Chapter 50 - A Hobgoblin and a Princess Walk into a Siege

Havoc stalked forward, and unlike Lillia, who had to be shoved in, happily joined the throng of soldiers waiting to be at the front of the pack. The invaders erupted out of the siege tower now the door had dropped. Their shadowed blades and bandaged-like clothing flowed behind them as they charged.
Now that Lillia had seen the invaders’ costumes up close again, she nodded. She deserved to be stabbed for wearing the invaders’ dress in front of the guard captain. That just made sense.
Hiding would have been a useful skill on the walls, but fashion came first.
“Havoc!” Lillia called out.
He turned. He seemed almost annoyed at having to face away from the fight at all.
Lillia gave Havoc the Siegecraft potion.
“This is the—”
“Yep, take a swig before you hit the siege tower. It’s—It’s potent.”
Havoc grinned. It was different than his usual soft smile. There were fangs involved. “All right, kid. Good luck on your end.”
“Thanks.”
Lillia took a deep breath as she watched the hobgoblin disappear into the row of armored soldiers in front of her. She didn’t understand why she felt nervous. He would be fine. He could handle himself better than she could.
She just had to do her job.
Lillia hopped in place to avoid getting swept up in the frenzy of battle. Once she caught sight of the furthest soldier she could, Lillia raised a hand to the air, and shouted out the activation for ‘Run the Court.’
Once she was on the other side of the crowd, Lillia beelined it to the ballista station.
“You! Man the ballista! We will keep—”
“Commoners! Push to the left!”
The ballista moved. Maybe it was Lillia’s imagination, but it moved a little faster. None of the soldiers had wanted to leave their patterns in Lillia’s previous attempts, but considering the guard captain had recognized her as a princess after her argument, leveraging her authority was worth a shot.
“Heave!” Lillia shouted as she pressed herself against the lever and prepared to shove. Just before the ballista was in place, Lillia saw the first siege tower shatter at the draw bridge.
Havoc was probably having fun.
“Your highness. Don’t sully your hands with war.”
There was a knight standing above her. His armor was dented and dulled by war, but it was a knight nonetheless. He placed a hand on the top of the lever.
“Please. Allow me.”
Something fluttered in Lillia’s chest. “Why thank you, Sir. Knight.” She got out of his way and waved him to the lever.
He took his place, holding the lever with both hands. He shunted the lever forward.
CA-CHUNK.
SNAP.
The bolt smashed into the side of the siege tower before it even had a chance to moor itself to the castle wall. The outer wall crunched inward. There were screams from inside. It leaned. Tottered. Fell.
Thousands of pounds of wood and dozens of men crashed into the army below. They didn’t have time to scatter.
Lillia saw the wood splinter.
Where were the—
“Next target?” the knight asked.
“Trebuchet if you have time,” Lillia said. The knight passed on the command as if ‘if you have time’ wasn’t a worrying caveat. Lillia jumped down the stairs before that prediction came to pass.
Where were her rewards?
Lillia looked back to the knight manning the firing lever as she made her way back along the wall to try and find Havoc in the fray.
He had been the one to fire the bolt.
“Oh! Come on that doesn’t count?!” Lillia yelled at the dungeon.
[Lillia used Indignance - Level 3 - Highly Effective on the Ballista Knight]
The knight was thrown several feet. He stumbled after landing, waving his arms frantically before he hit one of the arrow slots in the crenelations. He tripped and disappeared over the edge.
Lillia winced.
A second later, the entire ballista station was obliterated by a flaming boulder. Once Lillia was done shielding her eyes from the flash of the fire, she nodded. Relief washed over her.
He was going to die anyway.
Lillia ran down the wall to try and find Havoc while some of the soldiers around her ran to tend to the potential wounded from the trebuchet fire.
Havoc, for his part, was back near the spot where they’d entered. He was leaning on his axe and halfway through a yawn before he saw Lillia. The same grin she had seen before leaving Havoc behind came back.
“Now that is a potion I can get used to,” Havoc said. “Kinda makes me wish I got a chance to hit a couple of those invader guys with it, though.”
“You hit the tower first?” Lillia asked.
“Yeah, it was a smart thing to do.”
“It seemed like you were excited to get into a fight.”
“I was, am, but I wasn’t about to waste time swinging around when I could knock down the entire tower.”
“Did you get anything?”
“What?”
“Rewards, Havoc?”
“I got a piece of cloth from the tower,” Havoc said. “I think it’s one of the things you can use for a dress.”
“It is, but if I wear it here, they stab me.”
“They already wanna stab me.”
“Let’s not make it two targets,” Lillia said. “You didn’t get one of the potions, though?”
“No. Did you?”
“Shoot.”
“That’s a no if I’ve ever heard one.”
“No, I didn’t. Which means we’re down a potion unless we find a third siege tower.”
Havoc pointed out over the horizon. To the towering structures that were slowly moving through the army at the gates. “Like those ones?”
“I don’t think we can stand around for them to reach us,” Lillia said. “When I got blown off the wall, the quest for protecting it actually failed.”
“So.”
“So I feel like if we just keep waiting, eventually the dungeon is going to move things forward without us.” Lillia nodded for Havoc to follow; the stairs were further down the wall, past where the ballista had been.
There was so much commotion around them. Soldiers were running in every direction. The fires back in the town. The trebuchet shots overhead. Lillia’s hand kept twitching. She would have felt safer if she’d been carrying Hooke. She knew it was smarter to keep it away.
“I don’t see anything more we have to do right now to defend this part of the wall,” Lillia said. “The other two quests that pop up are about stopping the trebuchets—which we don’t know how to do—and defending the gate which—”
“Do you know where the boiling oil is?” Havoc asked the same way that Lillia would have asked someone about soap these days.
“Havoc. Why would they—I know some people did bu—That’s barbaric.”
“It’s effective,” Havoc said.
“We’re not going to try and find boiling oil.”
“You’ll shoot a bunch of trapped invaders and point blank range with a ballista.”
They were almost at the stairs.
“I guess.”
“But you don’t want to—”
“It’s fine. I get it. I see where this argument is going,” Lillia said. “If we find some boiling oil on the way down to the courtyard. We can use it as long as you do all the pouring.”
The top of the stairs.
“The courtyard?” Havoc asked.
“Yes.”
Havoc stopped at the top, refusing to follow Lillia any further. “Why would we go to the courtyard.”
“They told us to defend the gate. We need to be ready for when the invaders get in.”
“What?”
“The heroic stand in the courtyard, Havoc. Like Sir. Alcanbrac in the Tourva Mountain Keep.”
“What?” Havoc repeated.
“Lady Brindsgale in the Spineknoll,” Lillia suggested.
“Your example wasn’t the issue, kid. Why would we let them break down the gate?”
Lillia didn’t answer that question, because Havoc had made a really good point. Picking off the invaders before they got into the castle wasn’t going to give Lillia her storybook showdown, but neither had blowing up the siege towers before she’d participated in a single heroic duel.
She also didn’t have the experience to bet on herself in a fair fight yet either.
She did know castles though.
“The main gate is further down the wall from here,” Lillia said. “If we’re looking for the guard station above, we’ll need to get there. The streets won’t be as fast but they’ll be safer than the wall-walk and—”
“You didn’t say you’ve seen the gate,” Havoc pointed out.
“I haven’t, but the towers get shorter from right to left, when you’re facing out, which means it’s in that direction.”
“Why?”
“Custom. The towers in front of the palace from the gates can’t be tall enough to block the view of the palace. But you want taller peaks on the sides for better scouting.” Lillia looked over her shoulder back up the single stair she’d gone down from the battlement. “Wall walk or streets?”
“How do you know all that but you thought you’d stand in the courtyard and—”
“Havoc, I lived in a castle my entire life,” Lillia said. “I haven’t lived through a war.”
“I think most people would call ya lucky for that, but it might have been good experience here.”
“Wall walk or streets?”
“Wall walk,” Havoc answered. As soon as he’d said it, Lillia hated the choice, but she’d been the one to give him the option.
“Okay, but I am really tired of getting hit by trebuchet.”
“As long as we’re not shooting at them, they should be aiming for fortifications, not us.”
Lillia nodded. She really hoped that Havoc was right.
Back on top of the wall walk, the throng of soldiers that had been waiting for the invaders had spread out between the merlon. They drew bows, fired arrows down into the endless army and retreated to cover in a haphazard unison. They each performed the action at the same speed, but began at slightly different times.
Havoc kept looking forward while Lillia’s attention drifted to trying to find an order within who shot when.
“Lillia,” Havoc said.
Lillia snapped her attention forward. Though it hadn’t been there only a moment before, there was now a third siege tower bearing down upon the wall in front of them. By the time Lillia processed how it could have been there, the drawbridge was already slamming open and biting the stone wall.
The surrounding soldiers seemed ignorant of the new arrival.
The first invaders poured out of the tower like a swarm of shadows. Lillia knew there were men inside the specters—she had heard their screams—but in the moment, as they slipped out onto the castle wall moving perfectly smooth with their torn bandage-like cloaks billowing behind them, they seemed more monster than man.
Havoc slowed and called his axe to his hand. “Got another one of those potions?”
“No, but I have a friend.”
Lillia reached into her inventory as the first invaders set their eye on her. She took the Amulet of the Creator in her hand and held it tight. She could feel the inscription on the front in her fingertips.
“Cathria!”
Lillia’s voice pierced the din of battle. None of the archers turned to look, but for a moment, the invaders paused.
“A little something special from my spell book!”
Cathria didn’t bother with the theatrics of appearing within the smoke this time. All at once, she was in front of Lillia, a black silhouette against the orange horizon.
She tapped the end of her staff against the stone wall. Small bits of glass scattered around the point of impact and then began to float in the air. A small white mote of energy slipped along the gap between stones. It vanished down one of the gaps, deeper into the wall.
Cathria giggled. “I love this one.” She turned back to Lillia and Havoc. “Lovely to see you, too. The siege tower, right?”
“If you can,” Lillia answered.
Cathria just shook her head. “Do you need the wall intact?”
“We still have to get to the gate.”
“Okay, don’t be a stranger, Lillia.” She turned slightly and tipped her cap. “Havoc.”
“Cathria.”
“Alright, now cover your eyes before I explode. Don’t want any glass getting in there.” She giggled again, this time the smile came with a crack along each corner of her lips.
Lillia followed instructions and closed her eyes.
Cathria clapped twice. The sound was less skin and more champagne celebration.
The following sound was impossible to describe. It was stuttered and broken, as if an explosion were trying to escape a vortex it couldn’t. Half of the noise was sucked back into whatever Cathria had unleashed.
Glass dusted Lillia in a fine coat of sparkles. She opened her eyes.
The siege tower had been blown outward from the inside, but then had been frozen in time. Instead of shattering completely, there was a gap in the center of the ‘explosion’. The same mote of arcane light that Lillia had seen earlier. The air around it wobbled, distorting everything nearby.
Many of the invaders on the wall had been caught by the explosion, thrown up in the air and currently suspended mid-flight, wrapped by whatever magic had thrown them there.
More importantly, for the current moment, there were still four on the walls.
Lillia put the amulet away and retrieved Hooke from her inventory. Even with the blade in her hands, she didn’t like that there were twice as many of them.
The invaders made their first move forward. Havoc got low.
Maybe if he called an anvil, they could…
Now, what was Lillia doing? She was part of a scenario in this room in the dungeon and she had an inherent advantage.
A literal inherited advantage. Why wouldn’t she use it.
“Archers, protect your princess from these invaders.”
They had ignored the siege tower’s arrival. They had ignored the explosion. They ignored the first half of Lillia’s sentence, but upon the word “princess”, many of the nearby archers wheeled around.
The invaders hesitated. Then their slow approach turned into a rush.
Arrows outran a man on foot.
The one that got the closest to Lillia and Havoc slumped ten feet short of them, riddled with four arrows in the chest and two in the neck.
[Siege Tower Broken - Yay!]
[Gained - Potion of Siegecraft - Level 1 × 1]
[Gained - Invader’s Cloth x 1]
[Gained - Besieging Handaxe]
“A weapon!” Lillia said.
Havoc looked to her. He slumped a little once he realized there wasn’t a fight coming.
“I didn’t know the tower could drop weapons. That’s neat.” She considered taking the handaxe out to check it before picturing a trebuchet shot slamming into them.
Lillia nodded to Havoc. It wasn’t far now to the gates.
It was even shorter until they could hear the commotion around the gates. Namely, the rhythmic slam of a battering ram crashing into wood. Even over the yelling of men on either side, they heard the wood groan, the hinges creak, and the battering ram splinter against the gate.
From the wall walk, the stairs down to the guard house above the gate weren’t exactly hidden. The pair scurried down the stairs, feeling the thump of the battering ram through the soles of their feet as they descended.
A thick barred door stood between them and the gatehouse. Luckily, it was unlocked.
The guards within didn’t bother turning around when Lillia and Havoc entered the room. Whatever had triggered guards to attack Havoc on site had clearly been fixed across the entire room, even if there was no way for the guard captain to communicate with the soldiers over here that quickly.
Havoc ran off to the left hand side of the room where several pots were sitting on flame. As soon as he was there, he swore in hobgoblin. “They’ve used it all up!”
The guards didn’t move. No reaction to his statement. The battering ram thundered beneath their feet.
“Oh well, they still got stones. I’m gonna throw some big rocks.”
Lillia approached the guards. Shouldn’t they have moved? Shouldn’t they have at least turned to tell them they shouldn’t be in here? Something? anything?
They were so still.
Lillia placed a hand on one of the guard’s shoulders. Instantly walked backward into her. Dead weight. Throat slit.
Lillia, to her credit, gasped instead of screamed.
There was barely a sound as the figure dropped from the ceiling behind her. Shadow slipped out of the rafters and lashed out with a cruel knife.
Havoc growled in pain as a figure dropped behind him.
The knife bounced off the chitin, sending scales scattering around the room. Lillia wheeled to see a stunned assassin holding their blocked blade. Hooke followed her spin. The assassin hadn’t been ready for her to be alive.
There was another grunt of pain as Havoc dropped to the floor with a sword in the back of his knee. The second assassin raised the blade.
Lillia didn’t have time to stop her own swing, let alone intervene.
Hooke cleaved into the assassin’s shoulder. It tore through flesh and leather armor alike. Clasp on Lillia’s neck burned, and the blade dove deeper. It hit bone. It kept going.
Blood was spattered across the room by the time Lillia was tearing Hooke out of the assassin to try and help Havoc. Her assailant was already crumbling to the ground. His mask stretched like he was trying to scream, but no sound came out.
Across the room, the knife found the back of Havoc’s neck. Plunged deep.
“Havoc!”
Havoc’s assassin spun. Lillia couldn’t see his eyes, but still noticed him check the body on the floor before he looked up at her.
He grabbed something from his pocket.
Lillia ran forward with Hooke.
The assassin threw a small ball at Lillia. She raised her arms and blocked whatever it was from hitting her in the face. Upon contact, the ball erupted into thick plumes of acrid smoke. Lillia gasped again. Her lungs burned.
The guard house had already been dark. She couldn’t see. A form moved beside her.
Lillia swung Hooke, cutting through the air behind the assassin as they ran past Lillia and leapt out the open window.
Her eyes watered as Lillia tried to blink away the smoke. “Shoot. Shoot. Shoot.”
[Invader Assassin Defeated - Yay!]
[Gained - Essence of Nightwhisper]
Lillia stumbled over one of the guard’s bodies as she tried to follow the assassin to the window. He couldn’t just kill Havoc and get away with it. She had to catch him. She had to do something.
Fresh air felt cold against Lillia’s face as she pierced through the smoke and leaned out the window, trying to see the assassin on the ground. It took her a moment, but she caught his form running between the soldiers.
Lillia put Hooke away and leaned further out the opening.
“You can’t just run away like that! It’s unfair!”
[Lillia used Indignance - Level 3 - Effective on the Invader Assassin]
The assassin stumbled and almost fell forward, but didn’t stop running. Despite Indignance being effective, it wasn’t enough to stop him.
“No. No.”
Lillia felt cold eyes land on her from somewhere in the crowd. Her hair stood on end. She put away the crown and snapped the chitterpede chitin off as she wrapped herself in her cloak.
She didn’t know what made her do it. She wasn’t sure what experience made her predict what happened next.
Lillia caught the source of the cold gaze in the moment after she could have done anything about it. A bald woman in the invading army, staff raised and pointed at Lillia.
Here we go again.
There was enough fire that it didn’t hurt for long.
[RETURN TO THE HEARTH?]