Again, a little medieval vocabulary.

A couillard is a sort of conterweight machine, that is to say a siege machine based on the principle of the sling. He owes his name ("couille", purse in old french) to the fact that his pendulum is made of two large bags filled with stones. This allows you to quickly change the weight of the counterweight which controls the range of the weapon. In the trebuchet family it is a relatively weak weapon, but this is compensated by its small size, and its speed of shooting. It is generally used on the ramparts of fortified cities.

A Châtelet is literally a small castle. The term does not refer to an independent building, but to a fortification built around a door to ensure its protection. The Châtelet district in Paris is located at one of the city's gates and was used as a prison. Rental prices were very low in the Châtelet district because of the "chamber of hypocras" the torture room it housed.

Circumvallation and Contravallation, these are two terms that come under the art of Poliorcétique, that is to say the fact of leading the siege of strongholds, castles and cities. A circumvallation is a network of trenches (or palisades) that surround a city and allow the besieged to protect themselves from the gunfire of the besieged. The contravallation is a larger circle, facing outward and intended to prevent a relief army from raising a seat. The best known example of this double device is the one created by Julius Caesar in Alesia.

The Siege

(Second part)

The entire population of the city seemed to have gathered at the gates. In spite of his escort, and his coat of mail - a gift from the king- Artoria had all the trouble to reach the staircase that led to the walls of the châtelet built on the entrance.

The new Chevalier de la Rose joined Captain Hauteclaire, sheltered from the merlons. The latter was arguing with one of his subordinates, obviously this veteran was appalled:

- It is madness to try an exit, especially with militiamen. Half of them have lived too many winters or not enough. They will be slaughtered, and for nothing!

Hauteclaire took great pains to see his orders criticized. About to respond vigorously, the officer was overtaken by Artoria Pendragon:

- Captain, what makes you think an attack on enemy lines would be appropriate?
The officer showed contempt for the goblins who were busy in the plain digging trenches and raising barricades:
- The enemy is weak and the orcs are only stupid barbarians.

Artoria simply nodded:

- Forgive my impudence, captain; we have just suffered three defeats against this "weak" enemy. If we attack again without learning anything from our previous failures, does that not make us "stupid barbarians"?
Hauteclaire is bluish.

- The important thing is not to inflict heavy losses on the enemy. It is simply to delay the assault on the walls. Time is on our side, winning will win this battle. In the King's Counsel, did you not press for the enemy to be attacked before he finished raising his defenses?

- Certainly, captain. But I have never spoken of a frontal assault with inexperienced militiamen against an enemy in large numbers.

Artoria's beautiful face displayed an expression of cold anger, and she conveyed some truths in the same tone as another would have said "fool".

- His Majesty has appointed me to lead this counter-attack, Lady Pendragon. You have your orders.
And to signify that the debate was closed, the captain turned around to distribute his instructions to the crossbowmen who were taking positions around them. On the right, with an impressive squeak, a couillard installed on a fort threw a projectile covered with pitch. Describing a burning parable, the ball descended amidst mounted regiments of Reachmen in fur armor.

A rain of arrows rose in response. The strokes slammed into the battlements, leaving few victims. In return, the tiles drawn from the slats of the towers and the roundway struck the goblins, which dispersed.

Escorted by the captain's soldiers, Saber joined the inner courtyard of the châtelet. Around her, the militiamen were finishing preparing.

- Close the interior doors.

The clattering of the iron-clad boasters sealing the entrance to the city caused the peasants to shudder as they gazed around them like hunted beasts. Already the young female knight gave the following order:

- Lower the drawbridge!

The troop, mixing military and civilian, the latter often without armor, armed with mismatched military surplus, shook with cries intended to support their failing morale.

The veteran was right. It was not a battle, at most a one-sided massacre. Despite the support offered by the crossbowmen and couillard stationed on the ramparts, the militiamen were greeted by a flock of arrows as dense as a brick wall. The first rows collapsed riddled with projectiles. The men who followed wanted to retreat but, pushed by the combatants who continued to come out of the castle, stumbled on the corpses and arrows planted in the drawbridge. Already the goblins' bowmen sent a new deadly cloud to the sky. The rain of the arrows with raven feathers fell, fall back among the militiamen whom they disorganized, taking lives by the dozen, sowing terror.
Half of the men had fallen before the regiment arrived in the free plain. At that time, the goblins charged. In the front row of the defenders, Artoria mowed down a humanoid as he threw himself at her, blowing his head off his shoulders in a splash of blood. A second opponent raised his shield of wooden boards handling without great talent a wicked iron cleaver. Saber paring, exchanging some blows, then gave a violent shield bash. The small green humanoid was struck in the face, the nose reduced to mush. Blinded by tears, he left an opening in his defense... and collapsed his heart pierced by the sword wielded by the female knight.

Around her, the battle had degenerated into a brutal melee. The Wayrest's militiamen were fighting desperately against a tide of goblins that were crowding around them, attacking from all sides. Dead and dying cluttered the ground. Even worse, an ogre advanced among the enemy ranks. The primitive monster handled a Morgenstern as big as a young tree. The ogre crushed a first militiaman as if he was a gnat and then and carelessly mowed down an enemy with a lapel of his club who ran toward him.

In the middle of the melee, twisting his horse between three orcs in orichalcum armor, Hauteclaire nevertheless saw the threat arrive:

- We must stop this monster, otherwise we are lost.

The officer was right. Normally, goblins were loose. However, they reacted strongly to the presence of a powerful leader. In fact... when they were more afraid of the latter than of their enemies, they fought fiercely.

Prana Burst!

Artoria ran forward. The two opponents found themselves face to face. On one side, a huge and musculous ogre, dressed in dirty furs and wielding a club covered with a point. On the other side, a frail young girl, half his size, clothed in chainmail under the silver hoqueton with the coat of arms of Menevia. Her hair was hidden by the camail and chapel-de-fer that covered her head. Only her face appeared and her beautiful emerald eyes fixed the all-black ones of the monster.

The girl pressed her teeth. Unlike the one she had previously faced, this ogre was unharmed. His chances of winning were low. Except...

Slowly she stretched out her sword, pointed to the earth, and then a deaf and deep cry rose slowly from her lips. Around her, the wind began to force, wrapping itself around her figure and making the fabric clasp around her legs. The blade she was wielding disappeared... the Barrier of the Wind King distorting the view and make it invisible.

Suddenly, she leaps forward. The acceleration produced by both the Prana Burst and the decrease in air pressure caused by the Sword of the Wind King allowed Saber to materialize directly in front of her astonished opponent and to open a deep wound from top to bottom.

Seriously wounded, the humanoid was not dead. He responded, striking in the void several times. Faster, Artoria dodged and retaliated, harassing him from multiple clear-cutting. However, the dragon core in her chest was not yet mature and such sustained use caused her to tug with pain. Suddenly, she felt a violent blow to her chest. The world turned red and split. Saber stumbled and her face shriveled, dripping with sweat.

The ogre did not let his chance pass. His weapon mowed Artoria laterally. She had only time to raise her shield to stop the blow. The protection disintegrated, throwing fragments of wood in all directions, while the Morgenstern struck her at the hip. There was a dry noise. Lifted from the ground, the girl fell a few meters further before rolling several times on herself.
Saber straightened herself painfully, unable to lean on her left leg. The sword had reappeared in his hand.

The ogre hurried forward, but once again the tiny knight swept aside; her blade fell to the back of the ankle... cutting Achilles' tendons. The monster felt his leg slip away and fell on one knee. Before he could dodge a move, a point of steel pushed with two hands sank through his mouth, through his palate, to pierce his brain!

The death of the big guy had an immediate effect; the goblins became elated by shouting with terror, receding away from the defenders of the gate. Nevertheless, more than half of the Bretons had already perished and other enemies were converging on them.

The captain raised his sword towards the city walls:

- Let us withdraw while we still can.

Healthy change of heart but, alas, late.

Willfully in the tail of the survivors, Artoria endeavored to help the latecomers who were trying to escape annihilation. Among them, the young knight recognized the veteran who had advised against leaving. Covered with wounds, he staggered. When a Reachman rider charged, Artoria stepped in, raising a shield seized on a dead person. She deflected the blade and then from her sword pierced the enemy in the groin. He fell into a big cry. The veteran was not saved for that reason. Two others horsemen passed Artoria, and cut down the wounded man with their blades of bones incrusted with teeth. When one of them bent down to pick up the beheaded head, a red fury took possession of the King of the Knights. The barbarians perished in an instant. Goblins succeeded them. Poised with scarlet to the shoulder, Artoria destroyed about ten of them before a group of soldiers came out of the châtelet to grab her and draw her by force inside the ramparts.

Garments ragged, covered with her blood and that of her enemies, the young knight climbed the staircase of the ramparts. From the battlements, she was able to watch the battlefield. The postern having slammed in front of them, the goblins were now retreating with squeaking of spite. The ground was littered with dead people... but it was mostly those of the militia.
Suddenly emptied of all strength, the girl sat down on the way round, her face transformed into a marble mask. As Captain Hauteclaire passed in front of her, Artoria asked him what the situation was. The officer made a gesture of frustration:

- Goblins fall out of reach of our crossbows. We have lost a thousand men and them... three hundred or four hundred. We showed that we could not attack their positions and therefore they did not need to strengthen them.

A few days passed, allowing Saber's self-healing talents to close her wounds. Her demonstration of power during the clash of the gates had earned her increased respect on the part of both the lords and the simple combatants.

However, the failure of the assault mounted by captain Hauteclaire had made King Eadwyre's officers fearful. The majority opinion was now to stay behind the walls and not go out... which doomed the city to term.

The 6 Sun's height, at last, the orcs rose to the assault.

The couillard's arm, brutally released, propelling a ball of stone covered with pitch. The projectile described an ardent arch before striking a siege tower that was being pushed towards the ramparts. The wooden building collapsed in a rain of broken boards and flames.

Closer to the ramparts, wheeled shields were used as a shelter for archers who were shooting at the battlements, entering into a duel with the crossbowmen that were there. From time to time there was a cry coming up from the round path. Nevertheless, the ground in front of the moat was littered with dead goblins, pierced with tiles.

Between the two towers flanking the door, about ten bearded men, in silk dress, wearing hoods or pointed hats leaned on heavy sticks. One of them held out his hands. An electric arc brought them together, making a sphere of blue light grow between them. Suddenly, the mage released a lightning discharge in the direction of the ram which was advancing towards the drawbridge. The goblins all perished, struck by lightning. Which, passing from one to the other, electrocuted them cleanly.
Two minotaurs cross the carnage site, advancing to the moat filled with fascines before starting to chop on the door with theirs axes. Above them, two circular holes spat out a black and oily liquid that splashed them. The next moment, a hand threw them a clay pot where a wick burned. The fire then ignited was like an explosion that ignited the crude oil. The two bullmen struggled for a moment in the flames, blackened and collapsed.

At the price of a thousand difficulties, riddled with tiles and inflammatory projectiles, leaving behind a wake of dead, a siege tower reached the walls of Wayrest. The drawbridge fell on the merlons. Immediately, a compact block of orcs advanced shields against shields. They collided with knights of the Lily in plain armor, handling two hands swords, while they were shot from all nearby towers and bodies fell into the void screaming.

The assault was contained... although with difficulty. However, two wise men arrived. The first summoned a Daedroth, a creature of Oblivion resembling an armored lizard with a crocodile head. Raising a hand, the monster cast a spell on the pressed ranks of the orcs who continued to advance on the drawbridge, immediately green and mephitic vapors enveloped the humanoids. Poisoned, they suffocated and perished as the humanoid lizard materialized a two-handed axe that was immediately put in use to split skulls and chests.

Meanwhile, the second mage formed a fireball and threw it into the rolling tower, carbonizing the orcs present. The flames were communicated to the wood structure which soon burned like a torch.
Everywhere, the assault on the walls of Wayrest turned to debacle.

Captain Gayal summed up the day's fighting:
- If our enemies continue to attack so foolishly, our victory is assured. Nevertheless, the enemy builds mangonel and trebuchets in his camp. Once these siege machines are complete, they will be able to pound the rampart walk or destroy the towers.
King Eadwyre shook his head:
- I doubt it, captain. The walls are eight meters thick.
Captain Hauteclaire sighed:
- Remember that orcs are exceptional miners. They could very well tunnel under our walls.
- In this case, let's put basins of water near the fortifications. If wrinkles appear on the surface, it's because someone is digging underneath. Then we can start a countermine and attack them in their tunnel.
The King's remark showed that he knew well the art of siege and its thousand tricks. Gayal said again:
- However, these defensive measures do not solve the root of the problem. We must counter-attack.
Eadwyre stroked his beard:
- Yes, but the previous attempt turned into a catastrophe.
- Let us hear Lady Pendragon explain her plan.
All the men present turned to the only woman present, in addition to Queen Barenzia. Despite her small size and slender silhouette, she wore the hauberk effortlessly. Her oval face with fine features was framed with blond hair dominated by an ahoge. A braid wrapped in the back of her head was held in place by a blue ribbon. However, what were most noticeable were her green and bright eyes, so far slightly pleated.
- Gentlemen, I am not proposing a frontal attack. The port is still in our hands and we have ships. I propose to disembark troops at night, outside the perimeter of our foes retrenchment. Our enemies are too confident. They didn't build contravallations to defend their camps against an attack from the outside. Then...
Saber explained for several minutes, making impression to all the lords. Finally, the king gave permission to apply her tactic.

In the sky, the dark clouds only let guess a few stars that appeared between the tears of the heavenly mists. The moons of the world of Nirn could only be discerned by a vague clarity. At that moment, a blue-white zigzag was unloaded on the background of the sky. Ephemeral, the lightning revealed the woods between shadow and light along the Bjoulsae and... a carrack that lightened his human cargo. Thunder raised anxious eyes. Enemy sentries should not be more attentive than they should be.
The men of arms inconvenienced by the storm pressed the pace. The Bretons were lightly armed, little equipped. They had quickly decamped. The boat then retreated to the other side, all lanterns extinguished.
As the troop entered under the fronds, a second lightning bolt swept through the dark firmament. The bronze gong of thunder echoed endlessly in the countryside returned to darkness. Before the first drops of a rain which soon began to fall heavily on the earth.
Whispering to pass on her orders, Knight Artoria Pendragon watched her strange "army". Thirteen-year-olds, fat shopkeepers, even... mothers. These were ordinary people who had only been given a few passes of arms with the remnants of the army's deposits which fitted them.
Saber put her hand on the shoulder of a teenager wearing a helmet too big for him and a cutting knife.
- Save your breath and stay with the other members of your platoon. Don't forget your training! You have to surround an enemy and isolate him!
In the darkness, the knight-woman saw the young man's teeth glow. No doubt it was the adventure that this kid had always dreamed of. Times of war suddenly turn games with wooden swords into more sinister things. The former king of Brittany did not have the heart to be the one to break his illusions; this kid would soon understand the difference.
In the rain, now beating, they took refuge in the woods.
At only two kilometers, after the last tree, the enemy camp began. By that dark night, only tents were seen in the fields and some log palisades insulated officers' quarters. The wind was shaking their soggy banners. The invaders were taking shelter. Well, the surprise effect would be complete. Only a few hours remained before dawn. Despite the rain and the storm, the Bretons were patiently. They were not alone; other similar groups had landed under the cover of night, encircling enemy positions. At sunrise, they would launch a simultaneous assault.
There was still time... fortunately, because the attack required serious preparation.

With the morning, the rain had subsided. The grey clouds even opened to let the first rays of the rising turn the Bjoulsae into a glittering mirror. Saber was confident. Her fighting instinct told her that the enemy was not waiting for them, the surprise would be total.
The teenager saddled up and drew her sword from the scabbard, the steel sparked scarlet, mingling with the bloody glow of dawn.
Around their leader, the outstretched militiamen shook their mismatched weapons with all the attention that was usually given to a beloved friend." Forward!" The cry had barely left the lips of the King of the Knights that horns of war and trumpets resounded on all sides.
So the general assault sounded.
The troops coming out of the woods were correctly situating their objectives. The reconnaissance of the last few days had at least served this purpose. The knights mounted on their caped steeds, still held their spears adorned with scarlet pennons vertically, each helmet carried a crest decorated, often the head of a fantastic creature. Their armor was sparkling. Around them were infantrymen: archers, crossbowmen, halberds, men of arms, guards of Wayrest.
Saber's sword shattered the head of the first orc to stand in her way. Her mount, a trained war horse, threw his mace forward as one would throw a ram against ramparts. The madness closed around the knight. Goblins and men pressed around her. Cemeteries threatened her throat, throwing sparks as they hit her shield. Splashed with blood, Saber retaliated, erasing the hateful faces that swirled around her.
As her men joined her, widening the gap in enemy ranks, Artoria saw a great barbarian throw down a knight. More by instinct than by reflection, she charged, sinking her blade into the enemy's heart. Although wounded, the knight stood up to thank Saber. Unfortunately, he was not destined to survive this battle. Two arrows shot each other in his back, causing him to swirl on himself before collapsing into the mud.
Saber's fighting instinct had once again saved her. Her steed had leaped aside, responding to the movements of her knees and several projectiles passed by without touching her. Other traits fell among the Bretons, inflicting rapidly increasing losses. Searching beyond the fray, Artoria discovered a frieze of archers just on the other side of a thin cord of Reachmen. She tied her horse and snatched in the movement a wounded warrior who tried to interfere.

Saber then felt a shock in her back as an iron fist closed on her shoulders. It was only when she saw the ground running between her legs that she realized that she had just been torn from her mount. Looking up, she discovered the powerful chest of a wyvern! The giant winged reptile had her in one of its claws... but it was not the worst. Usually, these monsters would release their prey up high and send them to smash on the ground...
The young girl took her sword between her teeth and drew her dagger... which she planted in the long neck of the wyvern. Howling with pain, the dragon's cousin let Artoria loose, who immediately found herself subjected to gravity, falling heavily! Normally, she should have perished... but the gods watched over Saber. By the time she was released, a second wyvern passed just below the first. Artoria fell directly on his back! By reflex, she grabbed on to the harness, and climbed up to the strength of the arms to get up behind the rider.
The orc in the saddle behind the monster's head only discovered her at that moment. He drew a dagger and turned around, but his involuntary passenger retrieved her sword and pierced her foe. Taking control of the creature, she diverted it from its path to land on the ground in front of the doors and then cut off its head with sword. Her arrival had terrified some crossbowmen who got excited. However, as Menevia's soldiers were converging on her, Artoria was recognized.
It was about 30 steps from the gates of Wayrest. In accordance with the battle plan, a mass exit had begun at the first light of day, doubling that of the disembarked troops. All around the knight, regiments moved forward and maneuvered. Their shooters sent rains of tiles to the bulk of the enemy formation.

The King of the Knights had a strangely numb mind. The closest soldiers spoke to her with a restless face. However, their words dissolved into loud noises. She took a few more steps and then a sudden dizziness seized her. As the world revolved around her, Artoria found herself on all fours in the damp mud, she saw her hands in the grass and... the blood dripping along her left arm...
Ah... so that was it? The wyvern didn't "grab" and pull her off the ground. He had plunged his claws into her chest. The young woman had not noticed either the pain or the hemorrhage, focused on her immediate survival, however...
A black hole absorbed what little energy she had left and Saber collapsed face down.