The Assault

The battering ram struck, and the castle was breached. The door fell uselessly to the side as my men rushed through the gatehouse.

Suddenly, I heard a great gushing sound, followed by bellows of pain. Oil. My bravest men, the ones who were first through the breach, lay wriggling in agony, reduced to fish flopping on some monger's floor.

I was already angry, but now I was enraged. I called for the ladders, not wanting to send any more men through the gate. The air stank of burning man-flesh. I began to hoist myself up the ladder. A boy threw a rock at me -- it hit my helmet and clanged off. I skewered him as I alighted on the parapet. I used my boot to push his corpse into the courtyard. He thumped into dirt. Stupid boy.

Some have called me cruel. Others, unchristian. But I know what I am. I am a soldier. More than that -- I am a commander.

Every good commander knows to treasure every good soldier like a miser with gems. Alexander conquered the world with a few thousand men and their undying loyalty. Good soldiers must be conserved, not thrown away.

And yet here I was, losing men because of the piggishness of a rich lord who did not want to pay the war-time taxes he owed to my liege. My lord needed those taxes — the swine's lands are rich —but could not spare the time to starve him out, as my men are needed in the west, in the struggle against the heathens. And so, this assault. This waste. I will make the bastard pay in full, I swore.

I moved along the parapet toward the gatehouse, legs slightly bent in the stance beaten into me in my youth. In front and behind me, more of my men clambered over the wall, overwhelming the pitiful defenders.

I reached the gatehouse. An old man with a tangled white beard and sodden clothes was fleeing out the back. I grabbed him by the shoulder and gutted him. He stank of oil -- I spat in his face as he died. I gave the signal to my men below, and they charged through the gate, stepping over the bodies of their fellows. They penetrated the courtyard, and the real slaughter began.

Almost a fortnight earlier, we defeated the swine's army in battle, leaving him with mostly peasant levies to defend against my professionals. The peasants fought for their lives, but their hands were better acquainted with plow and harrow than sword and shield. Dozens fought and died, and the rest threw down their swords. Those ones died shrieking pleas for Christian mercy.

Some of my soldiers discovered the women and children hiding among the grain stores. They kept watch, grinning wolfishly at the younger women. But they knew better than to start now. Business first, pleasure later. The castle's keep remained unconquered.

The keep was impressive for a small castle. It towered above the exterior walls and was surrounded by a ditch with sharp stakes. A drawbridge had been hastily pulled up as I emerged from the gatehouse. However, I saw no faces staring out from the slits in the keep or on the battlements above. Apparently, the defenders had not had time to retreat. I wanted to end this.

"Show yourself, you cowardly cunt!" I yelled, as my men assembled around the moat.

A sallow, bald head appeared above the battlement. Even from here, I could smell his fear.

"Please! I'll surrender — just spare my life! And my daughter!"

I spat into the moat.

"You're a traitor to your liege. You violated your oath that you swore in the eyes of God. You'll hang, and count yourself lucky the king does not have the creative temperament of his late, dearly departed uncle."

My men laughed. The pathetic ball of flesh above me started to weep.

My anger spiked. Good men had died today because of this idiot. I cannot abide men who act without considering the consequences. I cannot abide most of the gentry, in truth, but this mewling infant was a new low. Not for the first time did I contemplate how much better the realm would be, if men of action and character ruled it, instead of men of gilt cradles.

"Enough!" I bellowed. "Let down the drawbridge."

The man above me sputtered.

"My daughter... will you spare her? She's all I have left." He broke down, tears racing down his puffy cheeks.

"I won't harm her, if you lower the drawbridge now... but if you delay, then I might have to treat my men to the taste of highborn cunt. All my men."

I gestured at the men surrounding the keep, and they whooped accordingly. The only real love affair of my life, I thought distractedly about them.

"Of course, she won't look very noble when they're done with her... she probably won't look like anyone at all, once they're done with her. They're a rough lot."

Even dozens of feet below, I could see his eyes widen, owl like.

"I submit! I submit! Just give me minute."

Silence as he disappeared down the ladder.

"So no noble cunnie for us, eh?" asked one-eyed Harald, one of my old veterans.

"I said I wouldn't harm her, so you lot are out of luck -- too ugly!"

More laughs, even though the joke was poorly phrased. The perks of command.

The drawbridge dropped, thumping like the body of the peasant boy killed earlier. I ordered Harald and a handful of others to secure the keep and guard our gracious hosts.

To the rest, I nodded and gave a thin smile. The veteran campaigners knew what that meant. The debauchery could begin.

I always liked to watch, at least in the beginning. It was primal. It was real. And my men, the best soldiers in the strongest realm, deserved it.

Many of the men started to walk toward the grain storage, the hiding place of the women and children. I heard a few course laughs, and then the screams began.

I saw one of my men drag a red-haired peasant girl by the roots of her hair. She was pale, freckled, and dragging her feet like a child dreading a bath. My man — Erik, a tall, black-bearded fellow — stood her upright in front of a haystack. He tore her thin homespun dress down from the neck. Her tits swung lewdly out from the cloth. They were large and firm. Her nipples looked hard in the chilly air; the color matched her hair. Erik groped her breasts, grabbing them as if he could not believe his luck to find such treasures hiding beneath such a humble dress.

She stood there impassively, but the hate was clear in her eyes.

Erik resumed tearing her dress until she stood almost naked, with just her smallclothes covering her cunt. I could feel my cock hardening. Erik was lucky to take so pretty a girl. Erik grabbed her by the throat and used his other hand to pull her smallclothes down to her ankles, revealing ginger hair and a pretty young cunt hiding between pale hips. Erik pushed her back into the haystack, her tits jiggling on impact.

Doubtlessly, she had walked in this main throughway of the courtyard countless times. She had probably attended the handsome looking chapel opposite the keep. But here she was, about to get humped in this same yard like an animal.

Erik positioned himself between her legs and thrusted. "No," she screamed, and her screams joined the cacophony of screams, curses, moans, and slapping flesh coming from the grain stores. He fucked her like a soldier.

She'll whelp soon enough, I thought, looking at Erik's girl with the trained eye of many successful campaigns. He won't stay off a pretty one like that, and she looks fertile and well fed.

Fertile soil, fertile peasants — I pondered at the connection as her tits jostled back and forth on the haystack. Her mouth was agape. Erik's thrusts became more erratic.

It's too bad Lord Dumbfuck chose not to pay his taxes, I thought to myself, as Erik held her close and came. Then again, Erik seemed pretty happy about it. I smiled. It's good for the men to enjoy an easy victory in the middle of a hard war.

Suddenly, I heard screaming from coming inside the keep.

Ugh, the nitwits! That was the one piece of ass that they were not supposed to touch! I hurried over the drawbridge to save Lord Dumbfuck's daughter from my ugly, stupid men.