Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

The Siege of Syrn: Part XV

Dirk stared at the stretcher for a few seconds, as people around him began to realize what had happened. Silence fell. Dirk saw Arem standing on the other side of the stretcher. Their eyes met.

Then Arem moved toward him. The two walked quickly away from the crowd. "Arem, I need to know exactly what happened while I was in the Infirmary. Are there any other senior officers fit to take action?"

"Not that I know of. I know for a fact that three were killed and two more were captured. I don't know how many more there are, if there are any. If there are any more here they should be out here giving orders."

Dirk nodded in agreement. "Do you have any idea what our casualties were in that last assault?"

"Far more than we could afford. I don't know an exact number, but I can tell you that less than half of the force that was at the curtain wall made it back here after they broke down the gate."

Dirk sighed. Already he felt a dozen years older than he had even that night when they started fighting. The light from the burning town reminded him of his next question. "What exactly happened at the gate? How did they break it?"

Now Arem sighed. "They made another assault on the walls. While three quarters of our forces were engaged there, they brought a ram up and destroyed the gate."

"How!? That was an iron gate!"

"I don't know. The ram must have been capped with iron, and have been extra heavy. I don't have any other explanation."

"Alright. Continue."

"After the gate was down, the few of us that could ran to try and defend it. The commander was there, and so was I. Under his direction we were able to hold them off briefly, but as soon as he was killed confusion fell everywhere. People began running, and as soon as the defenses were down more and more Thargonites kept rushing in. We barely managed to get the commanders body on that stretcher, and you saw how close we came to not making it back."

"What are we going to do now? If all the officers are dead, then we won't last five minutes in the next assault with no one to command us."

Arem nodded in grim agreement.

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