Chapter 63 (Patreon)

Josh leaned against the parapet and watched the enemy camp stir.

A few hundred meters out, Henri's soldiers were forming into parade ranks while sergeants barked them into alignment. Officers moved between the columns, and there in the center stood a man on foot with armor that caught the morning light in a way that had to be intentional.

"He's giving a speech," Josh said.

Evan grunted beside him. "Looks like."

"Can't hear it from here. Probably something about honor and glory and how they're definitely going to win this time."

"Probably."

Centurion Ayen stood on Josh's other side, helmet tucked under one arm, watching the enemy formation the way a carpenter watches a crooked beam—already measuring how to straighten it.

"Theater." She spat over the wall. "His soldiers watched their friends die yesterday. He's pumping them up because he has to."

"Think it'll work?"

"For a while." Ayen turned and walked along the parapet, her boots finding the boards with the ease of a thousand repetitions. "Morale from speeches burns off fast once the javelins start flying. That's why I don't bother. Just makes the men think you're worried."

Josh followed her, leaving Evan to watch the ceremony. The walls had been ugly two weeks ago—rough timber over earthen ramparts, fighting platforms his crews had thrown together too fast. They'd improved since then.

Ayen stopped at the corner bastion and pointed toward the approach.

"Here." She tapped the timber. "This is where they'll mass the ladders again. Best cover on the approach."

"Those pulley things went up fast yesterday." Josh ran his hand along the fresh bracing his crew had installed overnight. "Almost lost this whole section."

"We did lose it." Ayen's jaw tightened. "Gate closed maybe ten seconds before they could follow the century through." She was quiet for a moment. "Lost six of my people buying those ten seconds. Sergeant Kova held the breach with four men while the rest pulled back." Her voice stayed flat. "He didn't make it."

She tested the new joins with her fingers, pushing hard enough that the timber creaked.

"Solid," she said, and her tone shifted back to business. "Good work."

"Stone footings underneath are better now too. Reinforced them last night." Josh squinted at the construction, seeing the stress points and load paths that his perks whispered to him. "Stone doesn't lie."

Ayen looked at him for a moment, then nodded and kept walking.

Below them, the courtyard hummed with preparation. Legionaries checked equipment in tight clusters, three javelins each stacked within reach, shields propped against the inner wall. A group of adventurers sat near the main hall eating cold breakfast. The volunteer medics had set up their triage station before dawn, arranging bandages and potion vials in neat rows.

Evan caught up near the southern gate. Something in his shoulders made Josh stop.

"They're moving the wagons," Evan said.

Josh turned. The covered wagons from the back of Henri's camp were rolling forward, surrounded by soldiers in heavy armor, and as he watched one of the canvas tarps pulled back to reveal eight ballistae with arms cocked, bolts loaded, and cranking mechanisms gleaming with oil.

"Suppression," Evan said. "Keep our heads down while ladders go up."

"Yeah." Ayen was already moving toward the stairs. "Get Lukas. Now."

Evan jogged toward the adventurer quarters.

Ayen grabbed Josh's arm. "With me."

They descended into the courtyard. Ayen made straight for a cluster of adventurers near the armory—Lukas and two others Josh didn't recognize, a woman with dark braids and a man whose face was a patchwork of scars.

"Centurion." Lukas straightened when he saw her coming.

"You saw the wagons."

"We saw them."

"Then you know what I'm asking." Ayen stopped in front of him, hands clasped behind her back. "Those ballistae don't fire during the assault. Destroyed, disabled, crews dead—I don't care how."

Lukas exchanged a look with the scarred man.

"Forty yards of open ground between the treeline and the wagons," Lukas said. "Good cover in the forest, but the approach is exposed."

"Guards," the woman added. "And their adventurers will be watching the flanks. Fifty of them still out there."

"I'm aware." Ayen's voice didn't change. "I'm also aware that every bolt those things fire is a defender who dies on this wall. They need to go."

Lukas nodded slowly.

"We wait for the assault," he said. "Hit them when their attention's on the walls. Fire if we can manage it, blades if we can't."

"How many do you need?"

"Six, maybe eight. Best we have at stealth."

Ayen looked at him one more time.

"Whatever it takes."

"Understood."

She turned and climbed back toward the wall, Josh following. When they reached the parapet, the parade formation was breaking up, soldiers dispersing with sharper energy in their movements.

"He's done talking," Josh said.

"So are we." Ayen raised her voice. "Legionaries! Positions!"

The wall came alive. The century took their stations, shields locked into gaps between the timber crenellations, javelins laid out within reach. Adventurers spread along the parapet in pairs and trios.

Ayen walked the line. She didn't speak much—a shoulder shoved here to close a gap, a shield adjusted there, a quiet word to a soldier who looked too young. Josh watched her work.

"When those bolts fly," Ayen called, loud enough for everyone, "you stay behind cover. Couple seconds to throw, then down. Anyone who plays hero dies. Clear?"

Acknowledgment rolled along the wall.

"Good." She turned back toward the enemy camp. "We held them once. We hold them again." A ghost of a smile crossed her face. "And when this is over, I'm putting in for a posting somewhere boring. Garrison duty at a farming village. Watch crops grow. Count sheep."

Evan appeared at Josh's elbow, slightly out of breath.

"Lukas is moving. He took eight. They'll be in position before the assault kicks off."

"If they can take out even half—"

"They know."

Josh looked at the enemy army—three hundred soldiers, fifty-odd adventurers, siege weapons gleaming. Then their own walls, maybe two hundred defenders with javelins and prayers.

"I should be inside," he said.

"Probably."

"Beth's going to kill me when this is over."

"She's going to kill both of us." Evan checked his sword in its sheath. "I'm the one who let you stay."

Ayen appeared beside them, her inspection complete.

"You ready?" She was looking at Josh. "Defense depends on your part."

His grin faded. "Yeah. It's ready. Took all night, but it's ready."

"Good." She turned back to the enemy camp. "When the time comes, don't hesitate."

"I won't."

Evan glanced between them but didn't ask.

Below, the first of Henri's soldiers began their advance.

The shield walls moved like armored beetles across the open ground.

Josh had never seen anything like it—interlocking shields forming shells around the ladder teams, soldiers inside invisible behind the overlapping plates. They advanced across the few hundred meters between Henri's camp and the walls, boots churning muddy grass, while the ballistae behind them prepared to fire.

"Disciplined," Evan said from behind cover. "They drilled this."

"Has to be that Asian commander's work." Ayen was crouched behind a crenellation, watching. "Henri's soldiers, but those aren't Henri's tactics."

The shield formations crossed the halfway point. Josh could see the ladders now—pulley-and-grapple contraptions cradled inside the shells.

"Ready potions," Ayen called.

Legionaries pulled ceramic containers from padded satchels—the last of the sleeping potions Harold had sent. Two optios positioned themselves above the section where the ladders would hit.

The shield walls reached the base of the wall.

"Now!"

The optios hurled the potions down. Ceramic shattered. Pale vapor billowed outward, engulfing the assault teams.

Josh held his breath, waiting for soldiers to crumple.

They kept moving.

Wet cloths appeared across faces, pulled from belts and pressed over mouths. The soldiers pushed through the cloud with streaming eyes, coughing and stumbling, but they kept their feet and their shields locked. Grapples flew upward, caught timber, and the block-and-tackle systems began to crank.

"Didn't work!" Ayen's voice cut through. "Josh—go!"

Josh was already running.

Behind him, ladders slammed against the wall and soldiers poured over the top. A ballista bolt screamed past his head close enough that he felt the wind of it. Somewhere a man was screaming in a way that meant he wouldn't be screaming much longer. Josh hit the stairs three at a time, heart hammering.

The courtyard was chaos—runners sprinting, medics dragging wounded, adventurers fighting at the base of the northern wall where a ladder team had breached.

Josh ran for the eastern bastion.

Lukas pressed his cheek against oak bark and counted guards.

Four at the nearest ballista. Three circling between weapons. Two adventurers with bows at the treeline—those were the dangerous ones, eyes constantly scanning the shadows.

Ezio never had to deal with fifty-foot sight lines, he thought. But Ezio also had hay bales and convenient architecture. Lukas had mud, trees, and a team of seven people who trusted him not to get them killed.

The assault had begun. He could hear it—crash of shields, screams, the rhythmic thunk of ballista bolts slamming into timber. Every bolt was a defender who might die.

Kira materialized beside him, face smeared with mud and ash. She moved like the shadows were part of her, and Lukas added "get that perk" to his mental list of things to do if he survived this.

"Two on the far side," she whispered.

"Archers?"

"Still watching."

Lukas studied the adventurers with their bows. Good position. Alert. Covering each other's blind spots. No way to take them both silently before one raised the alarm.

In the games, this was where you'd reload a save and try a different approach. Here, you just had to commit.

"Loud way," he said. "On my signal, everyone hits their target. Thirty seconds before reinforcements."

Kira nodded and vanished back into the shadows.

Lukas pulled the explosive potion from his belt. One of the good ones. He'd been saving it for a moment that mattered.

He watched the ballista crews crank their weapons, watched bolts slide into position, watched arms lock into firing tension.

Three. Two. One.

He threw.

The potion arced through morning air, and Lukas was already moving before it hit—the trick was committing to the motion, trusting that the explosion would cover your approach. The detonation ripped through two ballistae, turning wood and metal into shrapnel. Men screamed. Fire bloomed. Lukas's team burst from the treeline.

Kira reached the nearest guard before he could draw, her blade opening his throat. The scarred man tackled an adventurer archer and they went down in a tangle. Lukas was at the third ballista, hatchet swinging into the tension mechanism with everything he had.

Wood splintered and cables snapped. The arm jerked forward without a bolt, released energy tearing the frame apart.

"Four down!" someone shouted.

Lukas spun for his next target and caught an arrow in the shoulder.

The impact spun him sideways, vision whiting out. He kept his feet through stubbornness and saw the archer nocking another arrow, saw Kira sprinting toward the man, saw—

The second adventurer cut Kira down from behind.

She dropped without a sound.

Lukas pulled a knife and threw it. The blade took the adventurer in the eye. Lukas was moving again, arrow grinding against bone, and he reached the fifth ballista just as reinforcements arrived.

"Fall back!" he screamed. "Everyone out!"

Two of his team made it to the treeline with him. The others didn't.

Behind them, six of eight ballistae burned or lay in pieces.

Lukas ran until his legs gave out, then crawled until his arms did the same. No checkpoint to reload. No second attempt. Just the bodies of five people who'd trusted him, and a mission accomplished.

Josh pressed his palms flat against the bastion's stone foundation.

From here he could feel the assault more than see it—vibrations through the rock, the chaos of ladders and soldiers and blades. The shield formations had broken apart on the walls, and now it was just a brutal scrum.

He closed his eyes and felt for the cavities he'd carved overnight.

Hours of slicing through bedrock with his mana. Carving away stone in thin sheets, then compacting the earth above so it held its weight on nothing but compressed lattice. The whole approach was hollow now—a thin crust of soil over empty space. All that kept it standing was earth Josh had left specifically so he could remove it.

His mana gathered, pooling in his hands, finding the familiar pathways through stone.

On the wall above, Marshal shouted something. Every defender ducked at once, shields up, heads down.

Fire swept across the parapet.

Marshal's flames rolled over the fighting positions in a focused wave, hot enough to make enemy soldiers scream and leap from the walls rather than burn. They tumbled off the parapets, some landing badly, others scrambling to their feet. For a handful of seconds, the wall was clear.

Josh shoved every drop of mana he had into the ground.

The lattice dissolved. The compressed earth holding up the approach simply ceased to exist, and gravity did the rest.

The ground collapsed.

Sixty yards wide, the approach dropped into the cavities below. Soldiers, ladders, shields—all of it vanishing into the earth in a roar of crumbling soil and splintering wood. The second wave scrambled backward as the collapse spread, edges crumbling and pulling more men down.

The screams were terrible.

Josh sagged against the bastion wall, mana spent, hands shaking. He could feel the emptiness inside where his reserves had been—a hollow ache that would take days to refill.

On the wall, someone was cheering.

Josh was too busy trying to breathe to think about the men he'd just dropped into the earth.

Then Evan's voice cut through, high and sharp.

"They're moving! Heading for the ford!"

Josh tried to run up the stairs to see and ended up flat on his face. He decided to just lay there for a minute.

Henri saw the collapse and felt something crack inside his chest.

His soldiers were screaming in a pit that damned crafter had dug, the walls of Haven still stood, and his ballistae were burning behind him.

"Second wave!" he screamed. "Get up there! Fill the gaps!"

Officers relayed the order. Fresh troops moved forward, picking around the edges of the collapse. They could still—

"My Lord." Arjun's voice was strange.

Henri turned.

Arjun wasn't looking at the walls. He was looking at the ford, where Sato's soldiers—Sato's entire force—were wading across the shallows with their backs to the assault.

"No," Henri breathed.

Sato himself was visible at the rear of the column, walking beside his banner. He wasn't running or hurrying, just leaving like a man who had somewhere better to be.

Henri's vision went red.

"SATO!"

The scream tore out with enough force to hurt his throat, and his feet moved forward before his mind caught up because he had to reach them, had to stop them—

Arjun caught his arm.

"Let go."

"Look at the assault." Arjun's face was grim. "If we chase Sato, we lose the men already committed. They die without support."

"They're already dying!"

"Then let them die for something." Arjun pulled Henri around to face the walls. "We finish this, or we lose everything."

Henri looked at the walls where his soldiers were still fighting on the parapets, at the chaos of collapsed ground and burning ballistae, then back at Sato's column growing smaller in the distance.

The rage broke through.

"This world." He was spitting the words. "This fucking world and everything in it. I was supposed to rule here. I was bred for this. My entire life was preparation for a moment of power, and this—this backwater, these peasants, this jumped-up alchemist—"

His voice cracked. He was screaming and crying at the same time, tears cutting tracks through dust on his face.

"I had a birthright! I had a legacy! And this world took everything—everything I was supposed to become—and gave it to farmers and craftsmen and adventurers who don't know the first thing about—"

Arjun slapped him.

The impact rocked Henri's head sideways. He stared at Arjun, mouth working, rage draining out and leaving something hollow behind.

"Your soldiers are dying," Arjun said quietly. "Command them."

Henri closed his eyes and drew a breath, then opened them again.

"Sound the retreat. Pull everyone back."

"My Lord—"

"We're done." Henri turned away from the walls, away from the carnage. "We're done."

The horns began to blow.

Josh watched the retreat from the wall, too tired to move.

Surviving attackers fell back toward Henri's camp, leaving dead and wounded behind. The collapsed section of ground still groaned as trapped men tried to dig free. Only two ballistae were still functional, and those crews seemed more interested in survival than shooting.

Evan appeared beside him, blood on his face that didn't look like his.

"Sato crossed the ford," he said. "He's still there, capturing anyone who tries to cross."

"Why?"

"Don't know. Don't care." Evan leaned against the parapet, shoulders sagging.

They stood in silence, looking at destruction—bodies on the walls, collapsed ground, smoke rising from burning ballistae.

Then Josh heard something.

Voices coming from the east, from the direction of Dalen's Hold.

A marching cadence, growing louder.

"HENRI THOUGHT HE WAS A LORD!"

"HENRI THOUGHT HE'D TAKE OUR FORD!"

"HENRI'S LYING IN THE MUD!"

"CRYING 'BOUT HIS NOBLE BLOOD!"

"Is that—" Evan started.

First ranks appeared on the road, shields glinting in afternoon sun, boots striking ground in perfect unison. A century of soldiers, fresh and rested, formation tight, banner flying.

Dalen's banner.

Henri saw them at the same time Arjun did.

Fresh troops coming from the east, cutting off the path toward Dalen's Hold. Henri's mind raced through options and found none. Most of his assault force was screaming in the pit or dead on the walls. The soldiers still standing were scattered, leaderless, already throwing down weapons and kneeling in the mud.

He had maybe twenty men still with him, and they were looking at him like he was supposed to have answers.

"We need to move now, before they close the gap." Henri grabbed Arjun's arm. "North, into the forest."

"And then what?" Arjun's voice cracked.

"I don't know, but staying here means capture or death."

They ran, taking whoever would follow—just two lords and a handful of soldiers sprinting for the treeline while their army surrendered behind them.

On the wall, Evan watched them go.

"There." He pointed at the figures breaking from the enemy camp and heading north. "That's Henri and Arjun."

Josh squinted. "You sure?"

"Henri's wearing that stupid shiny armor, and Arjun's limping. I'm sure."

Evan turned to the adventurers still on the wall. "Keller! Take your team north. Vance, loop west in case they double back. I want those two alive!"

Keller—a rangy woman with a bow across her back—nodded once and vaulted over the inner edge of the parapet, her team following. Vance's group went down the stairs at a run.

The marching cadence was louder now, the century close enough that Josh could see individual faces.

"WHEN I GET BACK TO THE LANDING!"

"GONNA KISS MY GIRL GOODNIGHT!"

"IF SHE ASKS ME WHERE I BEEN!"

"TELL HER THAT I KILLED SOME MEN!"

Dalen's century reached the field and the cadence died as they fanned out across the battlefield. Henri's remaining soldiers were already kneeling with their hands up, and the few who tried to run found adventurers waiting in the treeline. Dalen's men moved through the wreckage, collecting weapons, binding wrists, pulling survivors from the edges of the collapsed ground.

Ayen appeared beside them, blood on her face, her helmet dented on one side.

"It's done," she said. "We're taking surrender."

Josh watched Henri and Arjun disappear into the northern forest, two teams of adventurers close behind.

Someone in Dalen's century started up again, quieter now, almost conversational as they worked.

"When I die don't bury me—"

"Just pickle me in alchemy—"

"Put me in a potion jar—"

"Send me home to my mama."

Josh started laughing. He couldn't help it—it just came out of him, all the tension releasing at once, and he laughed until tears ran down his face. The battle was over, and somewhere out there two teams of adventurers were chasing enemy lords through a forest while soldiers sang about being pickled in potion jars.

"Come on." Evan pulled him to his feet. "Let's go find out if Lukas made it back."

"Yeah." Josh wiped his eyes. "And then I have to go face my wife."

Below them, the last of Henri's soldiers knelt in the mud with their hands behind their heads, and the defenders began to cheer.