Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The Siege of Syrn: Part XVIII

The Thargonites made no move after that until morning.

After the sun rose, Dirk looked out over the turrets again. To his dismay he saw eight massive siege towers moving slowly through the streets of the burned town. They were being pulled, but by what Dirk couldn't tell; they were too far away.

It seemed that overnight, the entire Thargonite army had cleaned up the burned rubble and set up camp inside the curtain wall. Tents had been set up, and cook fires burned here and there throughout the encampment.

Dirk held counsel with Arem and a few of the older veterans. "Is there any way that we can stop the siege towers?" he asked.

"Well," said Arem, "the simplest solution would be to shoot whatever is pulling them when they get near enough."

"Maybe, but what if the oxen or horses or whatever is armored? Or what if it turns out to be something else that's impervious to arrows? Who knows? maybe the Thargonites have bred some new hideous, thick-skinned beast?"

"With all due respect," Broke in one of the older men, "I believe that the best solution would be to try and use pikes to push the towers over before they reach the walls."

"Maybe so, but by the looks of the thing, they'll be able to reach us before we can reach them." replied Dirk. "Whatever we do, we must not let the towers near the wall. That would be no different then opening the gate and inviting them in."

"We could use the catapults to try and destroy them before they come near enough."

At that moment, the building that they were in shook, and a loud crash reverberated through the air.

"We've lingered here too long." Said Dirk. They jumped up and ran out.

Dirk ran up on the wall. While they had been talking, the Thargonites had brought their catapults to bear, and were bombarding the outer wall. One of the towers had a massive dent in it.

Dirk looked around. At his presence, the men seemed to freeze. Then he shouted as loud as he possibly could "RETURN FIRE!!!" Everything snapped back to action. He looked out again. As he did, a large rock came flying toward the wall where he stood.

Everything seemed to snap back into slow motion. He heard Arem scream and felt himself shoved to the ground. As he looked up, he saw the boulder fly maybe six feet above his head and smash into a building down below.

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