Sorry it has been so long. I have been dealing with real life drama, finding a new job, going on interviews, and now have the possibility of moving. My moments are usually spent gaming or watching netflix to relax. I love writing, it is relaxing, but it still takes energy and time. A kind of energy I have found myself on short supply with these days. Still, I want to finish Kingdom at some point, so lets pump out another chapter!
Lorule War - Part 2
-Narrative-
In times of war the greatest value is not in the strength of arms, but in the acquiring of information. The news of the Zhao-Qin Alliance spread through the seven nations like wildfire and once again all eyes turned west with baited breath to see what would come of it. The Gerudo stationed twice as many troops on their Qin border and the Gorondis entrenched their walls bordering Zhao. The Lorule and Termina met and re-established old alliances between them incase Zhao or Qin came for them. All eyes turned to Lorule as the point in which Qin would invade. The year passed with preparations made. However, whether by divine providence, luck, or skill, or even in part all three, Qin successfully placed the army of two-hundred fifty-thousand lead by Duke Hyou and General Mou Gou on the border of both Lorule and Termina, and swiftly swerved into Termina unexpectedly. So while the Termina-Lorule alliance stationed their troops in Lorule neither would realize the true intent of the attack until Qin was already behind the first fortress, moving to attack the less-guarded one deeper in.
With two-hundred thousand men led by two generals cleaving their way into Termina within the first day from the south, and the fortress of Kankou on the north-western border with a third army ready lead Ousen Mitagi, and most of their army away in another country, the Termina were afraid.
-Link-
The day pressed on quickly as they ran. The entire army was organized in a line so that all of the calvary units were stationed on the outside, the infantry were between, and right in the middle of the infantry were their supplies.
Then as soon as they reached the Lorule border they were given the order to turn sharply north, rather than continue west, and run. Run! Never stop running! If you have to shit or piss, do it while running! If you have to eat, eat on the move! Men who passed out were picked up and loaded on shoulders or backs or carts, and the rest were yelled at for slacking.
"How we supposed to keep up with horses!?" A man yelled.
"Shut up!" Link barked, "If you have the energy to yell, you have the energy to pick up the pace! Go!"
Link emphasized it by physically grabbing the man's shirt and pulling him forward more into the mass of men. The smell of hundreds of thousands of sweating and panting men was unbearable. The Link unit was stationed towards the back for the run, so they also had to bear with running through the piss and shit left behind from the units ahead who couldn't take the time to stop to take dumps. To make the prospect even more grim, some even fell from exhaustion or tripped and were trampled underfoot by the army to follow until the path turned into a line of blood and bone. It became a struggle of speed and stamina and war in and of itself just to survive.
Link barked and yelled and pushed them forward, and though it rankled to be chastised aggressively by a leader who was normally the most social, they would reflect later and realize they were the only infantry unit to suffer no causalities from being trampled. No matter who fell among them, Link was already picking them up as if he was everywhere at once. Anyone dehydrated found themselves with water in their hands.
The army passed between the hills, using the elevation to their advantage as long as they could, until they passed into open country. A dust cloud was left in their wake, so it was a wonder they were not caught until the next day.
The night came and they pressed on a little further until the order came to stop. Link's unit fell where they stood and refused to move another inch unless under pain of death. Link stepped forward onto the next hill and looked out.
Before them lied the fortress of Kourou. Torches were lit on all its walls, and what a wall it was! It was by no means as tall as Genyou Pass, but it was a fortress meant for the defense of the local area and its villages. Villages lined the outside of the fortress where people lived and, judging from all the little fires and the lowered bridge, they were rushing to get inside.
An uneasy feeling settled in Link's stomach.
"Link!" Ki Kyou called. He turned to her as she stepped up the hill. "All of the unit leaders are being called by the Duke for a debriefing."
"Tell the messenger I am coming, and get my horse ready." Link turned back momentarily to the fortress. He didn't hear her depart, no surprise there, but nor was he paying attention. His sight was on Kourou for a moment longer. He gulped. The people were startled and frightened, it was evident even miles away. His palms lined themselves in sweat and his eyes burned, his sight filling with the blood of men he had killed already in his career. Before, he had always pushed away the ghosts with the justification that he was a defender. He saved those who could not save themselves. He stood in the face of death to stop death from reaching those he cared about. So long as no one tried to kill him, so long as no one swung first, he would happily make peace with them.
But not today.
Today he was going to be an invader.
-Later-
Link entered the tent Duke Hyou, alone. One of the last to arrive, the rest noted his arrival before returning to business. Link took the first moment to note who was present. The red-haired and shark-tooth'd Duke, naturally, and most likely drunk from his red cheeks and loud chuckles. General Mou Gou stood next to him stoicly watching in silence. General Moubu stood to the side with his arms crossed. Commander Kei Ki sat in a chair by the center table, on which rested a map of the surrounding region as best could be guessed. He flicked a knife between his fingers and smirked on seeing Link. Link just glared at him momentarily. The rest included Ouhon and Mouki, and a number of other men Link did not know.
"Now that our last 300-unit officer has arrived, shall we proceed?" Kei Ki wondered lazily.
"Link? LINK!" The Duke first gazed at him in confusion, then outright excitement. Everyone in the room flinched.
"Y-yes." Link confirmed.
"Bastard." Moubu whispered to himself. He put a hand to his ears to check his hearing.
"We will now proceed with the briefing." General Mou Gou stated, as if nothing to have occurred in fact, did. "Before us is the fortress of Kourou. It is paramount to our campaign that this is taken, and swiftly. The army of Lorule and Termina will not be far behind and using this fortress and its resources as a base of operations will allow a foundation to proceed from. As such, eighty-percent of our forcess will be split into eight groups. These eight groups will be split into four sections to tackle each side of the wall, and these four sections will be further split to into actives and reserves. The remaining twenty-percent of our forces will be lead by Duke Hyou-"
"PRESENT!" The Duke boomed.
"And General Kei Ki. Your task is to go further on the offensive. Harass and skirmish with the Lorule-Termina forces to slow them down from reaching us and stopping this siege."
"How very by-the-book of you." Kei Ki commented.
Moubu eyed the rogue dangerously for speaking against his father, while the general didn't look bothered in the slightest. "Yes, indeed. Is there a problem with that?"
Kei Ki clicked his tongue and shrugged. "Nope."
"I leave you two to discuss how you will go about this." The general waved them off. The Duke took this as the oppurtunity to take Kei Ki by the shoulders and literally drag him out still attached to the chair against the man's protests.
"Sucks to be him." Mouki smiled in amusement.
Link and Moubu and Ouhon all grunted equally in acknowledgement, none having the slightest sympathy.
"General Moubu, if you will assist me in the siege?" The commander-in-chief requested.
"Of course, father." The general nodded.
From there, the rest of the smaller units ranging in the thousands or hundreds were distributed among the eight groups to siege the fortress the next day, between the actives and reserves.
Ouhon was given first pick, as the heir to the Mitagi, and chose the front of one of the wings to attack from a position with the wind. This choice was advantageous for the wind would prevent arrows from easily striking them, while allowing their own to fly easier, and smoke would billow into the fortress rather than away from this position.
"How obnoxiously tactical of you," Link grunted.
Ouhon, without so much as a twitch to his face, immediately jammed his elbow into Link's ribs swiftly. Mouki chuckled.
"For that comment, you will be placed in the reserves behind him, Link." General Mou Gou stated, not missing a beat.
"Oh, come on!" Link squeaked, his ribs pained him. He eyed Ouhon and whispered, "Bastard."
Mouki raised his hand. The General said, "Of course, Mouki-"
"Can I go in the back too?"
The rest eyed Mouki in confusion. Ouhon rolled his eyes and returned his attention forward, fixing his posture. Moubu said, "You do realize Link is being punished for his disrespectful comment with being placed in the reserves for this attack, right?"
"Yes!" Mouki said brightly.
"And the action will be... in the front?"
"Yes."
The generals sighed.
-The Next Day-
The army split into eight before mentioned flanks around the city, and once in position most units were given a few hours of respite since the long run to prepare, sleeping in turns for the night. The horn blew at the earliest dawn and the siege began.
Link and his unit gathered their arms and stood in position under the sun within the back reserve battalion. Beside them was Mouki's unit. Having spent much time in the fortress together, Link turned a blind eye to men who drifted a short distance to talk between the units and socialize as they waited. Even Mouki drifted away from his unit to bring his horse to Link's side.
"Why the sour face?" Mouki smiled. "Here you have the chance for glory, to ascend the ranks further towards your dream."
Link didn't answer at first. His attention was forward on the fortress. Being in the back he was privileged with a wider sight from which he could see the attacking forces and defenders equally. The attackers ran to the wall with shields raised, and they took ladders prepared for sieges, but found the walls too high, and so had to flee back. Instead it was resorted to an exchange of arrows. The defender's arrows fell short against the wind and shield-wall of Ouhon's unit, while the Mitagi's arrows flew high and straight over the tall wall.
Every arrow was a gut punch.
"This siege is going nowhere fast," Link observed. "Unless we can find a way over the wall, the casualties will just pile up."
Mouki observed Link closely. From this advantage, it was not the Qin taking the brunt of the deaths, if there were any this early on. Understanding, Mouki said gently, "I'm sure the people are alright." Link flinched. Mouki chuckled, "It is not treason to hope for a more peaceful time, but then, I do wonder at your choice in occupation with a heart yearning for peace."
"I took up the sword for various reasons." Link replied. "Once it was to connect with my family. Then it was revenge. Then I just wanted to defend people from anyone that would wish them dead."
"And now you find yourself in the opposite position. Now it is you who others will seek vengeance against and others who defend their homes from you. You, who would kill and enslave them all."
"I would never!"
"But they don't know that."
Link was silent a moment. In his mind's eye he saw the battle with Zhao. He remembered riding the horse with Ouki leaning on his back, how the Zhao threw their bodies at him to kill them, so desperately, so full of hate and pain. He had done nothing to earn that hate but they hated him anyway, and so he could brush it off easily.
Now he would earn that hate.
"I think you have already come to the right conclusion of how to handle this the best way for everyone." Mouki continued, after allowing Link a moment. "You say 'unless we can find a way over the wall'. Yes, it would mean killing yet more when we go over, but the battle will not end anytime soon either. This campaign is not meant to kill, but to force them to submit. So long as they stand in a position of strength to withstand us, they will never submit. Nor can I blame them. The sooner we win, the sooner they will surrender, and the more may yet survive."
Link looked up again towards Ouhon's unit. "Ouhon doesn't seem to understand that, much. He is more devoted to his arrows than gaining the wall." Mouki frowned and eyed Link, no longer in humor, but in judgement. Link rankled under the attention. "What?!"
Mouki whispered, humor lost, "If that is what you think, then you truly know nothing of him."
Mouki turned the horse and started to trot away. "And for future reference, don't call him a bastard." Link scoffed and asked why not, but Mouki's answer stilled his tongue. "Because he is one."
The siege pressed on through the day. Link observed that some units were sent forward to reinforce positions around the wall as men were wounded, exhausted, or dead, but it was slow going. It seemed that no ladder could yet reach the height of the wall. No orders came down from the general for a change in tactics, and, if anything, the moral of the enemy rose. Even from a distance Link could hear the insults and yells the defenders sent at them and how the defenders cheered with each ladder that failed to reach, and he could see the lowered shoulders and frowns of the wounded thinking what good it did them to be hurt.
-Moubu-
"Father, I must insist."
"And so must I." The general replied, quietly and gently. "It has only been a day. Things are proceeding as planned."
"As planned?" Moubu frowned. "How long do you expect this to take?"
"The week-"
"A week?! We will be pincered in long before that! Even the Duke and Kei will only manage so much with fourty-thousand!"
"They will be fine, the more pressing matter is keeping the siege."
"This campaign is about speed and efficiency. Our supplies will dwindle, we will be exposed, without rest, and surrounded, if we cannot take the first fortress quickly. We are already so far deep in Termina that no direction we go in will offer safety. We will be harassed at every turn all the way out with our tails between our legs!"
"Then how would you say we shall we proceed?" General Mougou questioned. "How would you go about tackling this wall?"
"By taking a step back, tearing down the forest south, building proper rams and trebuchets and ladders capable of reaching the top."
"Which would require pulling back from the fortress and giving the Termina a chance to escape."
"Would that really be so bad?" Another voice said.
Moubu and Mougou turned to see the youngest in their family, Mouki, enter the tent. The young man bowed quickly and said, "I understand the point of this campaign is to force the Termina forces to submit, in order to allow a proper invasion of Lorule, but the surrounding villages fled into the fortress. It is normal for villages to flee further in when armies approach, but we have caught them off guard, both soldier and civilian alike. The fortress is smaller than others, but if the shouts are anything to go by, their resolve is stronger when they see what they have to defend is with them."
"The point is not a slaughter, if that is what you assume." Mougou said gently, placing a hand on his grandson's shoulder. "but we have to do this-"
"By the book?" Moubu questioned. "Kei Ki says it with disrespect, but he makes a good point. Going by the rules of war, going by what is practiced and standard and efficient is well and good in establishing a solid foundation and defense. But we are the attackers now! We don't have time to go with what is safe and comfortable."
"I must agree." Mouki added. "The next war will be always be defined by anyone who knows how to break the standards and rules already practiced. So long as we do not seek to find solutions actively, but let these rules define us, we will be swept under by those who learn how to do better."
Mougou looked between his son and grandson, and sighed. "There is just no respect for elders these days... I see myself outvoted." Though technically he could just tell them he was the commander-in-chief anyway. His family smiled in amusement. He looked to Moubu. "The last one with true experience in sieging was Ouki Mitagi, do you think you can step up and take his mantle?"
Moubu gulped. The last time he tried to chase after Ouki's shadow ended up with the same man killed. But that was also because he tended to lose his mind and throw himself with such furor into battle as to lose himself to it. That was not the proper approach for a siege. But then, it was also Ouki who had the foresight to warn him that he would be among the future pillars of their nation.
"What I think doesn't matter. I must." Moubu declared.
"Good, then I'll leave the siege to you. I'll take over again when we have control of the city. That fair?"
Moubu breathed out. It was true, these were perhaps where they were best suited. He took on a practice of constant aggression in the face of his father's constant defense. His father would be ill-suited for sieges, but of holding what they have gained? That would be his strength.
"I wont let you down."
"All I can ask is that you live." The old man chuckled. "It is your precious master you should fear letting down."
With that said, the commander-in-chief departed to send out messenger to all units updating them on the change in command for this stage of the siege. Moubu lowered his head and considered the map and what they had available.
"Boy, send for Ouhon Mitagi."
-Ouhon-
Ouhon did not take long, riding swiftly into the headquarters on his horse, jumping off, and running up. The older teen's composure was brittled with exhaustion, blood caked his armor, and one arrow found itself lodged in his shoulderplate he hadn't bothered plucking out yet.
"General?" Ouhon asked. He bowed quickly. "I heard there is a change in command. Is this sanctioned? Is this true?"
"Yes." Moubu confirmed. "My father is stepping down. Its not a coup or rebellion on my part, but we are re-evaluating our strengths as leaders. He will lead again when we hold the city. If you wish for proof of this, the old man is sitting on the bench out there watching birds."
"No need. I understand. If I may speak my mind, general, can we please hurry this up? I am needed with my men."
"It will not be long. You see, I wish to try a tactic. One you are specially needed for." Seeing Ouhon's growing curiosity, the general explained, "I have heard there are inventions of the Mitagi designed to take on fortresses. Being a noble house suited to them, I believe you would also know of ways to fight them."
"There are theories and crafts I have seen, yes. But none we have brought with us. Our mission demanded too much speed."
"And if we took time to build them?"
Ouhon blinked, surprised, and considered it. "Most would take engineers and fine craftsman, and an excellent leader with a mind to knowing the engineering of the device. A trebuchet would be perfectly suited to this task, but I do not believe any here could understand it well enough to lead in its production nor bring others to understand."
"Any you could understand well enough to lead in the production of within the next day?"
The Mitagi did not answer at first, considering his options. He recalled seeing the siege weapons and designs mostly at glances, and so could not understand them well enough to instruct others, least of all peasants and soldiers, in how to make them. Yet there were a scant few of simple enough design that even Link could grasp it.
"There is one." Ouhon concluded. "But I would need men, a lot of men."
"Would four thousand suffice? I can pull a thousand away from each wall to aid in the construction."
Ouhon felt his chest burst with pride. Four thousand men? No one had ever entrusted with him so much. Surely his father would be proud. Hopefully. "Four thousand will do. If the men are good enough, I may even be able to make you two of them."
The gruff and aggressive general nodded appreciately. "Good. Now, explain to me this siege weapon of yours. What tactics does it require to use properly?"
Ouhon took a breath. It wasn't just four thousand men? He was also being asked to help lead the tactics of this entire siege? In a way, it was almost like being in charge of two-hundred thousand men, even if only for a moment. If his tactic failed, it would be a grand failure. A great weight fell on his shoulders, but he shrugged it off just as easily. The weight of perfection had long outweighed anything Moubu could throw at him suddenly.
"It will require change in tactics, but only very little and not until the time comes to unveil it. Let me explain..."
