Eastern Gate

The first plan lasted around fifteen minutes.

That was longer than some of my better ideas.

We attacked from the southern approach shortly before dusk, using the narrower streets to limit how many Imperials could fight at once while Alexander’s remaining knights pressed the central road. It should have forced the gate commander to divide his knights or surrender ground near the market.

He did neither.

Our southern unit met barricades that had not been there an hour earlier. The centre advanced further than expected until Imperial Knights appeared through two side streets and struck the formation near the middle. By the time I reached them, one of our lines had already broken.

Steel rang between stone walls as smoke drifted low through the street, enough to sting without hiding anything useful. I caught an Imperial sword above one knight’s shoulder and drove the attacker back.

“Left!” I shouted.

The Rochefort knight moved left. I took the opening he created and kept moving. Behind me, the centre pulled itself into something resembling a line again.

Still not enough.

A horn sounded near the gatehouse as Imperial reinforcements entered the square.

Of course they did.

The commander had not been waiting for us to attack.

He had been waiting to see where we would attack from.

I changed the order. The southern group stopped trying to force the barricade and pulled north.

Alexander’s men gave ground on two streets. Marek and Tessa shifted with the centre while I moved between the units, trying to keep the retreat from becoming what the Imperials wanted it to look like.

Unfortunately, it looked convincing because part of it was real.

A mounted unit came around the eastern corner faster than our flank expected. Three of our knights went down before the rest reached cover. Another Imperial group pushed through the space immediately, so we fell back again.

He had seen Alexander retreat earlier that day, and now he was watching me do the same thing.

That was important.

I looked beyond the approaching knights towards the next intersection.

The market lay behind us, cleared of civilians since the fighting began. From here, the shuttered rows looked almost abandoned.

Behind us, the Imperial line pressed forward. Marek appeared beside me for half a second, breathing hard. Tessa was three paces behind him with blood across one sleeve that did not look like hers.

I looked at both of them and nodded.

Marek’s eyes sharpened; Tessa understood at the same moment, and both of them disappeared into the retreat.

The next five minutes were chaos.

We gave ground through the last street before the market. Imperial Knights followed quickly enough that their formation stretched along the road. Their commanding officer corrected once, pulling a group back towards the gate.

He had beaten Alexander by attacking before caution could slow him down. Now, caution would have felt like admitting the momentum had changed.

We entered the market.

Silence hit first. No vendors. No carts. No arguments about prices, no children slipping beneath tables, and no barrels being rolled across stone. Canvas awnings hung above empty counters while evening light stretched between the shuttered shops.

Even our footsteps sounded too loud.

The Rochefort Knights ahead of me continued west, while Imperial Knights entered behind us.

One of them slowed.

I saw him look towards the closed windows. His instincts were good, but he was too late.

Above us, the first shutter dropped from the second floor.

A wounded knight who had spent the afternoon pretending that he could not stand landed behind the Imperial flank with a sword in his dominant hand.

Another door opened. Then six. Men and women who had been carried from the eastern line hours earlier emerged from shops, alleys and upper rooms. Some could barely move properly, and none had been ordered to be here.

They had chosen to.

The market erupted, and our retreat stopped at the western end. Alexander’s knights turned first. The central group re-formed beside them while units hidden through the northern lanes closed in from the side. By then the Imperial officer understood that his men had not chased us into an empty square.

They had stepped into an arena, and a cage had closed around them.

He reacted quickly.

A horn sounded twice from the eastern side, ordering the rear companies back, but the street behind them was still crowded with men who had been pushing forward moments earlier.

Turning a unit of knights around was considerably harder than turning a person.

One unit tried to force its way north before the route disappeared completely but found another line of our knights waiting there.

There was no time for satisfaction.

Trapped inside the market, the Imperial force fought like men who knew their mistake. Some tried to break north; others attempted to force a route back towards the gate.

Their knights gathered around the strongest point and nearly made it through before our knights struck from the side. I moved where the line bent hardest, and a sword came for my neck.

I ducked, stepped inside the second attacker and drove him into a market stall hard enough to collapse the front board.

Somebody shouted from a window above as a spear dropped into the street. Luckily, one of our men caught it before it hit the ground.

People improvised and so did the battle.

The wounded knights were never meant to hold the centre. They struck once from the shops, forced the Imperial line to turn and fell back through doors or alleys where healthier knights could replace them.

One man with a bandaged leg took three steps into the street before his leg stopped cooperating; the woman beside him caught his coat, dragged him behind a stall and took his place without asking whether the substitution had been approved.

The Imperial officer saw what was happening and tried to pull his men into a tighter formation.

That would have worked in an open yard.

Here, market counters, carts and narrow rows broke the shape faster than he could form it.

Alexander’s knights hit one side while the northern group closed the other, and every attempt to create a clean front left somebody facing the wrong direction.

The wounded man, with one useful arm, lost his sword and started throwing apples from an abandoned crate until somebody handed him another.

I decided not to ask whether that counted as proper warfare.

Imperial Knights began surrendering in groups. The first six dropped their weapons near the southern stalls when they realised the route behind them had vanished. Another unit refused and tried to push through Alexander’s line once more.

They did not make it.

A knight near me threw down his sword, hands rising immediately, but the man beside him kept fighting, so I disarmed the first and killed the second.

Choices remained choices even when I disliked the consequences.

Evening faded while the market filled with the sound of metal striking stone as more weapons hit the ground.

There was still no signal from the east.

That was the part of the plan I could not touch anymore.

Marek and Tessa had a smaller force to face whatever defenders the commanding officer left behind, which might have been twenty men or twice that, assuming our information was correct. If they failed, we could still win the market, but the evening would end exactly as it had started: with the Eastern Gate in Imperial hands.

Another minute passed. Then another.

I kept fighting because staring east would not make the signal come any sooner.

Then a horn sounded from the east.

I looked towards the gate, and a flag rose above the distant tower.

Not red and gold.

The revolutionary banner caught the last light of the evening.

The small force I had sent through the northern lanes had circled back after the Imperial officer committed too much of his strength to the pursuit. They had struck the gatehouse while its defenders were watching us ‘lose the district’.

The east was ours.

A cheer travelled through the market before anyone had confirmed it aloud.

Then another signal appeared further north: a flare above the roofs, followed by the revolutionary banner from the northern district.

A runner came through the western street before we had finished, face red from the effort of reaching us so fast. He held up two fingers, then pointed south.

The south had fallen too.

All four gates.

For a moment, the fighting stopped being the loudest thing in the city. Surviving Imperial Knights understood what the signals meant as quickly as we did.

More swords hit the stones, though some remained defiant.

I admired that.

There was not much left to guess about what happened next. By full dark, the market belonged to us, and so did the gate.

Marek found me near the fountain after the prisoners had been secured. His hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, one sleeve torn almost to the shoulder.

Tessa stood beside him, looking equally exhausted and significantly more pleased with herself.

I looked towards the flag above.

Nothing about the plan had gone perfectly.

The first attack had failed. People had been hurt. The timing at the gate had been later than I wanted, the mounted unit had nearly split us before we reached the market, and half of the ambush depended on wounded people refusing to behave sensibly.

None of that changed the flag.

It had worked.

More importantly, it had worked because enough people knew what they needed to do without waiting for me to do it for them.

Beyond the rooftops, the Imperial Palace still stood beneath red-and-gold banners.

The city had nowhere left to look except inward.