Steel and Sorrow: Rise of the Mercenary king - Chapter 489

Chapter 489: Rock of Aracina(2) Chapter 489: Rock of Aracina(2) The first Oizenian warriors reached the top of the ladders with guttural roars, their swords already swinging before their boots touched stone.

A defender lunged to meet the lead attacker, only for the enemy blade to carve through his throat in a crimson spray.

The dying man staggered back, hands clutching at the ruin of his neck as the invader vaulted onto the battlements and planted his banner in the guts of another soldier.

But triumph was fleeting – a spear took the Oizenian in the side, punching through his mail with a metallic snick.

He snarled, gripping the shaft as if to snap it, then a second spear found his eye.

He toppled backward, his body crashing down onto the climbers below and sending three men tumbling to their deaths in a tangle of limbs and shattered bones.

The wall became a slaughterhouse.

A young defender – barely more than a boy of 13 – swung a hatchet wildly .

The warrior caught his wrist mid-swing and pulled hard , the bones popping like kindling.

The boy screamed, but the sound was cut short as a dagger rammed up under his chin, its point bursting through his palate in a shower of teeth and blood.

Nearby, a grizzled sergeant fought back-to-back with two of his men, their spears lashing out like serpents.

One Oizenian fell with a gurgle, his throat opened to the spine.

Another took a spear through the foot, pinning him to the walkway – right before a boot stomped down on his face, flattening his nose into pulp.

But for every invader slain, two more took his place.

An attacker waded into the fray, his spiked maul swinging in brutal arcs.

The first blow shattered a defender’s shield, the second caved in his chest.

A spear jabbed at the brute’s flank – he twisted, caught the shaft, and yanked, sending its wielder stumbling into the path of his maul.

The impact turned the man’s head into red mist.

“PUSH THEM BACK!” someone bellowed – whether attacker or defender, none could say.

The order was lost in the chaos as the Oizenians gained ground, step by bloody step.

The defenders were being overwhelmed.

Everyone could see that they were having the worse.

A bloodied soldier swung a broken spear like a club until an axe split his skull.

Another, backed against the parapet, chose the long drop rather than the enemy’s blades – his scream ended abruptly on the stones below.

And still the horns blew, and still the ladders came, and still the dead piled higher.

Before the enemy foothold on the wall could spread further however , a new sound small and yet daunting joined the fray-a rhythmic, metallic clinking, steady and ominous, like the sound of an iron tide rolling forward.

The daunted defenders, some barely holding onto their ground, turned to see the source.

And then their fear turned into joy.

A formation of dozens of armored men, their bodies clad in steel, as the black and white wool put atop their armor revealed their identity, the Black Stripes.

Long and grey chainmail’s hood coming down from the nasal protection of the helmet, the newest change of the footman’s standard equipment, hid their expressions as they advanced gripping their halberd tightly.

They moved with slow, deliberate steps at first, but then, as soon as the pressed defenders opened a gap for them with a sudden, brutal surge, they crashed into the enemy ranks like an executioner’s axe going for the neck of the sentenced.

The long, wicked blades of the halberds bit deep into flesh, slicing through shields, armor, and bone alike.

The abstract effect, of course, was immediate as a defender, a young man emboldened by their arrival, let out a desperate war cry, lunging forward with renewed fury.

A halberdier beside him caught an Oizenian soldier mid-swing, hooking the end pickaxe of his weapon around the man’s shoulder and yanking him forward, effectively saving the life of the young yet brave boy.

The invader barely had time to cry out before another soldier’s halberd came down like a headsman’s stroke, cleaving his helmet nearly in two.

“Is that all you have?!” one of the halberdiers bellowed as he thrust the spiked tip of his weapon into an enemy’s gut, twisting it as the man choked on his own blood.

Another let out a sharp laugh as he drove the spike-like back end of his halberd against an Oizenian’s knee,embedding it just above the joint and sending the man tumbling before a downward stroke silenced his screams forever.

“Go back to your fucking homes!This is our city!” one growled as he sent an enemy tumbling with the shaft over the edge of the parapet, his final scream lost to the battle’s roar.

The tide was turning.

The Oizenian soldiers, once advancing with confidence, now found themselves reeling back, suddenly outmatched by the sheer brutality of these armored warriors, as at the end of the day while they were farmers and vagabonds given weapons, these were proper soldiers that, whenever they were not fighting, were instead training, and of course the difference was clear.

One man, his face smeared with sweat and blood, stumbled backward, eyes darting wildly as he tried to process the slaughter before him.

“Where the fuck did they come fro-” He never finished.

A halberd came down in a vicious arc, the spiky end crashing against his temple.

His skull caved inward with a sickening crack, and his lifeless body crumpled to the blood-slicked stone, his final words drowned out by the ceaseless storm of steel and death.

————- The runner’s boots pounded against the blood-slick stones, each hurried footfall echoing through the chaos of the besieged walls.

He skidded to a halt before Asag, chest heaving, his face streaked with soot and sweat.

The young soldier didn’t bother to wipe the grime from his eyes as he delivered his report.

“My lord!” he gasped, slamming a fist against his breastplate in salute.

“The eastern breach is secured!

The wall holds!” A moment of silence stretched between them, filled only by the distant screams of battle and the constant thud of arrows against stone.

Asag didn’t move at first, his armored form as still as the statues that once adorned the city’s gates.

Then, slowly, he turned his head, the morning light catching the sharp angles of his face beneath his plumed helm.  “Good,” he said at last, the single word carrying the weight of a hundred unspoken orders.

“Once the position is secured, pull seventy from the reserves to reinforce it.

And have my personal unit recalled to the central bastion.” The runner’s nod was sharp, professional.

“At once, my lord!” He spun on his heel, his cloak whipping behind him as he disappeared back into the maelstrom of battle.

Asag exhaled slowly, the sound barely audible over the din of combat.

His gaze swept across the embattled walls, taking in the ebb and flow of the desperate struggle.

Six hundred men held the defenses now, their forms dark silhouettes against the rising smoke.

Behind them, waiting in the shadowed courtyards and narrow streets, stood his remaining four hundred – the backbone of Aracina’s defiance.

His two hundred halberdiers, their polished weapons now dull with blood and grime.

The hundred fresh-faced reinforcements from the capital, their pristine armor already bearing the scars of war.

And the hundred local recruits, their faces still bearing that haunted look of men who had never imagined they’d be fighting for their homes.

But it was the halberdiers who had become legend in these past days.

Where they marched, broken lines reformed.

Where they stood, the tide of invaders broke like waves against a cliff.

They moved through the battle like incarnations of death itself, their long weapons carving through enemy ranks with terrible efficiency, as while chaimail, for those who had in the enemy army , may have been useful against swords and spears, it was completely useless against the third corpse’s polearm .

The eastern wall’s salvation had been no different – a collapsing defense, a desperate stand, then the sudden appearance of those gleaming halberds rising above the smoke like the standards of vengeful gods.

Asag’s gauntleted hands clenched against the parapet’s cold stone.

These men were more than soldiers – they were the nails holding Aracina together, the final barrier between survival and annihilation.

Without them, the city would have fallen within hours of the first assault.

A strange warmth flickered in his chest despite the morning’s chill.

Pride, perhaps, though it was a bitter sort.

They might all die here, crushed beneath the Oizenian boot, but by the gods of war and warriors, they would be remembered.

Not as victims, not as casualties, but as the immovable object that had made the unstoppable force bleed for every inch of ground.

“Commander!” The shout pulled him from his thoughts.

A soot-streaked soldier stood at attention, his breastplate dented from a recent blow.

“The cauldrons are prepared,” he reported, voice hoarse from shouting orders.

Asag’s gaze dropped to the scene below.

The massive gates shuddered with each impact of the battering ram, the wood groaning like a living thing in pain.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The rhythm was relentless, each strike sending a fresh shower of splinters into the air.

The enemy soldiers worked with frantic energy, their faces twisted in exertion and anticipation, unaware of the horror about to be unleashed upon them.

For a heartbeat, Asag simply watched.

Then his head snapped up, his voice cutting through the noise like a blade through flesh.

“Then by all the hells, what are you waiting for?

Drown the bastards in it!” The soldier’s eyes widened slightly at the venom in his commander’s tone.

He saluted sharply and turned to carry out the order, his boots pounding against the stone walkway as he ran to the waiting crews.

Asag stepped forward, his armor creaking with the movement.

The massive cauldrons stood ready along the battlements, their iron bellies glowing with contained fury.

The air above them shimmered with heat, distorting the figures of the soldiers who stood ready to tip them forward.

A slow, grim smile spread across Asag face as he watched his men prepare to unleash hell upon their attackers.  And he knew that he was in, for the most beautiful melody he would have hear.