It was a bright day outside.

Birds were singing, children were screaming.

Armies were gathering right outside the gates, soldiers from both sides taking up their spots on the battlements as designated by their commanders.

Hearkenhurst was a city that held a great amount of horrible history, having been conquered and reconquered multiple times by both sides of its current conflict.

It stood right at the foot of a mountain, a plot of flat land with nary a tree in sight, despite having once been in the middle of a large forest.

Great fields of golden wheat would usually be swaying in the wind around the walled city, each meant to supply the north and the south alike with generous amounts of grain, as well as other crops.

However, these fields are now either trampled or burned away to make space for the soldiers, their beasts and war machines.

Still, this particular battle was most unusual, as it's regular defenders were the ones assaulting the city and its would-be comquerors, its stalwart protectors.

The walls surrounding the city were a mismatch concoction of stone, ancient crystals, metal, dried oil, as well as the unmoving corpses of great constructs, often supported by the bones of equally massive monsters.

It is a disgusting cacophony of antediluvian runework and well-formed steel, an artefact of pure ingenuity that has both stood the test of time and failed it at the same time.

The two sides that built and upgraded the wall are the very same ones that once again fought for it: The Heartland Knights and the Magelords Of The North.

On the defending side: great balistae have been set on every tower, manned by crews of veteran engineers.

To counter them, great constructs have been forged by the mages with a humanoid frame, capable of sending massive bolts of raw arcane, mana that can reach and destroy the balistae and their crews in but a few shots.

Alas, these constructs will fall just as easily to the wyvern knights. Mounted champions riding ravenous beasts and carrying with them great blasting charges bought from the dwarves, the perfect weapons to disassemble the constructs.

Then the wyverns will fall, crashing to the ground one by one, impaled by a thousand of sharp, small arrows fired by platoons of enslaved goblins.

Which will in turn be smashed into that same ground by the charging knights errant. Mere initiates into the order, send to wet their virgin blades with inhuman blood.

Naturally, the errant knights too, have an enemy specifically designed to ruin their day, for such is the way of war between two long time rivals, each preparing new weapons to wield as well as adapting to the strategies of the other.

A wise man once said that, as the war goes on for long and longer, the more alike will the two opposing sides look.

This stands completely true for our current scenario.

For just as the Knights enchant their armour to protect against magical assault, the mages create great siege constructs in their rivals image.

Great golems of stone walk forward, intent on reaching the tall, makeshift walls of the city. Their hollow insides allow for platoons of magical infantry to assault the walls and push through.

With their approach, the alarms are sounded, loudly reverberating throughout the land and warning of the starting battle.

Already, a myriad of destructive spells have been unleashed as the high mages unleash their great power on the levied infantry of the Knights stationed on the walls, unaware or uncaring that they are going to destroy their own countrymen. Fire and frost rends the barely clothed recruits, painting the initial battlements red as the Knights ignore the losses with smug smirks.

Some among them are unable to contain their disgust for this tactic and rush to the front, rallying the peasants despite the horrors of war, serving only to prolong their suffering in the end.

Gargoyles of black slate descend from the sky like hungering locusts, tearing apart flesh and bone as the young knights do their best to protect the recruits.

One among them stands out, a female warrior without equal by the name of Katrin.

"Stand up and fight! Are you men or are you mice?!" She exclaims, her glistening blade raised high as she punches through a gargoyle.

Inspired and insulted, the young knights and recruits alike begin to push their enemies back from the walls.

However, they are too late, as the great golems have reached the walls of the city, smashing their massive fists into its stone and allowing many new enemies to attack the foolish young knights.

But just as the slaughter on the walls reached its first zenith, great eagles flung hooked chains from the sky above and, in flocks of five, pulled the siege golems down, splattering the enemy below with their own living weaponry.

Reinforcements finally arrived as well-trained halberdiers rushed to fill in for the damaged ranks.

Ladders were quickly set up by the opposing side, with portal magic enchanted to its top, allowing soldiers on the bottom to instantly teleport up. Naturally, it takes a highly agile soldier to make effective use of this method.

Which is why scantily clad catkin with curved swords leaped out of the portals, carving a bloody toll on the knights forces as spells assaulted their reinforcing backline.

Veteran halberdiers made quick work of these agile opponents due to their advantage in range and many of these exotic mercenaries found their end here, impaled on cold metal or hacked in two mid-flight.

Leaping to the skies, Katrin made short work of most offending spells, her longsword slicing them apart with ease. Still, there were many mages and she was alone, so a couple of these spells had to be weathered by her body, as she wished to protect her frontline.

Things were going well, despite casualties being high, so taking these few wounds for the sake of her troops was no big deal for the female knight commander.

Asmodeus wasn't present in this siege which meant that the enemy would soon run out of mana.

All they had to do was just protect the walls for long enough, then the mages would fall and their constructs crumble . "Hold the line! Let none of them through!"

Now freed from aerial harassment, the halberdiers made their stand and with the inspiring commands of their leader, protected the walls with renewed vigour and ferocity.

Seeing that the battle on the walls was lost, the mages summoned elemental spirits of air that pushed the powerful knight out of the skies and attacked everything in sight, causing chaos and terror to spread below and above alike.

Massive balistae turned their view inward, rusted but well-oiled gears turning the medieval machinery around and impaling many of the elementals as the streets were filled with civilian screams.

The homes of innocents were torn asunder as the raging, living winds crashed through them like cruel iron saws, tearing flesh and wood alike with impunity.

Chaos ensued as the valiant knights charged into their own city to finish off whatever monsters managed to stay alive.

But this was all a distraction, for as the Knights focused their forces inward and the screams of the civilians prevented proper coordination, insurgents from within blew up a part of the southern wall, collapsing a part of it and killing a platoon of the knights.

This is where the Marquis fell, crushed by rubble until he was little more than a red stain on the ground, his blood already being drained into the thirsting earth.

With his death, the morale of the troops on the southern wall shattered apart like a window shot by a balistae, causing many of the routing soldiers to meet their doom by falling off of the walls as their own desperate comrades pushed them to the side in an effort to escape the enemy.

Moving the rubble away with their magics, the mages rushed all of their forces into the city, rallying with the isolated elemental beings on the way and quickly mopping up the knights that tried to stop them.

Contained within the city, the knights advantage in mobility was broken by the streets and charging civilians, as well as the efforts of the insurgents.

Katrin was kept blind to the situation as she was currently dueling the remaining siege giants and a particularly powerful elemental that had been sent to deal with her.

She would eventually succeed in shattering the constructs and dousing the living wind under their massive corpses, but she sustained potentially lethal wounds during this combat and passed out.

Their leadership thusly defeated, the remaining Heartlander forces were swiftly routed, encircled and crushed.

Katrin was taken prisoner and the mages proclaimed victory, with no one alive to tell the tale of their insurgent treachery.