{Every citizen of Middengard must register themselves within the Conscription Compendium during times of war. Every day at random names shall be drawn from this Compendium and those named must report to the nearest Warhouse for gear assignment and collar sizing. Those found guilty of tardiness or desertion are to be put to death immediately.}
-Rule Three of Ten from the Role of Citizenship Edict passed by the Iron Round Council
"Move!" roared one of the Iron Knights. It prodded Jurgen in the back with the tip of its halberd, forcing him closer towards the wall, the metal collar around his neck choking at him.
"Stop! Please! I'm trying!" Jurgen tried to force himself closer, he really did, but the others chained to him were just as hard pressed, jostling like crowded pigs and sounding much the same. They hawked and squealed, bleated and screamed as they were herded closer and closer towards the section of wall that was doomed to fall at any moment.
Just past the squirming bodies, Jurgen could faintly make out a shack crushed beneath a pile of broken stones and timber. Most likely the tower that had fallen days ago. Ever since the enemy had acquired some new, strange weapon that boomed as loud as a volcano they'd been using it to pound Middengard relentlessly.
Day in and day out he'd heard the awful noise, and now they were here, at his doorstep no less. Jurgen could barely fathom it. All his life he'd lived peacefully as a baker in the slums, scraping out some sort of meager existence, happy when it was everyone else being called for conscription and not him. What good would he have been with a sword anyway? His hands were meant for kneading dough, not holding weapons. But the Knights of the Iron Round had come for him eventually. He and the rest of his neighbors had been rounded up, chained together, chained to their weapons, the cramped, heavy gauntlet around his right hand fixed so that he could never let go of his sword..
"To the front!" the Iron Knight roared again, this time jabbing Jurgen hard enough to make him bleed. He gasped, wailed, felt the hot tickle of blood running down his back. He pushed himself harder, nearly knocked over a girl no older than sixteen. She looked scared, the poor thing, her eyes wide and wet and bloodshot, the sword welded into her gauntlet so heavy she was dragging it against the flagstones. Jurgen wondered if he should have said something then before realizing it would have been pointless. What was there to even say?
What sounded like the heaven's splitting apart tore him from his sour thoughts. To his great dismay he realized it was the city wall making the terrible noise. The mighty stack of heart stones, that had once towered over his bakery, seemed to have finally met its match. With a teeth rattling shudder It fell in a great cacophony of tortured masonry and tumbling stone, bathing Jurgen and everyone else around him in a fine, white dust. He gasped, coughed, spat, tried to wipe the stuff from his stinging eyes. He could hear people wailing, crying, the loud rattle of chains. But most of all, he heard the Iron Knight gurgling out commands.
"Charge! Attack!" Jurgen felt another jolt of pain in his backside as he was nudged forward. He leapt, arching his body in some desperate attempt to avoid being prodded again. The world slowly came back in a blur of light and dark. He could just make out a hole between a section of the wall. A breach, sunlight pouring out into the slums, and something else too.
A figure loomed out before him. A towering giant wrapped in rotten furs and glinting metal, its face hidden beneath a curtain of chainmail. Jurgen charged at it, felt his collar yank as he dragged some of the other slaves with him. He raised his sword just as the figure came stumbling down only to realize it had its own weapon at the ready.
A straight line of night sky loomed above him, but that couldn't have been right. It was daytime, after all. He'd seen it first hand. All at once the stars came rushing towards him, closer and closer until...,
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Tales of the Vangen: The Siege of Middengard (Book 2)
Fantasy[Completed]Five years have passed since the Black Ministry's betrayal against The Empress, their rebellion quashed at the hands of the Vangen Royal Guard. But the roots of treachery lie deep, and it is soon discovered that the Ministry did not act a...
