Chapter 243 Seige: Klaus's POV

Chapter 243 Seige: Klaus's POV
The Iron Citadel sat on a jagged granite cliff, its grey stone towers silhouetted against the dark morning sky.

Forty-foot walls blocked the single narrow approach. At the center of the outer wall stood the heavy iron-bound oak gate, flanked by twin square watchtowers.
Torches burned along the battlements, revealing the silhouettes of Kaelen’s crossbowmen standing ready behind the stone merlons.

Our sixty-five warriors waited in the pine tree line three hundred yards back, hidden by the thick morning fog.

I stood at the front of the line, my hands resting on the pommel of my father's broadsword. Beside me, Bram and Valerius held heavy wooden assault shields.
Behind us, six of our strongest men carried three iron-bound wooden kegs filled with black powder, recovered from the river outpost.

"The wind is blowing down from the ridge," Zoey whispered, stepping up to my left side.

She held her short bow in her hand, three iron broadhead arrows already planted in the dirt at her feet. Her face was painted with grey mountain ash, her eyes dark, intense, and sharp as flint.

"The fog will hold for another twenty minutes," I said, my voice low and steady. "That is all the time we need."

I turned to Bram. "When the powder blows the outer gate, lead thirty men straight through the breach. Clear the court of any archers. Valerius, take twenty men and lock down the western barracks before Kaelen’s reserve can deploy."

"Consider it done, Alpha," Bram growled, shifting his heavy iron axe to his right hand.

I looked at Zoey. "You are with me. We head straight for the central tower to secure the vault."

She nodded once, a fierce smile touching the corner of her mouth. "Let us burn him out."

I raised my right arm, signaling the men behind us.

"Advance!" I commanded softly.

We moved out of the tree line in complete silence.

The sixty-five warriors marched in a broad wedge, using the thick white fog to cover their footfalls on the damp mountain grass. The six powder carriers ran in the center of our formation, surrounded by a tight wall of wooden shields.

We hit the hundred-yard mark before the battlements woke up.

"Hold!" an iron-helmeted guard bellowed from the left watchtower, his torch cutting through the mist. "Enemy forces at the road! Signal the court!"

An iron alarm bell began to clang wildly from the high courtyard tower in successful clangs.

"Shields up!" I roared, drawing my broadsword.

A hail of heavy iron crossbow bolts whistled down through the fog. Bolts slammed into wooden shields with terrifying force, splintering the oak frames and knocking two of our front recruits to their knees. But the line held.
The men pressed forward, locked shoulder to shoulder, surging through the bolt rain toward the massive wooden gates.

"Powder team, forward!" Valerius bellowed.

The six carriers sprinted out from behind our shield wall, rushing the last twenty yards to the iron-bound gate. They slammed the three black powder kegs flat against the base of the oak timber, jamming wooden wedges under the iron hoops to hold them tight against the wood.

Samuel dragged a thick hemp fuse from his leather pouch, shoving it deep into the touchhole of the center barrel. He struck a flint against his dagger spine, sparking a bright flame that caught the cord instantly.

The fuse hissed violently, spitting bright red sparks into the damp air.

"Fall back!" Samuel screamed, sprinting back toward our line.

"Take cover!" I bellowed, pulling Zoey down behind a massive granite boulder fifty feet from the wall.

Five seconds passed. The fuse burned down to the wood.

BOOM!

A deafening roar split the mountain morning.

A blinding flash of orange fire and black smoke erupted from the base of the gatehouse. The heavy oak doors shattered into thousands of flying iron splinters and burning wood fragments. The shockwave rattled the granite walls, sending loose stones tumbling from the upper battlements as thick black smoke filled the outer archway.

"Charge!" I roared, leaping over the granite boulder with my broadsword raised high.

"For the North!" Bram screamed, his war cry picked up by sixty five throats.

We poured through the smoking breach like a wave of iron and blood.

The outer courtyard was total chaos. Kaelen’s defenders were staggered by the blast, coughing in the black smoke, trying to form a spear line across the ruined archway.

I hit their front line first.

My broadsword swept out in a massive arc, shearing through the wooden shaft of an incoming spear and biting deep into the first guard's chest armor. He went down with a dark spray of blood. I shoved his body back into the man behind him, spinning to catch another soldier across the ribs with my iron elbow guard.

Beside me, Bram’s heavy axe rose and fell, crushing helmets and clearing a bloody ten-foot circle in the center of the yard.

Valerius and his twenty men drove hard to the right, slamming their shields into the barracks doors and jamming the iron bolts shut from the outside before Kaelen’s main force could spill into the yard.

"Klaus! High ledge!" Zoey shouted from behind me.

Two snipers had taken position on the upper wooden catwalk above the courtyard, aiming heavy iron hand-cannons down at Bram's flank.

Zoey didn't hesitate. She stepped right into the open courtyard, drew her short bow, and fired three arrows in rapid succession.

Both snipers pitched forward over the wooden railing, their heavy iron hand-cannons clattering uselessly against the courtyard flagstones below.

I cleared the last spearman from the archway, my breastplate splattered with dark blood, my lungs burning from the black powder smoke.

I turned back to look at Zoey. She stood in the center of the smoking courtyard, her short bow held low, her dark eyes scanning the high battlements for any remaining threats.

Around us, the battle for the outer courtyard was already over. Kaelen’s remaining outer guards threw down their iron spears, dropping to their knees in surrender as Bram’s warriors surrounded them with raised axes.

The men let out a massive cheer that echoed off the high granite walls of the Citadel.

"The yard is ours, Alpha!" Bram shouted, wiping his bloody blade on his wool sleeve. "The barracks are sealed!"

"Hold the gate," I ordered, my eyes turning away from the yard to fix on the high inner keep.

At the far end of the courtyard stood the double iron doors of the Citadel’s central tower. Behind those doors sat Kaelen, his remaining personal guard, and my father’s stolen relics.

Zoey stepped up to my side, her leather armor covered in grey powder ash, her breath coming fast and hard. She looked at the iron doors, then up at my face.

"He is in the tower," she said quietly, her voice cold and steady.

"He has nowhere left to run," I growled, tightening my hand around the blood-slicked hilt of my broadsword.

I looked down at her, meeting her dark eyes in the bright morning sun that broke through the dissipating fog.

"Let us finish this," I said.

Zoey nodded once, drawing her long iron hunting blade with a clean clinking sound.

Together, we marched across the bloody courtyard toward the high iron doors of the central tower.