Born a Monster

Chapter 56: Born A Monster, Chapter 56 – Siege

Born A Monster

Chapter 56

Siege

For much of the rest of the next day, Black Snake resided between my armor and my shirt. I fed her Shadow mana, but without the Pact, I couldn’t tell whether that even had any effect. She lived, and that was enough.

“Do you know why the sergeant won’t move us to the eastern wall?”

“You mean nearer to where the siege engines are?”

“Don’t you? Don’t you want to see the contest between wooden titans?”

.....

“I admit, I’m comfortable missing it for now.”

“There is no poetry in your soul. I’ll bet one good boulder would crush that stupid stone shield.”

“They seem to be quite durable.” I said.

“I’m certain of it. If we get enough siege engines, we can send all of these orcs packing.”

Come to think of it, the siege towers were rather quiet. Maybe it was the same reason our archers were only permitted a certain number of shots? “How much ammunition do we have for our siege engines?”

“Who cares? It has to be enough. Fill all those trenches with stone, and they can’t get to us anymore. Then they’ll have to leave.”

“I’m pretty sure we don’t have quite that much ammunition.”

“And I’m sure we do. They’re in range, all that it needs is one order to open fire with all siege engines, and the battle will be over.”

“If it were that simple, surely they’d have done so by now?”

“No, I think they’re just waiting. Someone thinks they’re being clever, letting the city come to the brink of disaster before saving them.”

I rubbed my eyes with the palms of my hands. “What do they gain by such a strategy?”

“I don’t know, but it’s the only thing that explains why the Uruk are still here.”

“Truly? The only thing? And demonstrations of our superior firepower will utterly demoralize them?”

“Yes, it absolutely will!”

“Then why hasn’t it already done so?”

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“Beg pardon?”

“We destroyed two of their siege engines yesterday. We’ve lost zero. That seems like superior siege engine use to me.”

“No. They’re... they’re just starting. They haven’t learned their lesson yet. When we turn our catapults and ballistae upon their trenches, that’s when they’ll learn. They’ll leave and never return.”

Oh, my. Agnopos was bordering on delusional, maybe madness. “Hrm. You should probably think of a plan to do that.”

“I should!” he agreed.

“And it will take a good many sanity and serenity points to make that plan.”

“Yes. Once I marshal my true brainpower, my plan will be unstoppable.”

“So how much sanity and serenity do you currently possess?”

“I’ve already invested EVERYTHING! The plan is perfect! It is time to get the siege turrets firing. Then everyone will see my genius!”

“I don’t think-”

But he was already running off. At risk of being accused of abandoning my post, I went to warn sergeant Gilean.

“So we’ve got our first one. Return to your post.”

“First what, sergeant.”

“Some people can’t handle sieges. The stress has broken Chanter, and now we need to find him, stop him, and fix him. That’s not for you, return to your post.”

I saluted and returned to my post.

#

There was one catapult fired at the trenches. I am told the boulder missed, bounced several times, and came to a stop. I am also told that the Uruk looked at the crew of that siege engine in a combination of outrage and disbelief. I saw none of this, heard little, and choose to believe it all.

Their trenches were within range where a bow could fire to the top of the wall, and the Uruk were diligently working to link the forward beach-heads. The wall enchantments protected the walls, but not the people atop them.

Well, the structure of the walls themselves did a lot of that. Whatever the disadvantages of being short, I didn’t have to walk hunched over. A few people had arrows bounce off their armor, and the unlucky ones were hit, sometimes with wounds that took them a week or so to recover from.

The real unlucky ones took serious injuries, and had to be moved to a hospital.

But, on that day, nobody died.

For every one of ours that took an arrow, three or four of the Uruk had to be removed from their front trench. Those in the outermost ring began fortifying it, both from the inside and the outside. I don’t see why they bothered; so far as I knew, nobody was coming to help us.

Every so often, we’d gather the Uruk arrows, and ship them off to the armory. It would have been rude not to let our archers return them, after all.

They were turning out two siege engines a day, and seemingly at random picked a section of wall, this one in the northwest. The enchantment held there as well, and it was destroyed without significant damage to us.

My understanding of magic was too little to understand the exact gains to be had by this method of attack. I knew there was limited mana in the world, but it replenished on cycles that ranged from daily to yearly. The concept that the town’s mana reserves even could become strained was foreign to me.

What I did understand was that runes, being physical things, could absolutely fall apart. The magical spells could falter, and then fail. The enemy was probing for weaknesses, deciding what areas of the wall to attack when they got serious.

I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. I mean, once Rakkal was able to smash open the gates, that was it, wasn’t it? The siege would just become a street by street battle, with the civilians caught in the middle.

But, just as they had in Montu’s Glory, the Uruk were conducting the siege by normal patterns. It was dull, it was boring, and I can’t imagine it was more exciting for them. They had work to keep them busy, at least.

#

Relieved by night shift, who had the unenviable task of holding the walls when the goblinoid eyes of the Uruk weren’t dazzled by the sun, I had dinner and then another dinner. Black Snake was stirring, but had not awakened.

“Rhishi! I’d heard you made warrior! I’m so proud of you!”

My dinner was interrupted by someone soft and warm and fuzzy. That someone, of course, was Kismet.

“And how are you, dearest Kismet?”

“Yeah, the siege is hard on everyone. The Fairfields had to leave a lot of their things outside the wall. They worry the Uruk or some human may have already looted the house.”

“If I had to choose, I’d go with human at this point. The Uruk seem really focused on this siege.”

“Is it true that farmers are selling their crops to the Uruk?”

“Not that I’ve seen, but I’ll admit there never were a lot of farmers to the south.”

Honestly, the south was where a lot of our firewood came from. I should be worried about that, too. I liked being able to keep warm at night, and eating warm food.

“And the wall torches? Is it true that they aren’t lit at night anymore?”

“The Uruk target the linkboys even during the day. I’ve heard there are designs for a torch holder that can be raised and lowered, so that the torches can be changed out without the need to travel outside, but I don’t suppose that will help us any during this siege.”

“It’s just so scary, and nobody wants to tell us anything.”

“Well, we’re all doomed unless something changes.”

She smacked me in the head. No damage, but it HURT.

“Not helping.” She said. “What could change, that we wouldn’t be doomed?”

“Well, if the Uruk ran out of food, they’d need to leave. Or disease could sweep through their camps. Or, like the Chanter says, they could just decide none of this was worth their time and go home.”

“So basically, the horrible kinds of things you wouldn’t wish on anyone.”

“That would be it. Or they could be needed with whatever is involving the rest of their troops.”

“Can’t you just dream up the answer?”

“I truly wish that I could; not knowing these things costs me sanity and sometimes serenity.”

“Why? Do you think that would help us win the siege?”

“I think getting good night’s sleep will help us with winning the siege. Warfare is more a matter of will and discipline than I wanted to admit.”

“So Resolve is more important than Might or Agility or Valor?”

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but it’s easily as important as any of the others. Even Insight and Charisma have their roles to play.”

“So I’ve got you beat on those three. I’m a better warrior than you are?”

“You easily could be.” I admitted.

“You are always so nice, Rhishi. Not like you look at all.”

“How do I look?”

.....

“Like a monster, like you should be hiding under someone’s bed.”

#

We had a laugh, and our first conversation in a long time, almost none of which impacts this story. It was good that my friend was safe. It was horrible that she was likely to suffer and die when the city inevitably fell.

I really should have been watching myself. By staying to the major roads, I thought that I would be safe. He came from an alley before me.

“Hey, you have money for food, that means that you have money to buy me food, too. Maybe you do that, and I don’t crack your skull open.” He drew forth a wicked looking stick, as thick around its end as his wrist.

“You want to attack a soldier in armor?”

“Heh, heh. Chainmail doesn’t protect from blunt damage.”

“Piercing.” I said. “Chainmail is weak against piercing damage. Look, I’m not town watch. Just go home and I won’t have to...”

He took a swing at me. It cracked over my helmet.

[You have taken eight points of blunt damage. After armor, you have taken no damage.]

I hissed at him, and stepped in to claw his exposed belly.

About four or five blows in, he realized he wasn’t hurting me, and ran for it. I could have chased him down with Fleet of Foot, but I just wasn’t feeling like further violence. After all, I was the last person who should be killing another just for being hungry.

Black Snake stirred again, and I trickled mana into her, much as I had done when she had first come to me. I needed to figure out what I was going to say to her when she woke up. I guess it really depended on what attitude she took when she woke up.

I mean, I wasn’t keen on losing her as my spirit familiar, but I had clearly given her too much without asking for enough in return.

Dang it, I should have asked Kismet for her advice! I was distracted by just having her around for those hours. Kismet seemed to have an instinct for these things.

So now, instead of being informed, I was already late-

CRASH

From the east, where the other siege engine had been all day. What, they thought it was going to be any different at night? I imagine their surprise when the daylight arrow was fired off the wall. Shrine of the Sun, it had some advantages for the hosting town.

It was over by the time I reached my cot. I peeled off my armor, gently moved Black Snake between my pillow and body. She had been unconscious now for most of a day, and I was getting worried.

But, just like the siege, my worry wasn’t changing anything. I settled in for a night’s rest, expecting that when I woke I’d have restored a good portion of my health meters. I’d finally be at full physical health for the first time since Seacrest.

I slipped off to Plumcrest Mountain, where the Princess and Pooka Bear were having a tea party.

#