The Girl with No Name

Chapter Twenty-Six -- The Witness

The Defenders crossed into the Lord of the Blue Moon's territory the day before Good Friday, 1758. The force consisted of 2600 mounted raiders, musketeers, nymphs, and even several cannons. Additionally, there were wagon trains bringing along enough supplies to travel as far as a crossroads south of Malénkta-Gordnáckta. The Grand Duke promised to dispatch additional supplies from the border town, but the help would not include any regular troops. Danka realized the Sovereign would help the Defenders in case they did, by some miracle, have a chance of taking Sumy Ris, but secretly he did not expect them to win.

On the southern shore of the river that formed the border between the Duchy and the Kingdom, the Defenders celebrated Easter. The dispirited local populace watched from a distance as the Danubians burned four screaming captured priests and their women danced naked around the huge bonfire. The invaders spent the next day passing out loaves of bread and dried river fish to hundreds of starving bystanders, feeding them to mock the story out of the Christian New Testament. An officer who spoke the Kingdom of the Moon's language shouted:

"The Roman God and his executed son cannot feed you, so it was our Path in Life to give you this meal! Remember, in your prayers, who fed you and who did not!"

The Defenders' journey to their first objective, the crossroads south of Malénkta-Gordnáckta, proved more difficult than the easy ride-through the previous summer. The Lord of the Blue Moon's army had partially recovered from the previous year's defeats and was strong enough to engage the Danubians. There were a series of small battles as the Danubians worked their way westward, which resulted in 50 killed and 120 injured. The musketeers and archers were not as affected by injuries as were the cavalrymen. Ominously, the Defenders already had lost a third of their best horsemen even before reaching the rendezvous point. The cannons were not as useful as the commander had anticipated because they took too long to set up. The sling bombs were not being deployed because the commander wanted to hold on to that secret for the final assault on Sumy Ris.

The Defenders were enormously relieved to see the Grand Duke's supply expedition, after having spent nearly two weeks fighting skirmish after skirmish. The Defenders' commander ordered all of the wounded to return north with the Grand Duke's army. After the regular soldiers departed, the invaders rested a day before continuing westward to their objective. Their morale greatly improved when the harassing attacks from the Lord of the Blue Moon's troops became less frequent. They passed through countryside that was completely depopulated and vacant, the contested zone that had been repeatedly devastated by war and invasions over the past four years.

The Lord of the Blue Moon's troops fell back, but not because the Defenders were too strong for them. The eastern enemy would shadow the Danubians to see what happened when they entered the Lord of the Red Moon's territory. Meanwhile, they would wait for supplies and re-enforcements. The Lord of the Blue Moon had learned from his past reckless mistakes and actually had a sound strategy regarding the Danubian invasion. He would wait to see if there was a major battle between the Danubians and the rival faction, then, assuming the victorious army was severely weakened, would attack the winners with his forces intact. The Lord of the Red Moon had decided on the same strategy. He would allow the Danubians to advance, see if the Blue Moon column attacked them, then order his men to assault whoever remained alive. So, the Defenders continued their advance towards Sumy Ris, aware of the two armies following them but mistakenly assuming neither was strong enough to launch an attack.

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On May 11th, the Defenders approached a town called Aksheriri Ris. The location was significant because it was inside the Lord of the Red Moon's territory and was only a day's journey east of the former Danubian capitol. In fact, from its hilltop it was possible to see the upper part of the watchtower overlooking Sumy Ris.

Commander Sáupeckt knew that he had to capture Aksheriri Ris before proceeding to his main objective, to use it as a base of operations if at all possible. Aksheriri Ris was not very large, but its location was much more defensible than the flat farmland surrounding Sumy Ris. It sat on top of a hill and was partially surrounded by a small river that had cut a row of steep cliffs to the south and the west, so it could only be approached from the east or north. The town was much newer than Sumy Ris. During Danubian times it had been the site of a large seminary, but after 1502 the Ottomans tore down the seminary and used the location as a defensible place to store trading goods. There were some solidly-built warehouses around a market, along with a central plaza and a large mosque that was demolished after the Kingdom of the Moon became independent from the Ottoman Empire. The most important structure (apart from the ruined mosque) was an Ottoman-built garrison building, on the far northwest side of the town.

At one time the place must have been attractive, but in 1758 Aksheriri Ris was not in good condition. The town already was damaged from the war of independence and also from a raid the previous year by the Kingdom's rival faction. Only about half of the houses were occupied and the remaining inhabitants had partially dismantled the others for building supplies. The city had a wall facing the northern and eastern approaches, but the wall had collapsed in several places, leaving large gaps through which an enemy could easily enter. The Lord of the Red Moon's army had dug some trenches and built cannon emplacements over the past winter, but in May of 1758 there were not enough men to guard them. There were three guarded gates, to the east, northeast, and north that the residents still used out of habit, but there were plenty of other gaps where a person could freely walk into or out of the town.

Aksheriri Ris had a garrison of several hundred troops from the Red Moon army and about half of the civilian population was still living there. The place definitely was not abandoned and would have to be taken by force. When he saw the garrison, Commander Sáupeckt suddenly realized how precarious his situation had become because the Danubians would not be able to take Aksheriri Ris without suffering significant losses. They would not be at full strength to assault Sumy Ris and there were two enemy armies of unknown size lurking nearby. Ilmátarkt commented to Danka that he had sat in on some of the commander's planning sessions and the other officers seemed very aware that capturing and holding onto Sumy Ris with 2500 troops was unrealistic, especially if the Danubians felt it was necessary to hold onto a second town and split their forces.

Under the circumstances the Defenders would have been better off bypassing Aksheriri Ris and trying to flee northward towards the Duchy. However, doing so would have entailed battling in the open with the forces of the Lord of the Red Moon and there was no guarantee the Danubians could hold off a sustained attack. Also, the majority of the Defenders were not yet aware how precarious their situation had become, but they would find out soon enough if they had to withdraw under constant assaults. There was another reason the commander decided not to retreat. During the previous summer he had defeated a force ten times the size of his own with his secret weapon: the sling-bombs. The Kingdom of the Moon factions would face a horrible surprise the first time he deployed them. If he chose the right moment and the Defenders killed enough of the enemy, it was possible the superior numbers of the enemy troops would not matter.

Commander Sáupeckt decided a withdrawal was too risky and that if events went his way, it still might be possible to capture Sumy Ris. It would be better to occupy Aksheriri Ris, claim a victory, send word to the Grand Duke that the Defenders had captured a strategic town, and hope the Royal Army would enter the Kingdom to assist with the assault against Sumy Ris. Ilmátarkt and Danka knew that Commander Sáupeckt was too caught up is his own fantasies to realize the Grand Duke would fully understand what really was going on: that the Defenders were cornered and faced imminent defeat.

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The assault on the town went as well as could be expected under the circumstances. The cannon crews finally proved their usefulness by dueling with the garrison's cannons and providing cover for the musketeers rushing through the gaps in the wall to enter the town. The Danubians swept into the unmanned trenches and used them for concealment and cover as they advanced on the town. The trenches were deep enough for the Danubian cannon crews to haul in their guns and direct them against the Red Moon troops at very short range. The townsfolk watched in dismay as fortifications they had worked on all winter ended up aiding the Danubians instead of the town's garrison, by allowing the enemy to easily bypass the outer defenses. With minimal opposition, the Danubians emerged from the trenches and charged through the walls. Danubian musketeers attacked the poorly-organized locals, driving them back while archers entered the houses and took over the upper floors. Families of terrified civilians added to the confusion and greatly complicated the operation.

The Danubians needed to clear out the local population, but did not want to do so by killing them. (The relative goodwill was not just because the Danubians were not accustomed to killing non-combatants: showing mercy towards the locals also would mean having to deal with far fewer rotting bodies once the town was under Danubian control.) When they took over the eastern gate, the militia ordered the nymphs to start chasing the town's non-combatants towards that exit. Amazed that they weren't being targeted for killing, thousands of panicky civilians rushed out, directed by strange half-naked women screaming in a foreign language and pointing crossbows at them.

Meanwhile, the city's garrison fought bravely, but they were badly outnumbered. The two remaining gates fell, followed by the warehouses. The militia turned the cannons around and used them against the Ottoman garrison building. When the building collapsed and the Danubians killed off the remaining enemy troops, the fighting ended. After a full day of chaotic and brutal combat, Aksheriri Ris came under Danubian control, for the first time in 250 years.

The Defenders had taken the town and could set up defensive positions, but it was clear to everyone they were in deep trouble. A fourth of the attackers had been killed or injured, which reduced the number of troops available for combat to 1700. Like their predecessors, they did not have enough men to guard the outer trenches and there was no reason a new group of assailants couldn't use them exactly in the same way the Danubians had used them. So, Commander Sáupeckt ordered the unfortunate civilians who had not managed to evacuate to go outside and fill in holes they had spent all winter digging. Filling in the trenches would clear the field of vision and ensure no one could approach by using them as cover. Dalibora watched the operation with dismay. "We need to be using those defenses, not covering them up."

The medical staff set up an infirmary in one of the storehouses and spent the next several days operating on dozens of seriously injured patients. The medical team, in spite of being well-prepared, used up all their supplies. Horrid memories of the wounded from the battles of 1754 entered Danka's thoughts as she worked on dozens of equally hideous injuries in Aksheriri Ris. The mortality rate in the infirmary was very high, because Danka and one of the doctors quietly poisoned any patient they thought would not recover.

At the end of the second day in the captured town, the commander of the squad in charge of the sling-bombs moved his entire stock into a small storeroom inside the infirmary building. His reasoning was that the infirmary was the most defensible building now that the Ottoman garrison fort was ruined and the most likely place the Defenders would make their last stand. The doctors normally would have been very nervous about having high-explosives kept among their patients, but it was true that, because the patients could not easily move, it made sense to keep the most important means of defense in the same location.

Danka and her husband looked at the stacked boxes of sling-bombs, to make sure they were secured and none would fall and set off the others. At that moment the couple realized a horrible fact. The only reason the Defenders were attempting to capture Sumy Ris was because Commander Sáupeckt had taken control of the militia and was using it to pursue his own dream instead of protecting the Duchy. The only reason he had taken control over the entire militia was because his unit won an impressive battle the previous summer. The only reason he won that battle was because of the bomb-formula provided by Danka and the design improvement provided by her husband.

Danka looked back at the room full of mutilated patients.

"This is our doing, yours and mine. We'll have a lot to answer for when we hold up our mirrors."

Ilmátarkt thought about arguing that only the commander was to blame, but he knew his wife was right. What could he say? They were trying to do the right thing, just trying to help the militia win its battles. How badly their efforts had failed.

"There's a saying... from the True Believers. 'The path to the Domain of Beelzebub is paved with the cobblestones of the kind actions of the righteous.' I guess the Destroyer understood that."

It was frightening to hear Ilmátarkt talk like that. He had always been so confident everything had a reasonable explanation and the deities were just the result of wishful thinking. That confidence in his own intellect and his unusual beliefs seemed to have vanished.

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While Danka spent her time with the medical staff, events outside were moving quickly. Commander Sáupeckt sent out messengers with the cheery news that Aksheriri Ris was firmly under Danubian control and that the Defenders were fully ready to assist the Royal Army in an assault against Sumy Ris. In other words, the hidden meaning of the message was that the militia did not have the strength to take Sumy Ris by themselves and would need back-up.

Historical records from the period indicate the Grand Duke was extremely irritated at the situation and at himself for allowing it to happen. Nevertheless, he did lead an expeditionary force to help the militia. Its purpose would not be to do anything about Sumy Ris, but instead to rescue as many Defenders as possible. The sovereign understood that to do nothing while loyal militia fighters were defeated and slaughtered would make him lose honor among his subjects. However, as soon as everyone returned to the Duchy, the Grand Duke would make the Defenders pay for their folly by disarming and disbanding their units.

Meanwhile, the Lord of the Red Moon decided that allowing the Danubians to continue their occupation of Aksheriri Ris was intolerable. Yes, it would be possible to simply wait and starve them out, but the Lord of the Red Moon was not the type of leader who was willing to wait more than a few weeks. He decided to order his army forward and launch an assault to re-take the town. By the beginning of June he was able to gather 6000 troops for the assault, which was more than three times the number the Danubians had to defend themselves. However, 6000 Red Moon troops in 1758 were not the same impressive fighting force 6000 Red Moon troops would have been in 1754. The Red Moon Army was ragged and disorganized, having lost most of their best troops and officers years before.

When the Red Moon Army pushed forward, they ran into many problems, including getting stuck in the loose dirt of the freshly filled trenches. Still, it appeared they would overwhelm the Defenders by sheer numbers. When the Red Moon troops recaptured the northeast gate, Commander Sáupeckt realized he could not wait any longer to use his secret weapon, the sling bombs. The Danubians hurled the explosives at the assailants and killed enough of them to force a chaotic retreat. The gate was back under Danubian control, but the Red Moon Army was not defeated and now they knew the Danubians' secret. The Red Moon commanders also knew how to defeat that secret, by firing volleys at anyone using a sling or carrying a small wooden box. When their musketeers finally managed to shoot one of the Danubian bomb-throwers, he fell off a rooftop and the explosion from the bomb he was about to throw and extra one he was carrying destroyed the gate along with two cannons and killed dozens of Defenders. As soon as the smoke cleared enough to see what they were doing, the enemy troops surged past the wreckage and entered the town.

Dalibora showed up at the infirmary to order Danka to join the rest of the squad in the defense of the town center. Danka reluctantly left her husband, suspecting it would be the last time she would ever see him. She wanted to kiss him goodbye, but Dalibora was yelling at her to move out.

The nymphs moved about the upper floors of buildings and houses as they hunted and engaged enemy troops who were fighting to get into the city. The women had to expose themselves to enemy fire whenever they tried to jump from one rooftop to the next, but were greatly assisted by smoke from muskets and burning houses, which provided concealment. However, needing to avoid the numerous thatched roofs of shoddily-repaired buildings and avoiding slippery tiles of many others horribly complicated their efforts to move about quickly. The archers aimed at their targets in the streets below and the enemy musket-men fired back, every so often hitting a nymph and sending her tumbling onto the ground. Within an hour both Dalibora and Oana had lost half their squad-members.

The Defenders fell back. Already half of the town was back under the control of the Lord of the Red Moon's troops and they were setting up to re-capture some of the larger buildings in the town center. The next large round of shooting, however, came from the east, outside the town. The attention of the Red Moon soldiers suddenly shifted to counter a cavalry charge by the rival Blue Moon soldiers as they attacked and raided the cannon crews of the Lord of the Red Moon's men. The assault was a daring one, meant to silence the Red Moon cannons so the Army of the Lord of the Blue Moon could advance unimpeded towards the town. The civil war reignited as the Red Moon soldiers withdrew from their more advanced positions in town to counter the approaching threat from outside. It turned out the Lord of the Blue Moon's commanders had decided to advance towards the city, but the rival faction had moved in prematurely, because the Danubians had not yet been defeated. The Defenders took advantage of the dubious respite to consolidate their positions around the mayor's residence and the town's armory while the Kingdom's soldiers fought each other. However, some of the Defenders were not able to withdraw and had to fight in place until they were killed.

The night that followed was the most nightmarish of Danka's life, a night in which she saw the Destroyer exercise total control over human beings. There was a chaotic three-way battle between the Danubians, the Red Moon faction, and the Blue Moon faction. Inside Aksheriri Ris, most of the fighting was between the Danubians and troops from the Red Moon Army. Outside, along the slope leading away from the town, the fighting was mostly between and between Red Moon soldiers and the Blue Moon soldiers. The only light was from explosions and burning buildings, so as the night wore on the fighting consisted of increasingly chaotic clashes between squad-sized units battling enemies they could barely see.