Heartwood District – Reprisal
CITIZENS OF THE CITADEL HEED THIS CALL!
A PROCLAMATION FROM OUR LORD PROTECTOR; THIRTY-FOURTH GUIDING LIGHT OF THE GROVE AND THE WORLD:
WE HAVE BEEN ATTACKED! OUR SOLDIERS LIE DEAD IN THE STREETS, OUR HOMES SMOLDER AS RUINS!
IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THIS MORNING, THE EVE OF FOURTH NIGHT, A DEVIOUS AND DEVASTATING ATTACK AGAINST OUR HONORED PROTECTORATE FORCES WAS UNLEASHED IN THE STREETS OF HEARTWOOD. OUR GLORIOUS SOLDIERS DEFENDED THEMSELVES VALIANTLY AND DESPITE SUFFERING CATASTROPHIC CASUALTIES, DEFEATED THE TERRORISTS FEROCIOUSLY AND IN TOTALITY.
THESE ATTACKS WILL NOT STAND. THEY MUST NOT.
WE WILL ANSWER WITH THE SAME VIGOR AS OUR FALLEN HEROES AND ROOT OUT THE VENOMOUS TENDRILS OF ANTICLEA THE BLACK WHEREVER THEY HAVE CREPT INTO OUR CITADEL TO POISON THE MOST DESTITUTE AND VULNERABLE IN OUR MIDST.
AS YOU HEAR THIS, THE PRESTIGIOUS ARMIES OF COMPANY MELLIVORA, HYSTRIX BATTALION, AND SINEA BATTALION ARE ROOTING OUT THE SUPPORTERS AND SYMPATHIZERS OF THESE AMBUSHERS ACROSS HEARTWOOD. THEY WILL PURGE THESE POISONED ELEMENTS FROM OUR MIDST WITH THE FULL MIGHT AND JUSTICE OF THE GROVE PROTECTORATE AND HER STATES.
BLESSED BE THE GROVE, AND DEATH TO THOSE WHO CONSPIRE AGAINST THE VIRTUES OF OUR GREAT PEOPLES, CULTURE, AND PROTECTORATE.
-Transcript of market caller following Heartwood ambush
47th of Winter, Year 447
The streets of Heartwood were filthy and crooked in the haze of the morning, a cat yowled mournfully amongst the rooftops toward a fading moon. The district was tense as it awaited the summary judgement of the Protector.
The pre-dawn suspense of the sleeping city was shattered, the fears of many realized as retribution incarnate exited the gatekeep accompanied by sinister cadence; iron-shod hooves and hobnail boots threatened to crack and powder the pavement of the Merchant’s Road with vigorous purpose. A kaleidoscope of fluttering cloth, simultaneously beautiful and alarming, flooded beneath the fangs of the portcullis as guardsmen leaned past pockmarked crenelations to peer down on the stolid mass below. As one, the Unitarian Armies began their descent towards the Fisherman’s Quarter and the destitute district of Heartwood, deep in heart of Old Avium.
Moloch pushed back his anxiety, tightening his resolve as if a cloak about him in the still, crisp air; the chill of the morning refreshed senses recovering from a night of brawling and drinking in the fighting pits of the gatekeep, but he wouldn’t mind a bit of sunlight to take the edge off either. He looked to the east briefly: could he see a dash of purple coming over the edge of the high circumferential wall? He couldn’t be sure; he had no idea what time it was now or when it had been that he had attempted to stumble back to the barracks and the promise of a stiff cot. He was sure that he regretted taking that last fight against Hippasa before finally calling it a night; he had won in the end but testing himself against his much more agile brother-in-arms had proven a larger challenge than anticipated.
He gently fingered the swelling under his left eye, hoping the chill morning air would do some benefit before leaning over to punch his wiry friend in the shoulder as he marched beside him. He produced a sufficiently exaggerated wink with his swollen eye, giving the nimble man a thumbs-up to show its status as an opposable digit. He received an angry two-fingered salute from the lad in response but the swelling to his thumb from Moloch smashing it was clear to see, dawn light or no.
The soldier’s mood dimmed a bit as he thought of those Mellivora troopers again. Rather, he thought of how he had seen them before being mustered for this march into Heartwood. He had gone with the rest of his friends to see what had happened and get the best rumors first; what he saw had driven any joy of the night from his mind, replacing it with horror and a cutting feeling of afront at the actions against his fellow soldiers.
They had been ragged and all but impossible to identify beyond the colors of their uniforms, some lay motionless on stretchers and all were covered in a thick layer of ash, burnt skin, and coagulating blood as they shuffled about in a numbed daze. Two of the Badgers were obviously dead, Moloch had noted to Hippasa, their bodies lying still and stiff on canvas carriers and transported atop a thick bed of hay in a cart behind a grimy young pony. One was a massive man with a broken back and cracked skull; the other appeared to have been set ablaze, any hair on his head burnt away and his face knotted with blisters and swollen, carbonized skin. They were hardly recognizable as human.
The sight of the survivors was equally shocking to behold, even in his own time spent campaigning, he had never seen soldiers so grievously mutilated as the Mellivora troopers limping into the square. They looked as if they had met a fabled fire drake of the islands of Yabisi, their clothes and armor hanging broken on split straps and shattered clasps, blackened and shredded to an extent that made them all but useless for their original purpose.
One of the survivors, a tall, lithe eastern woman, appeared to have lost half of her face and if not for a firm hand holding a ragged bandage to her skull, it would have hung open in a great curved slice from top of her scalp to her jaw; it rained bright crimson into the dust before her regardless of her efforts and those of the small, pale woman beside her who was attempting to better tighten bandage around the taller soldier’s head. She limped badly, dragging a leg behind her and leaving a bloody streak in her wake from a deep wound in her hip where a large sliver of broken stone stood proudly. It was an unlucky wound, a chunk of masonry the length of her hand penetrating just between the bottom layers of the diamond-plate brigandine and lodging deep in her groin where it fully paralyzed her leg.
Moloch had shied away at the thought of the pain the woman must be experiencing at that moment, remembering his own experience taking an arrow through the thigh with nauseating vividity. He couldn’t imagine what would have produced such a wound, what horrible weapon had they fought against in the darkness that could rip soldiers such as Mellivora into such shadows of the troopers they displayed as here? What savages fought with stone and flame rather than oak and steel? With what demonic force could such damage be inflicted?
The gawking soldiers, having taken their fill of the morbid late-night events, took their leave to assorted bunks and benches for a few hours rest before when Company Mellivora’s own Sergeant Tacca arrived in a hailstorm of curses and accusations. Her eyes were bloodshot from either a late night of drink or having just been awoken at such an ungodly hour, she barged through the assembled night guards like a battering ram, a doctor and Lieutenant following in her chaotic wake. Her eyes had locked on the pale face of one of the dead men in the cart, the large eastern lad with a peculiar, knotted scar around his neck; his eyes were still open but had gone dull and distant with the passage of his soul, he looked a husk with his back twisted at an unnatural angle and body lying crooked and torn on the rough canvas stretcher. The sergeant had turned to stone then, all emotion fleeing, and eyes turning to deadened black iron in sunken sockets.
Under the authority of the lieutenant, the doctor had intervened then, beginning to shout orders to underlings and sending them scrabbling to herd the wounded Badgers together. They ushered them to the hospital in the northern court, the Mellivora officers unloading the dead troopers’ stretchers from the wagon themselves and following silently in the miserable procession’s wake.
The call to muster had followed immediately, arriving in a blast of brass horns and a flurry of green-and-gold as Sinea Battalion arrived in strength from their clifftop barracks compound above. Although they were a common site both in Keeptown and across Avium in general, it was exceedingly rare to see the Imperial Guardians assembled in any strength above a platoon; even during the Protector’s own holidays, the bulk of visible soldiery were of the civilian-led citadel guard variety and whichever Unitarian auxiliaries had been honored with patrol duties for the event. The sight of them so mobilized was impressive and intimidating to the soldiers going about their early-morning activities across Keeptown.
The Guardians were commanded by Lord General Hyloxalus of the First Ring, the Protector’s Left Hand and The Iron Axe of the Grove. He was a terrifying man, tall as the draft horse he sat astride and nearly as broad in the chest. He wore the black-and-charcoal of his Order, appearing as a figure of utter darkness and seeming to absorb light rather than reflect any back. He was an absence, a hulking void of devastating ability and unquestionable authority. He was also the most powerful figure in the Grove beside the Protector themselves, the sight of him away from the Gardens on the palace grounds was an omen of extreme import to all in the gatekeep.
They had left within the hour, three of the most elite units available in the citadel forged into a singular army of grim purpose and aimed squarely at the old heart of Avium. At the head of the expedition rode Hyloxalus the Axe surrounded by four full companies of Sinea Guardians on the strong, chestnut mares they imported from the plains of Populus and prized for their level-headedness in combat. They looked pristine in their forest green tunics and gold-plate, heads held high and always locked forward as if unable to see the streets around them.
A rabid Company Mellivora followed in the wake of the stiff guards. They had mustered in full gear and attention as if the blood of their own, once sprinkled delicately onto the sand, had spawned them from the very earth as vengeful demons of the empire. They seemed to writhe with outrage, a perfect vision of the vicious beast the wore so proudly as their sigil. They were indeed ‘The Badgers,’ rabid and all but frothing at the slight against their comrades in the safety of their own home. It was outrageous that they could return to the prosperous streets of Avium after harsh years fighting the enemies of the Grove abroad, to be attacked in the ancient heart of the city; despite being low in numbers from both campaigns and immediate events, they intended to make up for that with brutality.
Hystrix Battalion brought up the rear, marching as one with halberds and lances stowed neatly against pauldrons of snow-white plate armor that cast a blueish-white reflection of the early-dawn light as they moved. They appeared as holy things in that tenuous morning, illuminating the long streets in the splendor of the Protector and the Gods themselves. The message was clear: They were the light that would cleanse the filth of Anticlea from these archaic neighborhoods and homes, the glow preceded them with terrific purpose.
This was the base design and intent of Hystrix, and Moloch, alongside all others on their fateful march through the Old City, felt the power of the divine philosophy wholeheartedly as they basked in the strange light. They were the most prestigious Shield army in the realm, having a pedigree to match any other in the Protectorate Forces and an unrivaled heritage of defensive success reaching back to the First Armies and before the establishment of the Grove itself.
All-in-all, Hippasa had estimated a total force of about eighteen hundred with roughly half being composed of the Hystrix Exterminatores.
The streets of the old city were quiet, just beginning to awaken to the day as the soldiers marched steadily down the old southern thoroughfare. Once, it had led to the Great Market of Heartwood when that was the central district of the city; it led past ancient great houses and grand stores built of familiar red stone, winding through the uncountable history of neighborhoods that had stood a solemn, silent watch over the peoples there for time immemorial.
The streets of Heartwood were the oldest in Avium; today, many were long collapsed into mere stone frames upon which ramshackle wooden structures had sprung like splintery mushrooms. The denizens of the district, many of them sick, destitute, orphaned, addicted, or otherwise rejected from the greater city, had been forced there after years of falling through the social ranks and graces of the city above. They had nothing to offer the empire other than their lives and they had been left to do with those as they pleased in privation and out of the thoughts of the greater populace.
The soldiers came to a precise halt at a checkpoint that had been established at a fork in the road that led directly to the center of Heartwood’s old market; smoke still rose lazily in the still, cool air from the square hidden deep in the twisting maze of alleys that comprised the center of the area. They were given their orders and with a sound of horns and the deep beating of the Mellivora battle drummers, the Badgers and two Hystrix companies moved quietly into the district’s streets, heading toward the site of the attack a few hours before.
Moloch, Hippasa, and all of Dorylus Corp. watched with fascination as the soldiers disappeared into the claustrophobic streets. They remarked and postulated to their peers about the fight their allies were sure to find in that inherently hostile environment. As far as they knew, there hadn’t been a fight of any magnitude in a citadel proper since the reclamation of Picea following the Summer Uprisings in the northern provinces. In Avium, and according to the more studious of the soldiers present, the last such incident was probably some three hundred years before that.
They shuffled uneasily, looking down at their thin blue-and-tan leathers and unsure of their role in the exercise, wondering if they would be the next wave of the assault. Few were sure of what happened in dense urban combat, their work assisting expeditionary forces in their campaigns abroad was largely relegated to constructing fortifications and frontline defense of strategically critical resources. They built the siegeworks, someone else typically did the street-fighting in dense alleyways of packed, multi-story buildings. That was Mellivora and Hystrix territory, and they were happy to leave it to them. They pitied those who had provoked the fabled Badgers and their equally legendary commander, Captain Haidarum, let alone the violet-and-ivory monsters who had responded to his call.
Any fears that they may be next to march into the potential grinder were allayed as orders from Commander Testudo were distributed among their ranks: they were to exchange arms for entrenching kits; cut a ten-meter perimeter around the area and through any obstructions; and construct an initial containment wall around the entirety of the Heartwood neighborhood. They were to remove the possibility of escape for those who had succumbed to Anticlea’s poisonous whispers; they would smother these traitorous elements, ripping out the tendrils of insurrection before they had any further chance to take root amongst the city’s lowest elements. Any of the bastards stuck inside were left to their fate and the Protector’s justice.
As expected, the sanitation of the district proceeded with appropriate precision and enthusiasm and alongside patrol groups of Sinea guards to remove the unlucky tenant or resistant shopkeep, Dorylus began the process of walling in Heartwood one alleyway, window, and door at a time. Hundreds of locals were rounded up and marched efficiently away to holding stations near the checkpoints, they would never see their old homes again as the soldiers efficiently demolished walls for use building their new inner-city wall.
The population of the district did little to resist the efforts of the builders with most fleeing long before the Guardians came kicking in doorways ahead of them. Those that stayed were roughly and instantly apprehended; any that fought didn’t have a good chance of leaving the building at all. Many bodies were buried forever when the structures, having been cannibalized in excess of their integrity, were collapsed atop them with a few skillful strikes of the Dorylus picks and hammers.
Moloch was as relieved as his squad mates for a day of manual labor and construction rather than combat duties as expected, they had traded out armor and halberds for tunics and pickaxes and were making a good day of it. They did their best to ignore the odd hand that grasped fruitlessly from a pile of collapsed masonry, one soldier made a game of throwing increasingly large rocks into the palm of one until it snapped at the wrist and disappeared under a large broken roadstone. Most found it entertaining to some degree, so that made things a bit easier all around.
By the time the thousand motley bells of the city peeled their sunset song and two more companies of Dorylus troopers arrived with picks and trowels in tow, they had filled in miles of building-front along the edge of Heartwood; every door, window, crack, and crevice; any hole larger than a cat; was filled with reclaimed masonry and strong mortar two feet thick. The reinforcements promised to triple that before the sun rose. Anyone hoping to get out of the area wasn’t going to do it through Dorylus Corp.’s fortifications, that was for certain.
That seemed to be the mood of the other mobilized units as well. They had seen other engineering companies hauling tons of massive old oak timbers and thick hemp cordage past their worksite earlier in the day, a few quick jokes between the passing units told them that the logisticians were constructing gatehouses at two dozen new checkpoints across the area.
‘Complete with towers,’ the engineers assured them with a flurry of grins and laughs. ‘And gallows,’ another added with a firm nod of approval.
As the tired, dirty soldiers began the long march home to their barracks in the Keeptown, they pretended they couldn’t hear the screams that floated out of the new open-air prison, borne aloft on the searing updrafts of burning streets and city blocks.
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