Read 20+ Chapter's Ahead in Patreon
"I don't want to die!"
"Help! Somebody help me!"
"Run for your lives!"
The moment Vanyel stepped out of the slave town outside Tyrosh, clutching half a wooden door as a makeshift shield, he was met by a wave of people fleeing toward them in utter panic.
The screams of terror had barely reached his ears when a sharp whoosh cut through the air.
The arrows did not come from the direction of Tyrosh, as one might expect. They came from behind Vanyel and his companions.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
In the blink of an eye, the terrified crowd running ahead collapsed in front of them like stalks of wheat cut down at harvest. Among the fallen, Vanyel even recognized two or three familiar faces—people he had known from his own town.
A deep and bitter regret surged in Vanyel's heart. He should have fled the moment he heard the first rumors of a demon and a dragon.
He should never have lingered to gather food and valuables. If not for that, the combined group of thousands from neighboring towns might have already made it safely into Tyrosh.
Now they stood trapped between death and destruction, forced to play the part of cannon fodder in someone else's war.
But regrets were meaningless now. Vanyel wanted only one thing—to live.
Behind them were over two thousand fully armed soldiers, the dreaded overseers tasked with enforcing discipline through fear and death.
And even more terrifying than them was the demon and the dragon, both of whom had vanished for more than a day with a group of people.
To the east of Tyrosh stretched a vast, flat plain with nowhere to hide and no shelter to be found.
If the demon or the dragon caught them, death would not be the worst fate. Their souls would be devoured.
In that desperate moment, the only slim hope for survival lay in forcing their way into Tyrosh.
"Those who don't want to die, those who don't want their souls to be devoured, over here! Join the doors together! They can block the arrows!"
Vanyel's voice cut through the chaos like a whip crack, momentarily snapping the crowd out of their panic.
People, still dazed and shaken, instinctively followed his instructions, huddling together and piecing their broken doors into makeshift shields.
Surprisingly, it worked. The tight formation of door panels held off the arrows raining from above.
As for the boulders hurled by the massive trebuchets, Vanyel didn't even bother to think about them. That was something only fate could decide.
For now, luck seemed to be on his side. Not a single boulder had landed among his group—not yet.
And so, under the pressure of the Bloodstone soldiers driving them forward like herders with whips, the desperate cannon-fodder army finally reached the foot of Tyrosh's walls.
Click-clack, Click-clack!
A crude but sturdy siege ladder was raised against the battlements, built from the timber they had been forced to harvest only days earlier.
Vanyel remembered how the demon had driven them to fell trees near Tyrosh, how each village had been made to send its best carpenters to work without rest.
Now, one of those ladders stood before him. He glanced around at the others.
They didn't move. They only stared at him—silent, waiting.
He understood why. He had led the charge. He was the one who had first broken through the fear. Now, whether he wanted it or not, they saw him as their leader.
There was no turning back. Not now.
Grinding his teeth, Vanyel stomped the ground with bitter determination, pulled the short sword from his belt, and clamped it between his teeth. With his right hand gripping the half-door shield, he began climbing the siege ladder using his left.
THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Arrows rained down from above, but Vanyel's thick wooden shield caught each one. Step by step, he climbed higher—seven meters, then eight.
Below him, the ladder grew crowded with others inspired by his courage. They climbed together, shielding one another and hoping to break through.
Then, the arrows stopped. No more impacts struck his shield.
A terrible foreboding welled up in Vanyel's chest.
CRACK!
A thunderous sound erupted above him. A stone the size of a man's head came crashing down, smashing his shield to pieces and shattering the bones of his right hand in an instant.
Pain exploded in his arm. Before he could even scream, a second stone followed, striking him square in the face.
SMASH!
His skull crumpled beneath the blow. Blood and brain matter burst into the air, spraying red across the battlements.
THUD!
Vanyel's limp body tumbled from the ladder, crashing to the ground like a broken doll. In the chaos of battle, he became just another corpse—quickly forgotten.
No one would remember his defiance, his bravery, or the way he had tried so desperately to survive.
Yet his sacrifice was not in vain.
Because of Vanyel and those like him, the tide of battle began to shift.
While the Tyroshi defenders focused their efforts on crushing the attackers beneath the walls, the rest of the cannon-fodder surged forward, pushing toward the base of the city.
Click-clack, Click-clack!
Ladder after ladder was hoisted up and locked into place against the battlements.
The defenders, once in control thanks to their range advantage, were suddenly forced into hand-to-hand combat.
The battle shifted from long-range exchanges to brutal melee atop the walls.
Below, anguished screams echoed as climbers were struck by stones and fell from heights nearing ten meters. Their cries ended abruptly as they hit the ground. Still, their deaths were not meaningless.
In the cover of that chaos, the archers of Bloodstone Isle advanced. They crept within range, moving silently and unnoticed.
With a sharp hiss, an arrow shot upward, piercing the face of a Tyroshi slave soldier just as he raised a stone. The impact hurled him backward, sending both man and stone tumbling from the wall.
Only after inflicting three to four thousand casualties on the cannon-fodder troops did the defenders atop the Tyroshi walls suffer their first losses.
The precise and relentless suppression by the Bloodstone archers prevented the defenders from hurling stones as recklessly as before.
Seizing this rare opportunity, one of the assaulting soldiers managed to scale the wall. Ecstatic and overwhelmed, he raised his hands high in the air, signaling his harmlessness.
"My lords! I'm a commoner from Manvik Town on the island," he cried. "I was forced into this…"
Before he could finish, a longsword came crashing down on his neck, silencing him forever. No one on the battlefield would spare time for his pleas.
The mercenary who struck the blow severed his left ear as a token to claim the bounty later.
And where there was one, others followed. More cannon-fodder soldiers reached the top of the walls.
But these forces, made up of civilians and slaves, could hardly be considered real combatants. When faced with trained slave soldiers, ruthless mercenaries, and the elite Ranger company, they stood no chance.
Most of them lacked any combat experience. They were little more than stepping stones, convenient fodder for others to earn glory.
Bright crimson blood seeped across the stone floor of the walls, forming winding streams. The thick, metallic stench of blood hung heavy in the air, refusing to disperse.
Corpses with mangled flesh and severed ears piled into gruesome mounds.
The walls of Tyrosh had become a merciless grinder of flesh and bone, reducing the attackers to a grotesque slurry of shattered limbs and spilled gore.
Meanwhile, neither side noticed what was unfolding along the eastern walls. From the harbor, ships of the Tyroshi fleet had quietly slipped away, circling the coastline and drawing steadily closer to the beach beyond the eastern walls.
Without warning, a rain of arrows and barrels of burning pitch soared through the air, unleashed from the approaching ships.
The surprise attack slammed into the already battered cannon-fodder ranks, driving them into deeper despair.
Now under assault from both the front and the rear, panic spread quickly through the ranks.
Even with the soldiers of Bloodstone Isle and the Unsullied acting as overseers and enforcing discipline with brutal efficiency, many among the desperate ranks turned and charged toward the rear, hoping to carve a bloodied path to safety.
Low and mournful, the sound of war horns began to rise, echoing across the battlefield as the forces of Jacaerys hovered on the brink of collapse.
And then came the response.
*ROOOOAR!!!*
A thunderous dragon's roar echoed from the north, reverberating across the skies of Tyrosh.
Everyone not locked in deadly combat—soldiers, commanders, even the wounded—turned their heads and raised their eyes to the northern horizon.
The sound of wings grew louder, steady and powerful.
From the jagged mountain peaks north of Tyrosh, an emerald-green dragon leapt into the air and dove toward the city. As it neared, the great ballistae, which had long lain in wait atop the city walls, suddenly shifted, their sights trained on the descending beast.
But the dragon did not dive mindlessly into their line of fire.
Instead, it stopped abruptly in mid-air, wings outstretched, hovering just above the northern quadrant of the city. The wind from its powerful wings swept across the buildings below.
With a sharp exhale, the dragon loosened its grip, and from its talons dropped two massive, sealed clay jars.
As they plummeted toward the city, a sudden blast of dragonfire—orange and fierce—surged forward and struck the jars just before they hit the ground.
The jars shattered instantly. The greenish wildfire pitch inside reacted violently with the flames, triggering a powerful chemical explosion.
Black and grey flames, thick and smoky, erupted into the sky and fell like cursed blossoms upon the heart of Tyrosh.
Screams rose from the city below, but the chaos did not last long. The unnatural flames quickly burned themselves out, leaving only trails of smoke behind.
Jacaerys, watching from afar, tilted his head as he observed the smoldering remnants of those unnatural flames. Narrowing his eyes, he murmured to himself, "Have they truly found a way to extinguish black dragonfire? Well then..."
A second roar broke through the skies.
Vermax, answering the call passed through their mental bond, opened his enormous jaws and released a second cry, louder and more powerful than before.
From the peak of the same mountain the emerald-green dragon had leapt from, dark figures began to descend. One by one, shadowy silhouettes launched into the air, each clutching or bearing sealed clay jars.
Then came a sweeping breath of dragonflame—Vermax's devastating breath weapon surged forth in a fan-shaped blast, engulfing the falling figures midair.
The moment the flame touched them, they were set ablaze. The jars they carried burst in the heat, shattering into fragments and spraying burning liquid across the sky.
Like a meteor shower of fire and death, black-grey flames rained down upon the northern quarter of Tyrosh.
But unlike the brief panic incited by the earlier assault, this time the attack plunged the city into utter chaos.
These burning meteors—both terrifying and mesmerizing—brought a wave of devastation the defenders of Tyrosh could no longer hope to contain.
..
..
[IMAGE]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Chapter End's]
🖤 Night_FrOst/ Patreon 🤍
Visit my Patreon for Early Chapter:
https://www.patreon.com/Night_FrOst
Extra Content Already Available