Chapter XLVI

Dawn of the second day of the siege came around, and Aryn stood, clad in chain-mail armor, with her soldiers on the wall of the castle. The geomancers had worked through the night to fully repair the walls where the enemy trebuchet had struck, but they'd not managed to fix everything.

Tamas stood with Aryn and looked out at the horizon with his arms folded over his chest. Shamira stood nearby as well. She stretched out and prepared for the possibility of actually seeing combat herself this time.

“Today they'll try to get soldiers past the walls,” Aryn said. “Over, under, through; however they can get them in.”

“How do you know?” Tamas asked.

“It's what I would do,” she replied. “If I were storming this city I'd try to wear down the people inside. If I were Jachai I'd remind the peasant militia inside that they've never seen real battle before, try to scare them.”

“You don't think he'll merely sit back and starve us out?” Shamira asked.

“I think he'll do that too,” Aryn said. “But today will be about killing as many of us as he can. To make a statement. To show that he's the superior military commander. See! Look there!”

Aryn pointed at the horizon as the cavalry rode towards the capital. As she squinted she could see that all of the riders were armed primarily with large crossbows, crossbows powerful enough to carry bolts over the city walls, if the riders aimed high enough.

“Trebuchet, fire!” Aryn shouted. The trebuchet within the city were again loaded with small rocks and the rocks were launched into the field. It was much harder, though, to aim a trebuchet at much smaller, moving targets. Most of the rocks simply fell in the field surrounding the capital. Aryn hadn't expected the trebuchet to do much in that situation, but every little bit helped. As the cavalry drew closer she could see that behind them marched the infantry, covered in a near wall of tower shields and moving in unison.

Just as the cavalry got close to longbow range Aryn called out, “Knock arrows!” arrows were brought to bowstrings and pulled back. As soon as the cavalry was within range Aryn shouted, “LOOSE!” and their arrows fired down on the approaching cavalry. The horses moved so fast, though, that the arrows mostly missed, simply struck the ground surrounding them. A few riders were hit, but their armor, in most cases, was thick enough to stop the arrows from reaching their flesh. They rode in closer and returned fire, launching crossbow bolts up at the archers on the walls. The archers on the walls took cover as the first volley passed, and then rose up again to return fire themselves. However, Jachai's cavalry had been instructed to stagger their shots, and so the second volley was fired just as the archers rose up to the battlements again. This volley took them by surprise, and many of the archers on the wall fell.

The cavaliers began to circle the city. They reloaded their crossbows and turned the cranks as they rode. All the while arrows poured down on them, picking them off little by little. They fired their volleys again this time it was three staggered volleys rather than just two, and many more of the archers on the wall fell. “Alternate between two and three volleys,” Jachai had told them. He knew that after the first time they used this trick the archers on the walls would wait on the second volley.

“OIL AND TAR!” Aryn shouted. The soldiers on the battlements obeyed and kicked over cauldrons full of boiling oils and hot tar. The oils spilled out over the field and splashed on the heads of the cavaliers circling the wall, and the tar oozed out over them. One cavalier was knocked off his horse as a large glob of tar hit him square in the chest and threw him flat on his back with a sickening crunch. The hot tar got between the plates of armor the cavaliers wore. It burned their skin, but nowhere near as badly as what happened next. True to the plan, the soldiers on the walls dropped torches and lanterns off the edge of the walls. The lanterns broke on the ground with the torches, and the oils in the field immediately caught fire. The cavaliers tried to slow or stop their horses, but they were too late, and the oils and tar that had been poured over them caught fire. Cavaliers screamed, horses shrieked and bucked off their riders. Aryn cringed and shook her head at the sight of it, but Tamas placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder to remind her that this was necessary, horrible as it was.

The infantry finally came up close to the city walls, just as the cavalry fell back. The tower shields moved aside to reveal both a battering ram and several large siege-towers, all on their side on wheels. Mixed in with the regular, armor-clad Arxian soldiers Aryn could see the red robes of Inquisition witch-hunters, worn over chain-mail. The battering ram was rolled up to the main gate, and twelve large men came to ram it into the gate. Soldiers took hold of the siege towers and rolled them up to their feet, all while Jachai's archers fired up at the walls in waves, providing covering fire.

The siege-towers rolled up to the walls, and soldiers climbed the ladders inside of them, swords in their hands. Aryn's own soldiers rushed to the places where the tops of the siege-towers met the walls and waited for the soldiers inside to get to the top. Once the enemy soldiers got to the top of the siege towers, they thrust their spears inside. Some of Jachai's soldiers were pierced in the chest and fell back down the siege-towers, falling upon their allies trying to climb up. Others dodged to one side of the spears, grabbed the spears by the shaft, and yanked Aryn's soldiers in close enough to stab them with their swords.

Jachai's archers down below focused their arrows on the areas surrounding the siege-towers to keep Aryn's soldiers away from the towers and provide Jachai's soldiers a chance to climb up.

With arrows flying past him, Milo charged one of the siege-towers with his diamond-bladed claymore in his hands. He cut down the enemy soldiers as they came to the top. Whenever there wasn't a soldier directly in front of Milo for him to fight he took a moment to smash the siege-tower with his diamond sword.

“Unto thee I grant pain!” shouted a voice from within the tower, and Milo doubled over. He screamed and trembled as it felt as if every single nerve in his body were pinched between tiny, red-hot pliers. As Milo writhed on the ground the witch-hunter who cast, and sustained, the spell rose to the top of the tower. One of Jachai's soldiers followed closely, sword out, ready to end Milo's life.

Aryn heard Milo's scream, and thought for a moment it was the sound of a dying animal, not the sound of a man in pain. Seeing the enemy soldier approaching and the witch-hunter standing over him she realized the trouble he was in. She waved her hand and, using the geomancy Kamal had taught her all those years, caused the bricks under the feet of the witch-hunter and the soldier to crumble. The two of them lost their balance, fell off the wall, and crashed head-first into the city streets below.

As soon as the pain was gone Milo dropped his sword, leaped to his feet, and seized the siege-tower with both hands. Down the hole he could see many more soldiers climbing up the ladder inside, one of them nearly in reach of him. Milo groaned and his muscles tensed as with all the strength he could muster he threw the siege-tower off of the wall. The soldiers inside felt the sudden shift in gravity, and their bodies fell back against the back wall of the siege-tower. They shouted in fear and despair as they felt their own weight carry the momentum of the siege-tower crashing down to the ground. The wood splintered, and shards of it filled the air as the soldiers hit the ground. They felt their ribs, spines, and skulls break.

Arrows struck Milo's chest-plate, and some even pierced deep enough to be stuck there, but none were so deep as to pierce his flesh. He picked up his sword again and ran off to the next siege-tower.

Tamas was at the top of another of the siege-towers, stabbing enemy soldiers as they reached the top. Like Milo, however, he realized that they weren't going to be able to hold them off forever like this, the siege-towers needed to be destroyed, not simply blocked. Thinking quickly, he picked up one of the spears and thrust it through the side of the tower, partially blocking the path that the enemy soldiers were climbing up. Once he was satisfied that he'd slowed them down he called out to two of the other soldiers, “Help me with this!” and he began to push on the tower. The others rushed over and helped him push on the tower until the weight inside shifted enough to throw that one over the edge as well.

Peering over the walls, and covered by Shamira’s shield, Aryn launched stone after stone down upon the soldiers manning the battering ram. She smashed their heads or dislocated their shoulders. Each time she killed or incapacitated an enemy soldier, though, a new one took that soldier's place at the ram, and they continued to batter the main door. Splinters and sawdust flew with every slam, meaning that they were starting to actually break through the gate. Something needed to be done about the ram itself. Even with her constant spells, and the arrows that pelted the soldiers there it seemed they'd break through before they ran out of soldiers willing to man the ram.

It was then that Aryn spotted one of the fallen paladins on the wall. In the paladin's hand was an ax with a diamond blade. Perfect! Aryn waved her hand at it and then pointed at the ram. The diamond-bladed ax flew down at the battering ram and began to repeatedly hack at it. One of the soldiers tried to snatch the ax out of the air by the handle, but the ax spun around and struck him in the face. The ax then whipped around again to hack at the battering ram once more.

Aryn tried a multitude of different angles, trying to find the spot in the wood where she could split the ram in two. Finally she found a crack in the grain of the wood and she wedged the ax in there as deeply as she could. She then lifted a large stone off the ground with a wave of her other hand and pounded the ax with it until the ram split in half and was rendered useless.

She smiled to herself and threw her hair back, out of her face, proud of her own ingenuity. Her proud moment was short-lived, however, as soldiers with war hammers and great axes rushed to the gate and continued the ram’s job by hand. All she'd managed to do was slow them down, and not by much. Lifting the ax again with her geomancy she swungit back and forth, hacking at the soldiers at the gate. The ax's blade was so sharp and so strong that their armor stood no chance against it. One of the soldiers knocked the ax out of the air with his hammer, splintered the wooden handle of the ax. However, the diamond head was still intact, so Aryn was able to continue her assault

“Unto thee I grant pain!” she heard a voice near her shout, and she doubled over in an agony unlike anything she'd ever felt before. She would have fallen right over the wall had Shamira not been there to catch her. City guards were on the witch-hunter in seconds, and they drove their swords through the man who'd dared to attack their queen with his insidious magic.

The distraction had been enough time, though, for the soldiers to break a hole through the main gate big enough for them to get through. City guards and Uvino knights were just waiting for them on the other side, and attacked them as they came in, but Jachai's soldiers had gotten into the city by the main gate, and they rushed in to kill whoever got in their way. Witch-hunters ran in as well and cast their foul spells at Aryn's soldiers before they ran off to hide within the city.

“Stop them!” Aryn shouted in panic. Truth was, if the witch-hunters managed to find places to hide within the city then they could let enemy soldiers in during the night, open some of the smaller gates for them. No, they couldn't suffer even a single witch-hunter to get away.

Thankfully, militia soldiers had taken hiding places within the city and came out to ambush Jachai's soldiers and the witch-hunters as they ran through the city streets. Mere peasants attacked with a ferocity that Aryn had simply never seen before. They tackled witch-hunters and tore them apart or savagely bashed in their rib-cages.

Golems rose from under the streets as well. Their great stone bodies lumbered towards the intruding soldiers. Jachai's soldiers knew better than to try to attack golems. Bodies made of stone were hardly vulnerable to their weapons, but not all of them managed to escape as the golems chased them. The golems bashed them into the ground with their fists, or picked them up in their hands and threw them. The golems' knuckles were spiked with diamonds, which pierced deep into the enemy armor, in some cases even tore straight through.

Again, though, Aryn was only celebrating for a moment, as the witch-hunters responded to this new threat by chanting something in a language she didn't recognize. Was it the Ancient Tongue? No, it sounded totally different from that. Immediately after the chanting, though, symbols tattooed to the witch-hunters' arms, previously hidden under their sleeves, began to glow. Angels appeared on the battlefield within the city, one for every witch-hunter, and they fought back against the golems. While the golems were made of stone, they were no match for the angels made of diamond, who cut through them with their blade-like feathers like they were only paper.

Witch-hunters who had reached the tops of the walls conjured angels as well, and the angels tore through Aryn's soldiers. There are no words that can fully describe the existential horror of such a sight. For Aryn this could not have been more terrifying. It wasn't just that the angels were nigh unstoppable, but also because angels were servants of the God whom Aryn believed was on her side, the God who created the world. Yet here they were, attacking her people, slaughtering loyal Agalmites from Arx and the West. Had Livana been wrong? Did God actually hate Aryn for pretending she deserved the throne? Aryn fell to her knees at the sight. True despair gripped her. Many of the soldiers on the wall fellto their knees as well to accept the execution that the angels were gave them. If angels were attacking them they felt they probably deserved to die. Aryn could see one of the angels walking towards her, its diamond-body covered in the blood of her soldiers. The wings were like two great scythes, and she was ready to be cut down.

“NO! Stand and fight!” Milo called out, and Shamira yanked Aryn to her feet again. “False angels! Fallen! Not servants of God!” And Milo struck out with his diamond-bladed sword at the angel that was about to execute Aryn. His blade cut deep into the angel’s side.

The angel rounded on him and swung its sharp wings at him. He barely fell back in time to avoid being sliced in two. One of the city guards attacked the angel that was after Milo, struck it with a mace with all his might, but the mace broke in his hands. The angel picked up the guard who struck it and threw him from the wall. Milo took that second of distraction and struck the angel again. This time he cut most of the way through its neck and then kicked it off the wall. Disoriented, the angel fell the full height of the wall and crashed on the ground. Weak from Milo’s assault, the angel broke into three pieces when it hit.

“How do we fight angels?” Aryn shouted to Milo as she waved her hands and tiny diamonds flew from the pouch on her waist and to cut the attacking angels. The cuts were superficial, though, and the tiny diamonds Aryn used soon proved to be too weak against the angels as they broke down and turned to dust.

“Oh, damn it all!” Tamas shouted. He dropped his sword and thrust a knife into the palm of his hand. He'd held onto this secret for so long that he'd hesitated to reveal it now. He knew full well that revealing this here and now was likely to get him killed, but if they lost this battle that would definitely get him killed. His blood poured out on the ground, and from it demons of all kinds began to pour forth and attack the witch-hunters' angels. Hundreds of demons flew from the pool of Tamas' blood on the top of the walls, no two alike, and they broke and killed the angels that attacked Aryn's soldiers.

Aryn's soldiers, as well as Jachai's, shouted in terror as they saw the demons, but then stared with confusion as the demons began to defend Aryn's soldiers. The demons stood between them and the attacking angels, in some cases even dragged them to safety.

“FALL BACK!” The commanders near the city wall shouted. This was truly one surprise too many. If warlocks were siding with Aryn they needed a new strategy.

Jachai's soldiers and the witch-hunters fell back. They fled from the city, their retreat made more difficult as arrows still rained down on top of them. The remaining few angels on the battlements and within the city dissipated, turned into diamond dust, and floated away.

Shamira, having seen what Tamas had done, dashed over to him as the demons began to disappear as well and as he was wrapping up his wounded hand in bandages. As soon as she arrived there she socked him in the stomach, tore the knife from his hand and the sword from his belt, and seized him by his short, red hair. She dragged him over to Aryn, jerking him around harshly.

Aryn stared at Tamas in disbelief, she truly wasn't sure what to do about him. Sure, he'd helped them, but he'd done so by conjuring demons. This meant that he was a Nihilite and a warlock, and likely hiding all sorts of strange secrets. What's more, he'd managed to summon an entire army of demons single-handedly, something warlocks weren't typically capable of.

“You have a lot of explaining to do!” said Shamira.

“I'm just glad we're all alive for it,” groaned Tamas.

“You've been a Nihilite all along?” Aryn asked.

“By birth, not by faith, your majesty,” Tamas said.

“Not by faith? If you're not loyal to the demons how did you summon one?”

“As I said, it has to do with my birth. I'm an aeon, so they obey me.”

“An aeon?” Aryn asked.

Tamas didn't know if she'd believe what he was about to tell her, but it would probably be better to try to explain it to her than to make up a convincing lie. “I'm a daemon lord, born in human flesh, one of the sons of the late King Therion and the soothsayer known as Deidra.”

“One of?” Aryn repeated.

“I have a twin. His name is Elykos. Listen, why don't we discuss this inside. Bring Milo, Shamira, and any other paladins you want for protection, if you're scared, and I'll explain everything.”