Tyrosh, Dionysus Fountain Square
"Ready! Thrust! Reset!" "Hoo-hah! Hoo-hah!"
Amidst the rhythmic roars of the heralds, Kanier—a Tyroshi regular still reeling from the morning's chaos—thrust his spear forward in a practiced motion. He felt a sickeningly familiar resistance as the steel bit into flesh, followed by a muffled cry.
As a fresh recruit of the Silver Deer Army, Kanier took his duties with a desperate seriousness. Excellence in the field meant more than just a paycheck; it meant bonuses and the favor of their commander, Saeraes Moss. Moss was a legend among the rank-and-file—a man known for his icy fairness and tactical brilliance. Kanier's greatest ambition was to one day stand where Moss stood, commanding the silver-antlered legions of Tyrosh.
"Advance!"
At the command, Kanier stepped forward in unison with his line. The file leader directly in front of him raised his heavy tower shield, providing a wall of bronze and wood. Kanier was a second-rank pikeman, part of the disciplined machine currently grinding the slave rebellion into the dust of Dionysus Fountain Square. Though this was his first real engagement, the presence of the veterans around him acted as a steadying hand.
Squelsch.
Kanier's boot sank into something soft and yielding. He didn't look down. He couldn't. He knew the cobblestones were carpeted with the broken bodies of slaves. As the tower-shield men moved past the fallen, the veterans in the rear—armed with short swords—delivered the "mercy." Experience had taught the Silver Deer that a "dead" slave with a hidden dagger was the quickest way for a recruit to end up in a gutter. Kanier felt the bile rise in his throat as he realized his boot was likely resting in a man's entrails, but he kept his eyes locked on the back of the helmet in front of him.
Awoooo—! "Halt!"
The remnants of the slave mob had been driven against the heavy doors of a temple. The priests within had barred the gates, leaving the rebels trapped between holy stone and Tyroshi steel. They were as good as dead.
Suddenly, a series of urgent horn blasts echoed through the square. The heralds began screaming new orders. Kanier felt a flicker of pride. They had broken the "Great Revolt" with barely a scratch. These slaves, for all their numbers, were nothing against a professional phalanx.
However, a seed of unease remained. Some of the City Watch survivors who had sheltered behind their lines whispered of "ghost-warriors" among the slaves—men who fought with a ferocity and skill that had dismantled entire Watch patrols in the narrow alleys. The Silver Deer veterans had laughed at them, mockingly reminding the "Gold Cloaks" that a phalanx only dies when it breaks its formation.
"Reform! To the Eastern Gate! Double time!"
The heralds' cries grew more frantic. Kanier and his comrades turned as one. The beauty of their square formation was its versatility; any side could become the front. As they pivoted, Kanier stole a glance at the few hundred surviving slaves. They were lucky. If that horn had been a minute later, they would be carrion.
"Hey, Old Kard!" Kanier whispered to the veteran beside him as they marched, their boots rhythmically striking the stone. "What's happening at the Eastern Gate?"
"Hoo-hah!" the veterans chanted, drowning out the ambient noise.
"Who knows?" Kard grunted back, keeping the pace. "More slaves making a nuisance of themselves, likely. They probably think they can jump the walls and run North. Fools. The plantation masters in the North are ten times crueler than the City Watch."
"If it were just a few stragglers, they wouldn't pull a whole legion off the Square," another soldier muttered.
"Hoo-hah!"
The Silver Deer Army utilized these rhythmic chants to keep their breathing steady and their movements synchronized. It turned a thousand individuals into a single, terrifying organism.
But as they neared the Eastern Gate, the "Hoo-hah" died in their throats.
The sky above the gatehouse was no longer blue. Great globes of fire were arching over the walls, crashing into the tenements. The smell of salt air had been replaced by the acrid stench of burning pitch and Fire Oil.
"Oil bombs? Is someone attacking from the sea?" "Where is the Purple Fleet? Did they fall asleep in a brothel?" "Gods, they're hitting the city!"
The older soldiers began to curse. In a century, Tyrosh had never known an external breach. The idea of an enemy bypassing the legendary Purple Sails to rain fire on the city was unthinkable.
"Disperse! Small unit tactics! Sweep the sectors!"
The heralds' new orders were an admission of desperation. The phalanx was being broken up. Kanier found himself assigned to a ten-man squad led by Old Kard.
CRASH.
A mangled, charred object slammed onto the pavement meters away. Kanier flinched, his heart hammering against his ribs. It was a human body, or what was left of one. One side of the torso had been sheared away as if by a massive, superheated blade. The flesh was blackened and sizzling.
"Three-headed god, save us..." "It's a curse! A divine strike!"
Fleeing City Watchmen began to pour out of the gatehouse stairs. They were a pathetic sight—armors shattered, weapons gone, skin weeping from horrific burns. But it was their eyes that haunted Kanier. They didn't look like men who had lost a fight; they looked like men who had seen the end of the world.
"Move up!" Old Kard commanded, though his own voice wavered.
They hadn't cleared the first corner when a terrifying, high-pitched screeching echoed from the staircase above.
A shadow fell over the squad—a nightmare the size of a bull. It was a Giant Spider, its bulbous abdomen and head covered in coarse, wire-like bristles that shimmered with an oily sheen. Its eight segmented legs ended in obsidian-like talons that cracked the stone steps as it moved.
Hiss—!
Kanier felt the air leave his lungs. Those talons were as long as short-swords. If one of those legs punched through a man, it wouldn't leave a wound; it would leave a hole.
"Form up!" Kard screamed, his voice cracking. "Steel! Show it steel!"
The spider's multiple eyes fixed on the squad, and it lunged.