A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind)

"Fire the city! Start at the end near the wall and then fire the barriers just before the forward lines reach them!"

The command was re-laid and a double line of archers the length of the pass stepped close to their fires and lit their arrows and then in unison they pulled their bows up and released their fiery salvo high into the sky to streak out over the city. Catapults arranged along the entire line quickly launched their burdens of oil soaked bales and even entire barrels of oil into the city in close pursuit of the arrows. For several still moments, the flaming missiles arced across the darkened sky to land at the far end of the city.

A murderous uproar flared within moments of impact. The arrows touched off fireballs of licking flames as they contacted trenches that had been soaked in oil near the gaps in the wall. Barrels of oil that had been buried under the streets with only their oil soaked tops exposed exploded into violent fireballs that blew hundreds of soldiers into the air, even as more fuel for the fire rained down from above.

Hungry flames raced through the interconnected houses and the alleyways that bordered the main streets. They had been filled full of easily combustible materials. More barrels of oil exploded within houses, spraying their burning wreckage out into the packed enemy mobs trapped in the streets.

The massive mob of soldiers huddled in the cities' main streets tried to avoid the bordering houses that were wreathed in flames. Soldiers who had been in the houses and were now ablaze themselves, ran screaming blindly out into the streets catching the men caught there on fire too.

The utter pandemonium only became worse when the continued fire arrows and their accompanying fuel loads landed on top of them turning even the streets into a hellish inferno. Panicked, the soldiers ran to escape the blaze by climbing over the barrier wall at the end of the city, which was set on fire moments before they reached it, making the way through it impassible. They went completely mad in their panic and tried to climb up over it, only to burn up in the attempt.

More seasoned field commanders still on the other side of the wall, having expected a stiffer fight for the city, were not put off by the noise of what they thought was the typical sounds of war issuing forth from the city side of the wall. Their answer to the perceived sounds of resistance was to push even more troops up and over the wall in an attempt to simply overwhelm the enemy. As troops cleared the gap and saw the horror unfolding within the city they had no option but to press forward, for while it looked to be death to go on, it was certain death, if they were to retreat at the hands of their own friends, as the order had been given that all deserters were to be killed on the spot.