Chapter 065: Battle for Vanvyra

Normally it might have been hard to get to the city, especially due to the local Hand of Freedom presence that did everything it could to prevent any warriors or adventurers from reaching the safety of Vanvyra’s walls. We, however, had the luck of running into a patrol from the city, who Layla managed to quickly persuade to lead us back.

We were safe. For about three days. Then the Hand of Freedom sent four thousand liberated slaves (formed into four regiments according to the imperial organization system) and three hundred cultists and began besieging the town.

Normally, besieging a city in winter - especially in Long Night - was a terrible idea. It was cold, so frostbite. It was hard to bring food, so hunger. Ground was frozen, so it was damn hard to dig any cover in case magicians defending the city started throwing siege spells around. In short - a major pain in the ass, and too much trouble for any sensible commander to even consider.

Unfortunately, the Hand was better than that. Much better. They prepared beforehand. They knew where local granaries were, so after forcing the villagers to evacuate deep into the zone they controlled they had a lot of food at their disposal. They had tons of warm clothes prepared. A lot of mana crystals enchanted to increase temperature in the area.

In short, they could stay like that until the end of the winter, probably.

In the city, at the same time, utter chaos reigned. Locals hated people from Ambryxis. People from Ambryxis suspected locals of being Hand supporters. The tribune had serious suspicions that someone from his adventurer army was feeding the Hand with information (after all, they seemed to outplay HIM at every turn!). We had serious suspicions that tribune was an idiot.

In short, a complete clusterfuck of mutual suspicion and disdain.

250 local adventurers. 150 adventurers from Ambryxis. A 300 strong town militia. 50 witch-hunters. 500 soldiers from Ambryxis. In short, more than enough to break the siege if our commanders managed to pull their heads out of their asses.

Four thousand former slaves surrounding the city were a mob. Varied level of combat skills. Lack of discipline. Command structure still in the process of forming. Equipment that seemed to be still transferred from local cult bases. Heck, Ambryxis forces alone might have succeeded, but the tribune was too scared that the Vanvyrians would march from the city right after him and attack him from the rear.

Instead, we spent four days watching the former slaves getting whipped into shape by the cultists. And their equipment rapidly improving. It was going to hurt us in the long term.

Then they got reinforcements. Around a hundred more cultists, and one additional former slave regiment. We also heard gossip that the Prophetess herself decided to pay us a visit. The gossips were proven right on the fifth day of the siege, when she fired well prepared siege spell and literally blew apart one of the gates. She succeeded only because our commanders forgot to reinforce the walls with defensive magic due to constant stupid infighting. If you could just do that every time, there wouldn’t be a need to invest in siege engines after all.

I’m beginning to think we should have ran to Ambryxis after all.

We managed to stop the assault, but there was no way of repairing the gate. So rather than a siege, it was a time for urban warfare.

***

“I can’t believe we are just sitting here.” Layla was too furious to sit. Instead, she walked around the room, cursing everyone she could.

We, at the same time, were busy playing cards. We as in me, Leria, Lena, Syna, Simea and Lybaer. We occupied the main room in the tavern that we ‘requisitioned’ after the fighting started. It was our favourite pastime. After all, the urban warfare had lasted for a week now, and we were generally pretty bored.

“Well, we are sitting here, because the people in charge of defense are fucking stupid. Or the enemy is fucking smart. Doesn’t matter really.” I answered her. I lost that particular game, so I had time to focus on something else. “Whatever happens, I don’t plan on letting myself get killed for those idiots.” Especially if that meant fighting Imperium. “Can’t you just sit down?”

She sat obediently. Sometimes it’s nice being a Chosen One. Even of Deviation.

The urban warfare wasn’t really intensive. Not with the way aura worked. You were fighting house by house, district by district. It was hard to annihilate the enemy completely unless you were overwhelmingly strong. Unless you forced the enemy to rout, you were bound to keep fighting the same people over and over again, since after being beaten up they retreated to recover.

We still were fighting pretty intensively. Gaining a lot of experience and levels in the process. But it was limited to short periods of fighting for our lives, separated by moments of peace and playing cards. Of course, if you ignored occasional screams and distant explosions of the Prophetess leveling fortified manors and town militia arsenals with her magic.

Now that I think about it, I didn’t hear the explosions today. Weird.

“I don’t get it, why are we losing so bad?” Layla obviously lacked experience on that matter. It was supposed to be a relatively easy mission. “Against some insurgents, for Gods sake!”

“Because we aren’t fighting only against insurgents.” I answered her. “The enemy uses imperial equipment and imperial tactics. Ten to one that it’s also commanded by imperial officers. I doubt the cult has tacticians good enough to keep outplaying us like that.”

“R...really?” Seriously? The Witch-hunters still hadn’t figured it out? Or maybe the tribune didn’t tell us because he STILL doesn’t trust us. I take back everything I thought about him earlier, he really is an idiot.

“Yes. Standard imperial tactics for urban combat in smaller towns. You breach the gate. You keep pushing towards the central square, since for some reason every city has one. The push is done with your soldiers - former slaves in that case - but with adventurers or auxillias serving as their support. After that you have a central position in the city, which means enemy movements are massively limited, and you can pick them off, district after district.”

And we already lost the main square. Yesterday. My party fought there. We actually held the ground for a while, but then cultists sent their elites, the White Guard. The one hundred cultists accompanying the Prophetess when she came here. Her personal bodyguards.

Which was also an imperial tactic. They had special assault units (sometimes also called vanguard units) made from recruits of extraordinary strength. Orcs, pureblooded succubi, etc. When you lacked them, you just had to use simple men but with a sufficiently zealous approach. They used them especially when fighting in urban or uneven terrain, when they could rip apart standard infantry formations already weakened by environment.

We might have still held the ground. The tribune just had to sent the witch-hunters. But no. I’m not even trying to remember his name, he is obviously getting hanged after Ambryxis hears of his shenanigans. And that’s an optimistic scenario.

“Besides, they are also using mission-type tactics.” One of the cornerstones of imperial war doctrine. Together with a cavalry version of blitzkrieg, the flexible defense and the usage of stormtroopers and siege engines to break enemy formations. “Which means that rather than a static approach to combat, with command dictating us what to do, each of their units is an autonomous formation. They know what’s the mission for the day, and they can easily adapt to changing circumstances.”

Seeing her face I sighed loudly.

“In case you forgot - I already tried doing that. Once. We almost caught the imperial officer in charge of the siege. But you know how it ended.” She hissed like an angry cat.

We weren’t planning to hand him to witch-hunters, though. But I wanted to learn something about Imperium’s involvement. Getting contact with Imperum would be nice, I mean even if we slaughtered his personal guard, we could just pretend that we had no idea that we were facing imperials!

Unfortunately, we lacked manpower. And his bodyguards turned out to be Imperial Army soldiers incognito. With a templar knight-brother, a knight serving the Imperial Temple. White Pantheon, in short. In the end we had to flee, even if Simea managed to grab some documents that the enemy had with them - I was still trying to decipher them in my free time, but I achieved little. I even sent it to Firewing in hope she could help.

How did the tribune react to my initiative that actually forced the Hand to retreat that day? He almost threw me to the dungeon. Cretin. I’d totally end up there, if Layla didn’t whisper to him that I was a Chosen. It was bound to become common knowledge if we keep using this like a trump card.

“So… the enemy commander was from Imperium?” She finally noticed the slight discrepancy between my current words and what happened two days ago. “How did you figure it out? And why didn’t you tell the tribune?”

“He was too pretty.” I answered. “Our dear Commander Fabulous is quite close to be passable as a trap, but still a man without a doubt. Unblemished and perfectly symmetrical face. Hair arranged absolutely perfect, and with some magic making sure it stays fabulous even with helmet on. Obviously a noble. High ranked noble. That he was fighting with typical imperial fencing was the last straw.”

To be exact I had no clue how imperials fence. The Imperium was closer to a federation of approximately ten thousand local nations (ok, a few hundred at best unless you counted autonomous regions and city states, but still) and had exactly as many combat styles. I made up that proof completely. The real proof was Appraisal, since I knew that Von Osten family was one of imperial houses.

Probably a captain or a colonel, elevated via plain old nepotism and sent by his family to learn the trade by watching some truly experienced general. One that actually rose mostly by pure merit. Imperium had a lot of them around, especially those lower ranked. Brigade or division commanders or provincial military governors. Their former noble proteges, at the same time, were pretty widespread at the highest echelons.

Imperial Army High Command, regional command centers, heads of special task forces and so on. You had to understand politics to be promoted there, otherwise you were bound to get backstabbed. Or just ousted from your position and sent for early retirement (Imperium was slightly more civilized than Dragonspine Mountains).

“And I didn’t tell the tribune, because it wouldn’t change anything.” I continued.” The tribune is an idiot. Or just got completely overwhelmed by situation. Him knowing that would change nothing. In fact, the faster we lose that battle, the less people will die.”

Oh. She didn’t see that coming. I guess I just a lost a point or two as a Chosen One.

“Could you… could you win? If you were in his place?” … Or maybe not. I contemplated her question for a while.

“No. Not at this point.” I finally answered. “Two days ago, before we lost the main square… maybe. The enemy commander is good, I give him that. Smart, well educated, doesn’t avoid the action. But he also lacks experience and seems to play a bit too much by the book. I could use it against him. But now? We can barely move around the city, it’s only a matter of another day before the enemy captures all main streets and city gates, severing both connections between districts… and our only ways out. Plus everyone still hates each other. And each time we manage to establish a solid defensive position, the Prophetess comes and levels the place down.” We suffered from a serious lack of magicians. Those that actually were around were grossly outmatched by the cult leader.

She looked down. At this point, the others no longer played cards. Instead they listened to this exchange. Even Lybaer. Well, he was the only person to still not know that I was a Chosen One, so me being so close with a witch-hunter must have been… suspicious.

“And what if we get out of the city?” What? “If we manage to capture this… Commander Fabulous, as you called him? Wouldn’t that allow us to get away from the city?”

Oh.

“Desertion? That’s quite mean.” She chuckled bitterly.

“This city is lost. The tribune is as well. I simply want to save as much as I can from this mess.”

I turned my eyes from her and looked around our group. Dying wasn’t a very nice idea, especially for Lybaer that already set his checkpoint in Vanvyra. Escaping from the city… saving some of Ambryxis’ much needed manpower... If we also brought detailed evidence of the tribune ruining everything, we might make sure he would take the blame.

Huh.

***

Abandoned manor in northern Vanvyra.

COLONEL GUNTHER VON OSTEN

There were nice parts about being a commander in a war. Of course to actually notice them, you had to ignore the parts about risking your life, killing other mortals (you were going to feel bad about it, even if your enemies were from Dragonspine Mountains), and generally being forced to work a lot.

Laying in your bed (‘requisitioned’ together with a manor when you needed to set your command post somewhere) with a feeling of general satisfaction and being well rested, while glancing from to time to an almost naked (and quite pretty) woman busy fixing her hair before the mirror was generally

Ah. I could get used to that.

Maybe not to the part about getting ambushed by some adventurers and losing some important documents. They were encoded, so I doubt that the enemy was going to decipher them. It still hurt my pride.

“I think I’m feeling your eyes on parts of my body I normally keep covered, you know?” I chuckled, hearing Vhyrra’s voice.

She was my slave. A dark elf. They were weird people. A permanent demographic explosion made them supply surface markets with a lot of their population. The overwhelming majority of the sold people considered it a blessing, since as slaves they could normally eat well and as volunteers they were in great demand… and of great value.

Slaves in their Empire of Vhessana (and most of its subterrenean colonies) were considered a caste pretty much equal to all others, just of different job. Just as nobles were to rule, craftsmen were to craft and warriors were to fight, slaves were to serve. They even had their own festivals, gods and temples.

There were even old and venerable families of slaves, proud to have served for example the lords of certain cities for centuries. I had troubles even calling it slavery at this point. To avoid antagonizing the Hand members (I wasn’t in the mood of explaining the circumstances to every single new cultist I ran into) I took off her collar, so right now she could just walk away any second she wished. She didn’t.

I’d let her go (and even pay her enough money to start her new life properly) if she asked at any given moment, but since she was still here… It was nice to have a combination of a bodyguard, lover, maid and cook at your disposal at all times.

“Shouldn’t you be doing something instead of lying in bed?” She looked at me, probably playfully searching for a cause for an argument. Women! “Like, winning a battle?”

“As the Imperial Codex says: ‘A good commander leads his soldiers to victory, while a great commander has good commanders to do that for him.” Not like I considered myself a great commander. I was anything but that, but that was something I aspired to be. “I haven’t spent months assembling my staff to now oversee every single detail of what they do.”

Besides I had Saravarian look over them. Hand of Freedom cultists were very motivated and smart, but they lacked experience even more than me and didn’t go through the gruelling training in the imperial officer academy. Saravarian was the templar brother-knight that general Hnatiuk tasked with making sure I won’t kill myself. He knew enough about tactics to stop the other officers if they were about to do something stupid.

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the moment. At least until I felt that certain sneaky person suddenly lying beside me on the bed.

I opened my eyes and confirmed her intentions. Huh. I guess we could spare a while. After all, nothing important seemed to be happening - judging from the lack of anyone knocking on my door - and it was still a bit early, so…

Suddenly someone knocked on the door, ruining a wonderful beginning to this day. What bad timing.

Vhyrra sighed loudly and stood up, granting me one last glance at her (mostly) bare assets. Then, the day started for real.

***

It was Saravarian. Wearing nothing but a commoner’s linen clothing and a chestplate, the only part of his normally heavy armor that he wore outside of combat. Showing the world that even now he was still a knight.

“We have a problem.” Always laconic. Huh. He also saw my general lack of clothing above thebelt and he identified it as a sign of me once again indulging in hedonism that he personally opposed.

We had that talk already. Hard situation when a genuine ascetic meets… well, me.

“What is it?” It was a short glance. He looked at something behind me and then… well, he looked displeased. If I knew Vhyrra well - and after spending the last nine years in her company, I probably did - she just flashed a bit of herself, teasing Saravarian. I’ll have a talk with her about that later.

“The enemy in the southwestern district seems to be regrouping.” He said calmly. “Relar suspects they might be plotting a counterattack. He would like you to take a look at that.”

Hm. That’s where I almost got my ass kicked by the adventurers.

“Only the southwestern district?” He nodded.

Strange. Enemy commander thus far seemed to be very intent on commanding his forces from his central headquarters. Not giving them any leeway in terms of acting on themselves, which I managed to exploit more than once. If he tried to make a general counterattack (high time for that), he would go all out everywhere at once.

Are some of his soldiers acting on their own? According to Hand’s spies, there was enough strife in the enemy’s forces for someone to do that. Then again, the local forces (that hated the tribune the most) seemed to mostly defend the central and northern districts. South was garrisoned mainly by soldiers and adventurers from Ambryxis that should theoretically be most loyal to him.

“I’ll go immediately.” I told him. “Give me a while.” He nodded.

I turned around to see Vhyrra already in full clothing, and with the parts of my clothing that I lacked were in her hand extended towards me, neatly folded and ready to wear.

“One day I’m going to ask you how you can dress up so quickly. And I will accept no excuses.” I said, while grabbing the clothes.

“You’ve saw me dressing up and stripping often enough that it’s a mystery how you haven’t figured it out.” She retorted. “Are you sure you’re qualified to be a commander with your observation skills so lacking?”

Heh.

***

Southwestern district.

AVHAR KHAN

The Imperial Codex is a great repository of knowledge. While granted the Imperium while it was on the technological and cultural level of the early Roman Empire, it included information that weren’t figured out on Earth until XXI century.

It also included - in its expanded version, available only to crows and Imperators - an entire library concerning tactics and strategy. In its shortened version serving as the foundation for imperial doctrine. But… it was merely general guidance, with Gods repeatedly mentioning that its writings should be treated like that. After all, an enemy that knew at least a general outline of imperial tactics was bound to devise countermeasures.

That was a very offensive doctrine (“best defense is good offense” was actually the Gods’ words here), always preferring to push forward and have constant contact with enemy. Now, our regrouping warned the enemy that something was off and that we might have been preparing an attack.

So what would an imperial commander do in such a situation? Naturally assemble significant part of reserves and launch preemptive strike under his personal command. A recon by force coupled with an attack supposed to disorganize and prevent an enemy attack.

And if something terrible was brewing there, the commander himself could see it firsthand and think of countermeasures. With little chance of dying or getting wounded, since all imperial commanders were aura manipulators of decent skill and had bodyguards. All of that without losing contact with the headquarters (staffed by a competent cadre of handpicked officers), because Imperium - unlike most local armies - invested A LOT of money in magical communication systems. Once again, mostly because its Gods were adamant that it’s a good idea.

Unfortunately, it was a trap.

The enemy marched through the main street. Twenty cultists in the vanguard, twenty in the rearguard, fifty former slaves in the middle. Surrounding Captain Fabulous (I decided that captain sounds better than Commander) and his personal bodyguards.

Seven Imperial Army soldiers, pretending to be locals. One templar knight-brother, in armor that seemed to be assembled from parts stolen from fallen adventurers loyal to Vanvyra (to preserve secrecy), though the whole staying under radar didn’t extend to his two-handed hammer.

Obviously forged in the High Forge, Hammer’s (Imperial God of Crafting… with a lot of focus in metalworking) afterlife. No mortal smith makes weapons so exquisite with decorations and yet still so deadly.

Each templar got one of their weapons after swearing their vows. It was a major pain in combat. Which we already learned the hard way. It had an impact reinforcement enchantment practically on artifact level, enough to almost send Leria flying after she took it on her shield.

Then there was also a dark elf assassin. She gave us a lot of discomfort during our last engagement as well. Good with daggers. Judging from the caste tattoos, a slave, though she didn’t wear collar. Weird.

The essential element of the ambush was, once again, the Hekate rifle. There was a former town militia arsenal by the middle part of the main road. Some soldiers barricaded inside a few days ago, only for the Prophetess to blow it all up. The remnants of the building were spread around the road, with the cultists cleaning only part of it. The rest… could be used as firing positions.

Three rounds. Each of them fired with three barrel segments and maximum velocity setting. Killing people we actually empathized with wasn’t an option, so Syna fired it right above their heads. With the second one passing right above Captain Fabulous’ head. The effect was a company-wide stun and a lot of people with ruptured eardrums.

Then we struck.

We assembled a strike team earlier, with my party and some gold badges we managed to find as members. They attacked the shocked main force of enemy from the side, capitalizing on the fact that most of enemies was temporarily out of commission.

Some of the former slaves fled. The rest would be slaughtered if not for my explicit order to kill only if there was no other option. To avoid antagonizing people that were our ticket out of this mess. At least - officially.

The knight regained his consciousness before we reached him. He actually pretended to be stunned until enemy was close enough, only to suddenly spin into action and send one of the golds flying with his hammer.

Unexpected. I really hoped he was going to be out of commission for a while longer.

Thankfully we had a numerical advantage. the entire gold party engaged him in combat. Leria, Lena and Simea in the meantime got to Captain Fabulous. Leria pressed a rag coated in strongest non-lethal poison we managed to find to his mouth, after which he quickly lost consciousness completely.

They grabbed him, and started retreating as fast they could.

The enemies started getting back into shape. The cultists were already almost combat ready. They were surprised and weren’t precisely sure what was happening, but I was sure that they were going to counterattack immediately after noticing what was going on. From two flanks at once. Damned imperial doctrine.

The assassin woke up.. It took three gold badges to stop her rampage, God she really was pissed. I cast all my debuffs on her, and they finally managed to wound her (definitely non-fatally) and push her back long enough to turn and flee. While being followed by imperial soldiers that began waking up as well.

The strike team managed to disengage in time. By the time the enemy understood what really was happening we were at a safe distance. The attack that followed was met with our own adventurers and soldiers (all of them in the district) and the enemy was forced to call the assault off after three hours of positional warfare.

It cost me the secrecy of my Revelation. I was now officially a Chosen of Deviation. This was the only way of having more than a hundred people disregard orders from the witch-hunter tribune. After all, he could at worst torture them to death. Disregarding the voice of a God in Reality could cost them much more.

Not like Deviation really cared, but if that helps me survive this mess, why not? Though I don’t think I like the look Vasyr and Vhera kept giving me after the announcement.

Then, Captain Fabulous finally woke up.