Paul winced as he heard stone crack as a ballista bolt rammed into it. It meant another part of his fortress was falling apart. Over the last several months, most of the teeth, the crenellations, on the wall had been picked off, and the towers had major cracks running throughout. It was only a matter of time before they fell. It broke Paul’s heart that he still needed his men to stay on top of the towers and fire the trebuchets back at the enemy. Sooner or later, the towers would fall, and those men would die, and yet they stayed voluntarily, knowing their death was assured.

When the first cracks appeared on the towers, his guards would not allow him to examine them. They risked execution by physically standing in the doorway of the tower and not letting him through. But in reality, Paul could not imagine hurting the men who would put their life on the line for his safety. In time as the towers and walls of the fortress became more and more damaged, Paul's guards managed to talk their King into moving across the river into the fortress on the other side of the bridge. Paul felt guilty moving to a place of safety, but his guards were right, staying in the danger zone didn’t help anyone, and if something happened to him it would dramatically hurt the war effort. Despite the move, Paul’s heart was across the river with his men, and every single day, he stood at the top of the tower closest to the fortress that was crumbling under his men's feet and watched as his men, really just boys, fought back.

He could see clearly as the towers shook under the strikes of the ballistae. Months ago, when the siege started, he could hear the thunks of the ballistae hitting the towers all day and night, and it appeared they did nothing, but after untold thousands of strikes there were cracks throughout the tower. If the battle was over tomorrow, his people would spend a year or two taking the tower down piece by piece because it was no longer safe. Sooner or later, it would fall, with or without the help of the enemy.

Despite that, those brave boys went to the top of the tower every day. Some maintained the trebuchet, others loaded it, others used a giant wheel that looked like a hamster wheel to draw the arm back into firing position, and still others used a pulley system to bring rocks, solid rubber balls, iron balls, and other projectiles to the top of the tower. Those brave boys at the top of the tower were staying there to keep the Himyarite army at bay. They were buying time, and they thought their lives was a cheap price to pay for time.

They knew that the navy burned the ports of the Himyarites; they knew the spirits were going after their wagon trains. They cheered and celebrated when they heard that Alexander had captured the governor of the Himyarite colonies. Sooner or later, the army out there would lose their supply of food, and when those men were hungry and weak, that’s when Paulsland would attack. But the trebuchets had to keep the army at bay, and they were giving their life for that honor. Those brave boys.

Paul did not sit idly by as he waited for the tower to crumble. He sent word to Titus at the castra that they needed to attack the ballistae, and he responded that they just didn’t have the manpower, that they would have to wait for the right time. The right time would be when a tower fell, and the entire enemy army was distracted by the spectacle. Paul was not happy with this decision. It meant that they would not move until the lives of some of his men were gone, but in war, sometimes you had to allow some to die so more could live.

Time passed, and the towers grew more cracked and damaged. Holes opened up in the interior, and members of the Illuminati came to study the tower to see what they could do better next time. Where Paul saw the towers as the grave of his men, the Illuminati saw the towers as a fascinating science project. Paul was too emotionally invested in the boys, who would soon give up their lives, to deal with the happiness the Illuminati felt by having their intellectual curiosity fulfilled by studying the damage to the tower. They made notes and drawings of the damage, and to Paul’s consternation, they rejoiced every time they found damage in the same spot in several towers, as it was the clearest example of an area that needed to be designed.

And time passed. More chunks of the towers crumbled away, but the brave boys still went to the top and faithfully fired the trebuchets. When the outside of the tower was opened by the damage, the brave boys still faithfully climbed up the tower to their post and fought for their nation, their families, and their King. When the ballista bolts damaged the stairs in the tower, the boys made ladders so they could reach the top of the tower and continue fighting.

As time passed, the towers sustained far more damage than they should have survived, but they continued to stand, and as long as those towers stood, the brave boys fought. To Paul’s eyes, the towers began to look like a tree that someone had taken an ax to. There were gashes all along the tower facing the enemy. The gashes were deepest where the tower met the top of the wall. It was like the Himyarites were trying to cut the tower off the wall.

Ballista bolt after ballista bolt, slammed into the towers, and then one ballista bolt too many slammed into the tower, and it began tilting along the wall where the deepest gash was. Paul felt his heart stop, and he said a silent prayer, asking any god that would listen to stop the tower from falling over, but his prayer went unanswered. As the tower tilted, the fall sped up, and as it fell, the trebuchet and boys on top were flung off, and the tower began to crumble as it fell.

As the tower fell, screams could be heard across the fort. Some from the soldiers on the wall near the falling tower, others from friends and relatives of the brave boys who were falling to their death, and perhaps the brave boys falling to their deaths screamed as well, but no one would ever admit it, as those brave boys showed their courage by continually fighting from a tower that was crumbling under them with every ballista bolt. They were the bravest men of Paulsland.

As the tower hit the ground, dust flew everywhere, and Paul’s eyes began to stream tears. After a moment's pause, Paul began shouting orders, “OPEN THE GATE! RETRIEVE ANY SURVIVORS! RETRIEVE ANY BODIES! WE WILL NOT ALLOW THE HIMYARITES TO ABUSE THE BODIES OF THOSE BRAVE BO… THOSE MEN OF COURAGE!”

As the men in the fort were scrambling to retrieve the brave fallen and reposition themselves, the Himyarite army was cheering, and commanders were blowing horns and banging drums to position their army to probe the fortress when all the dust cleared. They had been pelting the fortress for months, so even if the falling tower did not provide a way into the fort, perhaps a gate was damaged, or there was some other opportunity. Their men simply had to march forward to find out.

Titus had been waiting for this moment. The Himyarite army was finally distracted. They were focused on the dust of the fallen tower and maneuvering their men to take advantage of the fallen tower. It was finally time to use his knights.

He had five hundred knights, all on stallions. Every morning they were on those stallions before the sun went up, and they stayed on or next to their horse until the sun went down. They stayed behind the castra out of sight of the enemy because Titus was waiting for the right time to shock and awe his enemy, and now was the right time. As the dust flew in the air, Titus had drummers play one message, “GO!”

The knights were not shocked by the falling of the tower; they had expected it for weeks, but hearing the drum play the beat that ordered them to battle brought a multitude of emotions and feelings to the men. Fear, excitement, uncertainty, mixed with a resolute heart tempered in training, battling nomads and beasts in the savannah.

As the Knights heard the beat, each one did one thing before anything else. They turned up the wick on their lamps. On the day they arrived, Titus had given each man a lamp, and given specific orders about what to do with them. It was their job to keep the lamp filled with coal oil, and now that they were called into battle, they were turning the wick up on the lamp to make sure it did not go out when it was finally going to get used.

Once the wick was high on the lamp, they got on their mounts and had their horses trot alongside the tropical forest. These knights in shining armor did not want to be seen yet. They used the cover of the forest as best as they could.

As the Knights passed between the tropical forest and the castra, Titus ordered his veteran infantry to go into the tropical forest and the rest of his soldiers to begin forming up outside the castra, in full view of the Himyarite army. Titus wanted his army to be seen, to blind the enemy to his knights and his veterans. The knights did not notice this as their horses trotted next to the tropical forest, out of sight of the Himyarite army.

In just a couple of minutes, the first knight reached the edge of the tropical forest and, with no more cover, began to gallop at the enemy. As the horse began to gallop, every knight behind the first followed suit. They hid as long as they were able to, now was the time to charge.

As soon as a lookout spotted the Knights galloping to his army at full speed, he sent out a warning; unfortunately, most of the army assumed the lookout was just telling them about the Paulsland army marching out of the castra. They were too focused on forming up and taking advantage of the fallen tower of the stone fortress to pay too much attention to the soldiers of the wooden fortress.

As the knights galloped forward, lances out, the Himyarite army was slow to respond because Titus had waited to use them until the Himyarite army was distracted. But the closer the knights came, the more the Himyarite army reacted. More lookouts began sounding warnings. Men who had been playing horns and drums about forming up began changing their beat to imminent attack. Soldiers who had been focused on the dust of a fallen tower were slow to notice the dust cloud coming from the west.

That’s when the Himyarites noticed the knights did not have the good grace to attack the soldiers lining up for battle; instead, the knights were going behind their lines and headed directly for the ballistae.

As they charged, there were some Himyarite soldiers in the way. Some of them ran; others turned, lifted their spear, and faced them. It didn’t matter, the Knights' lances were longer than the soldier's spears, and those who fought were pierced through the front and trampled, and those who ran were pierced through the back and trampled.

As the knights galloped toward the ballistae, the engineers began running in every direction except the one the galloping horses came from. Some ran toward the soldiers, others the camp, and others toward the sea. By the time the knights reached the ballistae, all the engineers were gone. Many of the knights threw their lanterns at the ballistae, setting them on fire quickly. None of the Himyarites even tried to extinguish the fires as individual men were running for safety, and large blocks of soldiers were trying to move to intercept the knights without exposing themselves.

The knights didn’t wait for the soldiers. Instead, they turned toward the camp and raced toward it. It was time to make the desert dwellers pay, and it wouldn’t be hard because the desert dwellers had not built a wall around their camp.

As they charged the undefended camp, they ran down all the engineers that had chosen, poorly, to run toward the camp. As the knights reached the camp, the Himyarites, as a whole, forgot about the falling tower and focused on the knights. They began maneuvering all the soldiers they had to the camp. They had to thwart this attack. They even managed to put one formation of soldiers between the knights and the camp.

When the knights saw the formation of soldiers, the knights charged directly toward them, then nearly a hundred yards before the two sides met, the calvary split in two and went around the soldiers. Now that the ballistae were burning, the job of the cavalry was to attack supplies. They had no intention of directly fighting a formation of soldiers who were protected by a wall of spears.

As they entered the camp, they pierced stragglers with their lances, but there was so much stuff in the narrow confines of the camp, lances became entangled in the surrounding tents and camping gear, and most of the knights left their lances behind in the camp. Later that evening, when Titus asked why they left their lances behind, the knights would say, “The Himyarites paid for them in blood.”

Unfortunately, several soldiers were able to use the things in the camp as cover, which allowed effective attacks on the knights. And so, the knights and their horses began getting injured. Horses and men began falling. As they fell, the other knights would rescue their fallen brothers. Sometimes it was as simple as reaching out to a knight who lost his horse and helping him climb yours. Other times knights would surround a wounded comrade, and two or three would dismount and haul a wounded friend onto the back of a steed. The knights were very well protected but not invulnerable.

As they weaved through the camp, they pulled out their sabers and executed anyone they came across while nimbly avoiding men in formations. They were here for chaos, not battle.

Within a few minutes, some of the knights who still had their lanterns made it to some food supplies. They tossed their lanterns which burst, spreading coal oil and fire across the things this army needed to live.

Chaos caused; the knights began making their way out the west side of the camp.

To the Himyarites, it looked like the knights were heading to the west because the army closed off their path to the other two forts. General Bayin was expertly using the horn and drum players to cut off paths of retreat and have his soldiers pursue the knights into the tropical forest. His soldiers were much slower than horses in most cases, but one of the exceptions was a horse rider in the forest. Men on horseback would have to constantly move around low-hanging branches which would often mean they had to stop and backtrack in any forest that did not have a well-maintained road.

The knights spread further and further out the closer they got to the forest. It was clear that they were in a hurry to hide in the trees and make their way back to their castra through the forest. When the knights reached the forest, they practically stopped, not wanting to get knocked off their horses by branches, before their horses carefully walked in. By the time the last knight disappeared into the foliage, a formation of a thousand Himyarite soldiers was right on their heels.

General Bayin ordered another three thousand men to follow them into the tropical forest. It was the only logical option. His men would have a far easier time fighting the knights in the forest than anywhere else.

But Titus knew it was the logical option and his veteran soldiers were waiting in the tropical forest. The best infantry Paulsland had to offer. Although they were trained to fight in large formations, Paulsland geography and King Paul’s experience made them the best woodland fighters in the world.

As the knights entered the forest, the infantry allowed them to pass, and they awaited the Himyarite infantry about a hundred feet into the forest. The Himyarite infantry was disciplined enough to stay in formation until they reached the forest, but the trees, bushes, and foliage of the forest made the Himyarite infantry’s formation separate. They were not too concerned as they planned on swarming the knights and pulling them from their horses before stabbing them to death.

As they rushed into the forest, hoping to catch up to frantic horsemen trying to find a safe path away from them, they ran straight into the Paulsland veterans who worked together seamlessly to kill the Himyarite soldiers. The Paulsland soldiers had spent years fighting in these forests as units, and they had no problem overwhelming the desert soldiers who were out of their element. The Himyarite's greatest advantage of fighting in large formations was gone in the forest, whereas the Paulsland soldiers knew how to use the forest to help them attack and defend.

As the Himyarites on the frontline were getting slaughtered, more Himyarites followed them into the forest, thinking that the screams were those of their enemies. In minutes the front line Himyarites were trying to retreat from battle, but reinforcements, unfamiliar terrain, and the forest itself made it hard to disengage from the Paulsland soldiers who appeared to be everywhere.

Nearly six hundred Himyarites died before word reached General Bayin that it was a trap, and he immediately sounded the retreat. Those six hundred Himyarite lives cost Paulsland fifty-three infantry veterans. Veterans they could not afford to lose.

As the Himyarites made it back to the safety of the fields, General Bayin was furious and took his anger out on Amr, “WHY DIDN’T YOU HAVE YOUR MEN PROTECTING OUR BALLISTAE AND CAMP!”

Amr considered his words carefully, “I was ordered to march my soldiers forward to discourage the men from the wooden fortress from blunting Yatha’s probe on the stone fortress. I had no way to know that Paulsland had heavy calvary. If I had known, I would not have left such a gap between my men and the ballistae.”

“It will take at least a week to rebuild the ballistae. Our smiths will have to reforge most of the metal parts, and we lost at least three hundred engineers. We are going to have to put more inexperienced soldiers on the siege tower build teams.”

Amr’s face went pale, and he asked, “Did our lumber supply get burned?”

“No, but a quarter of our food supply did. I guess we are lucky; food is easily replaced by the colonies, although it's going to take weeks to send them a message and hear back from them.”

On the other side of the battlefield in the stone fortress, King Paul was looking over a piece of paper hand delivered by a messenger and said, “We lost thirty-seven horses and twenty knights. That’s at least twenty widows, and who knows how many fatherless children.”

The messenger said, “But look at what they did. They took out the ballistae and wrecked their camp. They are still putting out some of the fires. They should back off now.”

“Back off? They have killed and enslaved my people. I am not giving them the option to back off. Sooner or later, those men are going to be forced to attack. It’s just a matter of time until they find out that their ports have been burned, their colony's capital has been seized, their colonial governor has been captured, and that Alexander’s army is coming at them from the rear. Supplies will soon stop for them, and they may take a few weeks to find out why. Eventually, they will figure out they are surrounded, with nowhere to go, and with no supplies. When they figure out they are cornered, they will have to attack, and I am hoping to make them attack our fortress. And when they attack, that will be their doom.”