Temple Sword

Chapter 134 The Siege of Trenchin

1321 Moon of the Virgin (August)
Trencin, Hungary

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The counterweight trebuchets worked for several days, they spit out heavy stone balls first and then irregular stones when they were exhausted, but even after three days the walls of Trencin Castle remained impregnable.

The chief engineer from Italy and his best engineers hurled stones at different parts of the walls every day from morning till night, but to no avail.

Only at night will the trebuchets be quieted, and then the loudest brave warriors will take turns shouting loudly under the city walls, promising that whoever betrays his companions and opens the gates for the king's army will get a life that will last forever. wealth, barony and lands.

But the defenders were unmoved, and they attacked anyone who came near: one was shot with a bow and arrow, another was hit in the head with a stone and died instantly.

Trencin was not Levice, although Charles had written a capitulation letter in which he promised rewards and had arrows shot into the castle.

All Mate Chuck's most loyal men were in this highland castle, and they were all ready to suffer the most terrible tortures rather than surrender to the Anjou house.

Then, on the fourth day, a boulder finally broke a hole in the outer wall ring.At night, the opening was big enough for at least ten people to squeeze in at the same time.

At dawn on the fifth day, the trebuchets stopped roaring, and Charlie ordered a full-scale attack. Except for the servants, almost no one was left in the siege camp.

Twenty thousand heavily armed soldiers assembled under the city wall, and the army holding the lily battle flag roared in unison, firmly climbed up the stone mountain, passed through the gap in the city wall, and went straight to the front.

Charlie was sure he would take Trencinburg within a day.

The blood of the defenders froze at the sight of such appalling desperation, but thanks to the efforts of the officers and knights of Esteban Sternberg and Mate Chuck, the terrified soldiers were filled with Passionate words infused with power.

As night fell again, the corpses of hundreds of Anjou soldiers were piled inside and outside the city walls.

Others wailed, screamed, or struggled in agony, but the defenders shot them all, one by one, shooting arrows where there was sound and movement, and competing to see who could beat faster and faster. Kill more enemies in thicker darkness.

A day later, the siege army withdrew to the camp, and Charles began to fire on the castle with trebuchets, hoping to weaken the morale of the defenders and residents and encourage his men.

He then sent troops to attack again, but failed again.

At the suggestion of his commanders, the king changed his tactics: he sent only one troop at a time to break through, launching a quick, sudden charge, with another troop following them, and if the first troops succeeded, they Will join them immediately, but if it fails, those in front will retreat and the team behind will attack instead.

But that didn't work either, and Fifteen days later, Trencin is still standing. On the night of No. 20, Charlie Robert was still in his tent eating an increasingly bitter dinner.

Three weeks passed like this, and even in the fourth week, the trebuchets were still spitting out boulders, and the army continued to attack, but the stubborn followers of a dead oligarch drove them back again.

At this time, both sides suffered considerable losses, and there were boulder piles almost everywhere around the city walls, but neither Charles Anjou nor Esteban Sternberg had the intention of giving up.

The king had no intention of retreating, but he felt more and more that he would not be able to return to the capital for a long time.

-

Antal Barto asked to enter Charlie's tent, he was wearing dirty, bloody faded clothes, and though he wanted to be polite, like everyone else, he didn't have a clean cloth to wear.

He had soiled his last garment two days ago, when one of his captains died in his arms, blood staining the knight's cloak.

"Welcome, Antal," Charlie waved to him, alone, "sit down, my dear friend."

"Thank you," said the knight, sitting in a bent-leg chair with a back, "Your Majesty, I would like to know..."

"It's just the two of us here," the king waved his hand, "you don't have to call me Your Majesty anymore."

"Okay...Charlie," Antal nodded, "I want to know what I should say to my subordinates."

"about what?"

"About how long we're going to stay here, how long we're going to rush into the gaping jaws of death again and again."

"What a poetic expression!" The king twitched his mouth and smiled. "You should be a court poet."

"Maybe, I'm starting to have this plan..." The knight stared at the king coldly.

The strained smile on Charlie's face disappeared instantly. "What do you want me to do?" He asked in a completely different tone of seriousness. "Is it my fault that my fighters keep failing?"

Antal didn't answer, just looked away from the king and stared angrily ahead, into the air.

"Aha, I know that look, I remember it well from a long time ago!" said the king, "When you don't like my decision and way of doing things, you always put on this look, look at the air, You feel like the truth is in your own head...

So what do you want me to do now?I need some good advice, because no one can come up with a worthwhile idea, how?Speak your mind and let me listen carefully! "

"There are more than 20 castles in the highlands in the hands of others," Antal stood up, trying to persuade Charlie with a calm tone. "If we temporarily retreat and capture some weaker castles, maybe the army will regroup, and then we will..."

"Let the defenders of Trencin resupply and rebuild their castle?" The king did not raise his voice, but his eyes were colder than the harshest winter.

"Aren't you crazy? You want me to sneak under the walls of Trencin with my tail between my legs, to take down a few insignificant little castles? Do you know what it will do? They'll go around laughing at me!"

He suddenly started yelling, "This will fill Matai's followers with fighting spirit, make those who have given up take up arms again, and drive us back to our homeland!"

Both were silent, and Antar buried his face in his hands, walking up and down the spacious tent in desperation.Charles sat on his throne of carved wooden platform, looking sullenly at the knight.

"We have been storming for more than three weeks!" Antal stopped, "Only at the beginning, we smashed a gap in the city wall, and that was our only success.

Since then, we have failed one after another!How many more good fighters do we have to keep here forever before it's all over?one thousand?Five thousand?Ten thousand? "

"Enough!" retorted the king, "if I had to siege till winter, I would attack in snow and frost! If I had to siege a whole year, I would live in this tent all year!

This Matt Chuck isn't going to make it easy for me even in hell!If I let him beat me again, my whole blood will be threatened! "

"Even if we take Trencin, what will happen after that? There are more castles in the highlands," Antal asked wearily. "Do you want to spend your life besieging them? What's your plan?"

"Trencin is the most important castle in the Highlands," insisted the king in a calm voice, "it is the pillar of the whole Highlands, and if I pull it down, everything will fall with it.

If I take Trencin, the whole plateau will be mine, you will see.If all you want to discuss with me is retreat," he looked away from the knight, "then you'd better go back to your soldiers and stop wasting your time and mine, Antal. "

Antal left without a word, distraught.

Outside, a few paces away from the tent, Lakfi was waiting for him, Antal striding furiously, and the Sekai captain trotting away side by side with him.

"How?" Lakfei looked at him curiously. "What did he say?"

"He said that if he had to besiege Trencin for a year, he would do it for a year, and he had no intention of leaving here."

"Fortunately not!" The captain said, "But this is not the question we asked you to go to the king's tent, Lord Barto. You should ask what reward the first team to attack the castle will get!"

"Ask yourself, Isstvan."

Antal left angrily, Lakfei looked at him behind and shook his head, he had never seen a soldier who hated fighting so much.

In his view, war is important and necessary, and his ideas are completely different from those of knights.

However, no matter how different they were, Lakfe felt more and more that he and this knight who longed for a peaceful life but was proficient in killing would one day become very good friends.

(End of this chapter)