Joel Shepherd - Haven

Soon the fires went out, and the Regent's forces retreated beneath heavy defensive artillery fire to regroup and try again. They tried rolling their artillery forward to gain range to shoot over the defensive wall and onto the lines of Steel and Lenay soldiers waiting behind, but Kessligh had thought of that, and his artillery returned fire with solid shot-balls of stone. Unlike hellfire, these hit and bounced with considerable momentum, and kept bouncing. Observers on the flanking hills reported several catapults struck by bouncing rounds, and one badly damaged. The Regent's men quickly withdrew their precious artillery back to a safer range.

Observers counted twenty-three catapults and sixty-two ballistas, all wheel-mounted with separate ammunition wagons. Defensively, the Steels could muster twenty and fifty-six, respectively, in reply. It seemed an even match, until one considered the astonishing size of manpower that the Regent possessed to back it up. The Regent could absorb the casualties caused by artillery, and could exploit the havoc it wreaked in once orderly opposing formations. The defenders could not, on either count.

Next, the Regent's forces began probing the hillsides above the wall in force. Those thrusts were met with Ilduuri men, far more skilled in battle on the high passes, and repelled. Small groups of the Regent's men had been scouting for trails across flanking mountains, Sasha's men reported to her. Each time they'd found a small group of Ilduuri, sometimes only three or four men, blocking a narrow pass by practised methods, and causing many casualties.

At midmorning, the Regent's officers arrived at their best plan yet. They brought the catapults just close enough to fire over the defensive wall by only a short margin, braving return solid shot artillery to do so. The hellfire burst just beyond the wall, making great blasts of flame between the Steel lines and their wall, thus preventing infantry from rushing to man it as the next attack came roaring in. This had been thought of, however, with long trenches dug just behind the wall-protected from most hellfire save that which hit directly upon the wall's crest-and roofed in places with wood, tin, and tar to protect it from flames. Those men sheltering within were able to scramble up the wall quickly as they heard the attack coming in, many now armed with long pikes fashioned for the purpose.

Others joined them, braving the shifting hellfire rounds for a dash through the kill-zone-the valley was wide, as was the wall, and even twenty-three catapults could only make sporadic fires along such a long line. Defensive artillery replied, and caused far greater carnage upon the clustered ranks of men-at-arms who attacked. Sasha rode along the line to be certain the defence was holding where the Dhemerhill River flowed beneath the wall, but that archway was defended first by great steel poles through the water, barely wide enough for a small man to squeeze between without armour, and tantalisingly trapping many who tried. A small group of archers trained serrin bows upon the gap, and feathered any who got stuck. It was far easier to take a ladder and climb over or go uphill and around.

The noise was incredible. Acrid smoke from erupting hellfire singed the nostrils as outgoing artillery creaked and swung, and ballistas and archers released, and artillery crews yelled and wound and loaded their mechanisms. Tens of thousands of voices roared before the wall, as fighting broke out along its length, a clattering of steel that sounded like a wagon load of cutlery tumbling down a cliff. Archers braved the incoming hellfire killing zone to loose volleys blindly over the wall, while others sheltered more closely behind the wall, where incoming artillery would not fire for fear of killing their own men, stepping back just enough to fire almost straight up and over.

The air was thick with outgoing artillery, ballistas, and arrows, fire erupting beyond the wall in concentrations sometimes so close, Sasha was almost pleased she could not see the result. Defenders upon the wall signalled with flags to artillery, indicating where they needed support most direly, and artillery men would struggle to manoeuvre oxen and great wheels, to push their contraptions into position to hit those targets.

It could not last, Sasha knew-there were too many attackers. But they'd succeeded in doing the one thing they had to-bringing the attackers within the killing range of defensive artillery and holding them there for a long period of time. The carnage upon the far side of the wall must be horrific by now from hellfire alone. The Regent would have this wall, and eventually all this valley up to the walls of Jahnd, but he would pay an obscene price for them. And the defenders would move this artillery back as they retreated, and force the Regent to pay yet a higher price to breach the walls of Jahnd itself. With any luck, the plan was that he might have so few men left, they might recoil in horror and refuse to press home the final assault.

What Sasha did not expect was to hear commotion from behind, and turn in her saddle to find that the eastern wall had broken with no warning at all, and tens of thousands of enemy cavalry were foaming across the valley toward her like a giant wave.

“Retreat!” she yelled, and was horrified at how shrill her voice sounded. It sounded like fear. Which of course it was. “Trumpeter, full retreat, all ranks! Back to Jahnd, back to Jahnd!”

But her force was spread wide across the wall, and some of them up the hills to either side of the valley. Cavalry moved fast, and charged into their rear. There was little hope of regrouping now, but she had to try, or all was lost.

Then she saw Kessligh, riding out to the left bank of the Dhemerhill River, with a signalman to wave his flag and indicate a new line, a retreating line, with the river on the right flank and the left to face the oncoming infantry…thank the spirits for Kessligh, she thought with relief. They had to get as many of those on the northern end of the wall down and across to this southern bank as possible. The river protected them from the cavalry while the left flank could hold off the infantry as they pulled back toward the city.

But they had to save as much artillery as possible. Thankfully all of it was situated south of the river in fear of precisely this eventuality, and the need for a fast retreat to Jahnd. She galloped to the nearest artillery line, yelling and waving madly, as their crews looked about and stared.

Errollyn was not entirely certain how it had happened. Only that one moment, Koenyg's forces had been engaged in a full-frontal assault against the Enoran Steel's formations, then somehow they pivoted and came in massive strength around the left flank, and straight about that end of the defensive wall. He suspected a trap, but he had been engaged upon the right flank and had not seen it happen. Sometimes in war it was all over so quickly, and now it hardly mattered.

He raced back around the defensive wall, taking talmaad and Enorans with him in a headlong sprint. The Dhemerhill River was now between him and the main assault, and these were the lower reaches of Jahnd itself, crisscrossed with roads, little clusters of farms, houses, and industry, with temples and bridges as well. Open cavalry terrain it was not, and his force slowed to leap fences and cluster onto access roads. Errollyn quickly headed toward a bridge across the Dhemerhill, and the wider fields upon the far side.

Here galloped a steady flood of horsemen of all descriptions-attacking Lenays, Kazeri, and Torovans, mixed in with talmaad from the left flank who were pursuing, weaving amidst the attackers and shooting them down, trying to slow their headlong charge into the rear of those who opposed the Regent's main force. They had to be slowed, or Jahnd was lost.