Displaced

Chapter 64

"Incoming!" the lookout called out loud enough for everybody nearby to hear. Almost absentmindedly, Arlette bent down under cover as a wave of projectiles of all sorts flew over her head, the volley of flying death barely registering in her mind.

Arlette knew that spacing out while under attack was generally a poor idea, but today she just couldn't help it. It wasn't like she was in any real danger anyway. Today seemed to be one of those days where the Ubrans had decided to rest, which meant they usually just pelted the top of the wall with barrages of arrows until they felt like they'd put on a decent enough show, and then fell back. Much of warfare was a battle of attrition. The relentless daily assaults on the walls were an attack on more than just the obvious vector. Sure, the most obvious goal was to overwhelm the defenders, open the closest gate, and wash over the rest of the city. But even if that failed, these attacks wore the Eterians' thin not just in numbers but in stamina and strength—eventually, they would be too tired, too weak, or too few to hold back the Ubran legions any longer.

Arlette felt like they were getting closer to that point than she wanted to admit. Just earlier that day, she'd overheard nearby troops gossiping about rumors that the higher-ups were going to start a new all-hands-on-deck strategy to replace the current shift-based system.

Arlette had never been in a siege herself before, but she was educated enough to understand that they were rarely quick affairs. It paid to prioritize the long-term over the short-term whenever possible, especially if you were the defenders. With that in mind, until now the army had been split into two rotating groups—the day shift and the night shift—in an effort to prevent wear-out for as long as possible. Since the great majority of attacks came while the sun watched over them, most of the defenders stood on the wall then, while a smaller group manned the defenses under the moonlight.

"Incoming!"

Of course, in the case of a real emergency, the night shift would be called upon to reinforce their daytime counterparts, and in the rare occurrence of a night attack, the day shift would be on standby, ready to assist. Assignments between night and day rotated frequently, as the generally less-demanding night served as a bit of a rest for the weary. Arlette and her squad had already been on night shift twice.

Now, however, it seemed that those in charge felt there weren't enough people remaining to split up. If true, that was a bad sign for her. It would mean she'd be even busier than before, spending nearly all her waking day atop the wall, and that meant almost no time to continue her search. That was if the city even held much longer.

The argument could be made that the Ubrans didn't even need Sebastian as long as they had patience. After all, she and the rest were essentially trapped with a limited, dwindling food supply and no way of replenishing it. There was no hope of victory for the Eterians if it remained just them versus the Ubrans. Everybody in Crirada was slowly withering away from the lack of food combined with the constant exertion. Eventually, they would just hit their limit.

That was the crux of the matter. Sieges, by nature, were what happened when the defending side couldn't defeat the attacking side on the battlefield, leaving their only option for victory to hold out long enough for something to change and flip the balance in their favor. In this case, that meant lasting long enough for one or more other Nocend nations to send reinforcements to combat the Ubrans. The problem was, some other army appearing out of nowhere to save the day seemed impossible at this point. It was Arlette's opinion that if the other nations were going to get involved then they would have shown up already.

The great majority of her ire was directed at Drayhadal and Stragma. She didn't know what was wrong with them, but she did know that their armies were strong enough to possibly turn the tide of this entire war. Especially the Stragmans—if they were to send the vast majority of their forces, they might have enough people to rival the Ubrans in numbers. But no, they'd stayed in their forest, content in the knowledge that it would make invading their nation profoundly difficult. She found it strange, as it seemed to go against the aggressive nature of their society as she understood it from her short time there.