Siege of Samsooth (The Tactician)

Battle of Samsooth City (Part 2)

Commanding Lord(s): None. Forces of Ylissean army under command of Grandmaster Robin.

First Generation Elibean Heroes serve as auxiliary troops under the command of Lords Eliwood, Hector, and Lyn.

The city of Samsooth stood overlooking the valley of the Samsooth mountains through which the Skaven army was making their advance, the rats having begun to group themselves into their respective clans since their arrival on the continent. They had also hired various bandit groups, who had gladly accepted fighting in the front lines for the Skaven, if it meant avoiding a much less gratifying end as a meal for the rats.

The Skaven and their slaves marched towards the walled city, whose archers and snipers found themselves criminally outclassed by the Rat-Men. From the walls, volley after volley was fired halfheartedly and with little aim, for if one spent too long preparing a shot he would find himself on the business end of a Rat-Man's rifle. The mages fared no better in their efforts to hold back the mass of rats outside of the walls, as the common mage found himself outclassed by the glowing contraptions that could tear apart parapets, as well as the odd fireword-like devices that a smattering of rat-men held that caused a greater explosion than even the most fearsome Bolganone spell caused.

While the battle to keep the Skaven's siege machines out of the walls raged outside, a different battle raged within the city. Civilians and Soldiers alike fought off swarms of rats that rushed out of sewers, burning the many bodies in large bonfires that reeked a stench strong enough to make even the hardiest of men lose his lunch.

Grandmaster Tactician Robin overlooked both of these battles from his position on the city keep, where he had his maps and charts arranged on a large oaken table for his strategies. Accompanying him he had two Swordmasters and Blade Lord Einherjar Lyn positioned as his personal protection, he did this because the siege of Samsooth had brought a surprising amount of assassins to try and claim his life, be they hired, blundering humans, or the swift Rat-Men who had managed to strike down an entire room of Soldiers without breaking a sweat. This had caused him to increase security and pull Lyn herself back from the walls, leaving the Einherjar of Eliwood to command the wall defenses.

Although Robin had not shared many words with Lyn, he felt a connection between the both of them whenever he issued her orders, even in battle against Rat-Men who came to kill him specifically. He knew he could trust his life in her hands without as much as drawing a tome. He had paid it little heed at the time, but when he had acquired her Einherjar card, he remembered that it had spoken to him directly and claimed to have already met him. Robin brushed it off then. However, as he returned to his plans for defending the city based on the information the Pegasus Riders he had sent to scout ahead under Captain Mahnya had given him, he thought he could remember some vignettes from his time in the land of Elibe, where Lyn and her compatriots hailed from...

The Rat-Men were gaining traction on the walls, and their siege towers were now bearing down on the city walls, stray slaves being flung at the gathered Knights and Generals in the walls to scatter them. By the time the armored men managed to push back the gaunt human slaves, the siege towers crashed against the walls and burst open, vomiting the rat horde upon the city. The men of Ylisse held fast though, and for a moment, it seemed as if they could hold the line against the sea of beasts, allowing the archers and mages to make their retreats from the walls.

But their hopes were soon dashed when a figure emerged from one of the forward siege towers. A Rat-Man wielding a large scythe in one arm and a thick, curved sword on the other. This rat had an odd raised helmet with spikes, and wore long rods in his back which ended in heads of many beasts, both man, rat, and things not-of-this-world. Every time he raised his sword a knight died, and every time he raised his scythe, he tore through his enemies and found purchase for his comrades through the Ylissean formation, slaughtering defenseless archers who had been attempting to find a vantage-point to assist their comrades.

Queek Headtaker had managed to obtain a foothold atop the massive walls of Samsooth City in a mere five minutes, his fellow rats already streaming in from the opening he had carved up for them. What followed would have been a one-sided slaughter in favor of the Skaven, had the Einherjar of Lord Eliwood not taken to the walls and rallied his surviving Generals and Knights, as well as relieving them somewhat by bringing in his personal guard of heroes, headed by Marcus, Lowen and Harken. Eliwood's arrival restored the morale of his underlings and saved the lives of the surviving spellcasters, who set to work immediately by throwing down Elfires on Queek's rats.

Queek's face then contorted to what would be a grin on a human face, content at finally having what would perhaps be a worthy head to collect. At the very least he would take that shining sword that the red-haired manling was swinging about. It looked like quite a trophy. Queek charged, and his underlings followed gleefully.

Harken attempted to strike out at Queek first, with Lowen being close in tow, before a Skaven on the mountainside shot a Doom Rocket at the green haired cavalier, blowing Lowen off the walls. The force of the blast sent Harken stumbling forward when he had been preparing a swing and left him off-guard when Queek jabbed him through the top of his shoulder with his sword, slicing through his deltoid muscle, thus making Harken's subsequent attempt to lift his arm to prepare a block against a slash directed at his waist a painful, yet barely successful endeavor. Queek was not to be deterred from his prize though, and quickly brought down his scythe on Harken's head, lopping it off. This victory was too easy for Queek, and so he did not bother a glance as the head rolled off the city wall, and instead focused his attention on the red-haired youth.

Eliwood ordered Marcus to lead the defense of the wall whilst he fought off this strange Rat-Lord. And so Eliwood raised Durandal and prepared to stab at the Rat's throat, only to find his blow be swatted aside, and force him into a defensive stance as Queek used his scythe, sword, and tail in quick succession to attack the manling with all his resources. This barrage forced Eliwood to take many steps backwards, but his skill held true, and none of the rat's blows struck him.

This skirmish went on for some time, and led to both warriors quickly being short of breadth, and while catching his breath, Eliwood looked around to see that both man and rat alike stopped their fighting to look at the spectacle unfolding before them.

Knowing that defeating this vermin would win back the morale of the soldiers, Eliwood struck forward with his blade, wishing to end this battle quickly before he tired further. For Durandal was a heavy blade, and Eliwood was unaccustomed to using it off of horseback. If this battle turned to a test of stamina, he was sure to lose. But Queek seemed to have the same determination as the lord, as Eliwood's strike was parried and returned in kind with an upwards slash from his scythe, a move that Eliwood was unprepared for, the scythe soon cutting through his robes and flimsy armor and then slicing through his flesh, making him cringe in pain and vomit blood on his opponent, blinding Queek briefly.

Knowing he would not be able to wield the legendary blade in his current state, Eliwood cast it aside and drew his rapier, intent on striking down the abomination before him while he could. Eliwood raised his rapier before him to gauge where he wished it to strike, brought it back behind him to get traction for his blow, and then raised his blade again after moving back in preparation to stab at the beast's throat. As his blade approached the rat, his heart dropped when he saw it feint to its right, making his hit miss completely, and then bringing the scythe that it had stealthily raised so that Eliwood's attack would leave him in range of it. Queek brought down his scythe and lopped Eliwood's right arm clean off.

Had Eliwood not been fighting in desperation, he would have noted Queek's blindness was merely a ruse, and he would have seen the rat's muscles tense in preparation to its feint. Eliwood cursed his own nearsightedness as he gripped the stump of his forearm and lamented his loss, as Queek stood over him, raising his scythe yet again to claim Eliwood's head as a trophy.

But Eliwood was determined not to die as easily, he saw the blade Durandal had fallen close to him, and so he rolled away from Queek's scythe towards Durandal, gripped it with his left arm and charged one last time at the beast, determined to inspire his men to hold the wall.

Eliwood's brutishness surprised Queek, and while the Skaven managed to evade the blade, he was unable to avoid being tackled by the angry lord who threw the both of them off of the wall and into the city itself, causing both of them to fall crashing into the wooden ceiling of the side of a cathedral near the walls, putting them out of sight.

The seeming loss of both Eliwood and Queek brought stillness to the two sides, the humans grieving for the lord, and the Skaven fearing for their own lives, before both sides returned to hacking away at each other. Marcus's illlustrous past as a veteran leading him to position the Ylisseans in a advantageous formation that allowed them to hold off the Skaven horde in a stalemate for the moment...

While the battle at the walls began to fare well for the defenders, the fight for the city streets was much less fortunate for the men under Einherjar Hector's command. Warriors, Berserkers and Sorcerors whose raw strength had been expected to hold back the hordes of rat-men from the city streets in the case the beast's contraptions managed to tear down the gates were gathered with little regard for formation, Hector deciding to focus instead on giving them room to maneuver instead.

The breaching of the city gates happened sooner than Hector had hoped for, as a conglomerate of Doom rockets and Warp Cannon-fire hit the gate simultaneously and singed the door into ashes and shards that rained down on the defenders of the city. Hector himself would have been doomed to be impaled by a falling piece of debris had his right-hand man Oswin not pushed him out of the way in time.

Out of the clouds of dust a multiple headed monstrosity came barrelling out moments after the explosion. It took all of Hector's iron stomach to not keel over vomiting at the sight of it. It was an abomination, it was as if multiple men and rats had been sewn together into a towering beast. Hector threw a hand-axe its way as soon as he regained his composure and decided he wanted that thing killed, regardless of the waves of rat-men that entered the city alongside it.

"Oi, Canas!" bellowed Hector to his fellow Einherjar who had been concerting alongside the Ylissean sorcerers to form a support column against the rat-horde. "Take that thing down, now!" he said pointing at the abomination.

The purple haired Shaman looked at the lord oddly for a few moments, almost considering ignoring those orders, before he signalled his subordinates to attack the monstrosity, even as larger and larger numbers of rats launched themselves at the Berserkers the mages had been supporting. The abomination fell quickly, but its mission was successful, and the Skaven broke through Hector's lines using the ruse he had so quickly fallen for. The axe-men being unable to fend off the rat-men successfully. Before long, Canas's sorcerers also came under fire from the rat's claws and swords, their brute weapons slicing through the magicians. Canas himself would have died had he not whipped out his Nosferatu tome and began to leech life for himself from the many, many skaven stabbing at him. He would continue to subsist in this way, until his tome grew dim, as it had run out of charge. Canas dropped the tome and closed his eyes as seven different Skaven blades fell on him.

Hector used his holy axe, Armads to cut a path for himself away from the encroaching skaven, attempting to run faster than the horde to safety. The Rat-men had cut through the first lines of defenses Hector had set up, the few remaining Warriors and Berserkers, about seventy in total, attempted to hold a small alley near the gate, and a small group of mages led by the young girl, Nino held off the stairs that led to the wall with the aid of a badly wounded Oswin. If Hector couldn't muster up enough men to charge the gate, they would all die.

Hector found their salvation in the second line of defense that he had set up a few blocks down the road, a significant amount of 300 Paladins fit for a rapid relief of the remaining warriors at the gate, as well as 700 Great Knights who would stay a step behind the Paladins and would, hopefully, force back the rat-beasts. He gave the signal and demanded a horse. The rats would NOT take the city while Hector drew breath. In this iteration of his card, anyways.

The horsemen charged at the rat-men who were swelling through the streets like an ocean of teeth and fur. The men screamed warcries, although the most of them seemed to Hector more like frightened attempts at it.

As Hector's cavalry charge neared the rat-men, Hector raised his axe above his head and then brought it down as the men struck the rats. The Paladins and Hector tore a path through the rat-men, the great knights mopping up behind them at first, and taking the lead afterwards. But the skaven were not to go down that easily, and soon most, if not the greater majority of the horses, fell dead under the legs of the men, as the skaven had taken to striking at the exposed horses. Hector too was thrown off his mount, but it did little to stop his advance, as, almost miraculously, his men began to push the rat-men out of the gates.

As Hector and his men began to cheer as they fought, as they had managed to push the rat-men nearly completely out of the city gates, but they noticed moments too late as the warp cannons of the skaven fired at the walls above them, shattering the integrity of the stones above, and raining rocks, and some of the men and skaven fighting atop the walls, on the soldiers below. The collapse of the wall also caved in the stairs Nino, Oswin, and the surviving mages had been defending, burying them in stone.

Hector ran from the gate in fright, nearly falling over from the sheer amount of rocks in his path. He jumped over a particularly large boulder, and was then in the clear. He landed face first into the city-road, but got up quickly, and turned behind him to assess the damage to the wall, and count his men.

While he was distraught at having lost nearly all of the Warriors, Berserkers, and Sorcerers he had begun the battle with, as well as the larger part of his cavalry, who had either lost their lives in the fighting, or in the collapse of the gate. Not to mention the deaths of those atop of the wall.

Hector rallied his men to holler in victory, however, he could not allow their morale to fall. At first, it seemed as if the men's cries made the very walls of the city shake and reverberate with echoes of their cries. But soon a chill came to Hector's neck as he then understood that he had made a terrible mistake in assuming he had ever won.

Moments after the Skaven laughed at the humans for thinking they had won, many skaven rained down from the buildings overlooking the road-gates. Many skaven died from the mere fall, but the element of surprise was on their side, and they killed many men before they could react. Hector may have been able to fight off the tricky ambush of the great rats, but this would not happen, because from the Cathedral to Naga at the side of the Gate, came Queek himself, dressed in the church regalia, and wielding the sword of Roland, Durandal, that he had taken from his most recent kill, the red-headed youth whose head was now stuck on one of Queek's pikes.

Hector gripped Armads and charged at Queek, with a grand total of five Paladins following him into the fray to take back the Cathedral.

Robin as he looked now was almost completely unlike as he was during his travels with the Shepherds. His expression had turned gaunt, and his white hair was now dirtied with sweat and dust. But his worries were much larger than his appearance, for they were something a good rest and groom would not fix. The Rat-Men had broken through the city gates and had seemingly obliterated the Einherjars of Eliwood and Hector off the face of the earth. However, not all the news was bad, for other reports spoke of the Pegasus Knights rallying the citizen's militia, and Lyn's cavalrymen leading a good 3,000 infantrymen in defense of the city's palace to aparrent success.

Robin had also read reports on an odd Rat-Lord who wore the heads of some of the more talented fighters of both Ylisse and Elibe, gathering the heads of Captain Mahnya, Einherjar Bartre, Einherjar Raven, both Lords Hector and Eliwood, amongst a few others. Oddly enough, reports on this rat's whereabouts ended after the rats had overwhelmed the market district. After this point, Einherjar Matthew, who Robin had ordered to spy on their opponents, stopped sending word. Robin was not surprised, as from Robin's position overlooking the city, he could see the rat-men had already taken to the rooftops of the city. Unless Robin could successfully defend the city palace, the city would be lost. Still... Robin had ordered a squad of pegasus riders away from battle. If the battle turned south, he would be forced to steal a page from Einherjar Eirika's book and attempt an aerial escape.

This plan soon turned to a serious consideration instead of a mere conception, as the brunt of the Skaven army reached the remaining forces Kent and Sain had put together. The rest of the surviving mages and archers were perched on the roofs, already at work throwing their all at the ocean of fur beneath them.

But for all their efforts, the Soldiers could not hold their ground against the Rat-Men. Soon after their battle began, the Rat-Men's sheer amount of numbers was already well on the way to wearing down Sain and Kent's men. Robing could not, should not, stay in this city. He had to get the information he had gathered today at Ysstol. Perhaps with more men, and more efficient Einherjar, maybe even the Shepherds as well, he could achieve victory. He shook off a creeping thought from his mind that made him consider staying, lest he act like some of his past foes and flee like a coward.

Robin signaled for his guard to accompany him, as well as the Einherjar of Lyn, to the basement of the castle palace where an escape tunnel had been constructed many years ago, leaving the command room that Robin had set up in the Lord of the city's quarters, and walking through the halls of the palace. Samsooth had come a long way in the past 2,000 years since Marth had begun his war against the Shadow Dragon in the vicinity, and as such, the palace, while not overtly lavish, had quite some splendor to its name. The halls were large and vacuous, and the grounds were relatively defend-able, for the moment.

Eventually, Robin and his entourage reached the final descent at the back of the palace. But the final stars were on the other side of a rooftop courtyard, which was currently the host to a fierce battle between the few final surviving Pegasus knights, Palace guards, and the cavaliers Robin had ordered to stay back, against a small group of twenty-something assassin-rats. Bodies of both sides littered the floor, but the largest piles of Pegasus rider bodies, as well as a fair amount of Palace guard corpses, were around the infamous Rat-Lort, Queek Headtaker, who lead this offensive effort to decimate the Palace defenses from the inside.

Robin and his men froze in their tracks at the sight before them, the Tactician nearly dropping the Elthunder tome he had been carrying as he racked his mind attempting to find an alternate route of escape. As it was, his men would have had trouble just against the rat-assassins. There was little reason to believe the addition of the Rat-Lord would do anything but tip circumstances heavily against him.

Just as Robin was about to call for a retreat, a contingent of rat-men charged at him, leaving their dash for a trio of Pegasus riders who took the opportunity to shake off the rats around them, and finally get atop their Pegasi and into the air. The sword-masters who had been accompanying Robin unsheathed their swords and rushed at the rat-men, dodging their blades and finding purchase in their openings, killing the rats and then proceeding to aid their comrades in warding off the rest of the beasts.

If the tactician had to guess, he'd assume that the battle had been going on for a while and whoever the Riders had sent had probably been sidetracked or intercepted before reaching help save for the few Palace guards who had heard the commotion and attempted to help. Any further thoughts evaportated from his mind when he saw the rat-lord Queek begin to move towards him, wielding Durandal in one hand, and Armads in the other, the holy weapons slightly shining brightly in protest to the beast that held them.

Before Robin could even reach for his tome, Lyn had already leapt at Queek, using her sword, the Mani Katti to start off. The long haired Sacaen had tried to end the fight early by moving quickly and going for his neck, but Queek's defenses had held, and he caught the blade mid-air, even though Lyn had nearly gone at speeds faster than Robin could even observe.

As Robin stood frozen in place and wondering wheter to step in or not, Lyn's voice interrupted his thoughts, "Get on a horse and go!" cried the Einherjar as she blocked a blade strike from Queek, the day's battles having seemingly done nothing to wear him down. Robin ran to the waiting cavaliers, throwing an Elthunder at an approaching rat before getting on his mount and turning back to Lyn, who, even though she suffered a gash through her belly did not stop attacking Queek.

"Do not think your actions today brand you a coward! I know you are the same Tactician I traveled with so long ago," she said as she narrowly dodged a downward strike from Armads that shook the ground around where it hit and backed away, her fixation with seeing the tactician off distracting her from her battle, where she was already outclassed as it was. But the moment Robin faded from view into the tunnels beneath the mountains, she turned to Queek and attacked with vigor. Lyn's speed had always been greater than Hector's, and her agility surpassed Eliwoods by bounds, and she used every advantage in her playbook in this battle. She feinted and parried Queek's attacks as best she could, and even got in some decent hits on the rat-man, but alas, her strike was weaker than Hector's had been, and the Mani Katti did little to the Rat whenever it did not strike a vital area, dooming Lyn to tiring herself by throwing herself as a lone bee would against a badger.

While the fabled Mani Katti was by no means a common sword, it was not long before its blows against both Armads and Durandal made it snap in two mid block, bringing one of Durandal's thrusts through Lyn's right clavicle, spurting out through her back and snapping it. She roared with pain and dropped the handle of the Mani Katti. Queek then withdrew his blade and then brought Armads down on where her form had been an instant earlier, but she had dodged the blow and taken a step backwards, unsheathing her other sword, the Sol Katti, and brought it up in a forward swing that the Rat dodged, and returned with a stab of his own. Lyn feinted to the opposite side to bait Queek into dropping Armads on her, and slide around it, costing through the smooth floor of the courtyard, and catching Queek on his blindspot, proceeding to cut at his back for about seven seconds before Queek knocked her aside with his tail and roared ferociously.

Lyn was sent flying by the blow and hit the floor hard, laying there for a brief instant before getting on her feet again and charging the rat. She knew that if she stayed immobile it would be the death of her, and so she jumped into the air and began to run as soon as she landed after poising to get a better angle of attack. The Blade-Lord moved so quickly, that it appeared as if it were seven of her attacking at the same time, before she landed on Queek and slashed his chest, cutting through his warp armor and the flesh underneath, but unfortunately causing little true damage. Queek was furious and dropped both of his weapons, grabbing Lyn by the shoulders and dashing her against the ground. Her face was bloodied by this and her nose was shattered. Queek then threw her to the ground, where her head bounced from the impact, sending her senses blazing, and then stepped furiously on it once, twice, thrice. Every time he did so sent a jolt of pain into Lyn, and brought her closer to blacking out. She felt her head might split open. If he did it again, she would not survive, she thought. And so she desperately grabbed for the Sol Katti that had been dropped an elbow's length away, and brought it up to his stomach, making it jut out of his back as he had raised his foot for the fourth time.

Queek roared in pain and confusion, before reaching and sliding the blade from his body. While he did so, Lyn grabbed Durandal and took the chance to aim for his head with a stab. However the weight of the blade was too much for Lyn, and Queek was able to block the blow, toss the sword aside using the Sol Katti, and then proceed to stab Lyn in the neck with it. Her various wounds having made her too weak to dodge this final blow.

As Lyn lay dying, very different thoughts ran through both her and Queek's minds amidst the sounds of battle around them. As the last of the pegasus riders of Samsooth were slaughtered, Lyn's final thoughts drifted to her Master Tactician, and wondered if he could truly stop the Rat-horde. Queek thought about where in his trophy rack he would put this particular trophy, as the rack had been sorely lacking in trophies from this new world ever since his arrival before this day...

End of Chapter 3.