Chapter 41: Siege
Author's Note: There's a scene of nonconsensual sex toward the end of the chapter. Please skip over if the content is disturbing to you.
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What a long road it had been since the Battle of Castus.
Jack couldn't shake that thought from his mind that morning. In fact, the entire Swabian campaign had been one filled with stunning reversals and last-minute victories. Jack had some of the highest highs and the lowest lows in the country of his ancient foe, but today, all of that struggle appeared to have been worthwhile.
For today was the day that his army first caught sight of the Swabian capital city of Dagobern.
And what a beautiful sight it was.
It wasn't that the city was beautiful. Even from his first visit here over a year ago, Dagobern was one ugly city. It was cold, dreary, and utterly without color. They couldn't have made the Swabian capital more depressing if they tried. Jack found it to be oddly representative of the Swabian character on a larger scale. The Swabian mind was usually predictable and unimaginative, and even their architecture showcased this to a large extent.
No, the most beautiful thing about seeing the city of Dagobern was that the city appeared to be nearly defenseless. There was no army of one hundred thousand Swabian soldiers between Jack and the capital. There wasn't even a quarter of that. Almost every trained soldier of any consequence was now sitting out the war in Jack's prisoner camp back near Castus. That meant sixty thousand soldiers that Emperor Avila had to make do without.
Avila didn't even have enough men to harry Jack's progression northward to Dagobern. With the bulk of his army captured at Castus, Jack had proceeded for two weeks along the coast toward the Swabian capital without so much as seeing a force larger than a platoon.
All of Dagobern was now open to him.
That didn't mean he couldn't see some units sketched below him on the outskirts of the city. Even two weeks was long enough time for Avila to arm every old man or young boy still capable of carrying a rifle. But Jack suspected that any troops left in the city would be second-rate in quality and not capable of throwing off an orderly assault by a much superior force.
For the first time in this war, the Swabians were on the verge of suffering a killing stroke, even after they'd delivered such blows to so many other countries. It wasn't that long ago that Swabian forces swarmed from their islands and overran Sorella, Andalucia, Picardy, and Apulia. Jack could remember sitting in the city of Arezzo on the Apulian coast and knowing it was the only free city left in Apulia.
Now that the shoe was on the other foot, Jack looked forward to bringing this war to a fitting conclusion.
But first, they would have to take the city.
Not much longer after the city was sighted, Jack ordered his forces to move to surround Dagobern on all sides. Since the city shared its northern border with the ocean, that meant running trench lines from the far western terminus toward the east by way of the south. In doing so, Jack's forces cut off the city from its immediate environs and prevented any other forces still out there from riding to the city's rescue.
To help those men, Jack ordered each part of the line to have their share of the newly-arrived tanks, many of which had just unloaded not long ago. They were now receiving regular deliveries of tanks from Galicia, the result of Will Calland's management of that now vital war industry. Also included in the delivery of the tanks was several new squadrons of airplanes, which meant that once again, the Allied Army would have near total domination of the skies above Dagobern.
All seemed set to deliver the final crushing blow against the Swabians.
For that reason, Jack called together a war council that consisted of himself, Bill, Art, Greg, Lindy, Russ, as well as Dustin, who'd taken the lead in command of the aerial forces of Galicia. It was a role that he was a natural fit for, and his command experience meant the rest of the pilots already looked to him as a natural leader.
Jack had half a mind to eventually separate the airplanes from the army's command and place Dustin in charge of a new division just focused on aerial warfare but the timing for that wasn't right just yet. Jack still wanted to see how Dustin finished out the campaign before he made that move.
Like usual, all of them gathered around a map of the immediate area of Dagobern to plan their next movements. The map was actually furnished by General Ferberg who had accompanied the army unlike the rest of his men.
Jack was still unsure what to make of Ferberg. By all reports, he had one of the best military minds in the West, and he'd surely proven that fact when he almost tossed Jack out of Swabia after the battles of Sepolz and Murgullah. Before that, Ferberg was the general who finally conquered Picardy, and he was even responsible for the uprising that put Avila on the imperial throne.
It was clear that Ferberg was an intelligent strategist, and there were many that claimed he was too dangerous to be left alive, especially given how much carnage his forces had caused in the war.
Jack looked at the situation a little differently though. Ferberg was dangerous--there was no doubt about that. However, Ferberg was a general first and foremost. And so far, he'd been extremely candid with his opinion about the campaign--something that Jack was still trying to come to grips with.
He was so candid that he couldn't help but give Jack his opinion on what he should do. And seeing as how Ferberg was still Swabian, Jack couldn't decide whether such advice was given to him genuinely or as some kind of plot to sabotage Allied fortunes.
By the time of the war council, Jack still hadn't decided if he could trust the Swabian general. For that reason, he was meeting separately with Ferberg later on after the meeting.
"Well, gentlemen, here we are," said Jack proudly as he kicked off the council. "It's been a long road of turmoil and we've seen our share of setbacks, but Dagobern is now finally in front of us. Our army is in good shape while the army of our enemy is practically non-existent. The only thing that remains is how we take the city."
"We take it quickly and hopefully before nightfall," said Greg, making several of the others laugh. "We can be spending the night in the imperial palace if we time this just right."
"You'd want to actually spend time in that palace?" asked Russ with a noticeably distasteful look. "I can only imagine what kind of condition it would be in just because the Swabians built it."
"A palace is a palace though," replied Greg. "And it's our main enemy's palace. I wouldn't care if we had to sleep in a cot in the mud as long as I could sleep soundly knowing the war was over."
That caused a few laughs but Jack put his hands out after Greg was finished speaking.
"Okay, okay, we have to take the city first before we can figure out what the sleeping conditions are in Avila's palace," said Jack with a chuckle. "So let's talk about it. It would appear the defense is rather light and we shouldn't have to worry about too much resistance."
