bits.
In a flash it went back to day but it was silent with only the wind blowing softly which contrasted with the grizzly sight of thousands of bodies, now she felt she was going to be sick. Piña had seen the aftermath of the siege of Italica but it was child's play compared to the Alnus disaster. Then the screen went to black and words appeared in the American writing system and just below was the translated version in Falmart's system.
'140,000 dead and 30,000 wounded wounded? This is war...It's extermination!' Then it when black again and then another sentence popped up, it read: 'Two Americans were killed along with fourteen wounded during the battle.' Then it went black, and she squinted as the lights were turned back on. She looked to Kowalski who had a almost solum look on his face, maybe he hated the slaughter as much as she did.
The princess and Hamilton jumped when the door without warning opened, they looked to see a soldier who strangely had dark caramel skin, he saluted the general and said something but whatever it was it probably wasn't good. "I'm sorry but Im afraid our meeting has to end early. He apologized, "Why, what's happening?" Asked Hamilton. General Kowalski grabbed the bridge of his nose, "I was just informed that one of our soldiers was taken prisoner by the enemy." Piña's skin turned pale...
And im back with part 2, of course Ive decided that Piña go to Alnus early because why not talk to closes thing to a actual political leader with lies to the country your fighting. I'll be back with chapter 7 soon!