A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind)

The regimented enemy formation fell apart as they broke line to chase after our warriors screaming derisively. They forsook an orderly occupation of the city in favor of a tumultuous onrush of jubilation at being the first foreign force to successfully step foot on sacred Valley Lander soil in over five hundred years. This is what I had been counting on and had needed to happen.

Thousands of the enemy poured up and over the gaps in the walls uncontested in their eagerness to claim the city believing our will to fight was broken. The enemy troops rushed heedlessly down the streets in hot pursuit of our warriors. Suddenly ranks upon ranks of the onrushing enemy were cut down in a vicious crossfire of arrows that came from archers in concealed hiding within buildings or perched on roof tops along the streets.

The enemy's advance into the city temporarily halted in the face of the renewed resistance by us in the fight for the city. The decimated enemy ranks swelled full again fed by the endless streaming line of soldiers coming through the two gaps in the wall. They marched with shields held high down the streets of the city in a formation that could only be described as a mob.

Soldiers broke from the mob into the surrounding houses and buildings in search of the pesky archers that were thinning their ranks down considerably. When the soldiers found them, bitter hand to hand fighting ensued, with no quarter given by either side.

An aid to General Sanjo spoke up excitedly from behind me, "Sir! The archers in the city are not obeying their orders to withdraw as their positions are compromised!"

"I can see that!" I replied grimly.

"Sir should I try to signal them or do something else to get their attention?"

"Do? Do nothing. Their doing everything. They've made their choice. They know what's at risk and their paying the sacrifice needed to ensure a greater kill of the enemy."

The progress of the enemy was slow, but relentless. The continued selfless resistance by the archers was keeping the enemy packed together. They got even packed closer together by the pressure from behind of more soldiers from the wall eager to get in on the fighting and share in the glorious victory that had almost been achieved. They were getting close to the barriers that had been erected at the ends of the streets on my side of the city.

There had to be well over a hundred thousand enemy troops pressed tightly into the city with more arriving every second. I tore my eyes from the steady progression of the enemy mob towards the outer limits of the city and looked back up to either side of the pass where the tunnel gate entrances were. I could see scores of soldiers feverishly working at removing the stones and debris that we had put there the night before.