Robert E. Howard: The Conan Chronicles, Volume 2: The Hour of the Dragon (1932-1936)

Under Avandra’s Eyes LI: Counter

Marcus leads the counter attack. Thank you to @canyouhearthelight for her beta-reading and a truly awesome line, and thank you to everyone who’s tuned in.

Thomas’s attack on the tunnel had come out a rousing success and crippled that angle of the siege by the time the probe arrived at the city, and Iris’s archers were in position to repel it. Infantry had continued to drill, becoming at least competent to hold a line with spears and shields, which was all they really needed to be for what Marcus was planning. Baldor had insisted on staying with the infantry - apparently the older knight was determined that his presence would be a morale boost amongst the scared sweepings troops, and ultimately Marcus couldn’t really dispute him. One thousand actual soldiers, three thousand half-trained amatuers. Marcus didn’t love his odds, but he couldn’t deny they could be much worse. 

Two thousand of the soldiers he’d been training were with him, nervous and grim-faced, and they were already moving to draw more soldiers into a trap - to try to probe one of Agammemnon’s siege camps, the one that the probe had come from. Hacking apart the palisade would open it up for cavalry strikes, and the fact that the gates themselves were being probed by a decent body of infantry - even if those were being pretty well met by Iris’s archers and the two battalions of veterans supporting the last two of sweepings troops, as commanded by both their captains and Baldor - meant that that this camp would be vulnerable to a hard counterattack that could break one of the points of pressure that Aegir’s forces was bringing to bear on the city. 

    He had to trust that they’d hold the gate - there had been an impressive force moving on it, but between the forces in the city they should be able to hold reasonably well. It seemed mostly an effort to see what kind of defense the city could put up - to determine if the city could hold against a real push on multiple fronts, meaning that Marcus needed to make this counterstrike count. If Thomas could collapse the sapper tunnel, and Marcus could break one of the camps, in addition to the probe being decisively repelled, Agammemnon might well come to the conclusion that he was best served by pulling back further out still from the city  and trying to re-concentrate his forces - at which point Marcus could hit his separate elements in concentration and try to destroy him in detail while they moved, ideally starting with the Margrave himself and sending his head back to the traitorous Elector-Prince he had thrown in for.

    One of his captains held up a hand and the men came to a halt. Not quite as cleanly as the Eisenblud Corps -  his fathers prized elite in the West - would have, but then those were the best damned infantry in the Empire and possibly the world. The captains were experienced soldiers, at least. “Didn’t entrench as well as they could have - and they don’t seem to have expected us coming. Where do you think their screeners are?”

    Marcus shook his head. “At a guess, they’re looking for Iris’s rangers. Either that, or this is a trap. Either way, I want us to be through those palisades as quickly as we can be, ideally without damaging the stakes too badly. I’d like to have something to stop their cavalry if we need it.” With infantry in the open it would be all to easy to catch them unawares with cavalry and maul them, from a fixed position with the wooden fortifications that could halt the charging horses, Marcus liked their chances much better.

    The other camp was mostly deserted - some four thousand had attacked the gate, very clearly expecting to be able to cause some casualties and inflict some losses before withdrawing in good order. It was pretty clear that Agammemnon was preparing for a drawn-out affair of shuffling his forces around until he could get reinforcements to break Justanlia while Marcus’s numbers were only going to dwindle. Marcus had no intentions of letting it get that far. He signaled and his troops abruptly began moving forward - to his satisfaction, keeping the ranks relatively even, forcing their way through the palisade. The enemy soldiers hadn’t bothered to set a watch - clearly not anticipating an attack of any real force, and their cavalry obviously committed elsewhere, possibly preventing some sort of reinforcement. Marcus’s sweepings troops were through the palisade and formed up before the enemy had finished gathering - and one of the Justanlian battalions was already moving to attack, Marcus leading it personally. 

    Marcus swept a sword low, trying to weave around a hedge of spears and swords - quickly ducking back as his men pressed forward as a relatively disciplined block and pushed, close weapons in front rank, spears plying from the two behind, thrusting over shields and shoulders and finding flesh. The enemy might not have had the numbers where they were - they were trying to pile in, add into the blocks of troops that were already trying to rally to defend the camp. Marcus took a pause, hacking at spear hafts as he attempted to help his troops push forward, trying to let them push forward and let them breach the opposing line. 

    Men fell, dying, screaming, wounded, and kicking, begging for mercy and clutching their wounds with every few steps as the battle ground forward. Marcus took a breath, trying to rally his forces, and then shook his head. That line had to fold quickly to give them the time to do what he wanted to do. He dove forward, low, under the legs and line of spears against him, and came up at a roll, sweeping his legs in a scissor at one unfortunate man with a mace of some kind and coming up as an ax impacted the ground next to where he’d been, slashing savagely amongst his enemy’s ranks, and lunging left and right, flickering his blades free, khym barely allowing him to dodge the flurry of blows that were coming for him. Slash, parry, weave, thrust, open a throat, take that hand, that spear barely caught in his mail rather than driving clean through him and that axe came close to splitting his head, that sword took rings from his mail, even if all three men swinging died rapidly he was losing ground. 

The men were pressing in behind him, even as he began heaving with exhaustion beneath his mail, flinging himself out of the press of bodies and rolling as the line crumbled ever so slightly, his chest heaving beneath the armor. Khym-fueled attacks like that might be spectacular, but they didn’t make one invincible. Just feeling that an attack was coming meant you didn’t get blindsided - you still had to manage to evade it for yourself, and for all Marcus’s skill, in a press like that he could only manage that for a few seconds at a time without running into exhaustion. Even has his soldiers surged forward, spears surging and chanting as the enemy’s cracked line started truly folding and breaking, a few men began rushing him specifically, and Marcus rolled to his feet, barely parrying one downward spear thrust in time to drop its wielder, and decapitate the second man even as the third managed to swipe at him before Marcus hamstrung him and cut his throat. 

The main body of Aegir troops - some six hundred out of the thousand that had met them - began routing as quickly as they could, throwing down their weapons and running for their lives.

He wheeled to his men and told them to begin tearing down the camp as quickly as possible and set as much of it on fire as they could, even as the panicked Aegir troops started routing. A handful of men grabbed wagons and began loading the wounded onto them, and Marcus began helping load as fast as he can, throwing torches and burning as much of the camp as he could, even as the wounded were pushed onto carts - even the Aegir wounded. He shot a quizzical look at one of his men.

“You said you didn’t want throw men like us away, my lord. These men aren’t any more professional troops ‘n we are.” One of the older soldiers was speaking - a man who’d seen too many winters, and clearly didn’t expect to see too many more. Maybe one who’d joined with that expectation to try to feed children, maybe one who’d joined because he didn’t have much time left and wanted to try to hold his city to do something meaningful with it. The old man grunted, gesturing at one young man, clad in Aegir’s gold and black, whimpering and clutching a wound in his side. “That one can’t be older than fifteen. His only enemies are pimples and gettin’ tongue tied around girls. That and bein’ too stupid or too poor to wash.”

Marcus paused, then nodded. “Get them into the carts. Try to keep them spaced enough to keep their blood from washing into each other’s wounds.” 

The old man spat. “I know what blood poisoning is, boy.”

Marcus grinned. “Margrave, but as you will. Let me give you a hand with that.” He lifted the boy on the ground, trying not to take too much note that the wound matched his own saber a little too well, and put him into one of the carts. “Hey. I had one like that, once. Try not to talk. It’ll make it worse, okay?” Marcus shuddered at the thought. “Get a burial detail together to work on -”

A horn blast sounded. From the city. Something was happening. Enemy troops at the city? “Scrap that. Recover the wounded, then fall back to the city. We’ll get the dead later. If the gates are being pressed hard, Agammemnon is trying something bold, and we may be able to cut him off and kill him, end the siege early.” He glanced at the men he had with him - and those lying on the ground.

Of the bodies lying motionless on the field, a little under a hundred and fifty wore the violet of Justanlia. Men he’d led to their deaths. The Aegir dead outnumbered them - greatly - but the victory he’d seized, even as the Aegir camp burned, along with the ram, dozens of ladders and two under-construction siege towers, had been paid for in too much blood.

The soldiers began marching back towards the city, keeping careful formation, Marcus keeping pace at their head. The tread of almost 3600 feet should have made more noise. People were too quiet. The captains of his battalions would signal when they were close enough - he wanted to catch Agamemnon by surprise when he was caught. 

But as the soldiers came back into sight of the city, and saw Alexander’s loyalist cavalry be quickly repelled, even as they spotted hundreds of Aegir dead at the foot of the walls, shot through with arrows, Marcus realized what had happened. Agammemnon had anticipated a counter-attack but not its timing after Thomas had stolen the letter and was looking to come in enough force that he could force the defenders into an open confrontation that would allow him to directly devastate their strength.

Marcus was stuck on the wrong side of the wall with seventeen hundred inexperienced soldiers capable of fighting - and a small army between him and the gates. Even as Iris’s archers continued raining devastation on the Aegir forces, Marcus realized that the only way in was going to be either to swing his force wide - too great a risk of being outflanked and completely crushed if the remaining Aegir cavalry, who all seemed to be concentrated here, hit him in concentration - or try to push through and hope to Bahamut that his forces came to back him up and maybe they’d be able to catch Agammemnon between them. 

He turned to his men. “You see what’s ahead of us, right?” His voice wasn’t loud. “Whatever reason you took the money to fight, this is the time to think on it. If it was food or survival, I know that the official thing I’m supposed to say is that I’ll hang you for desertion. But I won’t. If you joined up to take care of yourself, this is the time to run. I won’t pursue you. If you joined up because there’s someone you care about behind those walls - that’s your gates Agmemmnon is ramming. Your friends and family he’s going to slaughter if he breaks through. He’s going to do his best to catch the lion’s share of our troops out in the open and crush them - but he’s given us a golden opportunity to do the same to him. It’s dangerous, but he doesn’t know we’re here yet. Victory or defeat, I will find whoever you leave behind. You and those we already left behind back at that camp. But if you need to run, I won’t hold it against you. If you want to fight - money isn’t it. Feeding yourself isn’t…after this battle there’s a real chance you won’t need it. If you’re fighting for people, or to avenge people, this is the time. You have five minutes, throw off your colors if you’re leaving. Everyone else, stay in the ranks.”

A few men did. Not as many as he thought. Marcus let them go. He did, however, insist they left their weapons - those were not easy to mass produce. “Alright. The rest of you.” he drew in a breath. “FORM RANKS! ADVANCE ON ME! BUGLER! SIGNAL THE GATES! WE’RE COMING BACK AND WE’RE GOING TO CRUSH AGAMEMNON BETWEEN US!” 

<<PrevNext>>

Under Avandra’s Eyes L: Rally

Liza helps Alexander rally his people, Marcus prepares a war plan. Alexander gives a speech and shows part of how far he’s come. @canyouhearthelight helped write the speech at the end.

Liza

She had to quietly admit to herself she was quite impressed with the work Alexander had managed to start doing in such a short time. She had not expected him to manage this as well as he had, not without hand holding. She straightened his coat and crown, fixing the broach that held the richly dyed cape across his shoulders together. 

“Your Majesty, the map that Thomas recovered…”

“I apologize for this, Liza, but you’ve attempted to explain this to me several times, and I am still not quite certain I understand it. I’d prefer to be briefed on military matters by my Margrave. I am given to -” a messenger, one of the adolescents who’d taken money for the sole job of running errands to free up hands and handle their nerves, approached. “Your majesty, the raid Ranger Chief Iris lead. We tallied total gains. Over a ton of salt vegetables, another ton salt pork, and almost two tons hardtack. Quartermaster says the extra food stocks, especially a few more raids like that - each time, it’s a few more day’s worth. 

Alexander clearly looked baffled, and Liza shook her head. “Thank you, kid. Go back to Margrave Marcus, get some water first. Tell him we’ll be in the briefing very shortly.” 

Alexander looked at Liza. “Only a few days?”

“Well, for starters, this city has four hundred thousand people in it. Thousands of pounds isn’t that much divided that many ways.” Alexander nodded.

“Liza…I’ll head over to Marcus’s meeting. I have a speech I want you to look over, for the people. Itene and I have been speaking. And…I’ve been arguing with my aunt. She says it’s not proper for me to be spending so much time with Itene, nor taking advice from you quite the way I have been. I haven’t let Itene near her, but you should probably mention it to Itene that she shouldn’t go near Cassea. It’s the poison she had, it did things to her…yeah who am I kidding, you guys were right. She’s under the impression that I’ve been turned from a brilliant young fop to a puppet of a gang of cutthroats with a grudge against the Imperial system.” 

Liza snorted. “Puppet is the wrong word, you’ve definitely learned, and there’s things you’re doing that we wouldn’t that are good choices. Marcus and Iris definitely didn’t want the ranks they have, just so you know.” That wasn’t even a lie, nor did Liza mean to manipulate Alexander further. “You serve the people who live under you, noblesse oblige, all that. And for what it’s worth, you wear the crown of Justanlia better than she did, I think. Get to the meeting with your Margrave.”

***

“All rise for His Highness, Archduke Alexander vi Justanlia, Once-King of the Eastern Empire, First Eastern Vassal of the Emperor, and…Itene?”  The herald’s voice sounded offended at the second part. The long list of titles of the Archduke was oddly out of place when contrasted to the underfed orphan girl that accompanied the Archduke like she’d become his adoptive sister. 

In many ways, Liza snarked to herself, Itene basically had. Which was terrible in one sense, because the girl absolutely meant to be on the road. But on the other hand, if she decided she’d rather be Alexander’s little sister and help the formerly foppish scholar rule with an idea of what common folk lived like, it was hardly a position the girl would be ill suited for based on the dynamic they seemed to be developing…

Alexander sat at the head of the table without waiting, Itene casually seating herself next to Liza. Baldor was staring at the map that Thomas had recovered, but the wider map was covered with figures of soldiers, flag markers, wagon train figures, and other markers of troop positions. Marcus had re-arranged them in accordance with what Thomas’s map had recovered, and a few of the infantry captains were muttering among themselves. 

Marcus spoke first. “So, thanks to the intelligence Thomas recovered, we have an idea of the troop placements. Here’s the thing - we’ve been scouting for a while, both the cavalry - however limited they are - and Iris’s rangers. Our cavalry our limited, but Aegir’s are really, really numerous, even if they’re lightly armed. They’re working very hard to screen us as well as they can - and they’re working harder to intercept Iris’s food raids. We’ll come back to the food raids in a minute, but the cavalry component of what Aegir’s forces are doing didn’t make much sense to me until I saw this map. The Eastern Magraviate has a lot of soldiers, the second most in the empire, in fact, but not that many cavalry - for us to be encountering this many, he must be getting them from either somewhere else, or committing almost all his cavalry to this operation. And almost all his forces here are definitely Justanlian in origin - no Friedriechsarch or Nemedian people have been identified.”

One of the other captains spoke. “Wait, why? Why bring so many cavalry to a siege, unless…”

“Unless you weren’t fully set up?” Marcus said with a smile. “Exactly. He’s focused on screening us so we can’t see it, but we aren’t encircled, not even a little. Justanlia’s huge - we don’t have the soldiers to hold it in an all out assault, but he doesn’t have the troops to siege it - so why isn’t he simply coming up with rams and ladders to take the walls, shove as many arrow fodder to the front as he can, eating the losses, dragging Cassea out of her bed and putting her head on a spike, and raising his colors over the eastern capitol? It’s definitely the smarter move…unless he doesn’t have the forces concentrated here to take it, or he doesn’t realize how desperately spread thin we are - which brings us to our next point - it’s absolutely both. And this has been bothering me for a while, but I didn’t have time to sit down and figure it out until Thomas brought me back the maps and information. This is…we have the information. Thomas, read the letter.”

Thomas stood up and cleared his throat. “A good man died bringing this information in. Blood loss. You owe a thief the city if this saves you. Hakim, rest in peace, brother. But the letter reads: Prince Aegir, Northwest camp has been ordered probe their gates in two days time. I have received reports that the tunnel from south camp is making good progress, and the main body of the troops are still bogged down dealing with the last of the loyalist forces - this battle should be over before they join us either way. It may also be in our interests to factor that Fitzwultian has been sighted among the defenders, especially given the attacks on our supply lines and what they may be able to do with similar raids. I have other ways of breaking Justanlia and main force will not be our best option. - Margrave Agammemnon.”

Marcus nodded. “Right. So Agammemnon is known for two things: being really, really good at breaking cities, and being an utterly ruthless piece of shit. Like, married his kid to a Nemedian known for being a violent prick so he could keep his house solvent and keep his armies equipped. The fact that he’s not showing up with all the siege he needs indicates to me that he doesn’t think he needs that much - either he knows something we don’t, or he’s feeling us out. But he needs more time to set up. And he knows he can’t take this head on, or he’d have done it - he certainly wouldn’t care about sacrificing people en masse to come out the victor. The thing is…Iris, your raids revealed something else critical. You stole a huge amount of food - but the food you stole? Wasn’t actually that much for an army on the march. Yeah, you didn’t get all of it, but that was my first hint that they didn’t have as many as they should for this. He’s trying to set up to get properly entrenched if we counter-attack, but he doesn’t have the ability to assault us head on.”

Liza whistled. “So…neither side has what they need to finish the fight?”

“Better, actually. We know where they attack next. Agammemnon wasn’t killed, but I doubt he’s going to carry on with the probe at the gates tomorrow. He will probably continue up with a tunnel - and probably lay an ambush there for if we try to interfere with it. I want to do something else entirely. I wouldn’t be surprised if what happens tomorrow is a probe from another direction, see how our defenses look. I want Iris ready to help repel that. I want Thomas, and his thieves, to go see if they can find some of the smuggling tunnels that can let out outside the city, maybe with some tools or sapping equipment, professional sappers they can take with them, that can collapse the tunnel that’s being dug. I doubt we can attack them fairly, but maybe at nightfall, we can…”

Thomas started laughing. “That is…that is brilliant. Alright. What are you going to do?”

    “I want to drill the infantry a little longer - but we have three thousand of them and at some point I need to blood them - and these idiots are spread out into three distinct elements. I’m going to wait for Agammemnon to try a probe and let Iris repel it, get the cavalry chasing the probe with Baldor - and while that’s going, I’m going to force march the infantry out of the city and attack the camp the probe was launched from - attack whatever I can there. I want to break this siege however I can. Make it impossible to operate.”

Alexander looked amongst his captains, who seemed to grimly be nodding along with the plan. “Margrave. You have my authorization for this plan.”

    ***

    Liza looked over Alexander’s speech, and smiled. He was still quite the passionate, brilliant scholar - with no idea how to make himself the proper king in the eyes of the people. Liza walked over to the young man.

    “Your people are afraid. They’re happy that we seem to be turning it around, that we’re bringing in food, that the enemy are scrambling a bit. But you need to make it more than that. They want to see you. Regal. Proud. On their side, not lying, not obscuring. Not an unapproachable noble - the kings of the old songs, the ones that get remembered, they’re all larger than life, but you read about them, and what do you notice?”

    “They were…they did something to remind their people that they were people. They shared the hardships, even as they maintained the regality.”

    “So keep your cape. Keep your crown. Don’t ever shed the mantle in public. Make everyone stick to the titles. That’s important. Lends you the dignity of high office. But give yourself the legend, and do the right thing on top of it. Don’t open your pantry fully - not in the way of letting everyone take anything they want - but add the Archduke’s pantry to the city larder, distribute it. So it can be added to the rations the whole city is sharing. Don’t even ask the rest of the highborns to do the same. Do it boldly, proudly, and like it’s the obvious thing to do, cloak flaring and crown shining, in this moment of crisis, and they’ll have no choice but to follow you. I’ll help you write your speech, the one that they need to hear, but…it needs to come from you, something genuine, something real to ground it. Something that gives the people something to believe in. This…do you remember, when you walked through the gates, with us on your flanks, how I told you to remember the Defiance of Vostria? Do you remember the Speech in the Ashes from the song?” 

    It was a famous moment in the legend - the city, half burned down, the king, ordering the children whose homes were destroyed into his castle, apologizing to their parents that there was little room for them given the scale of the destruction, offering instead to wait in the ashes with them - to share their burden until the defiance had ended, for better or worse.

    “These people saw their Archduchess poisoned. Their Archmargrave is dead. Most of their commanders are dead. This is your speech from the ashes, Your Highness. Make it worthy of a song for me to write someday.”  Liza looked Alexander dead in the eye, and Alexander straightened again, sliding the dueling sword through his belt, straightened the broach and crown, and met her gaze.

    “Alright. Tell the people I have something to say to them. I’ll be there soon.”

    ***

    The herald’s trumpets blew a long, defiant note, and the heralds howled out Alexander’s titles, even as Liza slowly began strumming her lyre in a low, brave but subdued tune.

    “People of Justanlia.” The Archduke’s crown and cape were straight, his eyes shining and clear. “We face a crisis not seen in the Empire in nearly two hundred years. Civil war rages, and we in the east face the traitor’s blade first. Aegir’s men are here, led by those we should have been able to trust. Many of our family members have been slain by the enemy - already fallen in the defense of our home.” Liza continued strumming, the tune mournful.

    “But you, people of Justanlia, have suffered long before the mad acts of treason brought on by the petty ambitions of this would be tyrant, as have all the people of the Empire. I was shown, by those currently leading our defenses, how little I knew - I, who once considered myself among the better read of the nobility.” Confusion swept the crowd. Liza gave a little smirk. This was how it was going. “This war will exaggerate what has always been so common in this world - the powerful gain, the powerless suffer. I cannot prevent your suffering, and I cannot take away your burdens - but I can share in them. I have food, even as that is being rationed - why? The castle pantry has been ordered to be added to the rations for the whole city. Our soldiers, your sons, those who joined up for a few coins to send home to their families, are being drilled by someone who learned from one of the best commanders in the empire - and they will be led by the Heroes of Veridal.”

Liza let the music flare and let the people gather steam, and then Alexander took a turn. “You’ve all been given a lot of reasons to distrust your lords. But loyalty flows uphill and down, and it’s time we earned yours. This isn’t Aegir’s. A traitor who plunges this land into war for his own ambition will never rule Justanlia. I stand with you, and I ask you to stand with me.” 

Liza flared her music once more and let the people receive the speech, and smiled. Alexander had some style after all.

There were other lords here, ones watching Alexander, whispering. She’d have to keep an eye on them.
But for now, she satisfied herself. This was going quite well.

<<PrevNext>>