Chapter 16



Masterson, Peterson, Connor, Albert, Barson, and Olaf were gathered in the command tent waiting for Sid. They were about to embark on their first siege of a citadel. It was a massive undertaking. For the first time, they were facing stone walls that were eight feet thick and twenty feet tall.

"Those bastards fired at us when we went to parley," Sid said upon entering the tent. He was furious and stopped by the table to pour a glass of watered wine. His horse had taken an arrow. He'd still be out on the field if it hadn't been for Fred charging out with a spare horse.

"What happened?" Masterson asked.

"They fired three volleys of arrows at us," Sid answered. He took a sip of the watered wine and tried to calm down. The last thing he wanted to do was make a mistake driven by anger. Taking a breath, he asked, "Convince me that we are ready."

Looking over the map, Masterson said, "Intelligence says that there are a thousand troops inside the citadel. They'll be backed up by a citizen militia. The field slaves will be herded together in pens and watched over by overseers. House slaves will probably remain in the houses of their owners. In all, we can probably expect to face about eighteen hundred men."

Albert said, "The siege engines are ready. We've got the large trebuchets, battering rams, and ballistae in place. I figure it will take one week to break through the wall."

"We've got eight thousand troops," Connor said. Pointing to the map, he said, "We have forces in place to repel any raids that they may launch, here, here, here, and here. Men spend eight hours on duty. We're rotating them through three shifts."

"Our food supplies are solid," Peterson said. Olaf and Barson nodded their agreement to his statement.

Pointing to the map, Masterson said, "We're going to take down this section of the wall over the next week and keep it open using the ballistae. We won't attack right away. Instead, we'll turn our attention to this section of the wall and take it out. About the time that section of wall comes down, we'll attack the front and rear gates with the battering rams. If all goes according to plan, we'll have four entries into the citadel."

Nodding, Sid said, "We'll have a four to one advantage in men."

Masterson smiled and said, "Don't forget the women. I've got a quarter of a brigade of women troops that I'd put up against a full brigade of men."

Looking over at Masterson, Connor asked, "They are that good?"

"You better believe it. They train every spare minute they have. I started them with spears. After a month, they took over their own training. Now they've moved onto swords and battle axes. They've kept the horses captured in battle and ride like an experienced cavalry. I use them when I need a small number of very motivated forces," Masterson answered. He couldn't imagine the kind of hate that motivated the women to go to such extremes.

Looking over at Connor, Sid asked, "What about our special forces?"

Knowing that Sid was referring to the folks who had slipped inside the citadel, Connor said, "They are in place. The night before the main assault, we'll set fire to the tower on the hill. They'll get us another two thousand fighters although I can't say how good they'll be."

Sid understood what Connor meant. Among the men there, they had agreed not to speak of that portion of the plan aloud in case there were spies. Two dozen men and women had entered the citadel when the surrounding countryside was fleeing. They would free the field slaves from their pens during the attack. Nodding his head, Sid said, "Good."

"So can I start?" Albert asked.

"Yes," Sid answered.

Albert started to leave, but paused when Olaf said, "Barson and I will return to the camp to check that our supplies are being cared for properly. We'll make sure that everyone gets a blue arm band."

"Go ahead," Sid said. He watched the three young men leave the tent. Turning to Peterson he said, "They impress me more and more every day."

"You're impressed? I'm considering returning to the Jones Citadel and retiring because of Barson and Olaf. I'm doing nothing," Peterson said. It was a slight exaggeration, but it wasn't that far from the truth.

Turning to look at Connor, Sid said, "Albert was a surprise. You weren't all that enthused about him when we left the Jones Citadel."

"I know. I didn't have all that great of an impression of his leadership abilities when he signed up. I put him in charge of the non-combatant freed slaves just to keep him out of my way. The next thing I knew he had built up an operation that was incredible," Connor said. He attributed it a little to working with Olaf and Barson, but the young man had shown a lot of initiative in many other areas. Albert's siege troops were as well trained as any he had ever seen.

"Yes, it is an incredible operation," Sid said wryly.

Masterson said, "Each and every one of the men you recruited from the citadel is good. They are basically running this army."

"I know," Sid said thinking that his uncle had left him an amazing legacy. These were the sons and daughters of men and women who had served with Gerald. Loses of men in a battle was inevitable, but they had only lost three of the initial group over the course of war. For individuals without fighting experience, that was an amazing fact.

To describe the siege as boring wouldn't be accurate although for most of the troops there was nothing to do except watch the citadel. Twenty four hours a day, twenty pound rocks were launched at the walls of the citadel. Occasionally, the enemy would send out a party in an attempt to thwart the siege. For a half an hour there would be a spat of excitement.

On one of those occasions, Sid had a chance to see Masterson's quarter brigade of women in action. The strategist had not been exaggerating their ferocity on the battlefield. Sid had been shocked at how easily the women had killed. It was also obvious why Masterson liked them so much. The way they fought fit well with his personality.

At the end of a week, one section of wall fell just as Albert had predicted. The enemy attempted to block the breach with wagons and other items. The small trebuchets firing stones and the ballistae kept the men from achieving their task until it became obvious that they were using slave labor. Several of the slaves saw a chance at freedom and ran across the battlefield. Four of the nine who ran made it to safety.

It took a day to take down the trebuchets and another day to set them up again so that they were attacking a different section of the wall. The pounding resumed and continued for the next six days. On the sixth night, Sid had them set the tower on the hill on fire and roll out the siege rams.

A simple siege ram is a large log with one end carved into a point hung on a frame on wheels. A more complex siege ram has a roof to protect the individuals working the ram from attack from above. The ram that Albert built went far beyond that. It had a roof and sides to provide protection from all directions. The roof was layered with wood and slate. The slate was to prevent it from being flammable.

The siege rams were heavy monsters that took most of the night to roll up to the front and rear gates of the citadel. Twenty men inside each ram started the battering ram swinging from the frame. The first contact with the gate was just a little love tap, but once they had it going the sound of each strike reverberated over the field. The gates were strong, but not strong enough.

The defenders tried to displace the siege rams using standard approaches. Arrows rained down upon it and were deflected by the slate roof. Boiling oil was poured down and the slate roof kept the oil from penetrating into the working area. Even when lit, the double roof kept the majority of heat away from the interior. It wasn't until they started dropping rocks onto the top that the slate was cracked. By that time, it was too late.

Sid and the group gathered near the trebuchets were waiting for them to complete the breach. Hunter led the group that was waiting to charge through the first breach. The small trebuchets were being used to launch burning oil pots that would take out the wood used to form a defensive line at the original breach. Masterson and his women were waiting at the rear gate for the ram to complete its work. Connor waited at the front gate.

By noon, both gates had failed. When the section of wall in front of Sid's men fell, he had a man raise a flag. It was how the other groups would know that his section of wall had been breached. There was a short delay until a flag flew from Connor's position. Quiet descended upon the battlefield as trebuchets stopped firing and the battering rams pulled back.

At the sound of a dozen horns, Sid's army swarmed towards the citadel. A thousand men charged each breach. From the center of the citadel a great roar was emitted as thousands of slaves found themselves released from the pens that had held them. The occupants of the first pen released by Sid's agents helped free other slaves. Through the night, word had been spread not to attack anyone wearing a blue armband. The liberators were wearing blue armbands.

The townsfolk, overseers, and refuges found themselves facing thousands of angry slaves armed with clubs. The militia recognized that they had an enemy in front and behind them. Although one group was a well disciplined army, it was the freed slaves that were more frightening. The freed slaves were killing anyone who was not wearing a collar or a blue armband. Of course, the militia knew nothing about the blue armbands.

With Fred to his right side, Sid charged through the opening created by the trebuchet. He was surrounded by his forces despite an attempt on his part to take a lead position. Fred had slowed him down and the men had moved double time to pull slightly ahead of him. Sid suspected that it was intentional on the part of Fred and his men.

All of the men were on foot. Adding horses to the mix would have resulted in chaos that was more likely to backfire than be effective against the enemy. The large oversized shields had been dropped in favor of the smaller oval shields. In the close-in fighting, the smaller shields would be more effective against the overhead strikes of sword and battle axe.

Sid had borrowed a fighting tactic from the Zulus. The first aspect of that was the adoption of the smaller oval shields. The second aspect of that was having the men cut their spears short. The third aspect had been hours of drill on how to block a blow with the shield that was followed with a stab of the shortened spear. The drills had confused the men, but they had practiced as expected.

Although the drills had confused Sid's men, the effect on the enemy was one of complete devastation. They didn't know how to counter the practiced tactic. After swinging once, they found their sword out of position to parry the return blow. The appearance of the spear point below their small shields came as a complete surprise. Man after man fell to the abdominal injuries inflicted.

In the midst of the fighting, Sid's arms felt as if they were made of lead. The repeated poundings of swords on his shield reverberated through his left arm leaving it numb and tingling. Like his men, he had forsaken the use of his sword for one of the shortened spears although he did have his sword in its sheath. After dispatching his third man, Sid knew that his tactics were working very well.

It was also clear to Sid that his army was facing a larger force than they had estimated. While they had estimated a thousand men of the slaver uniformed army, his forces had engaged over eight hundred. He revised his estimate up to three thousand. From a four to one advantage, it had slipped to even numbers. Normally, that would have given the defenders a significant advantage.

The enemy retreated to the center of the town. It wasn't a safe direction for retreat. It wasn't long before they found the freed slaves charging them from the rear. Sandwiched between overpowering forces, the slaver army was slaughtered. Sid stopped and moved to the rear of his troops so that he could direct the final engagements of the battle for the citadel.

The fighting grew even fiercer as the enemy was slowly pushed back to a large building in the section of town being attacked by Connor. The building had a sign with a collar on it denoting that it was a building that was owned and operated by the slaver organization. Sid recalled that the largest buildings in a town were typically dedicated to the most important organization of the town. Giant cathedrals were built when the Church was supreme in Europe. Skyscrapers were built to reflect the rise of big business. Dictators usually had the largest buildings. The three story building let Sid know that slavery was the most significant organization in this culture.

Sid stared up at the building feeling malevolent waves of raw hatred emanating from it. He could see a very large man with a star on his uniform staring out one of the third floor windows. The man was examining Sid's army with a frown. It was obvious to Sid that he had not expected his forces to be destroyed so easily.

The four brigades of Sid's army soon had the building surrounded. Connor, Masterson, and Hunter sought out Sid to determine what to do. Connor was the first to find Sid. Walking up to him, Connor asked, "What do you want to do with them? Should we burn them out?"

"No," Sid answered. He pointed to the man he had spotted and said, "That man's a General."

"You can tell from here?" Connor asked incredulous at Sid's confidence in identifying the leader of the enemy army.

"Do you see the star on his uniform?"

"Yes," Connor answered squinting up at the man. He could see the man glaring down at him and Sid.

"That's the symbol for a General," Sid said.

"Does that mean we've won the war?" Connor asked looking up at the building.

Sid shook his head and answered, "No. They have more than one General. I'm surprised to find one this far forward."

Masterson arrived in time to overhear Sid's comment. Shaking his head, he said, "We need to capture one of them."

"There's one up there," Sid said pointing to the man in the third floor window without looking in the man's direction.

The next thing Sid knew, he had been pushed to the ground. He landed about ten feet from where he had been standing. In the spot that he had just vacated were five arrows sticking out of the ground. Looking around to see who had pushed him, he saw Fred and knew who had saved him. He said, "Thanks Fred."

"We better get out of sight of that building if we're going to stand around and talk," Masterson said.

Hunter arrived in time to follow them around the corner of a building. Gesturing back at the building, he asked, "When are we going to assault the building?"

With images of a modern urban assault running through his mind, Sid shook his head. He considered the situation with a little more care. A horrible idea came to him. He turned to Connor and said, "I want ten men in every basement of every building within two hundred paces of that building. Make sure that those inside the building see our men going into the buildings."

Raising an eyebrow, Connor considered Sid and then realized what was being suggested. Turning, he said, "Will do."

Turning to Hunter, Sid said, "Hunter, I want you to find some of the men and women who were just freed and ask if they know of anyone involved in the construction of that building. Find them. We need to know how that building was constructed. There's no way the slavers built that monster without using slave labor."

"Yes, sir," Hunter said. He turned to leave.

"Hunter, there's one more thing before you go. I want you to ask for volunteers to dig a trench around that building. I think five hundred or a thousand men could dig a pretty good sized trench in an hour or two. In case there is a tunnel, I want to uncover it before the enemy has a chance to leave," Sid said.

Turning to Masterson, Sid said, "Masterson, take your warrior women outside the citadel. Have them watch for anyone who is leaving. I don't know if there is a backdoor out of here, but if there is then they are to keep the bad guys from leaving."

Masterson grinned and said, "I'm on it. We'll check all of the likely places for a tunnel."

Sid watched as everyone left to perform their tasks. Turning to Fred, he said, "Let's get our men into position to guard that building. I'd hate for the enemy to charge out the front door unopposed."

Nodding his head, Fred said, "If I were you, I'd just cover the exits with stone and leave them in there to rot."

"That may be a very good idea," Sid said with a smile.

It was an hour before five hundred freed slaves started creating a huge pile of dirt that went around the entire building. About the time they had started, there had been a short burst of excitement from one of the buildings when an escape tunnel was discovered. The discovery had occurred when a part of one of the walls swung open. The men in the basement immediately charged. After a brief scuffle, the occupants of the tunnel scurried back to the slaver headquarters. The opening was quickly blocked off with a wall of stone that was five feet thick. Sid was sure that there were other exits, but they would soon be discovered and blocked off as well.

He went to a building across from the slaver headquarters and watched the third story window. The General appeared occasionally and glared as he watched the activity taking place below him. Each time the General frowned, Sid grinned. Sid turned to Fred and asked, "Do you have any idea what that stone building where that tunnel came out from was used for?"

"You mean that hotel?" Fred asked.

"It does look like a hotel," Sid said with a smile. He figured that important visitors to the slaver headquarters stayed in that hotel while in town.

"What about it?" Fred asked.

"I was thinking that the stone in the building would make excellent filler material for any tunnels that are unearthed," Sid said.

Grinning, Fred nodded his head and said, "You're going to seal them in there, aren't you?"

"You bet."

"Do you want to find some volunteers to dismantle the building?" Fred asked. He was enjoying this. Although he had not been processed through this city, he had a bad experience as a result of someone who worked inside a building just like that. One of his whippings had been a simple demonstration on how to whip someone and he had been picked by chance. He hadn't even done anything wrong. Fifteen lashes later, he was cut down and returned to the slave pen. The owner had been particularly upset at having his stock damaged and took it out on him.

"If you would be so kind," Sid said. He watched Fred walk away to find volunteers who would enjoy taking down the building.

Barson came over to Sid and said, "There were five parks in the citadel. There were small herds of cattle in three of them and herds of horses in two. Olaf moved the animals outside the citadel and we've taken over the parks. I've set up facilities to feed everyone, but housing is in short supply."

"What about all of the houses inside the citadel?" Sid asked.

"A good percentage of them were burnt down during the battle," Barson answered. The smoke from a few buildings that were still burning hung heavy in the air giving weight to his answer.

"I didn't realize the damage was that bad," Sid said. He wondered why it was that when freed, the first thing that many of the people did was destroy exactly what they would need to get their lives back on track. Shaking his head, he asked, "What do we have outside the citadel?"

"All of the farms that were evacuated when the owners retreated to this citadel. Unfortunately, all of the structures on the original properties were torn down when the owners took them over. All that is left are the owner's house, slave quarters, and outbuildings. I doubt you'll find a single person that will accept sleeping in the slave quarters," Barson answered.

"Do we have wood?" Sid asked.

"Yes, we have some wood. It will take about a week to get enough here to build houses," Barson answered. He thought about it and said, "I'll send out some people to see what wood stocks there are in the area."

"Good idea," Sid said. He sighed at the thought of the work ahead of them over the next two weeks. Taking this citadel gave them control over a huge area. Most of the slaves and owners within two days march from there had been inside the citadel. Unless they were careful, the thankful freed slaves could turn into resentful men and women. He said, "Amazing how much work it is making sure that we aren't leaving total chaos behind us."

"I agree with you, General. It is a lot of work. It is also a good thing that we do for these people. This whole area is going to be prosperous for years to come," Barson said. He felt proud of his role in helping to rebuild the area. He believed that grateful men and women would remember him, Olaf, and Alfred for what they had done. It was a rather heady thought for someone his age.

There was a huge shout outside in the street. Based on the excitement being generated, Sid said, "It sounds like they found a tunnel."

Lazlo Zalzac

Chapter 17