The screams began before the bloodshed. After Lord Osmond had drawn his fearsome great-sword, Giant’s Eye, the Jotman warriors began to massacre the hundreds of unarmed Gaídel guests of the High King’s feast.
Sir Marin darted from in-between the more heavily armored knights, wearing chain coifs and padded leathers. Despite having the left side of his head mostly obscured by a strange mask, Guillaume could see a look of pleasure on Sir Marin’s face when his twin knives found purchase in Gaídel flesh.
Starting from the rear of the chamber, the Jotman formed a wedge in the center aisle that bisected the hall and marched forward, driving any Gaídel who were not struck down by their flashing blades into the corners. There seemed to be no end to the Jotman soldiers pouring into the feast hall and there was nowhere for the Gaídel to flee.
Guillaume trembled at the sight of Lord Osmond, still traumatized by the treatment he had suffered at the cruel man’s gauntleted hands. Turning to front of the room, he saw the High King and his loyalists filing out of the room via the doors on either side. Gaídel guards had formed a line three deep and several dozen wide in front of the dais and were butchering their kin with spears, axes, and short swords. The blind hostages of the High King sat in confusion atop the dais with a feast arrayed in front of them. There was no sign of Bauchan.
A firm hand grabbed his shoulder, which shook Guillaume out of his overwhelmed state and pulled him into action. Esker looked down at him grimly, released his shoulder and picked up a heavy wooden chair with her sole hand, easily lofting it into the air. “Prepare yourself,” she said as she turned towards the Jotman Knights who were closing the gap to their table in the center of the hall.
Guillaume looked down at the banquet table in front of him, grabbed a heavy platter and poured the contents onto the floor. The trencher was made of solid and burnished metal, unlike the golden ones to the front of the room, or those made entirely of coarse bread in the back of the hall. The platter made for a suitable shield, Guillaume liked the heft of it. Looking down at the table and back at the rows of Gaídel guards pressing into the unarmed banquet guests, Guillaume began to formulate a plan.
Meanwhile, Eógan had retrieved a carving knife and danced across the tabletop nimbly, racing past him and directly towards Lord Osmond. Esker dropped the chair, grabbed the Pecht out of the air and set him down gently in front of her. As Eógan struggled to break her iron grip, she lowered her face down close to him. “Suicidal bravery is not the opposite of cowardice.” The look she gave him was intense and searching, there seemed to be a prior conversation between them that Guillaume was not privy to.
Eógan gritted his teeth and put his hand around Esker’s head, drawing their brows together. “You are right friend, thank you.” Esker’s eyes crinkled into a smile. She broke the heavy wooden chair and grasped the long wooden beam that ran up its back like a crude club. Liadan was protectively surrounded by the Gaídel laborers they had aided on the way to the coronation stone and their numbers were bolstered by others compelled by her challenge to the High King’s absurd claims. Brian and his fierce looking supporters drew near as well, gathering makeshift weapons with stony expressions on their faces, as they watched the encroaching press of the Jotman.
The hundreds of Gaídel who had escaped the flashing blades of the Jotman knights were pressed into a panicked mass, Guillaume shuddered each time he saw one of those trying to flee disappear below the press, trampled by their own kin.
Towards the dais, the Gaídel guards were not nearly as enthusiastic in their bloodshed as their Jotman counterparts, yet their bloody axes and spears rose and fell all the same. The screams of the dying were horrifying.
Guillaume forced his way through the packed Gaídel towards Liadan and yelled himself hoarse to be heard over the din of the room. “HAVE THEM HELP ME WITH THE TABLES!” He screamed. “WE CAN USE THEM TO BREAK THEIR LINES!” He pointed towards the front of the chamber, where the doors on either side of the hall were still open for the High King’s loyalists to escape. The rear of the room was clogged with blood splattered Jotman: after the initial wave of swordsmen, infantry bearing heavy spears had swollen their numbers. There were far too many to challenge.
Atop the dais, a few of the blindfolded hostages had risen and were groping at the tapestry covered wall behind them, their lips were moving but Guillaume could not hear their words over the surrounding chaos.
Liadan turned and began to swim through the pressed bodies towards Guillaume. “How should I instruct them?” she called back in response. “Why the tables?”
Guillaume managed to reach Liadan’s side, using his bony elbows to nudge aside a few reluctant Gaídel. “If we lay two tables on their sides, we can set another pair of tables atop the crossbeams running between the legs. They should fit snuggly and protect us when we lift the tables from below.” Together these parts would form an improvised siege engine called a tortoise, typically used to protect those wielding a battering ram. Ideally it would also possess wheels, but they had to act quickly and make do with what means were readily available.
Liadan looked down at the sturdy banquet tables and grasped what Guillaume envisioned. “That will work!” The Gaídel gathered around her seemed frustrated that they could not understand Guillaume and watched his frantic gesticulations with confusion on their faces. “I will explain your plan,” she said and began to instruct the Gaídel surrounding her. They took action and were able to clear enough space to lay out the tables. King Brian took a keen interest in their activities and began shouting authoritatively in Gaídel to his subjects.
Guillaume had hoped for one tortoise to protect them and was thrilled to see that two were rapidly under construction. His quick calculations of the dimensions of the tables proved to be accurate, they were significantly longer than they were wide, yet a table fit atop a pair on their sides with only several hands of space remaining. Those gaps would be vulnerable to spear thrusts, but the heavy wood would armor those sheltered beneath and the weight of the three combined tables would generate significant force.
Esker still had Eógan at her side as she approached Guillaume, they both scanned the hall vigilantly. “We need to find a way to help these people,” Esker said resolutely.
“And stab that fuck in the eye,” Eógan added, shrugging his shoulder in the direction of Lord Osmond. Esker grunted in agreement and Guillaume briefly fantasized about besting his former lord in a duel, before recognizing that his imagination was not nearly powerful enough to conjure such a scenario.
Nearby, the Gaídel worked to finish assembling the tortoises out of the tables, yet there was little time. From the rear of the room, the Jotman who had pressed the surviving Gaídel into both corners were relieved by infantry bearing heavy spears. Some of the guests fought back with improvised means, but the lack of space to maneuver and the disparity in weaponry made it painfully easy for the Jotman to hack down their quarry.
The rest of the Jotman swordsmen continued a steady slaughter towards the center of the room, with Lord Osmand at the bloody point of their formation. Giant’s Eye flashed in wide arcs, severing limbs and lopping off any heads within reach. The High King’s guards were making slower progress from the front of the room near the dais, which almost made their methodical butchery of their own kin all the more devastating.
It was torture for Guillaume to bear witness to this bloodbath and be unable to help those in need. He wished he had the power to stop such senseless violence. Looking up at the ceiling composed of flush stone blocks, Guillaume had another idea. “Esker, would you be able to collapse these stones down upon our foes?”
The Tengu studied the ceiling for a long moment before responding, “I am confident that I could, yet doubt I would retain consciousness. In addition, each block is dependent on its neighbor for support, there is no guarantee that the entire ceiling would not collapse in a cascade.”
“I hope it does not come to that, yet in a dire situation we could take our enemies with us,” Guillaume replied solemnly. Esker nodded in agreement. “We should get in place now.” He moved over to the completed tortoises. Under Liadan’s instruction the Gaídel simultaneously lifted the tables at the front and rear of the makeshift siege engines. There was a flaw in the design: Eógan could easily fit beneath, Liadan was the same height as the other Gaídel, Guillaume would have to stoop, but Esker was far too tall.
Before Guillaume could voice his concern, Esker spoke, “I will help protect your creations from without.”
“I will join the lass,” Eógan added cheerfully, twirling the carving knife in his hand. “I am still a bit peckish.” Esker rolled her large eyes. “You get it right?” Eógan continued, “It works on so many levels!”
“Congratulations,” Liadan replied sarcastically. “Can we please hurry?” She took Guillaume’s hand and they both climbed under the same tortoise along with the Gaídel laborers. Liadan pushed towards the front. “FORWARD!” she bellowed, once again with iron in her voice. They first began to walk, then jog, and finally run with the heavy tables held aloft over their heads.
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EóGAN X
Eógan kept pace with Esker at his side, between the two tortoises. He heard a shout to his left and turned to see King Brian running with a cluster of his men. They were armed in a similarly improvised fashion as he and Esker were: carving knifes, metal platters, and pieces of chairs. “We will clear a path for you,” Brian yelled in Pechtish over the horrible screams in the hall. “There are more behind us, we must break their lines!” The greying warrior was resolute and the Gaídel accompanying him looked seasoned in the ways of war.
Eógan thought to ask how Brian spoke such fluent Pechtish, yet this was not the appropriate moment. “I look forward to fighting at your side, Brian of the bogs!” he called back and the petty king winked at him.
Brian and his honor guard took the lead, shepherding fleeing Gaídel out of the path of the tortoises as they neared the line of the High King’s spearmen. The two forces met approximately three quarters of the way through the hall: the High King’s guards having steadily advanced from the dais at the front of the hall, leaving a massacre in their wake, while the party with their Gaídel allies were making slow progress through the press of a panicked crowd.
The guards wore ill-fitted helms in the style of the Jotman and oversized armor, draped with heavy looking mail. As Eógan broke through into an open pocket on the floor, he heard Brian deriding the High King’s guards as cowards and unleashing a string of insults that he could not fully understand. Perhaps the bulky helms canted down on the guards’ foreheads obscured their vision, or their fixation on butchering any Gaídel within reach of their spear tips distracted them. Regardless of the reason, they did not see the tortoises careening their way until it was too late.
After taunting the three deep formation of the High King’s guards, Brian and his warriors turned and ran with practiced fluidity that would make a Pechtish skirmisher proud. Several members of the guards’ line were undisciplined and gave chase as Brian’s group flowed to either side of the tortoises like water around a stone, they were the first of the High King’s soldiers to be trampled.
Spears and shields were flung through the air as the heavy wooden banquet tables rammed into the guards’ lines with a meaty crunch. The tortoise on the left broke fully through the formation, however, the one on the right only made it through two rows of assailants before losing momentum and slowing to a stop.
Eógan did not hesitate and vaulted himself on top of the stationary tortoise. Already the guards were swarming the tables in the midst of their ranks, thrusting spears through gaps in the overlaid tables. Some found purchase and were withdrawn bloody; others caught in the wood or were grappled by the Gaídel within the tortoise, causing a tug of war. Eógan danced and twirled gracefully, catching one guard by surprise as his focus was directed downward, the carving knife tore at the man’s neck and cut to the bone. Twisting away past answering thrusts of spears, Eógan was forced back by the reach of the guards’ weapons, yet he had bought the Gaídel within the tortoise a bit of time.
King Brian and his warriors roared battle cries as they entered the fray, some now armed with the shields and spears of the guards who had been crushed or knocked prone by the initial charge of the tortoises. Esker joined them and was battering aside the High King’s guards with her table leg. The petty king’s motley crew fanned out from the rear of the tortoise, while other Gaídel from within and without began to lift the tables, so those underneath could escape. Unfortunately for Eógan, this meant that the platform he was perched upon canted drunkenly towards the spear blades he had sought to keep at a distance.
The ranks of guards had compressed around the tortoise, so Eógan ran up the rapidly tipping table top and flipped backward as it grew increasingly vertical. As he arced through the air, he had a clear view of the other tortoise, the one Guillaume and Liadan had been within. Unlike its sister siege engine, it had traveled through the guards’ line. The tables had been flipped onto their sides to form a barricade.
Guillaume backed towards the dais, while unarmed Gaídel clustered protectively around Liadan. The rear rank of guards had swiveled to face them and were fanned out in a semi circle, bristling with spears as they approached.
Eógan rolled to dissipate his momentum, sprang to his feet, and pivoted to face his foes. He had cleared the ranks of the High King’s guards by several paces. The guards in the third rank closest to the tortoise were locked in direct combat with the Gaídel beneath the siege engine, while a handful of guards broke away from the fringes of it to menace Eógan.
The guards moved clumsily in their armor, panting from the weight, and stumbling from the small field of vision their oversized conical helms allowed. Eógan used this to his advantage, bobbing and weaving to avoid telegraphed spear thrusts. He sought to wear out his pursuers and wait for an opening. The deer spirits imbued Eógan’s legs with swiftness and he propelled himself forward, dropping to roll between two spears. The mail the guards wore was meant to hang just above the knees, yet because it was oversized for a Gaídel, it drooped well over their calves.
The carving knife flashed, biting deep into the Achilles tendon of the guard to Eógan’s right. The man cried out in agony as he collapsed to the stone floor, unable to support his own weight. Eógan scooped up the guard’s teardrop shaped shield by the edge and slammed it into the guard that was on his left, sending him staggering into an adjacent soldier.
A spearpoint whistled past Eógan’s ear, nicking it slightly, but he would only feel the pain of that later. He kicked the crippled guard’s spear into the air with his bare feet, while simultaneously flinging the carving knife at his attacker’s face. The blade was ill-balanced and clattered harmlessly off of a shield, yet the distraction gave Eógan time to fully prepare for battle: he disrobed. Two guards tromped towards him with their spears extended, while the one he had hit with a shield approached from the opposite side with another guard. “Fucking Pechts…” the nearest said, spitting on the floor.
“My spear’s larger than yours,” Eógan taunted, bounding clockwise away from the four Gaídel. His back was turned towards the main ranks of the spearmen, he wanted to avoid having that as a blindspot as he attempted to close in on Guillaume and Liadan’s position. The guards could not match his speed, but were committed to pursuing their quarry.
When Eógan had fully rotated around them, he bumped into the dais. A hand grabbed him from above, Eógan thrashed but could not break the grip.
“Help me,” a voice pleaded in Gaídel. “Please.”
Eógan turned to see the hostage with the blood dampened bandage wrapped around his head. “In a moment friend,” he replied as he looked back at the four guards confronting him. “Let me have a stab at them first.” Eógan’s quip did not land, yet neither did the flurry of blows from his assailants. He parried to the right and thrust momentarily to his left, but would have left himself vulnerable if he had committed to the blow. He needed to separate the guards, or to find a way to use their numbers against them.
With the boost of his deer spirits, he hopped nimbly onto the dais behind him and shepherded the hostage with the bloody bandage back towards the banquet table. “Have a seat,” Eógan said as he pushed the hostage into a chair, then lashed out with his spear to keep a guard from climbing up onto the dais. The high ground gave him a significant advantage, both due to leverage in combat and because the guards could not climb up easily in their heavy armor, or while holding their shields. It also gave Eógan a clear view of the mayhem in the hall.
He saw Esker towering over all of the nearby Gaídel, scattering the armored guards with sweeps of the table leg clenched in her hand. As Eógan scampered back and forth across the dais to keep the guards down on the floor below him, he watched in dismay as Esker’s makeshift club shattered into splinters against a shield, leaving her unarmed. Eógan had no way to reach her, so he gritted his teeth and searched for an opening in the guards’ defenses.
Their helms, while ill-fitting, had a long nose guard that left Eógan with an extremely precise target to strike. However, their conical shape gave him an idea. He targeted the guard second from his right with a feint, then reversed his grip on the shaft of his spear and slammed the end of it into the helm of the guard furtherest right. The booming clang was deeply satisfying, causing the guard to release his spear and stagger into his comrade.
With two of the guards occupied, Eógan went to work on the remaining pair. Peppering them with a flurry of blows, he telegraphed a similar bludgeoning blow to a helm, but instead drove the spearhead into the guard’s fingers as he raised up his own spear in an attempt to parry. As the guard screamed in pain, three of his fingers fell to the ground. The two guards to Eógan’s right were still tangled together, leaving only one of the High King’s men in the position to attack.
The maiming of his companion’s hand seemed to enrage the guard and he advanced ferociously. Unfortunately, he was also reckless: as Eógan danced over the spear thrusts, the guard overextended. Eógan’s foot snapped down, pinning the shaft of the spear, nearest the blade, onto the dais. As the guard tried to yank his spear free, Eógan aimed under the nose guard of his helm and found purchase in his neck.
Eógan’s eyes went wide as a spear flashed through his legs and cut into his lower thigh, narrowly missing an artery, and gratefully, his man bits. “That is not for you!” Eógan insisted as he placed one hand on the butt of his spear for more leverage and rocked the impaled Gaídel onto the guard who had stabbed his leg. This time the guard braced for impact and was able to shoulder his slain comrade onto the floor, however, that gave Eógan the opening he needed. He flipped his spear blade vertically and raked up at the man from his chin to his eye. The tip of the spear caught the lip of the helm and Eógan was able to flip it off the guard’s head. His neighbor was still staggered from the ringing blow to his head, while the maimed guard on the opposite side valiantly tried to continue fighting. Sadly his grip strength was greatly diminished, so when Eógan parried his thrust, the spear flew out of the guard’s blood-soaked hand and he cowered behind his shield.
As the helm-less guard attacked wildly, blinded by the blood flowing from the wound across his face, Eógan bludgeoned the stunned guard once more and sent him to the floor. “All of you, take each other’s hands!” he called out to the hostages behind him. He launched himself in the air above the helm-less guard and slipped the point of his spear behind the man’s collarbone. The guard collapsed onto his knees, dying within seconds. Eógan menaced the guard with the maimed hands, but let him retreat behind his shield, before vaulting back atop the dais.
The hostages had obediently obeyed his command, with the exception of the one with the bloody bandage wrapped across his face. He was grasping wildly into the air near his seat and calling out, unable to find any fellow hostages.
Eógan took him gently by the elbow and guided him to the rest. “We are not out of danger yet friends,” he said in Gaídel. Even though he could not see their eyes, he could sense judgement of his grammar. “Yeah, yeah. I would like to hear any of you try to speak Pechtish,” he grumbled.
“I can,” the hostage with the bloody bandage replied, turning his face towards Eógan.
“Then tell the rest of them ‘chop, chop!’” Eógan said as he took the lead, dragging the chain of hostages behind him. They moved awkwardly to the door on the left of the hall. Once past a final banquet table, there were fortunately no more chairs to clear out of the way. Less inspiring was the situation surrounding the tortoise that Guillaume and Liadan had traveled under: guards had swarmed their position and many of the Gaídel defending Liadan had been skewered by spears.
Ascension Of The Throne[LitRPG/GunSlinger]
Edric Veyra's new reality. He only wants to survive, but trouble knocks like it's DoorDash. He soon realizes he is the fallen heir of House Veyra—once the pillars of the nation, now nothing more than a story.
System. Before he can mourn his luck, he is bombarded by cryptic memories and a weapon magically appears from thin air: a flintlock gun engraved with runes that shoots magic bullets.
"Why did House Veyra fall?"
WHAT TO EXPECT:
- ?? Weak to Strong:
- ?? 'Lite' LitRPG System w/ Minimal Stats
- ?? Emphasis on Party Dynamics (No Harem)
- ?? 1500+ words/chapter & Smooth pacing