Chapter 110: The East Falls

Chapter 110: The East Falls

The remnants of Redhaven’s field army reached the provincial capital in scattered groups throughout the night, bringing wounded soldiers, broken equipment, and reports that removed whatever hope Governor Seraph Dorne still held for another battle outside the walls.

Some companies retained enough discipline to march through the gates in formation, while others arrived as groups of exhausted men who had lost officers, banners, and supply wagons during the retreat.

By sunrise, Seraph had gathered fewer than fifteen thousand effective defenders from the capital garrison, surviving professionals, provincial guards, crossbowmen, militia, and the battered remains of the army destroyed by Vorak.

There was no second field force waiting behind them, so Seraph ordered the gates sealed once the last organized retreating units entered.

Engineers reinforced older sections with timber and rubble, every available crossbow bolt was carried upward, defensive ballistas were checked, and civilians were organized to move water, food, stones, and wounded soldiers between the defensive sectors.

Stoneford was preparing under almost identical circumstances. Governor Cassian Holt had recovered perhaps twelve thousand useful soldiers after combining his capital garrison with survivors from the river battle and hastily mobilized militia, but many of the professionals had already fought for hours before retreating toward the city.

Cassian ordered barricades built along the major streets before the enemy even appeared because Valemar’s fall had already taught him what would happen once Viridian gained a foothold behind the walls.

Neither governor received enough time to complete his preparations before the enemy appeared. Vorak Thenn’s scouts reached the countryside outside Redhaven before midday, and the main army followed close behind as goblin formations spread across several approaches.

Engineers selected positions for catapults and ballistas, while siege crews brought towers, ladders, mantlets, and ammunition forward from the marching columns.

Vorak did not wait for the entire army to establish a perfect encirclement before allowing the first batteries to prepare.

Seraph watched the deployment from the northern wall and saw immediately that the goblins had arrived with enough soldiers to threaten several sectors at once.

Seraph ordered the officers around him.

"They broke the field army on open ground, and we will not give them another chance to do it. Every man stays where the stone walls can be used as cover."

His commanders carried the order along the defenses while more Viridian formations continued appearing beyond the city.

Far to the south, Viridian reached Stoneford’s capital only hours later. The southern commander deployed his army around the city while Cassian’s soldiers were still carrying supplies toward the battlements, and the first siege engines were assembled before sunset.

Fresh troops occupied the forward camps, while formations exhausted by the river battle were kept behind them for recovery and reserve duties.

The bombardment of both capitals began on the following morning and immediately forced the defenders to spread their limited manpower.

In Redhaven, catapults concentrated much of their fire against older northern and eastern wall sectors while ballistas targeted towers and exposed crossbow positions. Viridian infantry approached beneath shields and mantlets often enough to keep defenders standing along the battlements, then withdrew before turning every movement into a full assault.

Stoneford faced pressure along its southern and western walls. One sector stood over relatively level ground suitable for siege towers, while another contained older masonry that Viridian engineers had identified during their first inspection.

Cassian placed professional soldiers behind both areas, leaving militia to defend quieter stretches where ladders could still appear without warning.

The strain became visible before the first day of heavy bombardment ended. Seraph repeatedly shifted surviving veterans toward whichever section received the strongest pressure, only for Viridian activity to increase elsewhere once those troops moved.

Many of Redhaven’s field army survivors had already fought through the previous battle and retreat, yet they were now being asked to reinforce militia companies that had never experienced a major siege.

Cassian faced the same shortage in Stoneford. Much of his remaining cavalry had lost horses or lacked room to operate effectively inside the city, so riders were reorganized as messengers and dismounted infantry.

Civilian laborers carried ammunition and water while every trained soldier remained close to the walls, allowing the defenders to preserve manpower but leaving almost no reserve capable of answering multiple emergencies.

By the second morning, Redhaven’s northern wall had begun cracking under repeated catapult strikes. Engineers worked behind the damaged section while stones continued landing around them, but the outer masonry gradually loosened until a broad portion collapsed into a mound of broken stone and timber.

Vorak immediately sent infantry forward to test the opening, and Redhaven professionals met them behind a hastily built barricade.

Crossbowmen positioned in nearby towers fired into the rubble while goblins struggled over the uneven approach. The first Viridian attack was repelled after heavy fighting, prompting Vorak to withdraw before the narrow breach consumed unnecessary lives.

The bombardment resumed instead of another immediate charge. Catapults struck the remaining edges of the collapsed section, engineers advanced beneath mantlets to clear obstacles whenever defensive fire weakened, and small ladder attacks elsewhere forced Seraph to keep soldiers away from the breach.

Stoneford’s first serious damage appeared before the same day ended. Repeated impacts broke part of the southern wall while two siege towers advanced toward the western defenses, forcing Cassian to divide his remaining professional reserve between threats that were developing simultaneously.

The damaged southern wall collapsed late in the afternoon. Cassian sent veterans toward the opening while militia remained on the western battlements, but the movement gave the approaching siege towers exactly the reduced opposition the Viridian commander had expected.

The third morning brought the beginning of the collapse in both provincial capitals. Vorak launched a new assault against the widened Redhaven breach while ladders and a siege tower pressured other sectors, forcing Seraph to defend several threats with troops who had barely rested.

Fresh goblin infantry crossed the rubble in larger formations, endured the first defensive volleys, and reached the barricades where Seraph had concentrated his strongest remaining companies.

The humans held the initial clash through greater reach, heavier shields, and the narrow approach, but Viridian kept replacing tired formations with fresh troops.

Once goblins secured enough ground behind the breach, they began expanding along the inner side of the wall instead of rushing directly toward the city center.

Seraph ordered a counterattack and briefly recovered several buildings near the opening, but he could not remove the goblins from the rubble itself because additional Viridian soldiers continued entering behind them.

Another Viridian group gained a temporary foothold on the eastern battlements and forced Seraph to move part of his dwindling reserve away from the northern fight.

He finally ordered the neighboring walls abandoned before those soldiers were cut off, and the retreating defenders moved toward prepared street barricades and the provincial government district. The battle had shifted from defending the walls to preventing the city center from being surrounded.

Stoneford’s collapse followed within hours. One Viridian siege tower reached the western wall while the defenders were still concentrating on the southern breach, allowing goblin infantry to cross onto the battlements and establish a foothold before Cassian could assemble enough veterans to remove them.

Viridian now possessed two entry points into the capital. Infantry poured through the southern breach while soldiers on the western battlements pushed toward nearby towers and stairs, leaving Cassian with no way to reinforce one sector without weakening the other.

Cassian ordered a withdrawal toward the inner streets before his remaining army fragmented into isolated pockets. Barricades that had been constructed before the siege now became defensive positions as Stoneford’s surviving professionals and militia retreated toward the government district.

Viridian entered both cities under strict orders that had become standard across the eastern campaign. Soldiers remained in formation, looting was forbidden, and units were assigned specific objectives such as intersections, barracks, granaries, armories, and administrative roads.

Civilians who stayed away from the fighting were ignored, while armed defensive positions were surrounded or attacked from multiple streets.

Redhaven resisted fiercely around several broad intersections. Human infantry used barricades and narrow streets to limit the number of goblins able to engage at one time, while crossbowmen fired from upper windows until Viridian units began entering parallel streets and appearing along their flanks.

Each defensive line lasted only until neighboring roads were lost. Seraph withdrew his surviving troops repeatedly, refusing to leave entire companies trapped behind the advance, until most organized resistance had been compressed around the provincial government district.

Stoneford’s defenders suffered the same fate. Cassian’s soldiers held several prepared barricades, but Viridian columns moved through side streets, secured nearby intersections, and gradually isolated positions from one another.

Some militia surrendered once their escape routes disappeared, while professional formations retreated toward Cassian and continued fighting around the administrative center.

By late afternoon, Vorak had completely surrounded Redhaven’s government district. Seraph retained only a few thousand soldiers, many already wounded or exhausted, while Viridian controlled the walls, barracks, major roads, and much of the city around him.

A limited translator was brought forward under guard and called toward the final barricades. "City taken. Soldiers stop. Governor surrender. People live." The words were crude, but their meaning required no explanation when Seraph could already see Viridian banners beyond the surrounding streets.

Several officers urged him to continue, although none could identify a position they could realistically recover. Seraph looked across the remaining defenders and ordered their weapons lowered, choosing surrender before the final district became another battlefield filled with men who could no longer change the outcome.

Governor Seraph Dorne was taken alive, and surrender orders spread through the remaining Redhaven positions before evening. Viridian secured the government district, collected weapons, placed guards around granaries and armories, and began processing prisoners while Vorak sent confirmation toward Eastwatch.

Stoneford continued resisting for several hours after Redhaven’s surrender, but Cassian had already been forced to withdraw his remaining defenders into the provincial government district. His soldiers were too few to create another continuous defensive perimeter, and every surrounding street was steadily being occupied by Viridian formations.

The southern commander surrounded the district and offered the same terms used in Redhaven. Cassian hesitated until his officers reported that every major approach was already under goblin control and that no organized formation remained elsewhere in the city capable of breaking through to them.

Cassian finally surrendered before nightfall, ending the last organized defense of Stoneford’s capital. His surviving soldiers laid down their weapons, he was placed under guard, and Viridian formations secured the administrative district while occupation units moved into the surrounding streets.

The fall of both capitals spread rapidly through the remaining isolated fortresses and fortified towns behind Viridian lines. Those garrisons had already spent days or weeks surrounded by containment forces, and now every provincial government that might have ordered a relief effort had been captured.

Some commanders surrendered as soon as confirmation arrived, while others requested terms and laid down their weapons after being promised that soldiers who stopped fighting would be treated as prisoners rather than slaughtered.

A few isolated strongholds initially refused, but their decisions no longer affected control of the eastern region. Viridian held every provincial capital, every major road between them, and enough military positions to prevent the remaining garrisons from coordinating with one another.

Rakhar ordered those positions maintained until the last resistant commanders either surrendered or were reduced by the siege forces already surrounding them.

When the final reports reached Eastwatch, Rakhar stood before the campaign map with Varek and several senior officers. The five provinces that had once formed Caldris’s eastern defensive region were now all marked under Viridian control: Eastwatch, Northwatch, Valemar, Redhaven, and Stoneford.

The original thirty-thousand-soldier expedition had entered through a single portal with orders to conquer the eastern provinces. It had grown into an invasion supported by hundreds of thousands of additional troops, occupation armies, siege detachments, engineers, supply formations, and administrators capable of holding territory while field armies continued advancing.

Rakhar immediately issued orders for the transition from conquest to occupation. Garrisons would secure the five capitals, siege forces would finish processing the remaining isolated strongholds, and roads between Eastwatch and the inland provinces would remain under permanent patrol.

Local farmers, merchants, craftsmen, and administrators could continue their work under military supervision as long as they did not resist.

High above Edras, Noah observed the completed eastern territory through his divine connection. He had issued a mandate for Viridian to undertake a divine war, then allowed its generals, soldiers, engineers, and institutions to determine how that war would actually be fought.

Five provincial capitals now stood beneath Viridian banners, connected by roads carrying goblin soldiers, supply wagons, prisoners, and occupation officials.

The armies that had defended eastern Caldris were dead, captured, scattered, or disarmed, while the surviving population found itself living beneath a new military authority.

News of the result also began moving beyond the eastern theater toward the other young planetary lords fighting elsewhere in Caldris.

Their own campaigns were still continuing when reports began spreading that the goblins assigned to the east had already conquered every province given to them, turning what many had expected to be the weakest invasion front into the first completed regional conquest.

Commander Garran Aelwyn received the formal report shortly afterward and read through the list of captured capitals, destroyed field armies, occupied roads, and functioning supply networks.

Garran closed the report without asking how Noah had produced such development because the answer could wait until the campaign itself was evaluated. The immediate result was already written across the eastern map, where every one of Noah’s five assigned provinces now stood under Viridian control.

For the first time since Viridian entered Caldris, no organized provincial army remained anywhere in the eastern sector. Rakhar looked across the completed campaign map as the final markers were changed, confirming that the objective given to Noah had been achieved and that eastern Caldris now belonged to the Viridian Empire.