The smoke rising from the east confirmed Philip Osborne’s claims that Freeport was under attack. Jayce didn’t know how they could have been so wrong in their planning but seeing the smoke it no longer mattered. He needed to get back and fast.

“Ah it’s beautiful isn’t it? It shouldn’t be long now before Freeport falls. It’s too bad about those people you wanted to keep safe. You really should have accepted my offer, such a shame [Tempest]”

A violent downburst of air erupted from the sky scouring the plains and creating a grating dust storm that traveled directly towards Jayce. Unsure of whether or not a secondary spell would be released in his direction he burrowed into the ground.

Now that he was sure their plan had failed there was no reason to hold back. When planning out the pit Lord Weston determined it would take between 1 and 2 days to fill if the flow of the river was to be fully diverted to it.

This would affect every city and village for almost 2 thousand miles downstream of Freeport and could be potentially disastrous in some places. Lord Weston knew this, but he was still willing to do it if it meant saving Freeport.

The pit would no longer be able to save Freeport, but it still had its uses. Namely, it was still able to strike a powerful blow to the Elkian military that had traveled down the Crystal River by boat. But also it could help buy Jayce the time he needed.

********

The sun is just peeking through my windows and the alarm is in full concert which could only mean one thing, we were under attack. But by who? There was still no movement from Elkia, could it be the warring tribes of the north? According to Randall the tribes did not appear to be heading in our direction at this time.

Our coverage of the area is quite porous though. With such a large area to cover it’s possible a group could attack without being seen. But should they really sound the alarm for the northern tribes?

“Lord Weston, I apologize but we have a report from General Kurtis.”

“Hand it over.”

General Kurtis rarely writes his own messages, normally he dictates what is to be written, but it’s sealed with the General’s seal so it should be reliable.

The western canal gate is under Elkian attack. Their forces have traveled by boat and their current numbers are unknown. An explosion occurred in the western towers. Right now the situation is under control. Will update when further details become relevant.

Did Elkia send support by boats? Randall didn’t say anything about this. But boats are able to travel quickly, so is it possible they were hidden or were they close and our scouts weren’t able to message us in time? No, that shouldn’t be right; this report doesn’t say enough, I’ll learn more once we meet.

And what of Jayce and our plan? If they came by boat then the pit would have no effect. Could they have figured out what we were doing, is Jayce still alive? If the enemy is here attacking with any numbers it’s unlikely he is still alive. Damnit! We haven’t activated even half of the mercenaries yet.

“Lord Weston, I hear bells, are we under attack?”

“Grace, right now everything is unclear. Why don’t you go back to your room? I will need to meet with the council at once.”

“I would like to return to my mother’s.”

This girl, I allowed her to have her own room because she said the bed was too uncomfortable to sleep on under the condition that she doesn’t protest me entering at night. But all she does now is lock herself inside, only coming out when I call for her because of guests.

The only time she has spoken to me is to ask for a magic tutor as if those are readily available here in Freeport. Well, I did put in a request with the mercenary guild, as difficult as she may seem I do not want to make her miserable. But I don’t see how I can ever grow to love her.

“Grace the safest place in Freeport right now is here in this house in your room. Please, I am very busy and cannot be bothered with this right now.”

I don’t need her to love me though. I just need her to bear me a child. I guess that only matters if we survive this crisis. If we were to fall I wonder if it would be for the best to just send her back to her family.

Elkia usually kills the former leaders and their families of the cities they take over. As a member of the council should we lose I would be sentenced to death and so would she.

“Grace, I apologize, I should not have lost my temper. We can discuss this more this evening. If I think it is safest for you to go to your family then I will arrange for it.”

“Thank you Lord Weston.”

That may be the first smile she’s shown me in weeks. Alright, by now I’m sure the rest of the council has become aware of the situation. We need to meet with General Kurtis and figure out a way to handle our current problem.

********

“I apologize for waking you Lady Eleanor; however the siege bells have signaled that we are under attack.”

“No that’s fine, I was just lying here anyways, what do you know so far?”

“Unfortunately not very much at this point, I have ordered two guards to investigate and have placed the rest around the perimeter of the property. If I may, I suggest you remain within your study for the time being madam.”

Over the last 3 weeks we’ve been stocking our storage room with all the supplies we believe we’ll need. The attack is a little earlier than we expected, but we are already prepared to leave. The issue is now gathering everyone here.

Grace should be coming shortly. I told her to come here when the battle begins, and that she will be safer with us. Hopefully, Lord Weston is smart and doesn’t abandon reason for some failed attempt at glory. He’ll be useful to us in Asmuth, but I will not risk my life to save him.

We also told my eldest daughter Belle to come with her husband and child, her husband is smitten with her so she shouldn’t have a problem convincing him. As for my fool of a husband, I haven’t seen the man in 2 days.

Most likely he’s with that woman again, or perhaps he’s wasted away another night at that brothel some of his merchant friends frequent. Thankfully he didn’t take our son with him this time. Now there is just one more unaccounted for.

“And what of Mr. Jayce Gerard, has he returned yet?”

“I’m sorry Lady Eleanor; we still have no word on his return.”

I have no doubts that he will make it back safely. I don’t like it but the fact is our survival depends on him. We might be able to make it out of the tunnel without his help, but traveling to Asmuth will come with its own problems as well.

“It’s fine, I’m sure he will be back before we need to leave. For now we need to gather everyone here. We will continue with the plan we decided on with Mr. Jayce before he left.”

We’ve decided to bring two guards with us for additional security. It’s not much but they are well trained and may be useful in the event Mr. Jayce is incapacitated in some way. They haven’t been informed but when checking into their backgrounds we found neither of them has family of any kind. The perfect type able to leave without needing much notice.

“Then Lady Eleanor, should I send someone to look for Sir Ellis?”

“No, my husband will find his way back before things get too dangerous, of that I’m sure. Make certain my son remains close though Gerard.”

“Yes, of course, Lady Eleanor.”

“Then I will be going to my study to rest. I feel a little unwell so please send some water and something light to eat Gerard.”

Is it finally time to leave? It’s almost hard to believe. Everything our family has built will soon be gone. Once Elkia takes control they’ll strip the families of their wealth and control to appease the masses. The people will welcome them with open arms.

The land of my ancestors. I wonder, will they applaud my efforts at ensuring the survival of the family, or will they berate me for losing the lands they built their legacies on. Hopefully I will not find out for a very long time.

********

“Archers aim for the Ogres! Do not worry about the men for now. Ballista’s I want you taking out their catapults!”

Shit, where did these bastards come from! There was no warning of attack on our bridges. We’re but 100 men against this army.

“Captain it’s a message from the General.”

“Well, what does it say!?”

“Sir, currently the General is en route to the western canal gate that is under attack. There are hostile forces located within the city, they are unsure of when reinforcements will be able to come.”

What the hell is going on? We’re being attacked from the west also, is this really Elkia? And what is with that message?

“Is that all it says? Are there no other details at all?”

“I’m sorry sir that’s all it says.”

Damnit! We were told we’d be facing the barbarians from the north, not Elkia and they were still hundreds of miles off! We’ve focused our men based on the intelligence reports we received from the council. Who told them we would only face barbarians! And why did the General only leave 100 men here!

“Make ready the lime pots! When those bastards start crossing our bridges I want their lungs to burst and their eyes to explode from the pain!”

If we don’t get reinforcements I don’t know how long we’ll be able to hold out for. With ogres included it’s only a matter of time before they break through our walls. We don’t have enough men to hold them.

“Start boiling the pots and get those blockades up! Lt. send a request to the guild for as many men as they can send. When they burst through our gates I want them to beg for the comforts of hell.”

Damn Elkian scum, I’m not even surprised that they’ve allied with the northern barbarians. They’re all just a bunch of bandits and rapists. Moving from one city to the next just taking whatever they want and destroying everything else.

********

“Major we need to take out those towers and embrasures. Have the trebuchet and the mangonels launch the pitch pots. Let’s get those drawbridges and that entire wall covered in flames.”

Hopefully the smoke from the pitch should hinder their lines of sight and ease the torrent of arrows and bolts they’re raining down towards my men.

“Do we have any word from the General?”

“Sir, the gate to the canal is still down. The General plans on continuing the attack and has begun the erection of the siege towers.”

“And what of our men inside of the city?”

“No word from them sir.”

Did they fail then? We never pinned our hopes on them completely but raising the gate was important and it was something they should have been able to accomplish. But even if they failed we should have heard from them at least. It doesn’t change what we need to do here though.

“Then is our boom tower up? Have there been any attempts to flee through the eastern canal?”

“The boom tower is in place sir but there are no reports of escapees at this time.”

“Major get those orders out, if the gate hasn’t been lifted then the General will be looking at a more difficult battle than we planned for. We need to take these two gatehouses as quickly as possible, worst case we may need to make our way to the General.”

********

“Lady CeeCee you sure are in a good mood.”

“Why wouldn’t I be Burton? Everything is going as planned; well there are a few hiccups on the western wall. They weren’t able to raise the gate but they were able to diminish the opposition General Mason will face greatly, it won’t be long before the northern bridges are taken, and Penrith’s military was completely wiped out, yes so far everything has gone in our favor wouldn’t you say?”

“Well that’s true, that mage was a bit of a surprise though, thankfully we were able to get him tied up building a pit or he could have become a real pain. Honestly where did Alan find him?”

“Apparently he was performing party tricks at Alan’s wedding. The thought of us almost failing because of a wedding entertainer is almost laughable don’t you agree?”

“Alan, Alan, what to do with him now. It’s not that I dislike the man but he’s incapable of seeing the bigger picture. The days of self-governing cities are over. What do you think we should do Lady CeeCee?”

“Leave Alan to me, I’ll convince him somehow, and if I’m unable to then we’ll need to restrain him and wait for the General to make a decision.”

What a shame, his father was a lot more fun, and easier to manipulate. Such a passionate man unlike Alan. If it wasn’t for the fact that we were both to be heads of our families we probably would have married instead of staying secret lovers.

I want to protect Alan for his father’s sake. I wanted to help him along, support him on the council, and then eventually bring him to our side to ensure his safety. Sadly things don’t always work out the way we plan; I thought I would have more time.

Or maybe, did I just move too slow? Supporting his ideas were all just a pretense to gain his trust. His ideas weren’t necessarily bad, they just weren’t very practical and not worth implementing. Once Elkia takes over they will put their own system into place.

Ever since I was a child Freeport has been on the decline. The mines to the north have long since dried up, and the northern barbarians have crippled our means of food production. Freeport has nothing left to export; soon we won’t even be able to feed our own citizens. Elkia coming isn’t us being conquered, it’s us being saved. Unfortunately most people don’t see it that way, people like Alan.

“Hmm… then we’ll do as you suggest. The rest of the council should be here shortly. And what of General Kurtis? ”

“Isaac has taken care of him; there should be nothing to worry about there.”

“That’s unfortunate, it’s a shame General Kurtis was unable to be reasoned with.”

“I thought the offer was very generous, sadly he was unwilling to become a member of the Elkian military. I believe Isaac said the general's words were “I was born a Freeport citizen and I want to die as a Freeport citizen”, his words were foolish, but in the end he got want he wanted.”

“It would appear so…, was it the shadow walker?

“I didn’t ask, but I assume it was.”

The shadow walker; poor Alan, it’s a lesson in not trusting your retainers too much that you had to learn the hard way. For most people loyalty has a price, a noble status and wealth in the Kingdom of Elkia is not something one can easily pass up.

“Hmm… well then, Lady CeeCee the others should be arriving shortly, we should prepare as well. Let’s just hope Alan can be reasoned with.”

“Yes, hopefully…”

Ah, Alan, I would hate to see you turned into a scapegoat and made an example of. You’re a married man now; surely you must realize it’s not just your life that hangs on your decision.

********

Five thousand men on each side of the river marched forward with siege towers towards the wall. What should have been the most heavily fortified section of the wall had barely half the numbers it should have defending it.

The Elkian soldiers who had infiltrated Freeport in the months before the invasion had attacked late at night hoping to raise the gate the moment their General appeared triumphantly. Unfortunately they were unable to completely defeat the guards on duty quietly and the main force of the Freeport military arrived.

The Elkian soldiers were ruthless, but ultimately they were defeated in a large battle that the majority of the population never even heard due to the relative distance of the western canal gate from most homes and businesses.

The destruction of their towers caused morale to drop in the soldiers, but despite this none of them thought they would lose. That was because no invading army had ever been able to breach their walls. To the veteran soldiers tasked with guarding the gate, this had become a yearly event.

Though their numbers were greater than normal, and they had traveled by boat instead of land, it was still the Elkian military they had become accustomed to fighting every fall. The skirmish would last for a month, maybe even two months. But soon Elkia would return home as they always did and things would settle down once again. At least that is how things had always played out up until now.

For most mercenaries of Freeport, more than half of their yearly wages came during the battles with Elkia. Those who distinguished themselves during battle would get bonuses based on their merits. It was a considerable portion of the military’s budget that motivated battle starved mercenaries.

“General, it’s a message from Isaac Wolfe.”

“Go ahead read it.”

Unfurling the small message carried by pigeon the soldier began to read

“Fierce battle at western gate. Major Freeport losses. Elkian infiltrators captured. Unable to open gate”

“Hmm… so it seems the Freeport military still has a little bit of fight in them after all. I had hoped the council would have handled this, but I’ll find out what went wrong once we meet.”

The men chosen to infiltrate the city were not an elite unit; they were mostly newly conscripted soldiers so to the General losing them was inconsequential. What bothered him though was why there were so many soldiers guarding the wall the night before they were set to invade. It was something the council should have taken care of.

“General, what are your orders sir?”

“For now we continue as planned. We will continue to bombard the wall and weaken their defenses. Unfortunately we will need to rely on men scaling the towers to open the gate. The rest are to standby in the boats until we enter the city.”

Boulders weighing up to 200lbs loaded by Ogres onto Elkian catapults slammed against the city wall creating cracks and causing the walls to tremble, with Freeport answering back by taking aim at their towers and boats with pots of flammable plant resins.

Occasionally a fireball or an ice lance would launch towards the Elkian forces from atop the wall along the walkway. These were the rank 3 and 4 mages from the mercenary guild who joined in the battle. Elkia had a small number of mages of this level as well, but rank 3 or 4 magic was not enough to damage large walls so they were mainly used in open field battles.

War, the type of war the General knew well was in full swing. This was conventional warfare. Battles with high mortality rates and gruesome injuries. Many soldiers who fought for the first time in these conditions would be plagued by nightmares and terrors for weeks to come.

Sitting in his covered boat the General did not notice at first, but around him the earth had begun to tremble as if a massive explosion had occurred. The sounds of shouting men fell silent and the boat began to rock side to side in a gentle fashion.

“General Sir! Reporting what appears to be an earth shake sir!”

“An earth shake? Here in Freeport? I’ve never heard of an earth shake happening in the plains, let me see.”

The written history of the Northern Territories was short in comparison to the southern kingdoms, but in 500 years there had never been a report of an earth shake in the vast plains. At the very least the General had never heard of one.

When he went to the surface of the boat looking around he saw many of the men were cowering on the ground while the covering their heads as Ogres rampaged, slamming their fists on the ground. The tight formations of professional soldiers were gone and in its place was chaos.

“What is going on? An earth shake, at this time? Is this an act of the gods?”

While the General was in thought the men standing guard over Freeport were equally terrified. Most had never even heard of an earth shake, they begged the gods and asked for forgiveness. They asked the gods to spare their lives as they confessed every sin they could remember.

“TO THE SHORE! Colonel get everyone to the shore now! This isn’t an earth shake, he’s collapsed the pit. Get to the shore now before the river runs dry!”

********

Below the surface of the massive hollowed out pit knelt a young man in a gambeson jacket and metal plate armor. With his left arm on his thigh and his right hand pressed to the ground his face was scrunched as if he were in pain, but if one could see it, all around him he was amassing mana into a large sphere just beneath his feet.

To collapse the entire pit and force the river to flow into it would require a massive shockwave. One larger than Jayce had ever produced before in his life. And once he released the shockwave he would need to flee as quickly as possible or else he could be forced to battle his way out.

This shockwave would buy time for Freeport, but Jayce still needed to deal with Osborne, and he was certain he now had a way. Taking a deep breath one last time Jayce pressed his hand as hard as he could into the ground and forced the mana to explode out along the bottom of the pit in all directions.

The waves rippled through the ground causing the pillars that were holding up the surface to buckle and then crumble into pieces and crash onto the bottom of the pit. Everything within a half-mile radius of Jayce was violently shaken and the ripples spread out for many more miles.

The hardened wall holding back the river shattered and the water flooded into the pit before the surface could fully collapse causing a violent wind to erupt out through any cracks it could find.

Jayce encased himself in stone and created a pillar beneath his feet that brought him to the surface where he saw the ground all around him fracturing and collapsing into an ever-expanding lake formed by the river.

Osborne stood by the edge of the pit grinding his teeth in fury. He knew what was going to happen now that the pit had collapsed, but there was nothing he could do to stop it. All he could do now is kill the person who did it and hope his brother didn’t punish him too severely.

Osborne was close to 1000 feet from his current position. He would need to get closer, but that wouldn’t be easy. Though no one was around, and Osborne would not be able to hear him, Jayce still quietly muttered.

“Then Mr. Osborne, what do you plan to do?”