Lucina's Offensive
Battle in the ruins of Altea (Part 2)
Commanding Lord(s): Lucina (Ylisse) VS Ikit Claw (Skaven)
When Lucina had finally reached the area of Plegia that had once been Altea after a month's worth of marching, she nearly broke down in despair upon taking note of her predicament. Every town that they passed through was abandoned, pillaged, or both. Every house was a grave. It was during this march through the Plegian countryside that Lucina truly saw the horrors that the Skaven could inflict. Wells filled with decaying bodies, and the floors of the ramshackle, ashen remains of houses dug up in attempts to get at whatever riches the inhabitants could have hidden away in life. While such savagery was not completely alien to Lucina and her troops, seeing the same scene in every town, village, and city they chanced upon came close to breaking their already weary spirits.
And if their trek was not hard enough of them as it was, the mere act of crossing their recently reconquered territory was a nightmare. Her army could barely rest without getting assaulted almost nightly by gutter runners and mercenary assassins. Every kilometer they took brought with it another band of roving Skaven to put down, or another group of mercenaries sent to hinder them further. As their aerial support began to dwindle more and more with each passing skirmish, Skaven war-balloons started to appear before them in droves, dropping vials of poison and disease on the Ylissean forces with precious few flyers available to fight them off.
But the Skaven had not yet completely conquered the country, the recently enslaved people still had fire within them, and some mercenaries still had some sense in their heads. Every time Lucina's army encountered a pack of Skaven, they annihilated them. When they encountered slaver Skaven, they liberated the slaves and armed them. And Lucina found much luck in turning the mercenaries hired by the Skaven to attack her, to instead join her cause, reasoning with them that all they were doing by fighting her was staving off their own doom at best, and rushing towards it at worst.
Because of all these efforts, Lucina's forces not only held during the campaign through Plegian Altea, they grew, taking in all sorts of miscreants and mercenaries. Wyvern riders and sorcerers replaced the sorely missing rank and file Pegasus Riders and Mages of the Ylissean army. Mercenary swordsmen and Berserkers helped ease the burden of Soldiers and Warriors on the front line.
Although the army had not come across anything larger than small raiding parties, Lucina was certain that her forces could retake the capital of Altea, where the rats set up their stronghold and hurried to set up defenses with renewed vigor after hearing of the Princess's exploits.
Though she herself was not an accomplished tactician, she held the histories and tales of the lords of old and of myth to her heart. Marth, Seliph, Roy and Ike had no need of tacticians or grand strategists to make plans for them. Military strategy was an art royals such as her were taught from birth, even if she was born into one of the bloodiest wars in her nation's history, so why should she rely on a tactician to tell her how to retake a city? Besides, even if the situation turned dire, she still had an ace up her sleeve. Or rather, an entire playing deck stored in a rather uncomfortable pouch on her hip.
When Lucina's army reached the outskirts of the city of Altea, the general consensus that Lucina could gather from her men was disgusted by what they had seen so far. Trash and bodies littered the streets, and already smaller Ratmen retreated from the army's approach and ran towards the inner city.
"I take it they'll know we're coming." said Lucina to Frederick, who was riding to her left. She was surprised to see some humans still roaming the filthy streets, they wore no shoes for the most part, their feet were caked black with grime, their clothes were spotted with mud and sweat, and their hair seemed to take on novel forms with the amount of filth collected in it. "I did not imagine so many people would be left behind. The reports the Plegians gave us said they orchestrated a complete evacuation. Who are these people?"
"Looters mostly, I'd suppose. Although I'd imagine not everyone was willing to leave their ancestral homes. Plegians have always been prideful" Frederick said, as he scanned the area, looking for signs of the Skaven but finding instead corpses. Both stiff and moving ones. "A virtue that is unbefitting of them."
"There were also many who simply may not have had the means to leave at all," said Tiki, the Divine Dragon who rode at Lucina's right. "Don't be so quick to speak ill of the Plegians, for I knew them once as Archaneans, and fought alongside them willingly and eagerly."
"Well now they're Plegians, and I've seen far too many friends die in war against them to spare any excess sympathy." Responded Frederick, looking worried as he noticed that no Skaven seemed to have remained in the outer layers of the city. He dreaded the possibility of a siege, as the sounds of hundreds of matted feet could be heard rushing to the inner city walls over the groans and wails of a dying city.
"I lost loved ones to Grima too, Frederick. More than I would prefer to count. But that is no reason to hate the Plegians." Said Lucina. "If we survive this war, we must donate any gold we can spare to the rebuilding of Plegia. Grima's return, as well as Gangrel's first reign, were all a direct consequence of the unnecessary hostility between our nations. Now hurry your pace, Frederick, we're falling behind the main army. If we are to lay siege to the inner city wall I want to oversee our catapult placements. If we end up having to protect the men who will be setting those up I'll personally get on a Pegasus and lead the charge against the walls to cover them."
"Do we even have any riders left, Frederick?" Asked Tiki, already grabbing hold of her Drsgonstone as they neared the inner city gate, a 50 foot imposing stone structure that only opened at select intervals to reveal glowing green Rat Men contraptions that were being hastily set up by the new inhabitants.. "Lucina may have to grab a Wyvern instead."
"We still have a couple of platoons, and I recall Lady Cynthia's Pegasus managed to return, even if it was without its rider. Although Sumia has latched onto it, I am sure she can lend it to you." Said Frederick. "Now, let's not stand out in the open. I do not want to be present when we see what these Skaven can do on the defense."
No sooner had he said that, then the Rat-men's contraptions started blasting green globs of what Lucina could only see as solid fire at the catapults, hitting them and the poor men who were trying to set them up. The ordinance burned through the wood like water through parchment, and the men were burned to cinders in seconds. Their faces contorted in agonizing pains as they crumbled to the ground.
Lucina was stunned, but only for a moment. Her instinct as a monarch told her to fear for the loss of her army's morale more that of her own life. So she threw herself off of her horse and hollered for a pegasus, a wyvern, anything with wings dammit!
After a tense two minutes seeing her comrades get pelted by green fire, plus the additional rifle bullets, she was granted a large Wyvern named Miledy that was of the best stock the Plegian mercenaries had to offer. She got on, raised her holy blade Falchion out of its sheath, and rose to the heavens alongside mercenaries and bandits riding on Wyverns, and what remained of Ylisse's Pegasus and Falcon Knights.
Saying that their ascent was difficult would be an understatement. Dozens of the riders were blasted out of the sky by bullets, their thin armor doing nothing to stop the bullets from tearing apart rider and steed alike. The luckier ones would be hit by the green fire, and would be reduced to ash before they even neared the ground.
Just as Lucina and her flying troops cleared the edge of the wall, odd dark smoke sprang up from the Skaven's positions.
The smoke spread across the sky, and began to blot out the afternoon sun in seconds. A few wyvern riders became distracted by this and were pulled off their steeds and torn limb from limb when they arrived distracted to the wall.
Lucina hit the ground running, signalling her steed to return to the ground while bringing her blade down on her first ratman of the day. She cleaved a dark brown furred rat across the snout, and then followed it up with a stab through the throat. The Rat Man died where he stood, but there were still dozens on the wall. Lucina saw that the riders that had taken off after the first wave had a lot of trouble getting on the wall at all.
The Skaven had set up traps for the human's arrival with a vile cunning that Lucina had no intention of respecting.
In the darkness of the Rat Men's forced night, the riders going to the wall had little light to maneuver in, and were duped by the Skaven's positioning to land in inconvenient spaces. Some landed on the pot holes that fell to emptiness that the Skaven had set up. Others landed isolated from Lucina's makeshift position, and were torn to pieces by hungry monsters.
The men who fought around Lucina had much more luck though, as they managed to rally around her, cutting down the already fleeing rat-men and making a defensive circle around her. One they had carved a defensive formation around Lucina, they set to work fighting off the Skaven on the top of the wall. Dozens of Skaven threw themselves at the humans, and many managed to take advantage of the Ylissean's tiredness from their days of marching. The Skaven's wiry strength that was no match for an able bodied man managed to overpower a few of Lucina's soldiers, but despite this, her lines held. Not 10 minutes passed before the Skaven started to notice the mounds of their dead around their brethren, and started to abandon the wall. Many rats who had been firing the warp cannons left them mid-fire, although most of the Skyre engineers on the top of the wall did not even manage to full retreat from their machines before Lucina's men made a beeline for them, tearing them apart in a flurry of fur and gore.
Lucina was content that the charge had actually worked. Her recent battles in Plegia did wonders for her confidence, reclaiming Altea did not seem like a fool's dream any longer. But now was no time to rest on her laurels, if the taking of this wall was to be any useful, she'd had to kill as many of the rat-men who manned the cannons as possible. Although of course, she also needed the gates opened, and seeing many of the rats heading inside the guard tower that led to the gate controls was not an attractive sight. Thankfully, she saw a familiar face amongst the soldiers cleaning up the last skaven on the wall.
"Gerome!" yelled Lucina, calling to the masked man who had been amongst the first to leap off his steed and into the wall. Aside from a multitude of scratch marks on his armor, he seemed to be fine. Lucina was thankful not to see any wounds on her friend. Because she had noticed that many wounds that the Skaven cause, or rather, damn near EVERY wound that the Skaven caused, had a tendency to invite infection and decay within days if the wounded did not receive immediate attention from a cleric, which were starting to get worryingly rare in Lucina's force.
"Hey!" called Gerome, "Lucina have you heard? It looks like the rats hate themselves more than they could ever hate us!" he said as gleeful as Lucina had ever seen him.
"What?"
Gerome stepped closer to Lucina and grabbed hold of her shoulder, called a sizable portion of the men atop the wall and started walking towards the main watchtower, while also keeping an eye on the doors that led to the floors below, even as the Ylisseans were preparing their forces to descend, many Skaven were already trying to return to the top seeking what was in their minds easy glory. "It seems the Rat-Beasts have begun to divide themselves into groups already. Most of the rats we forced downstairs have already been murdered by their own brethren, we heard their cries to be let out and obliged them, we didn't know they were being chased though. A clan "Ektrik" or something like that was on their heels. They're wearing metal armor and are where most of the green fire's coming from. They're already boasting about being able to wipe the humans on the top of the wall out. Normally, I'd disregard them, but some of their ringleaders had lightning batons that charred a couple of my berserkers to cinders in seconds. This… is a problem."
"Well no shit."
"No, I don't mean just because of how they're equipped. Rather, many of the other rats have taken refuge in the guard tower."
"Alright."
"And we'd have to send half a platoon to take that tower on a good day. That being without the Ektriks trying to hit us from behind." Gerome turned to the guard tower, the rats inside were already throwing stones from the windows. Damned vermin thought they were hot shit or something.
"I understand."
"And we can't take that Guard Tower without getting swarmed from behind." Gerome said, while pointing at the various doors that were already being worn down by the Clan Ektrik rats.
"Get to the point Gerome. You want to separate our forces?"
"Yes."
"Done, take two squads and clear out that Guard Tower. I'll need everyone else to help me retake the rest of the wall." Said Lucina, already giving out orders on how to deal with the massed rats in the doors.
"How will the men below know to come up to aid us?" asked Gerome. He seemed less than thrilled about the job he had been assigned.
"Frederick is a smart man, he'll figure it out." Said Lucina, already running to her men, who were in position.
Lucina would curse herself many times over for the rest of her life because of what she did next, as she did not process her plan as well as she should have. She absentmindedly said, "Open up the doors!" while still thinking up ways to position her men so as to avoid getting shocked by the Rat-men's weapons.
As soon as the doors opened, rat men came pouring out, their lightning sticks forcing her men into an immediate retreat, and killing multiple soldiers on the spot.
"SHIT" yelled Lucina as she rushed in to a particularly runny door to stop the rat men from gaining a foothold on the wall. She was about to bring her blade down on the stream of rat men, but she saw the lightning rod on one of the leading rats swing towards her, so she abandoned her attack and leapt back a step, narrowly dodging the stick. She used the leftover momentum on her sword to bring it across the rat-man's head, which was not covered by armor like the rest of his body. The rat died when, clutching its face, it struck itself with its own lightning stick. At first, the rats it led tried to reach for its weapon, but Lucina managed to strike down all who approached it. By the time Lucina's forces were able to push back the Skaven to where she was, the Ektriks she was fighting were already prepared to retreat.
She did not give them that chance. She caught the door they were pulling shut, and matched their wiry strength with her own. She not only caught the door, she pulled it open, dragging a ratman out, but she ignored it, bashing in the head of the one behind it with her sword. She then kicked at the group of rats and caused them to fall down the stairs on the other side of the stairs. She took a step back to take a breath, and saw that her men were in awe of what she just did. She just responded with, "Plug this hole, dammit!" and the wyvern riders already started running down the stairs to retake the wall. She heard the sounds of battle come up from downstairs and grinned. She sheathed Falchion and picked up the lightning staff that the leader-Skaven had dropped. Its short length and maneuverable weight would be much more useful down there than Falchion's long, heavy blade.
She walked away a bit from her men and inspected the weapon. It was rough, and would hardly be called a good-looking club had it been made of any other material. But this was made of copper, and she had seen its potential to burn men to cinders. Because of this she gripped the makeshift handle and turned to follow her men into the wall's interior. She saw some Pegasus riders who had left their steeds upon arriving at the wall trying to pry open the doors that the Skaven had pried shut. "Leave that as it is, you're not opening that and you're in a bad position if they do open it anyways." She gestured to a dozen of her men on the wall, "Stay here and make sure non escape, the rest of us will clear out this wall." Saying that she departed down dark maw of the wall's interior.
Once she arrived down there, she was greeted by the sight of her men fighting against the Skaven, trying to push to where their engineers were shooting their lightning cannons at her men below. She almost had to avert her gaze altogether from below, as her men were being torn apart by the Skaven, even while her men on the wall were already trying to ease their woes. Her transfixation with this sight almost kept her from joining the fray along with her men, but as soon as she heard the clatter of metal approach her she snapped out of her trance and looked to the battle before leaping forward.
She joined her men's offensive line with her thunder stick and brought it down on an armored rat-man, the stick burning his fur and flesh on the first blow, and emanating a thundering "crack" on the second one, causing it to crumple to the ground while small lightning crackled around his skull. The rats around him were scared by this sight, but still stayed to fight, confident that they would win this fight. Lucina was intent on discrediting this belief.
She did not needlessly overextend herself and rush ahead, as that would only serve to get her surrounded by the masses of rat-men. Neither could she let them edge in around the sides of her men's formation by ordering her men to fight defensively. To avoid both of these dangers, she applied a rhythmic flow to her approach in battle, she would make deliberate pushes against the rat men, and made sure to force them back to the doors that led further down, but she also tried to make sure she retreated one step for every two she took.
But Lucina made one fatal mistake, she overestimated the amount of soldiers she had, and the strength of their resolve.
Around her, she saw her soldiers fall under the stress of combat, making slight mistakes when facing the sly Skaven that cost them their lives. Before she was able to formulate another plan to counter this development, she was already beset by five inspired Ratmen.
As she was about to raise her weapon to defend herself, she felt a dagger pierce her gut, underneath the chest place she had taken to wearing after using a master seal to empower herself during the war against Walhart.
When she managed to stagger back and swing the weapon upwards, it barely phased the Rat Man and instead shattered when she hit its jaw.
Be it because of her gaping wound hindering her, or the fragility of her weapon, it did not matter, Lucina was forced to turn tail and fall back towards the top of the wall, leaving her fallen dead and dying soldiers behind so she could rally those living into a second charge. But she doubted she would be able to do so.
No matter how inspired they were, pegasus knights and Wyvern knights made for pitiful fighters when off of their steeds. The few soldiers they had brought with them were unable to turn the tide alongside them, and this left Lucina stranded, with the rest of her army below being torn apart by the Rat Men's green fire cannons.
When she arrived at the top the wall, she felt her wound worsen her worry upon seeing that only an odd 30 Ylissean souls remained alive with her.
As she approached them, preparing to give new orders while holding her wounded belly tenderly, she heard the telltale shrieks of men and rats and sounds of crashing metal coming from the guard tower that told her that at the least Gerome was holding himself together. This gave her strength enough to keep herself composed for that moment.
A gruesomely bloodied wyvern lord that had been a mercenary leader before being recruited came up to her and asked "Have you any orders, milady? The lads are getting scared by how the battle is going, some are asking for a full retreat from this accursed wall. Rumors are going around that Lord Gero-"
"Gerome is still kicking, soldier. So you should follow his example." Interrupted Lucina. "Since your soldiers are worried about his well-being, they should join him in his battle. We will make do without them in this position."
The mercenary sergeant nodded and called 4 other wyvern riders to follow him into the guard tower Gerome had entered. Lucina unsheathed her Falchion once again, and called for Lady Tiki to breathe fire into the doors leading into the lower levels of the wall, with the intent of stopping the Skaven's advance before they reached the roof of the wall.
Lucina knew she had little time before she succumbed to her wounds. She had experimented earlier and found that constant application of the Mend staff could stave off infection long enough to make recovery from Skaven inflicted wounds possible. But if she took too long to apply the treatment it would not be enough.
The princess of the halidom rallied her remaining soldiers to battle and said to them, "Warriors of Ylisse! If we can push the beats back two levels at the most we will stop their fire cannons long enough for our weapons to cripple them! We will move fast and force them to take the defensive! The tide of this war changes today, with your actions!"
Saying that, she ran through the doors and stairs to the floor below side stepping agonizing burned rats that had tried to assault her position, not knowing if any of her allies were at her side. When she got to the Skaven's position, her vision turned red and she charged forward with such ferocity their ranks broke before she had finished killing her third Rat Man.
Instead of wasting time being awe struck by the effect her ferocity had on the rats, she immediately took this chance to tear into them with even more gusto, causing even more fear and confusion than before, and making the rats begin to retreat. However Lucina still made mistakes due to the high she was in, and some rats aimed to take advantage of this.
When Lucina overextended and rushed forward to kick a rat that had dodged a sword swipe of hers, she left herself open from her knee to her neck, and turned to see the rat's sword about to stab into her neck. As she was about to clos her eyes accepting her death, she was surprised to see it get stopped by one of the soldiers who had accompanied her, he caught the sword with his own and throwing himself at the rat.
The rat at first tried to drive the sword into the man instead in surprise, but the Ylissean man was not to be trifled with. When the rat tried to wrap its tail around his legs to immobilize him, he took this chance to knee the rat in the groin, wrap his hands around him, and pull him to the ground before thrusting his pocketknife into the rat's neck multiple times.
In that moment Lucina knew her zeal was not something only she possessed in that moment. And so she pushed forward with even more strength. By the time Lucina's forces reached the end of this layer of the wall, she counted only 3 wounded and one dead in her number against dozens of dead rats laying around her troop.
This small victory did not get the better of her and her men, and they swiftly descended and continued their carnage. The rats in the next floor did not have a chance to avert their eyes from their cannons before having their heads removed from their bodies by the Ylliseans.
Lucina perked her head out of the murderhole and saw that many of her soldiers outside of the wall had taken to clearing out the buildings that made up the shantytown from which her army was assaulting the wall. Perhaps the casualty list of today would not be enough to dissuade her from going all the way and taking the castle after all...
Not long after she looked through the murderhole, she felt the ground shake and saw the men below charge forward through the gates of the city.
She felt elated for a moment, but dread filled her with pain in tandem with her gaping wound. She would not have long if she did not do something about that wound. But nearly all the healers she had taken with her down the wall were either dead or occupied. Inspiration came to her as she considered whether cauterizing herself with a torch was a good idea.
She felt Falchion tremble in her hands, and she could have sworn she heard it sing to her. She raised the blade in front of her as she charged against a larger rat that had 5 of her men lying dead around him and bellowed "I say when it ends!".
First she brought the blade forward with a jab into the Rat's exposed gut, right where her own wound was. Even as her blade brought the rat keeling over in pain, she felt her pain disappear. To solidify her blow, she followed her offensive with a slash under the armpit brought up by an upward swing as she dashed to the right of the rat. This killed the rat.
From that moment onward. The battle for the wall continued another two hours and ended when Lucina managed to make contact with the forces under Frederick's command. The clan of rats that had taken up residence in the wall was no more.
Lucina met up with Frederick as the last of the rats fell back around a weapons rack on the second floor of the wall. She greeted him with a tired wave, as she sheathed her sword.
"Well met, Frederick"
"It is good to see you well, milady." Said the Knight, not drooping the Lance he carried in his hands an inch. His armor remained spotless even as the room around him was stained with blood, grime, and rat droppings.
"Likewise." Lucina turned to see that the few remaining rat men had been routed. "Any news from the inside of the city? Should we be expecting hordes of Rat-Men like those in Samsooth?"
"Not to my knowledge." Said Frederick. "If I had to guess, I would say the brunt of their forces has retreated to the castle. Although I am certain the rats must have left some manner of traps behind to hinder us. As it stands I am none too thrilled to face another siege like this one. Our forces barely held together for this one."
"Well it's a good thing Gerome pulled through and opened the gates when he did then. My men were spread thin and about to break as well. Had we been forced to fight any longer without your assistance, our war would have ended near the top of the tower."
"Where is he anyways? I want to know how he managed to get through the rats up there in one piece."
As it turned out however, Gerome had had a difficult time driving the Skaven out of the tower. In his struggles to reach the gate mechanism, he and the men he had set out with fell in battle, Gerome did not die to the Skaven, but received multiple stab wounds, and lost an arm, a leg and an eye.
Thankfully, the additional men Lucina had sent to aid him arrived and made quick work of the Skaven who had been softened up by Gerome. Once their mission was complete they carried the wounded wyvern rider out and made sure to carry him to the back of the army so he could receive medical care.
Lucina was confident at this point. She had driven the rats into a corner, and though she knew very well about the potential of a cornered rat, she had no intention of allowing her opponents an opening with which to strike. She would not go through another siege against them, but rather, would beat them at their own game.
The tunnels underneath the castle were mythical for their role in the legend of the Hero-King, after all.
