I.

It was deep into the night when the Chelians awoke to the sound of stone hitting stone. As they rise and take their positions in a panic, they saw.

Seven trebuchets of tremendous size, throwing stones bigger than humans. And the trebuchets, after preparing for another firing, intimidated the Chelians with their immense size. Nevertheless, the Chelians stood firm.

The trebuchets fired and the seven stones impacted the walls, crushing them instantly. The twenty thousand strong men of the Nydoan Empire lead by Tei'hi ran like a horde of rodents down the broken-down walls. They swarm the inner wall, a killing field with archers on all sides on elevated ground.

Tei'hi ordered his auxiliary archers to fire arrows at the elevated spot to no avail. He then rode back to the trebuchets, who were holding fire as their allies swarmed the walls. He told them to fire at will towards the walls that the archers on the walls.

The Trebuchets agreed to this and after a few minutes, had fired yet another seven stones towards the walls. The archers fall down. "INFANTRY! PUSH!" Tei'hi yelled towards his men as they pushed harder and harder to the defenses, cutting any men that crossed their path.

The defenders then retreated far into the second wall of the city, blocking the entrance.

Tei'hi was dismayed. His men were tired, a lot more were dead. He told them to rest up outside the walls. They could afford to do so knowing that the trebuchets killed most of the archers following the firing.

Hiding under the roof of shields, he had called a council of his Vice-Generals. Among them was Zoroan.

II.

"Body count." Tei'hi started the meeting off.

"Eighteen thousand sir. We have enough food to feed them for a week still, should we starve the Chelians out?" One of his generals, a man named Lixus said.

"Those men keep their farms stocked in the second walls. That which they retreated to right now. We can't let them stay there, they'll outsta-" Zoroan was cut off by Lixus, Tei'hi's other general.

"But their supplies are dwindling still, no?" Lixus started, "We can enact minor skirmishes at them. We can even use the catapults to hit their farms! We cannot risk the loss of more men as the Chelian Ten Thousand is most likely still fresh inside those walls."

"The Chelian Ten Thousand is exactly why we should rush them quickly." Zoroan pointed out. "We cannot let them rest for even the slightest minute."

"And what of our men? We can't send them into that over-glorified meat grinder!" Lixus slammed his hand on the table

Tei'hi stood up and said, "Task the scouts around the city, make them find every little intricacy in their wall. Anything." Tei'hi knew himself that this would not be an easy task. The city is protected on both sides by a mountain, they walled themselves three times, each wall as thick as 20 meters. Although at least three volleys would be enough to blast through them. Nevertheless, he thought it's better to be safe than sorry. So he tasked his scouts.

The three stood there, with the two arguing for hours about what to do, and Tei'hi merely listening, thinking as he took information from both of them to form the perfect plan. But he could not do so until his scouts came by.

Eventually, after an hour or so, his scouts came back bearing news. They had told him that there were cracks on the walls, suggesting that it may fall in one volley of trebuchet rather than three. This worked well for Tei'hi as that would mean they don't have to wait roughly thirty minutes before duking it out.

They had also told him that there were several wounded inside the walls. It seemed like the wounded outnumbered the fresh, as the scouts pointed out.

An all-out assault was much more preferable then. Tei'hi then exited the camp and rode towards the trebuchets. Ordering three of them to fire inside the walls with flaming ammunition, and four of them to fire directly into the walls.

It was roughly an hour when the trebuchets are ready to fire and the men were at a safe distance away. And then... they fired.

III.

The arcing of the ammunitions hit perfectly both the men inside the walls and the wall itself. In under a minute, the Nydoans swarmed yet again inside the walls, slaughtering every man that wasn't their color.

The wounded lay dead, and those who fought back were mercilessly slaughtered themselves. Houses and farms that lay all over the inner walls were burned down as even innocents were massacred.

It was then that the Ten Thousand appeared. Tei'hi smiled in joy knowing that his most formidable enemies finally appeared, and they appeared under a hail of arrows descending upon his men. Immediately, at least three hundred were killed, it was then that his men put their shields up in an attempt to deflect the arrows.

It worked, mostly. At least fifty more were still killed as the arrows pierced the shields by chance, but it did not matter anymore as the Ten Thousand ran out of arrows and swarmed out the walls themselves.

It was here that they held their ground.

The Ten Thousand deployed themselves in a square around the entrance to the inner city. With at least three thousand men on all sides, it was clear that the Nydoans could not pierce through their mighty wall easily.

But Tei'hi hatched a plan, and he relayed this plan to his men to which they all agreed.

It took roughly an hour to form up but it was done without much fuss. He formed 14,000 of his men over the frontline and ordered them to push to the front line as hard as they can with all they can. Over time they pierced through the center far enough to reach the gate, it was then that the six thousand on the sides turned around and started surrounding Tei'hi's men, they got slaughtered on account of being surrounded.

But Tei'hi expected this. Behind the walls appeared the other three thousand and over them appeared the archers who fired upon the surrounding party. The ones in reserve started surrounding the ten thousand as well.

Their line started to fall, what once was a clear victory for the Chelians one minute became a tremendous loss the next. The ten thousand could not fight them while surrounded and eventually were all killed, fighting to the death as their entire lineage had thought them to do.

The Elite Ten Thousand were dead. And the rest of the Chelian army was either wounded or slaughtered.

And between the sieging Nydoans outside the walls, and the angry people inside. The nobles of the Chelian empire gave in and surrendered to Tei'hi.

And in under an hour, the army was inside and as for Tei'hi. He approached the royal castle and climbed to its highest point. Both to bask in the war-torn country that he united, and to look at the sea beyond the horizon.

And there he saw it... land. A land he called Arcadia.