An Angel Called Eternity

To Bet on Losing Dogs - Lykourgos VIII: Two Bastard's Crowns

Lykourgos VIII: Two Bastard's Crowns

The Twelfth Day of the Eighth Moon, 873 AD.
Stagspring, Central Owkrestos, Klironomea.

The capital of Owkrestos had fallen with surprisingly little fanfare.

The city was old and venerable, but it was little more than a shell of what it used to be. Symon, having both taken the city before and arrived at the warcamp on horseback with a few dozen of his best men only a few days ago, had led the assault to take it again. According to him there had been guards on the old routes he and a few of his men had used to sneak into the city a few years ago, but in his own words he'd "Improvised a way for the lads to get through", and that had been that. Lykourgos didn't know what exactly it was that Symon had done to get his men into the city, but whatever it was it had been damn effective.

Well, he said it had been effective. With how few men were in the city to stop him Lykourgos wasn't really sure if he'd have needed to do anything at all. The walls had been sparsely guarded, and according to some Owkrestan deserters the streets beyond were barely patrolled. Stagspring was his, but the once great city was still gutted from the last time it was stormed by the Starlings a few years ago. With Symon at the walls again it was child's play to get inside since he'd already done it before, only this side they were fighting against King Aleksandar and not for him, not to mention the fact that the garrison was still a paltry and undermanned thing.

It hadn't taken long for Stagspring to fall, and with the fall of Stagspring the only fortified location that could be any real impediment to his efforts was that of Blacktree Hall, the home of house Blackoak. It felt strange to Lykourgos that the man who'd started this war was still fighting from within the confines of his castle, but the king he had sought to depose once all was said and done was already gone. What few men remained had put up some admittedly stiff resistance in the face of overwhelming odds, but with the Owkrestan nobles taking their retinues and men to their home castles in order to prepare for his coming there was nothing the beleaguered garrison could do to stop his forces. Not for long anyway, for Symon and one of the younger Lieutenants had come up with a plan.

There had been an exposed sewer grate large enough for four men to walk through side-by-side near the city, though any attempts to cut through or batter down the grate had been fruitless. Well, until the young Lieutenant had gotten an idea.

A pair of scorpions with small winches had been hastily assembled and lined up some forty paces from the grate. A pair of siege-hooks attached to lengths of rope had been modified to be released from the small artillery pieces, and then they were loosed into the sewer. When they were winched back they pulled tight against the grate, and though it held firm the winches had been good and strong. The second there was a bit of give from around the edges of the grate men with strong chisels and good workman's hammers began to chip around the loosening parts of the grate, and within two hours the work was done.

The Owkrestans didn't let this go unchallenged, to their credit. Repeatedly Owkrestan skirmishers let loose with shortbows whilst the men with chisels and hammers worked, but casualties had been relatively light.

If Lykourgos had been in command of them he'd have ordered the skirmishers to cover a few men with bills or billhooks, who would cut through the rope attached to the hooks and release the pressure from the grate for a time. But then if he'd actually known about what this Lieutenant was planning he would have ordered them to substitute the rope for a length of chain, so he supposed that really there were things that could have been done better on both sides of that small skirmish.

When the thousand under this Lieutenant, who Lykourgos was admittedly looking forwards to rewarding given their ingenuity, got into the sewers alongside the Starlings they were set upon by Owkrestan guards and armsmen, and in the darkness with their backs to the light the going was very tough for his men. Still, despite the casualties they took they'd pushed through the sewers and then, under the command of the Starlings amongst their number who knew the city well, regained their whereabouts and made for the gatehouses along the city to let their comrades waiting beyond the walls into the city.