CHAPTER 197: CHAPTER 197 – BREAKING THE CITY

"We are storming a city, do you understand?! A siege!!" Timasone roared. "If the heavy infantry can’t get up, we’ll never take these walls! What use is it if they survive but the city stands?! Push them forward! Go! Go!!"

He watched the messenger scramble across the moat and sprint toward the light infantry, then turned his eyes back to the killing ground below the walls. The earth was littered with bodies—mercenaries and Crimisan citizens alike—strewn in grotesque heaps, the air filled with the groans and shrieks of the dying.

Timasone had seen scenes like this too many times. Before coming to Magna Graecia, he had followed Tibron in a months-long assault on Larissa in Asia Minor. He knew the cruelty of sieges. Yet he had no other choice—brute force was his only tool, and time was the key to success.

"Chief, look out!" A soldier’s warning made him instinctively duck behind his round shield. A sharp clang rattled his arm as an arrow slammed against the bronze face and glanced away.

He had just exhaled in relief when screams tore through the air—"Ahhh! Aahhh!"—followed by the heavy crash of wood.

He didn’t need to look. Another ladder had been hurled down from the battlements. Frustration boiled inside him.

"General, their light infantry is closing in!" The panicked cries of a citizen-soldier made Euricpos’ heart tighten.

The enemy’s skirmishers had already advanced from the moat to the base of the wall. Compared to the poorly trained archery of the Crimisan levies, these men were deadly accurate. The majority of casualties atop the wall had come from their arrows.

"Forget the men on the ladders—concentrate fire on their light troops!" Euricpos shouted as he ran along the parapet walk, urging his archers into position.

"They’re up again!" a soldier’s terrified cry froze him mid-step. Not far away, a mercenary had clambered onto the battlements. A spear lunged toward him, but he caught it on his shield and hurled himself forward. The point missed, pinned beneath his bulk. The mercenary did not rise immediately—instead, from under his shield, his sword arm lashed out in savage arcs. Several citizen-soldiers screamed as their unarmored legs were gashed open.

At last he pushed to his feet, but instead of pressing his advantage, he backed into the mouth of the ladder, crouching with his shield tight around him. The defenders’ spears prodded and jabbed to little effect; none dared step closer for fear of his blade flashing from beneath the shield.

In that pause, another mercenary clambered over the parapet.

"Push them back! Drive them into the corner!" Euricpos bellowed, leading his reserve. A forest of spears closed in, hemming the mercenaries against the wall.

"Hook their shields aside!" he shouted—only for a soldier beside him to collapse with a scream, a javelin buried in his ribs.

Below, enemy light infantry poured arrows and javelins upward, covering their comrades on the ladders. Heavy infantry pressed harder, scaling with renewed vigor.

Euricpos threw every man he could gather into the defense. After brutal fighting, the mercenaries were forced down, but the wall-walk was left carpeted with the dead and dying of Crimisa.

Each breach was bloody, and each breach bled his defenders dry. His men were wavering. "Send word to General Antaoris!" Euricpos ordered urgently. "Tell him the enemy has committed their whole strength to the north! We can’t hold much longer—he must send reinforcements!"

But Antaoris had none to spare. With the enemy hurling themselves against the north and west, only the east wall’s troops remained idle. He made his decision: Pleuratus would march his garrison from the east to aid Euricpos.

"Chief Timasone! Chief!" A breathless runner ducked arrows as he sprinted up. "The enemy have left the eastern wall!"

"I’ve already seen it," Timasone said, excitement sharpening his tone. "Go tell Tolicus—it’s time! Move!"

The runner vanished. Timasone raised his arm and roared to his men: "Brothers! One more push! With me—the enemy are breaking!"

Shield raised, he bounded to a ladder. A soldier braced it from below and shoved him upward; he leapt three rungs at once, climbing with hands and feet until he reached the top. With a grunt, he drew his sword, planted a foot on the parapet, shield before his chest, and hurled himself forward. Spears stabbed at him but he crashed into the defenders, his blade hacking wildly as he broke through.

"Back to back! Hold the line!" he shouted as the mercenaries who had been pinned earlier rushed to join him.

Spurred on by his daring, the mercenaries surged again. Multiple breaches opened along the northern wall. Only the timely arrival of Pleuratus and his troops kept Euricpos’ defense from collapse.

But then came a shout from the east—panic in the voices of citizen-soldiers: "The enemy are up! The enemy are up!!"

Euricpos spun and saw them—light-shielded Thracian mercenaries, their curved blades flashing as they charged along the eastern battlements. How they had scaled the wall he didn’t know, but already they were in the fight. He shouted for Pleuratus to turn back, but the battle along the northern walk was too tangled.

The Thracians cut through the Crimisans like wolves among sheep. In the cramped space, their hooked blades tore flesh and severed limbs, slashing throats in gouts of blood. Citizen-soldiers fell in heaps. The rest recoiled in terror, stumbling over one another, but the Thracians clung to them like shadows. More mercenaries swarmed up the wall behind them.

The eastern end of the northern wall was broken. The mercenaries drove westward, pushing the Crimisans into a rout. Men trampled each other in their flight; some fell screaming from the inner side of the wall.

Euricpos and Pleuratus both lost their nerve. Afraid of being butchered, they abandoned the towers, leaving the enemy to seize the walkways near the gates. Crimisan soldiers were trapped, pressed against each other, cut down without mercy.

The slaughter was merciless. Desperate defenders hurled themselves off the wall rather than face the blades.

From below, Antaoris watched in despair as his people screamed and fell. His heart broke—but there was no time to grieve. He gathered the retreating soldiers and civilians, pulling them back toward the acropolis in the south for one last stand.

The mercenaries flung open the northern gates. The rest of their army poured in.

"Chief, we’ve won! The city is ours!" A soldier helped the wounded Timasone forward, his face alight with triumph.

Blood ran down Timasone’s thigh from a spear wound, another cut stung along his arm. Had the defenders not collapsed, he might have died on the wall—but victory filled him with fierce pride. "No," he corrected with a grim smile. "It is not just that we have taken a city. Now—we possess one."

His cunning had paid off. The mercenaries’ success had hinged on the stratagem he borrowed from his old comrades in the Dionian League. From them he had learned of the rope-hook, that strange engine of assault. Quietly he had them forged in Heracleia’s smithies. While the defenders were distracted by the fury of his assaults on the west and north, Tolicus had led his handpicked light troops to the east. With no ladders to betray them, the Crimisans dismissed them—until the hooks bit the stone and the Thracians swarmed up. That strike had broken Crimisa.

After the fall of the wall, Timasone joined with Cleano, who had seized the western gate, to press the pursuit.

At first the victory was disciplined, methodical. But soon the mercenaries broke ranks. They stormed into houses, looted treasures, and seized women.

Fury seared Timasone. It wasn’t that he despised plunder—but the battle was not finished. Crimisa’s survivors had fled to the acropolis. The city was not yet truly his.

But the mercenaries, drunk on blood and triumph, would not heed him. For the first time, he tasted what Davos must once have felt—the rage of a commander whose men would not obey. He shouted and cursed, venting his helpless anger.

"Chief, let them be," Tolicus urged. "The Crimisans are trapped in the acropolis. They cannot flee. We’ll seal it off. When the men have tired themselves out, we’ll regroup and finish it."

"I am not worried about the Crimisans," Timasone snapped. "I am worried about Croton!"

Cleano interjected with calm reason: "Even if Crimisa sent messengers to Croton when we began the assault, think of the time it takes—the envoy to arrive, the council to deliberate, the army to be called up and marched here. At the fastest, they could not reach us until nightfall. And I do not believe Crotonians have the courage of Davos, to attempt a night assault. By then, we will already hold the acropolis. Our messengers will have reached the Dionian Senate. By dawn, when Croton moves, Davos will have chosen his course."