Tyrosh, Dionysus Fountain Square, Armory No. 3
"Halt! State your business! No one is permitted entry—leave at once!"
Armory No. 3 was the city's heavy arsenal, a storage vault for scorpions (heavy bolt-throwers) and triple-shot crossbows. In times of peace, these engines were locked away, intended only for the defense of the city during a formal siege. Consequently, the arsenal was always guarded by a high-readiness detachment of at least 100 City Watchmen.
Narsas didn't blink as the guards leveled their pikes. Though he and his men wore the purple cloaks of the Watch, their faces were strangers to the garrison. Tension crackled in the air.
CRACK-BOOM—!
A blinding arc of lightning tore through the morning gloom, erupting in the center of the guard formation. The localized thunderclap and electrical shockwave instantly incapacitated ten men, leaving the rest paralyzed by supernatural terror.
"Forward!" Narsas roared.
His squad—seasoned Imperial Shield-and-Spear veterans—surged ahead. Equipped now with high-grade Tyroshi steel, they didn't even bother with a defensive phalanx. They swarmed the confused guards, their training turning the skirmish into a one-sided slaughter.
"Y-you won't win!" the dying Watch Captain gasped as his men fell around him. "The gates are barred... only the Master of the Key can open them! You'll never get in!"
He hoped to stall them, knowing that if the heavy weapons within fell into the hands of the "Chainbreakers," it would be the doom of the Archon's reign.
"Kill them all," Narsas commanded, stepping over the Captain's body without a second glance.
"Narsas! The flaw is here!" a scout called out, pointing to a section of the armory's rear wall covered in construction scaffolding.
Jon had previously identified a structural weakness in the masonry during a skinchanger reconnaissance. The "Chainbreakers" produced a heavy log—a primitive battering ram—and began a rhythmic assault on the specific stress point. Against a solid stone wall, this would have taken hours. Against a wall that had been subtly sabotaged from within, the masonry was little more than a stack of dry biscuits.
CRUNCH—CRASH—!
The corner of the armory collapsed in a cloud of grey dust.
"Victory!" the men cheered as they flooded through the breach.
"Move! Arm the brothers!" Narsas barked. "Sweetcorn! Fire the signals!"
Whistle... BANG!
A flurry of whistling signal arrows streaked into the sky over the square. In the filth of the sewers and the shadows of the docks, the rioting slaves looked up.
"The Signal! Hope has arrived! To the Square!"
The Dionysus Fountain Square was a charnel house. Slaves wearing red armbands set fire to the merchant stalls, creating a screen of smoke and chaos. While many were initially driven back by the disciplined "wall of spears" of the City Watch, the presence of embedded "Chainbreaker" veterans kept the rebellion from shattering.
Under the guidance of Jon's specialists, the slaves abandoned the open streets where the Watch's heavy armor gave them the advantage. They retreated into the narrow labyrinth of alleys, drawing the soldiers into tight spaces where their long pikes became a liability.
From the rooftops and balconies, the elderly and the young rained stones, boiling oil, and stolen arrows upon the purple-cloaked heads of the soldiers. A shield could stop a sword, but it couldn't protect a man from a heavy masonry block dropped from four stories above. The Watch's formations fractured as men were forced to look up, leaving their flanks vulnerable to the vengeful daggers of the miners.
As the second wave of signal arrows flared, the cry went up: "To the Arsenal! Steel for the Red Bands!"
The slaves surged toward the Square, breaking through the thin line of cheval de frise (spiked timber) and the 200 guards holding the perimeter. There, they found Narsas and a mountain of weapons.
"Take what you can! The Archon's dogs are coming! Arm yourselves or die!"
Desperate men, who had known only the weight of a pickaxe, now grasped the hilts of masterwork swords and buckled on leather jacks. The Chainbreaker veterans moved among them, beating order into the mob and forming them into rough companies. They were still a rabble, but they were now a rabble with steel.
TOOT—TOOT—!
A long, rhythmic horn blast echoed from the east.
"Hoo-hah! Hoo-hah!"
Marching into the square was the pride of the city: the Silver Deer Army. Historically founded in honor of Yaarl Gira Durrandon, the last Storm King who had once saved Tyrosh from Volantis, the legion wore helms adorned with silver antlers and carried shields emblazoned with the crowned stag.
Commander Saeraes Moss led his 2,000 veterans with a cold confidence. He had fought sellswords in the Disputed Lands; he had no fear of a few thousand unwashed miners, regardless of the armor they wore.
"Archers! Advance!" Moss commanded, raising his hand to offer a mocking chance for surrender.
He never got the words out.
"FIRE!" a voice roared from the breach of the armory.
A cloud of bolts and arrows—including the massive, bone-shattering shafts of the scorpions—erupted from the darkness of the arsenal, tearing into the silver-antlered ranks before they could even draw their bows. The battle for Tyrosh had truly begun.