Fate Undone: A Novella

Chapter IV - Part III

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The belfries were at the bottom of the hill now, about two hundred yards out, growing taller and taller with their approach. Three horn blasts came from a mural tower, signaling the enemy's entry into archer territory. The screeching rockets continued to fly their way with mixed results, intent on stopping the machines before they could collect at the city's wall, but now more flames could take part in the defensive assault. All along the wall, bowmen stooped over their basins and knocked their arrows. The captains yelled out their commands to their troops and a wave of light—thousands upon thousands of flaming arrows—took to the night sky.

For a moment, they looked like they could have been exaggerated stars, passing through the heavens, until they dropped and became a glorious meteor shower. They came down, peppering the field and the army spreading across it. Far out across the city, and down on that crowded field, men ran and stumbled, catching flaming arrowheads in their shields and chests. But from Vassilios Manor, it didn't seem to make a dent. The damage done was most prevalent on the fronts of the belfries. Stretched hides covered large portions of the machines, but they did not cover all. The fires licked at the wood and, for some, took root.

Captains shouted their orders again; a wall of light shot out once more. As it all fell, drawing shouts of anger and pain from the men and the beasts, a new flash of light suddenly turned night into day. Then Abraam heard the deep thud from the hilltop. A light—far brighter than any rocket that the Pasithians were setting off—streaked high above the field, streaming a vibrant white-orange banner behind it as it came toward the city. It climbed ever-so high before finally sinking. It illuminated the city's walls, the alleyways behind, and the rooftops and the gutters as it flew past rows of soldiers on the ramparts that could only watch helplessly. It was a boulder of such enormity, coated with so much fire, that its flight sounded as if it tore the very air to shreds as it came ripping down. It crashed on the city's northeastern side, flaring up orange and red over the peaked rooflines and sending its weight out through the ground and up the manor's high hill. Abraam felt it in his feet. All of the Royal Guards did.

"Gods have mercy," someone muttered. "I've never seen such a show of strength."

It wasn't a show of strength, Abraam knew, though he didn't say as much. It was a test—a judge of distance for the rest to come.

More arrows were loosed from the walls, and the rockets continued to scream, pointed not only at the creeping belfries but also the catapults atop the hill. Every one of those catapults was burning bright. Whatever kind of flame that the Eressians had concocted was set into the buckets of those grueling machines. Rockets reached out like dying fingers, jabbing the hillside and shooting too high overhead, trying desperately to knock down the city-wreckers. But the odds were far too slim, the hopes too high.

Abraam saw the lights on the hill flare up and sail before the deep thud, thud, thud, thud reached his ears. No matter how many men Pasithia had, no matter how many arrows were loosed, no matter how strong or brave everyone was and wanted to be, there was absolutely nothing that could be done.

Fire crashed violently against the city's walls, tearing down stone and soldiers alike and setting flame to those caught too close to the blasts. Fire splashed and clung like water, gripping the sides of the mural towers and raining down over the ramparts. Heavy debris fell over the side of the wall as flames fluttered and splashed. Abraam could not tell if it was only the fire he was seeing, tossing itself over the wall's edge, or if it was the men and women dying for their city. Within the walls, the hail of fire tore through entire buildings. The tall homes in the northern district were shredded after a shot had broken its way through the mass of structures, breaking one building against another. In the nobles' district, a boulder crashed and rolled through the delicate homes with a trail of fire burning behind it, heaving like a bubbling wave.

Rockets continued to shriek and explode in the field. One impacted the midsection of a belfry that had already been set ablaze. The Eressian machine cracked and split over in front of itself, tearing and crashing like a grove of hollow trees. Its top half fell into the ground and scattered over the Eressians that couldn't outrun its demise. Another rocket just barely hit the base of a different belfry. The beasts and men that pulled the machine along were blown apart, just as the front wheels were that gave the tower its movement. The front end fell and dug into the grass and dirt, and it was abandoned in the middle of the field. Cries of anguish shouted from those trapped within as spreading fire began to consume it whole.

The remaining machines rolled past their dead brethren with no intentions of slowing down. One even began to go up in flames, but it did not stop. In fact, as the catapults redirected their barrage to the city alone, the blazing belfry was among the first to reach the walls. Its bridge came crashing down crookedly with little warning, nearly right on the heads of the Pasithians nearest to the parapets. A singed rope, meant to help lower the bridge, failed and fell off to the side as a thick cloud of black smoke poured out from the gateway. Eressian troops quickly rushed out from their dark confine, stumbling to flee more than to fight. They choked and coughed their way down onto the ramparts, right into the bladed hands of the Pasithians. Too easily, they were cut down, filled with arrowheads, and thrown over the sides.

From the lowered bridges of the belfries that hadn't burned up upon their arrivals, Eressian soldiers rushed out with an unexpected ferocity. Fire from within the city gleamed off of their blades and black armor as their risen shields took the main force from the flurries of arrows. Some men fell to their knees before being hewn down by clashing Pasithian swords. Others slipped through the barrages and held their ground, giving their comrades the time needed to spill out and spread like a deadly virus.

Below, under the falling bodies that were pushed over the embrasures and bridges—and amid the crumbling stone—Eressians shouted war cries as they entered the city through its broken wounds.

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