Chapter 788: Night of the knives(4)

Chapter 788: Night of the knives(4)

It was a massacre. There was no other word for it.

What had once been a defensive line was now a charnel house, blood slick on the stones, screams torn from lungs already drowning in panic.

Attacked from the flanks, caught from behind, and now pressured relentlessly from the ladders, the defenders were undone in minutes. Not broken by sheer numbers, but overwhelmed with the suddenness of events.

Everywhere, the black-and-white-clad legionnaires advanced forward with savage momentum, their blades rising and falling like hammers at a forge, methodical and brutal.

There was no pause, no reprieve.

Every step forward was bought in blood , not theirs obviously, but that of men who had once believed they had the higher ground only to realise they were worms all along.

Limbs were hacked clean off as axes crashed down through chainmail and collarbones. Skulls cracked like pottery under iron maces. Spears jabbed upward through ribs and throats as the last line of the wall defenders found themselves pinned between death on all sides.

"Gods, get a fucking move!" a voice shrieked, sharp, panicked, and singular, like the scream of a bird before a storm.

It belonged to a soldier trying to push his way through a jammed knot of comrades near a tower’s edge, only to be yanked backward mid-step. The axe that split his back turned his final words into a coughing gurgle as his body crumpled. The attacker kicked the corpse off the wall in disgust, the weight crashing to the ground below with a sickening thud, clearing a path for the next wave.

Others routed, or at least tried.

Some made it a few desperate paces before the edge of an axe opened their spines, or a spear caught them through the thigh or the base of the skull.

A few refused to run. Not out of courage, but because there was nowhere left to go.

One defender, for example planted his boots, bellowed curses, and swung an axe, chipping the breastplate of a legionnaire before a spear coming from the side pierced his gut and folded him over.

Another defender, barely older than a boy, stood alone near a breach in the wall that came from the ladder, sword shaking in both hands.

When three attackers advanced, he screamed and charged first. His blade actually found one of their shoulders, but the cost was immediate: a hammer buried in his skull, followed by an axe that nearly tore him in two.

Some defenders, trapped in corners or stairwells, simply pressed themselves against the walls and waited for the end. Many begged. Some wept. Most died with their mouths open, trying to speak a final word that never left their lips.

Some had even the audacity of surrendering.

But still the attackers came.

From the wall’s rear, from the ladders, from the towers, a tide that refused to stop, they poured in, over and over. The torches burned brighter now, casting long, trembling shadows dancing like ghosts over the dead.

Some defenders, unwilling to die with their backs to the enemy, took desperate leaps from the battlements.

With the ground rushing up beneath them, many shattered bones on landing. The luckier ones only sprained ankles or collapsed in bruised heaps. But even then, they scrambled forward, crawling or limping toward whatever they considered safety at that moment.

It didn’t take long for the eastern wall, the very one where Arnold and Thalien had led their ferocious, sacrificial assault, to fall fully into the hands of the Yarzat army.

And once it did, it was like a crack in a dam: sudden, irreversible, and fatal.

Using the seized battlements as a launching point, fresh Yarzat troops surged along the ramparts, overwhelming the nearby towers and cascading down into the heart of the city. The gate was soon pried open, allowing for the demons clad in wolves outside to pour in.

As with that final threshold breached, all semblance of resistance shattered.

From beyond the gates the Crown’s Hounds galloped through in full formation, lances lowered, banners flying. They crashed into hastily formed lines of defenders, some fleeing other making a stand.

The hounds’ steel-tipped weapons splintered on bodies, shattering ribs, skewering chests, trampling anything in their path, like giant unbothered by the flower below. Even after the initial charge, they didn’t slow. Sabres, hammers, and short-bladed axes finished what the lances had started.

Pockets of resistance broke and fled, only to be ridden down or cornered, allowing the light rider to have thier own fun.

Simply put, once the maneuver the entire plan had been built around

And far behind the carnage, atop his weary horse, Arnold finally allowed himself to stop.

He sat there for a moment in the saddle, the roar of victory growing louder by the second as his men poured into the city. Like water rushing into a broken bowl, they vanished past the breached gates, eager to claim the spoils promised to them.

Arnold didn’t follow.He was too tired from that.

He simply leaned forward, resting his weight against the neck of his horse, chest heaving as he finally took a good look around to properly deem the consequences of his plan, taking in the ground littered with bloodied shields, broken ladders, and the echoes of too many voices lost in the dark.

But through it all, a quiet certainty settled into his bones.

The debt was paid at last.

He barely even noticed the trail of his prince’s command melting into the city, no doubt already lost in the chaotic hunger of the raid that was to follow. It no longer concerned him. They had their part. He had played his.

And that... was more than enough...

---------------

This is barely enough.

Or so Alpheo judged, as his eyes fixed upon the kneeling lord of the city, broken, bloodied, yet still unbowed in his posture, forced to watch the banner of Yarzat rise above his birthright.

The falcon snapped in the night wind upon the city gate, its shadow dancing across the small fires now smoldering in the streets.

Hours had passed since the walls had fallen.

The cries of battle had dulled into the lower, darker sound of defeat. Egil’s riders had stormed through the keep in thunderous charge, crushing what little order remained of the retreating defenders. In doing so, they had denied the enemy even the comfort of a final redoubt. There would be no last glorious stand.

The keep, once the heart of the city’s defiance, now lay firmly in Yarzat hands, its towers silent but for the caw of crows circling overhead.

From the streets below, the cries of the citizens carried upward. Panic, grief, despair, the sound of a people who had lost not just a battle, but their home, their very sense of safety. Alpheo heard it all, and he felt nothing.

He had, by his own measure, already shown mercy. The soldiers who clamored to enslave the population had been silenced . Alpheo despised slavery for obvious reasons.

He had also forbidden the torching of homes, too, but looking at the small embers it seemed that order was not heeded.

Still, he had allowed most of the citizenry to keep their lives , some of course would die, but really that was the cost of being the vanquished.

That, in his eyes, was generosity enough.

Some others, however, did not share what Alpheo thought of as mercy, as the lord of the city finally spoke, "Some day, this will happen to you too, you know?"

Alpheo did not turn his gaze. He kept his eyes on the banner fluttering against the night sky admiring the view."Do not look to others for fault that lies in you," he replied evenly. "I warned you what would follow should you refuse my offer. You have called fire from me and now you can smell the ashes. Blame yourself for the cause of your pains."

The lord spat into the dust, blood flecking his lips. "Your dog is at fault for my brother’s murder, how was I to serve you with that in mind?"

Alpheo’s eyes flicked to him "Your brother rode among the men who trespassed upon my lands. He raised steel against me. His end was no different from that of any soldier cut down in war. You call it murder because it suits your pride. I call it war, plain and simple. Your steeds and titles do not place you above its cost.You ought to understand that by now"

"Time will come when it will be you brought low by your own arrogance. You shall kneel where I kneel now, watching your proud city burn. All you give you shall receive.

You will hear the screams of your women, see your people slain in the streets, and know it was your hand that led them to ruin.

The princes of the realm have heard the call. One by one, they will come for you. How long before words are cast aside for swords? You are set on a road that had no recourse, its end will be yours too.

Ashes you have brought me, and ashes you will return to."

"I grow weary of your rumblings," Alpheo said at last. His tone was flat, almost bored, as he motioned with a nod toward his guards. Iron hands clamped onto the lord’s shoulders, forcing him more firmly to his knees.

He had lost the privilege of his dignity.

The prince stepped closer, his shadow falling across the kneeling figure."And before you go," he said, his voice lowering "know this: I am well aware of what is coming. I do not deny it, as a matter of fact I welcome it. If every prince wishes to test my will, then they may come at their leasure.

I await all challengers."

The lord strained against the grip of the guards, eyes burning with hatred, but Alpheo leaned no further into the exchange, looking at him with the same respect one would muster for a turd.

His victory was complete, and the vanquished’s curses meant less than the whimpering of the crowd outside.

"You dream of a day when I will kneel, when all I have built will burn. You salivate at an uncertain future," Alpheo continued, turning his back. "But I live in the present. And in this one, you are mine. Not a lord, not a ruler, just a piece on the board. A hostage. A bargaining chip to be traded when I see fit.

You have my permission to ponder that, as the days stretch long before you and hope that the upcoming talks shall tend to your release."

With that, he cast one last glance down at the streets below. The city screamed as Yarzat’s soldiers claimed their plunder.

The lord was dragged away, his curses carried into the darkness, and Alpheo remained still, the fires below reflected in his calm, unreadable eyes now leaning toward a future he knew would be rot with war.