The Knight of Chivalry

Chapter 11

The army set off again going from the battlefield a few days march to the city of Harford which was where Dontilious had been stationed and said there was at least another ten thousand men behind its walls and the king wanted to deal with these before they moved further north it wasn’t smart strategy to leave enemy forces behind who can cut off your supply lines besides he wanted to give opportunity to his men for pillaging to teach these northern bastards a lesson. So they set up camp around the city as they were going to siege it but first they needed to build siege weapons for this as they didn’t carry such things with them as they were heavy and slow. Luckily there was a forest nearby where the rebels and been negligent and had not burnt it down so a lot of the men in the army were tasked with chopping trees down in order for them to be made into the siege weapons by the carpenters the king had brought with him in his entourage. They built ladders to be put against the walls and battering rams to break down the gates, they had to be built well and not just be reinforced tree trunks as the defenders would have a few tricks up their sleeves for dealing with such things and the men who were going to be carry this had to be protected from the archers on the walls, others would be throwing spears or rocks down at them and some gates even had pots of boiling oil to be poured down onto the attackers to devastating effects and so all this had to be thought about for them to break through the gates. Luckily this city only had strong wooded gates and no moat or portcullis to be contended with and that was good.

            The lord had told Simon the strategy that those who were leading this army had come up with, there would be around five thousand men who were going to be using ladders to get up onto the walls and take some of the towers and to subdue the defenders up there, once the gates had been taken they were to get off the walls and proceed to the town hall where the leader of the city should be. There would also be around five thousand men on the battering ram to break down the gates once this was done the rest of the army including the cavalry were to come in and mop up the defenders and then go and capture the leader of the city. The lord then said he was letting Simon go with his men who were going to be on the ladders and so he went with the men who were chopping those trees down to make their own ladders when he had free time from looking after the lord which wasn’t to bad after he had sent up the tent he usually only had to prepare his meals sometimes and to look after his armour, weapons and horse and that wasn’t even so bad as the horses were all stabled together and so the squires took turns looking after all of these charges. It was hard working cutting down the trees as they had to find the right ones that were big enough to be put against the side of the wall but with the help of a carpenter they soon had made a half dozen ladders in a couple days and they were ready for the assault to begin.

            The army had surrounded the city to put it under siege so they couldn’t get any food into them but no doubt they would have stores just in case this happened and they could last this way for weeks but maintaining a siege and letting those inside starve to death was a possibility that sometimes was done and as this army can have a supply train to sustain it or to go around the local countryside to get food was good and the king had sent out men just for that purpose and to scout out the area just in case there was any reinforcements coming to the town but they saw nothing. Both the sieging forces and the besieged had to deal with the problem of having a lot of people in the same place causing sickness and they had to deal with the waste, this was more of a problem in the city as they had nowhere to put it but the army outside can move it and they didn’t get a lot of men falling sick at first but a few did and a couple of these died from such sickness which was why they didn’t really want to hang around with a siege as more would die and a few also would slip off into the night to desert the army and make their way home but for now that wasn’t much of a problem as they had been winning so far.

            The army had nearly finished building all the siege engines and were in the process of organising the army to make sure everyone was in the proper place for the assault as there would be two battering rams going at two of the three gates into the city and all the ladder soldiers were going to be placed around the city to make the defenders stretch themselves all over the place making them easier to defeat when they did something unexpected and the gates opened and around a three hundred of them rode out on horseback and attacked the attackers. They were caught by surprise at first and a number of them were killed but they soon rallied around and got their shields and spears ready as the cavalry kept charging and were dealing with them with these spears, taking out even the horses or the riders, though they still dealt some damage it was over in a few minutes and this charge was ended, the defenders cavalry had even been captured or killed and the attackers though lost about five hundred men to this attack were no worse for wear. These was a desperate attempt by the defenders to break through the attackers line and to send men off to go get them help as they knew they had no chance against them but it didn’t go fast enough to go through and so they would be alone and the attackers would attack the next night.