The walls of Constantinople were tall and exceptionally fortified. Since taking control of the city, Fulgrim had prioritized strengthening its defenses, aided by the expertise of the Lizardmen. The walls were now remarkably sturdy, featuring dual layers, numerous artillery emplacements, and defensive features such as murder holes, arrow slits, and even a wide moat.
Now, the walls were the primary target of the besieging armies. The Chaos forces, dark elves, Skaven, and undead pirates launched relentless waves of attacks, all concentrated on the Golden Gate—the city's strongest defensive point.
The defense of the Golden Gate fell to two commanders: Weidenfeller, a former Imperial general, and Yegorov, a former Kislev marshal. These two had spent weeks arguing about whether to take the fight outside the walls or hunker down for a defensive stand. But now, they were united in purpose.
At the forefront of the defense were the brave soldiers of Kislev and the Empire. These disciplined warriors formed the backbone of the defense. On the walls, gunners, crossbowmen, and artillery crews unleashed a withering hail of fire on the advancing hordes of Vashta the World-Ender's Chaos forces.
The first wave consisted of Northmen marauders, berserkers, and heavily armored Chaos warriors. These savage, frenzied combatants were weary of the endless march and threw themselves at the walls with reckless abandon, wielding brass grappling hooks and siege ladders.
Against these poorly equipped attackers, the defenders initially held the upper hand. General Weidenfeller, clad in full plate armor, strode up and down the walls, shouting orders and scolding soldiers into action. Groups of Greatswords moved in unison, their massive blades slicing through the Chaos warriors who managed to climb atop the walls.
At times, the distance between the two armies was barely 300 meters, close enough for each side to hear the sounds of the other—the clash of metal, the neighing of warhorses, the chants of Chaos prayers, and the deafening roar of artillery fire.
Weidenfeller led a unit of Greatswords to plug gaps in the defense wherever needed. Despite their discipline, pikemen and shield-bearers struggled to counter the Chaos warriors' heavy armor, requiring the Greatswords' massive weapons to break through. On the parapets, riflemen fired round after round, while cannons roared from their emplacements.
But then, the Skaven artillery joined the fray. From their positions in the ruins of the Arrowhead Bastion, the ratmen unleashed plague catapults and warp-lightning cannons. Each impact released clouds of deadly poison or unleashed devastating explosions that tore apart sections of the wall and the defenders atop it. As chunks of the wall fell and bodies were flung into the air, the defenders struggled to maintain their resolve.
Weidenfeller could not estimate the size of the enemy forces. From his vantage point, he saw an endless sea of bodies. The purple and blue banners marked the forces of the dark elves and Chaos, while a vast green tide signaled the presence of Skaven. And finally, from the north came the undead legions of Luthor Harkon, advancing from both land and sea.
For the Imperial general, this was unlike anything he had ever faced. His previous campaigns had involved fighting Beastmen tribes in the Reikwald Forest, or the occasional goblin raiding party. Once, he had marched north to battle the Norscans, but that fight had been a carefully planned ambush under Emperor Karl Franz's command, with limited resistance.
Now, he was facing the combined might of Chaos, Skaven, dark elves, and undead pirates. The sheer scale of the enemy forces terrified him. His hands trembled as he gripped his sword.
For the first time in his life, Weidenfeller felt the urge to flee.
If not for the lack of retreat, the general might have abandoned his post.
The defenders' morale wavered as Weidenfeller's fear began to spread. The defense of the Golden Gate was on the verge of collapse—until Fulgrim himself arrived on the walls.
The sight of their Primarch rallied the defenders. Fulgrim and his Phoenix Guard tore through the Chaos forces that had breached the walls. With a single swing of the Sotek Spear, Fulgrim summoned a storm of lightning that annihilated a 200-meter stretch of enemy troops. The ground where the spear struck was left a smoldering crater, 35 meters wide, with the bodies of nearly 500 Chaos warriors charred beyond recognition.
The Chaos army was temporarily driven back, though the walls were left heavily damaged.
Fulgrim, however, had no time to savor this small victory. Reports from the southern wall revealed a new crisis: the Skaven had launched a massive assault there.
The ratmen, led by Warlord Skruk, were using countless war machines and mutated monstrosities to attack the Kislev defenders. For every thousand Skaven that fell, another thousand took their place. Muskets overheated, crossbowmen exhausted their bolts, and the ceaseless warpstone bombardments sapped the defenders' spirits and lives.
Fulgrim immediately ordered the dwarven engineer Jerrick Grim to bring his artillery crews to counter the Skaven's firepower. Cannons, mortars, and trebuchets rained destruction on the vermin. The Iron Drakes' flamethrowers unleashed roaring infernos, incinerating dozens of Skaven at a time. Enhanced scattershot muskets shredded entire clusters of slave rats with each blast, filling the air with the stench of burning flesh.
Yet, no matter how many Skaven were killed, more came to take their place. Exhaustion began to take its toll on the defenders, especially among the militia.
Fulgrim himself took command of a dwarven great cannon, personally firing three shots that destroyed two warp-lightning cannons and a plague catapult. His precision and power inspired the defenders, momentarily halting the Skaven advance and forcing Skruk to regroup.
But as soon as the southern wall stabilized, news arrived of another disaster: the northern wall was breached.
Luthor Harkon's undead fleet, now firmly on land, bombarded the northern wall with overwhelming firepower. Three Queen Bess cannons, accompanied by dozens of smaller guns, unleashed a barrage that shattered the wall in multiple places.
"Boom! BOOM! BOOM!"
Each thunderous explosion sent chunks of the wall flying into the air, along with the bodies of defenders. The relentless cannonade reduced parts of the wall to rubble, creating gaping breaches that allowed Harkon's undead pirates to flood into the city.
Fulgrim's heart sank at the sight. The northern defenses were on the verge of collapse. Without reinforcements, the city would soon fall.
At that moment, a new hero stepped forward.
Julius, commander of the Ashen Legion's cavalry, took to the field. The brother-in-law of the King of Bretonnia raised his lance high and rallied his troops:
"Soldiers! Why do we fight?"
"For our homes!" they roared.
"Why do we fight?"
"For our honor!"
"Soldiers, let us show these monsters our resolve. Today is a good day to die! When duty calls, where are the knights?"
"The knights are here!"
"To glory, to justice, to the Lady and virtue! To the Ashen Legion!"
With that cry, Julius led his cavalry in a thundering charge. Splitting into three columns, the knights surged through the breaches in the northern wall, smashing into the undead pirates with devastating force. The skeletal ranks crumbled beneath their lances and sabers.
Julius himself was a whirlwind of destruction, his lance impaling a hulking zombie ogre before snapping in half. Drawing his enchanted blade, "Knights Do Not Die Unarmed," he decapitated the undead brute and pressed on.
The undead tide began to falter. Even Luthor Harkon's officers were not spared. Julius personally slew a pirate commander who had been cutting down his knights with a flaming cutlass. The divine power of the Lady infused Julius's sword, reducing the undead officer to ash with a single strike.
The cavalry's momentum carried them beyond the breaches, forcing Harkon's forces to retreat. Even the pirate king himself was forced to pull back when his flagship was struck by a well-placed shot from the Saint Sophia, one of the Ashen Legion's warships.
The victory rejuvenated the defenders' morale.
But their respite was short-lived. Within twenty minutes, the enemy returned to the assault.
The battle raged on through the day and into the night, the walls shaking under the weight of endless waves of attackers. Chaos siege towers, taller than the walls themselves, reached the Golden Gate. Hundreds of marauders and Chaos warriors surged onto the parapets, battling hand-to-hand with the defenders.
Fulgrim and his Phoenix Guard fought tirelessly, destroying tower after tower, but they were constantly called away to reinforce other parts of the city. On the southern wall, the Skaven used piles of their own dead as makeshift ladders, while their warpstone bombs blasted new breaches into the defenses.
By midnight, the city was a hellscape of fire and blood. The defenders, though brave, were stretched to their limits.
As dawn broke, the Chaos Gods sang their praises to the carnage below.
For a brief moment, the rising sun cast its light on the city, offering a glimmer of
hope.
Then the clouds swallowed the light, plunging Constantinople back into darkness and rain.
The enemy's forces, undeterred, surged forward once more.
From the blood-soaked fields around the Golden Gate, two entire legions of Chaos warriors and chosen charged toward the battered walls.
The battle had reached its climax.
______
(≧◡≦) ♡ Support me and read 20 chapters ahead – patreon.com/INNIT
For every 50 Power Stones, one extra chapter will be released on Saturday.