Previous Part: Nethersfar – 6 – An Icey Clash.
It had been two weeks since he had sent Liliver and the King’s men out of the fortress and he knew from then that he had started off a rebellion of which would likely only end one way, with the deaths of him and any who had chosen to stand with him. Fortune held out hope that the Princess would return and somehow rescue them, but he could not see how it would be done. Fortune felt great loyalty towards the Princess and trusted in her that doing what he had done was ultimately for a greater good.
Since that day when he had turned on the King’s forces, almost half of his men and the subjects within the fortress had abandoned them and joined the King, a few had even attempted to damage and burn stores of food and steal weapons and equipment out in the night, but luckily Fortune had foresaw these things of being likely to happen, and had soon after turning on the King taken the appropriate measures to defend key areas of the fortress that would enable a siege to go on for as long as possible, by stationing his most trusted men upon them.
For those that attempted to sabotage them rather than just leaving peacefully he had locked up in the dungeons of the fortress. He could not blame those that wanted to leave a seemingly hopeless fight, many had friends and family on the other side that were likely in danger from the schemes of that slippery eel Liliver. He understandingly allowed those who wanted to leave to do so before securing the fortress for a siege, just as long as they were respectful in leaving.
Thanks to his actions of foresight Fortune had managed to defend most of the food stores and keep hold of most of the weapons and equipment within the armouries, only minimal amounts had been stolen and one food store burned. They still had enough to go on for at least three more months. The lack of men was not such as hard a blow as they would not be out fighting, all he needed to really do was station up men with bows and arrows and also crossbows along the outer wall ramparts to chip off men now and again, and at points attempt to sabotage siege equipment using things such as oil and fire arrows.
Everyone else was used to prepare rationed food and water, and hand it out among the soldiers and many areas were set up for those who became injured or died. So far only a few had been killed by return fire of arrows on the ramparts, but mostly the siege forces kept trying to attempt to breach the gates with various siege mechanisms, and sometimes catapults hurled boulders at the walls and even into the fortress grounds, crushing inner buildings to try and reduce morale. But the defenses of the fortress were purposely made strong, and no wonder as they were meant to hold and protect royalty, for now the siege equipment had not been able to breach the outer walls and gate, due to a combination of their strength and the stalling from the harrying of the hold-up defenders.
Another problem the siege army faced was lack of space in the streets, many fortresses out in the country were easier to face off against with plenty of room to station men in fields, setting up large camps and having much space for siege equipment, but here it was common for siege equipment to become trapped and men to become dangerously clumped together in the streets making easy targets, many of the nearby buildings had been cleared out of its civilians so that the King’s soldiers could use them for sleep and facilities.
On the many times Fortune had peaked out he had not seen any signs of Liliver or the King, and so if they were here, they were stationed either within one of the buildings nearby or way further back behind all of their forces. Fortune highly doubted the King would not be out there amongst the forces somewhere, and he knew that Liliver, through his damned intelligence, was likely trying to discover a way to bring down the fortress more quickly or at least some way to shorten the siege, he could be any number of places.
Suddenly Fortune heard a commotion behind him, and so he whirled around to see what was happening. Heading into the inner-walls was a bowman being carried by his fellows on to the grounds, his head had a big arrow sticking out of it, blood pouring everywhere, another unfortunate casualty, and most unfortunate of all the poor guy still appeared to be alive and in terrible pain, he was screeching loudly now, yelling for his mother in a panicked voice.
Fortune ran up to them and helped carry the bowman into one of the various buildings now used as a medical room, a few others were in here with some more minor injuries, they heaved up the bowman on to a wooden table, he was still screaming. Fortune knew there was likely no way of saving him and that he would die. “Do you want me to make it quick?” he asked the bowman.
The young bowman, far too young to die, looked at him through pained watery eyes, and then gave a desperate shake of his head. “Fetch me a poison that acts fast and painless, quickly!”
One of the nurses did so, handing him a small vial with a clear liquid in it, easily mistaken for water as it also had no smell, he popped the tiny cork off of it and the bowman slowly opened his mouth, Fortune poured the liquid in and he swallowed. The poison acted within mere minutes, notable as the man became more relaxed and almost peaceful before he drifted off, as if into a sleep, but one he’d never wake from. Fortune closed the eyes of the now dead man and said a prayer to the Lightfar in the sky. “Take his body to the mortuary and tag him with his name if any of you know it, we can only hope that if we get out of this the least, we can give them is a decent named burial.”
* * *
“Here are the original plans for the Golden Fork from out of the Royal Archives, my King, as well as plans of all further modications to the fortress since that time” Liliver handed a large scroll to the King.
They were sitting within a residential building a few blocks away from the siege. The building itself was more lavish than most and quite roomy, but nothing like the Royal Palace. But it was certainly fit for the noble family who had offered it up for the King to use, not that they would have had much of a choice anyway if they tried to refuse. But nobles have all to gain by seeming steadfastly loyal and on their knee at once to serve the whims of their King, such as titles, which lead to more power, which lead to more influence, which leads to more power and so on so forth. Liliver knew such games, he was a master at them himself.
Right now, the noble family had their chefs cooking a meal certainly fit for the King’s supper this evening. Even the King’s siege army was relatively well fed currently by many of the other noble households in the area, and the outer farms and reserve pantry storages were sending in ever more food to replace what was quickly being used, for now they were a long way from having to ration, unlike the poor souls trapped in the Golden Fork, although Liliver was still rather unhappy he could not make the food situation of the rebels worse, Fortune had been a step ahead on that front. But Liliver as always had other plans to hasten the siege along.
“What is your initial assessment of the original plans?” asked the King.
“As expected, the fort has no identifiable weak points or ways that could be exploited to gain surprise access into its walls. It is truly protection made for a royal, unless those who built the fortress somehow made a mistake, there appears to be no way on this front to exploit anything that’d allow us to enter without them realizing.”
The King nodded, he didn’t seem too annoyed by this information, perhaps as Liliver had said this would be the likely outcome.
“I want to try a storm attempt,” said the King abruptly, “using siege machines that can breach over the outer walls, if we can at least occupy the outer ring of the fortress we could significantly reduce the period this siege lasts. As can be seen on the plans there are various pantries and armouries in the outer rings, if we can get to them, we can starve them of more food and cut them off from more weapons. Then we can open the outer gates and bring in a number of siege machines to attempt to breach the inner walls. Only problem is we will need to modify the wall-scaling siege machines to counter the moat.”
“That can certainly work out initially, but wall-scaling siege machines and ladders will be unable to make it over the inner walls that are much taller than the outer walls. Staging men in the streets for this will also be difficult, and lack of room to maneuver all of the siege machines could become a problem and expose the army to increased danger at points. If we do break into the outer ring, which I suspect we would be able to do, the only way from there would be to break through the inner gate into the inner grounds, which still means drawn-out siege, although as you say perhaps a bit shorter of a siege, counting on them having not moved weapons or food into the inner grounds,” said Liliver.
The King considered, “do you reckon you would be able to modify the wall-scaling siege machines to make it over the moat?”
“I can come up with some designs, and after modification we can test them against the moats and walls of loyal castles to see if they work before bringing them here, will perhaps take a couple of weeks though, at the least. I also have an idea to breach the inner walls if you’ll hear them?”
The King nodded his approval for Liliver to continue.
“I have an idea to attempt to persuade some of the wizards to help us break down the walls using their powers.”
The King scoffed loudly, “persuade the wizards in Magika to come to our aid? Impossible, they won’t have it, and they may be a security threat,” he said, exasperated.
“I know there is a degree of troubling history with them…”
“A degree!? Centuries of troubling history of wars and rebellions with them!”
“Yes, but at the end of the day they remain our subjects, and thus at our whim legally. The potential we could have to turn some of them over to fighting for us can be massive. And I know just the thing that would likely be able to persuade some of them, we would only need a few, not an army.”
“What could persuade them?”
Liliver lowered his voice, “the power of the sword.”
“Wh- are… really, are you mad?” the King stammered, “it could be dangerous to even let them know that we know where this powerful sword is. It could have disastrous consequences.”
“It’s likely they already know,” said Liliver, “and as such eventually we are probably going to have a war with them over it anyway. And so, we may as well try and turn as many of them as we can in the intervening period, with promises of some benefits of this power, not directly, you’d still have full ownership of the sword of course, but there are ways that you can use that sword yourself to give them their desires and feed their hunger for power, it’d be like a new form of payment for their loyalty.”
The King entered into silent thought for a time, “very well then, you shall draw up plans for modification of the wall-scaling machines to breach the moat and walls, test them, make sure one of the plans works good enough, and then you shall ride for Magika to get us some wizards to breach the inner walls.”
Liliver stood up, “I will head back to my study in the Royal Palace to get to work on this right now.”