Building an Empire in Game of Thrones (REWORKED VERSION)-Chapter 96: Battle of Kingswood

As the first Mortar shot struck the Royal Army's fortification, the soldiers started to scramble away from the explosions. They expected the Cannons to hit the walls, but they didn't expect them to land beyond the walls. The Commander of the Royal Army ordered the soldiers into scattered formation to avoid mass casualties.

On the Imperial side, Alexander and Achilles took the center, Prince Doran took the left and Prince Oberyn took the right. The plan was simple; it was going to be a full-frontal assault with the formation being protected with magic barriers until they reached the wall.

It was already chaos along the Royal Army's lines, and when the first wave of Dawnborn infantry reached bow range, most arrows snapped or rebounded off the magic shields. The defenders cursed, reloaded, tried again.

The next barrage came from Imperial grenade slingers. Loud glass canisters were thrown on top of the wall with a splatter of fire and shards that sent men screaming, clutching bloody stumps where once there were hands, feet, or faces. They tried to fire back, but suddenly the line was full of burning men, and the survivors were battered by the sudden push of a disciplined phalanx formation with their long-tipped spears interlocked. Shields up. Step. Repeat. Every man in the front line was part of a single machine.

Doran's Dornishmen on the left hammered into the Royal flank, but they didn't bother with magic or grenadiers. Instead of throwing themselves against the fort, they sprinted in fanned-out runners that whipped around the edge of the enemy line, scaling rubble and staked paling with hooked ropes and their bare hands.

Dornish spears stabbed upward as they climbed over the makeshift battlements. The defenders met them just past the first rank. Oberyn himself led from the front, his blade taking many lives as he charged through the breach. His men charged behind him, crashing through the broken palisade and scattering defenders who had barely enough time to cry out.

"Push forward!" Oberyn shouted. "No quarter!"

The Dornish fighters responded with a bloodthirsty roar, crashing into the defenders with a ferocity born from decades of rising tensions between them, House Lannister, and House Baratheon. Behind them, the second wave scaled the walls, dragging down archers and lancers before they could regroup. The right flank of the Royal Army was collapsing.

In the center, Alexander's disciplined Dawnborn advanced step-by-step. Their golden shields interlocked; the phalanx marched like an unstoppable wave. Arrows clattered off their shields, and every now and then, a Dawnborn would throw a short spear over the formation, skewering a defender who thought themselves hidden.

Achilles ran ahead of the line, swinging his sword that killed several men in an instant. His armor was smeared with blood, but he pressed forward, calling to his men.

"Break their will! Break their backs! No mercy for these losers!"

Behind the first rank, the Mamluks joined the fight in force, dark-clad warriors with curved blades, their movements fast, flowing, and deadly. They weaved around the phalanx into gaps, slashing down officers and standard bearers to collapse the enemy command structure. Their horses trampled over the scattered resistance that the Royal Army tried to put up.

The cannons continued to roar behind them, pulverizing the deeper parts of the Royal encampment, targeting supply wagons and reserves. Smoke began to cloud the battlefield as fire and dust rolled across it in thick clouds.

Prince Doran's flank was the most precise and methodical. He directed his forces with care, splitting them into wave tactics, attack, pull back, rotate. His warriors worked with almost academic detachment, using calculated thrusts to carve a wedge in the line and widen it over time. They bore the least casualties and captured more prisoners, though Doran knew few would be spared in the end.

Within the hour, the Royal Army's defenses began to fold inward. Communications between units collapsed as commanders were cut off, their horns silenced or their runners dead in the field. Panic took root. Some tried to retreat deeper into the woods behind their position, but Wyverns finally took flight.

Their riders gave no quarter. Wyvern fire lit the forest behind the fortifications, trapping the fleeing soldiers in a curtain of flame. Screams echoed across the battlefield as the soldiers had nowhere to run to.

Royal archers turned their weapons to the sky, but it was too little, too late. Scorpions loosed bolts, but few found their mark. One Wyvern caught a bolt but the armor that it was wearing managed to deflect it causing no harm to the Wyvern. Its rider corrected course and incinerated the crew who fired it then continued what they were doing previously.

Back in the center, Alexander finally called for the reserve troops to join the fray, fresh Dawnborn and archers who took up elevated positions and rained down arrows on the remnants of the enemy.

With no more room to fall back, the Royal Army Commander made his last stand atop a small hill behind the final line. He rallied what men remained, knights, squires, conscripts, and broken veterans, and drew his blade.

"For the Realm!" he cried. "We hold here!"

A cheer erupted, ragged and defiant. But it was a candle against a hurricane.

Achilles charged the hill like a god of war. Imperial banners behind him, he crashed into the defenders with raw momentum, killing a knight with every swing of his sword. Doran's spears hit the hill's flank, and Oberyn came from the far right with blood on his face and fire in his eyes.

Alexander came last, as he had finished rounding up what remained of the Royal Army. As he reached the base of the hill, the Commander of the Royal Army locked eyes with him. They both knew the outcome. Still, the man raised his sword.

Alexander saluted him with his own blade before advancing.

Their duel lasted only a few moments. The Commander was skilled, seasoned, and brave. But Alexander was faster. Stronger. Trained to lead, bred to kill. The Commander's blade clashed with Alexander's twice before he sidestepped, and drove his blade through the man's chest, ending the resistance.

Silence fell on the hill. The last organized line of the Royal Army collapsed.

All across the battlefield, cries for surrender rang out. Men dropped their weapons, some fled into the burning woods, others knelt before the Imperials and begged for mercy.

By the time the sun began to set, the fields before the Kingswoods were filled the corpses of the soldiers who tried to flee. The Royal banners were ash and replaced with the Imperial standards.

Oberyn stood atop a ruined watchtower, looking down at the carnage. "Is it victory," he muttered, "or just another graveyard?"

Alexander stood beside him, "Victory... and a warning. Kingslanding comes next, and considering what I've been hearing, this battle will be nothing like what will happen to that place." Alexander wasn't informed yet of what was going to happen to Kingslanding, but if he had to guess, he figured that in a few months it would no longer be called Kingslanding.

Behind them, the cheers of the Imperial Army spread throughout the battlefield. They had won this battle and soon they would march on Kingslanding and end this war once and for all.

———

In the Far East, the Third and Fifth Armies that were dispatched by Zhenyi, the daughter of the current God-Emperor of YiTi had begun their operation of pacifying the Western regions. Their main focus was to stop the attacks on Imperial merchants and ambushes, but soon news reached Zhenyi that Pol Qo had openly declared independence. The Western provinces erupted with banners bearing the mark of the Orange Emperor.

At first the Third Army, led by Marshal Huang Huo, tried to maintain the illusion of police action. But the rebel army had already entrenched itself in the Valley of Glittering Bones, a narrow region filled with fortified villages and stubborn commoners. The armies

The armies organized themselves, and for weeks, the columns advanced, taking each town one agonizing siege at a time. It was a war of attrition, with Pol Qo's men relying on sabotage, assassination, and the burning of supply routes. On more than one occasion, the Third Army lost entire companies to poison wells, traps, and local guerillas who went into the mountains the moment the sun set.

But for every defeat, Marshal Huang responded with cruelty. Every village that harbored rebels was razed, its men impaled atop the ruins, its children taken as hostages for the Empire's future. Meanwhile, the Fifth Army advanced along the river, establishing floating bridges and pushing Pol Qo's men into the hills. Some rebels sent out envoys to try and negotiate, offering parcels of land and gold. Zhenyi laughed at the thought.

But as this happened, the other claimants started to make their move as well. To the East, the self-proclaimed Yellow Emperor, Lord Jiang began to make his move and had called raised the flag of the Yellow Emperor in defiance alongside the rest of the Jade Alliance. Lord Jiang had begun to move to the Southern provinces and convince some of the lords to join his cause.

In response, Zhenyi had mobilized even more of the Golden Army and began to put down these claimants. She had a duty to protect her father, family, and the people.

To the East, crossing over the bone mountains, a delegation bearing the Imperial Union's banner was crossing over the region in an airship, enroute to YiTi in response to the attacks and the rumors of an impending civil war within the Golden Empire. Olorin, who was in charge while Maximus led the campaign in Westeros had monitored the situation and found that it was necessary to see what was going on.

They had a good relationship with the current emperor and mostly stayed out of each other's affairs, but with the attacks on Imperial merchants who bore the Imperial Banner when traveling in foreign nations, they had to investigate what was going on.