A man burst up the worn stone stairs of the watchtower, his boots hamring against the steps as he skipped two at a ti. His lungs burned, his throat scraped raw, but the sound of screams carried by the sea wind from beyond the walls drove him on.
Of all the cursed places in the realm, he thought, it should never have been this city to face war. They were leagues from the border of the Peasant Prince, deep in lands that had always been safe.
And yet here they were.
He gripped the cold edge of the stony stairwell’s final step and hauled himself up, erging onto the rampart. For a heartbeat he paused, scanning the defenders who were not already down at the harbor making their stand.
Arrows hissed down from the walls, striking uselessly against the few enemy ships within range. Most of the fleet, however, sailed untouched, gliding toward the harbor’s mouth to land directly inside the city.
The enemy archers answered in kind, loosing shafts from the decks, but at such an awkward angle their arrows clattered harmlessly against stone or splashed into the sea.
With barely half an hour’s warning of the incoming fleet, the knight in command of the city guard had given his first and most urgent order: raise the harbor chain. Seal the entrance before the enemy ships could enter.
But that was why the runner was here and why his chest felt tight with more than just breathlessness.
He spotted his commander , a tall man, standing near the crenellations, barking orders. The man turned as he noticed his ssenger approaching, his face already darkening when he saw no chain lifting in the harbor below.
The runner staggered to a halt, forcing the words out between ragged breaths."Sir... the chains... they’ve been snapped. Broken clean through... at both horns."
The knight’s eyes widened as he realised what that ant, "Snapped? And how in the hells do we only discover this now?"
The man’s tongue stumbled over itself. "We... we didn’t see it until—until we tried to raise them. When we began to pull... nothing ca up."
The commander turned sharply toward the harbor, his gaze falling upon the water’s mouth. The massive chain ant to stretch between the two great stone pillars guarding the entrance remained absent.
And the ships were coming, their oars cutting through the sea like knives.
His jaw tightened. With the barrier gone, there was no stopping them from entering. The only choice left was to et them head‑on the mont they touched shore, and deny them a foothold in the harbor.
He turned to the n on the wall and got ready to give his orders.
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Ninety longboats surged through the churning harbor waters like black insects swarming from beneath a stone, their oars biting deep and heaving them forward against the current. The wind, which had favored them all week, now turned traitor, its gusts driving waves hard against their hulls.
Packed into those boats were eighteen hundred n, their armor creaking as they shifted into the crouched stance of soldiers bracing for impact. Shields were locked overhead in a seamless shell, their spear hafts wedged against the planks beneath their boots so that each vessel resembled a floating porcupine.
There was no need to guard their flanks. Along the low gunwales, thick wooden boards had been raised, turning the longboats into narrow fortresses and sheltering the n from the arrow‑rains that fell from the city’s walls.
The boards rattled and shuddered with every impact, the hiss of arrows followed by the dull, thudding crack of iron‑shod tips burying into wood. The n could hear the waves only as a distant roar beneath that staccato hamring, for their world had narrowed to a dark tunnel of timber and iron.
The only glimpse they had of the outside was forward, toward the low skyline of the city they were about to storm. Stone buildings pressed close to the harbor’s edge, their tiled roofs lined with archers who loosed down upon the advancing swarm.
Aboard the towering deck of The Yarzat’s Lady, the flagship of his fleet, Prince Alpheo stood in calm silence, eyes fixed on the unfolding assault. From his vantage point, the harbor looked like a great stone maw, its docks lined with steel, waiting to bite down on the n rushing toward it.
The attack was already underway.
The Third and Fourth Legions had taken the vanguard, with the Fourth leading the charge. Their counterparts in the Third followed close behind , protected by improvised cover, as their equipnt prevented them from bearing shields.
To compensate, halberdiers stationed aboard the boats hoisted thick planks too above their comrades’ heads, shielding them from the lethal hail of arrows falling from the city’s walls.
Normally, Alpheo would never have risked his beloved White Army in such a role. He was famously protective of them, more than once, he’d ordered reassignnts simply to spare their lives, more than willing to trade twenty levy n from other lords for a single soldier of his own.
But not today.
Today, the success of the landing mattered more than sentint. And so he had sent them in with the rest, willing to pay any price to gain that first, critical foothold.
This was no ordinary landing. It was, in every sense, a dieval Normandy, a brutal amphibious assault against a defended harbor.
If his n could take the docks, the city would almost certainly fall. The enemy, he gouged looking at the enemy ranks , had no more than four hundred defenders.
He was a bit surprised by how few they were,considering the importance of the city but he certainly did not complain.
Against the weight of his two legions and the others waiting to disembark, they would be crushed, always if his forces could get off the boats and onto solid ground.
But that was the hard part.
This wasn’t a beach. There was no soft sand and shallow surf. These longboats were pressing into deep harbor waters, and the n would have to leap two by two onto stone wharves already bristling with spears. It would be a bloodbath in those first few minutes.
As Alpheo had foreseen, the mont the defenders discovered the harbor chain was severed, they funneled every available soldier to the docks, determined to deny his forces any chance of gaining a foothold.
From the deck of Lady, he observed them without a flicker of emotion. The enemy’s line stood scarcely a ter from the water’s edge, close enough that, with a single coordinated shove, they could drive his n back into the sea.
It would take no grand maneuver, no masterstroke of tactics.
Just the relentless press of shields and spears to topple the attackers into the depths, where they would either drown under the weight of their armor or die helplessly to a thrusting spear.
A force in such a position could hold off an enemy three tis its number, and if by so mischance they were forced to yield, they would inflict such grievous casualties that the victory would taste of ashes.
The harbor’s geography further favored them. The entrance was narrow, too narrow for the attackers to fan out and widen their front. The defenders could mass into a compact, deep-locked formation, presenting an unbroken wall of wood and steel that would blunt any direct assault.
By any reasonable asure, the odds still leaned toward the defenders. Their one disadvantage was numbers, and numbers alone are rarely enough to win a battle on such constricted ground.
But this was not so hastily conceived strike, thrown together in the chaos of a campaign.
After all, Alpheo had been planning for Artlerita’s fall for months.
And those months had not been wasted on idleness or picking his own nose.
Every possibility, every obstacle, every detail that might tilt the balance toward victory had been weighed and prepared for. The scene before him, the narrow mouth, the shield wall, the spears ready to thrust, was no surprise to him.
His calm was proof enough.
Without the faintest trace of unease, Alpheo tore his gaze from the massed defenders and fixed it on Sir Pontus. In that asured glance, laid the quiet and undeniable proof of a man whose na had haunted the dreams of three princes.
And right now he would be showing the reason to those man standing on the harbor
"Give the signal."
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