Chapter 37 Siege and Sacrifice
Chapter thirty-seven
Siege and Sacrifice
Marchland, same day
Dark clouds stained the sky over Marchland, promising rain yet failing to deliver.
Lady Cassandra Cade hurried from building to building, her guard detail vigilant at her side.
She’d left Suzanne and Steward Hollis in charge of the evacuees on the sandbar to meet with General Longstreet in the citadel.
Cassandra was grateful beyond words for the AlgonCree Navy, whose guns kept the Iron Army at bay as they stood watch over the residents.
But far too many people hadn’t made it to safety, and she led efforts to find those hiding in their homes or trapped in the rubble.
Longstreet told her the Iron Army had encircled the city, cutting off all land routes in and out.
It was the siege they had expected and prepared for.
But Cassandra hadn’t anticipated Garcia’s brutal assault on civilian targets.
She’d stood atop the battlements and surveyed the outskirts of Marchland.
From the walls, the enemy looked almost peaceful—orderly tents, pickets pacing their rounds, artillery parked like grazing beasts.
Yet every three hours without fail, fire and lead battered the fortress and neighborhoods alike.
The defenders no longer flinched at the artillery.
They simply paused, counted the seconds, and went back to work.
When the smoke cleared and the last explosion rocked the ground, she had three hours with first responders and whatever troops could be spared to search for civilians in distress.
The streets carried an uneasy quiet, broken now and then by the rumble of wagons hauling rubble away from fresh impacts. As the dust settled, faces appeared from behind walls and doorways.
“Wait for us, Lady Cade,” called First Sergeant Sutter, whose squad had been assigned to aid her. Sturdy and experienced, she welcomed his casual demeanor and strong back, which was more than she could say for his crew of young recruits. Still, muscle.
“Spread out by twos,” she directed. “Search every building—houses, apartments, and offices. We’ll take one street at a time in an orderly search pattern, so no nook or cranny gets overlooked.
Only half of our residents have made it to the sandbar.
We must get the able-bodied to safety and the injured to a hospital. ”
“Yes, ma’am. You heard her,” Sutter called to his band of greenhorns. “Half of you with Corporal Johnson across the street. The other half with me. Blow your whistle if you require assistance.”
“Don’t try to move victims,” Cassandra shouted. “Blow your whistle for the medics.”
The soldiers moved in pairs, breaching damaged structures while hammers rang from repair crews nearby.
Messengers whizzed past on bicycles while squads of soldiers hurried to relieve those on the redoubt.
The snap of silk in the wind caught Cassandra’s attention.
Glancing up, she spied the gold and green national flag in tatters, whipping in the breeze.
I will not lose heart or hope, she told herself.
Every breath tasted of mortar powder and old smoke as they proceeded down Clay Street.
A whistle blew. The fire chief waved a team with a stretcher into a store, its windows shattered into jagged shards of glass, and its porch cover fallen in.
They returned carrying a wounded, pregnant woman on a gurney while a limping man followed, supported by a soldier.
He searched their faces in desperation. “You must save her. She’s my life!”
“The doctors will do what they can,” Cassandra assured the man. “Is anyone else in there?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t think so. Please, hurry. We need to get Kari to the hospital.”
They continued door to door, finding forty people who had hunkered down to shelter in place, giving first aid to seventeen, and transporting another twelve to the nearest hospital.
There were three medical centers in Marchland: Riverview Hospital, Memorial Hospital, and the Marchland Army Base. Memorial was the closest.
Fifty-five dead. Their bodies were respectfully placed in horse-drawn wagons and wheeled away to a temporary morgue.
“Where are all the people?” Cassandra asked aloud.
“I’m thousands short.” She glanced up at the old courthouse clock tower, whose hands had remained steady since long before the War of Ruin.
The domed roof with its eagle statue reminded her that some things lasted.
“We should have at least another hour before everyone needs to take cover for the shelling.”
“Have you tried looking to the south?” Sutter asked. “I know people who live in those hills and hollows. The enemy fire has focused mainly on the center of town, so there could be a passel of folks down that way.”
“Good thinking, Sergeant. The hospital is right over there. I want to see that this latest group gets in and check on the pregnant woman,” Cassandra said. “Then will you accompany me to those neighborhoods?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He gave her a confident nod.
Cassandra and her guards entered Memorial Hospital’s ground floor.
The smell hit her first—antiseptic and blood.
Cots and gurneys lined the halls. Every room was at capacity.
The ER was in triage mode, taking the most critical cases first, leaving those with simple fractures and mild concussions to wait.
Exhausted nurses rushed from post to patient.
Doctors with drooping shoulders and bloodshot eyes called for IVs and blood transfusion packs.
Shouts echoed over the quiet sobs and anguished moans.
At least a thousand of the people Cassandra sought must be in this building.
The lights flickered, the generator whined, and the building brightened again. The staff took it in stride. “Morphine,” called a woman in scrubs, a white mask muffling her order.
“We’re out, doctor,” came the beleaguered reply. “I’ve got a few doses of codeine.”
“I’ll take it,” the doctor hissed. She grumbled unintelligibly under her mask as the nurse handed her the alternate drug.
“A pregnant woman and her husband were brought in a few minutes ago,” Cassandra said to a frazzled ER clerk. “Do you know how she’s doing?”
“Look, lady—oh!” The skinny clerk straightened, cleared his throat, and pushed up his glasses. “Lady Cade, I beg your pardon. It’s just, we’re swamped in here. Nobody’s gone home in over forty-eight hours. We’re all doing the best we can.”
“I understand.” She smiled empathetically and nodded. “Can you give me a guess as to how many patients occupy the hospital?”
He grimaced and glanced around, rubbing his hands together. “Maybe twelve hundred? We started keeping records, but then everyone was rushed in so fast.”
“No pressure,” Cassandra said. “Tell everyone on staff they’re doing a commendable job.”
A frantic woman rushed to the desk. “My son! Is he here? I can’t find him. Please help me!”
From beyond the desk came more voices. “Prep this man for emergency surgery.” “Get me a crash cart. Stat.” “Her airway’s blocked. I need an intubation tray.”
Cassandra’s heart ached for the many whose lives were in jeopardy and the anxious family members in doubt and despair.
But she wasn’t a medical professional. There was nothing else she could do here.
Deciding her time would be better spent locating more residents and moving them to safety, she left with her guards.
As Cassandra exited the front doors, Sergeant Sutter and his recruits sat beneath a magnolia on benches and patches of grass, taking a moment to relax. Sutter leaped up, squaring his shoulders, ready for duty.
“Lady Cade,” he said, waving his squad up. They brushed dust from their uniforms, straightened hats, and came to attention.
Still standing in the shade of the awning, Cassandra felt a pulse—the slightest shift in the air.
A screaming whistle. Sutter’s face blanched.
He raced to her, yanking her arm with tremendous force.
Something thrust them through the air. Then she was face down in the dirt, the weight of his body on top of hers.
The thunderous boom deafened her as the ground shook.
Feet stampeded. Mouths opened in screams she couldn’t hear.
The weight crushing her chest left her barely able to breathe.
Dirt and grass in her mouth. Smoke and dust up her nose.
She blinked. Someone else lay a few feet away. Denzel, one of her guards. Blood on his head. His eyes fixed and dull. Dead?
Realization pierced the haze and muffled sounds around her. General Garcia hadn’t kept to his schedule. He’d started the bombardment early. Hit the hospital. Oh God, no!
With hundreds of kilograms pressing down on her, she couldn’t speak or call out.
Panic surged, driving her to break free.
She wiggled her fingers, dirt scraping under her nails, and waved a hand.
Feet clambered around her. Relief at last as bit by bit the weight lifted from her back.
Last to go was Sutter. The fire chief and one of the sergeant’s recruits lifted his body, freeing her.
She rolled onto her side and sat up, trying to get her bearings. She caught blurred images and muted sounds as if she were deep underwater.
“My Lady, we must get you to the basement across the street,” the fire chief insisted. “There’s no time.”
“Sergeant Sutter?” She blinked, craning her neck to see. Memorial Hospital had been reduced to a crater with brick and steel spires clustered around it like a morbid crown. The magnolia tree lay snapped in half like a matchstick.
“He’s alive, but unresponsive,” said a medic who’d been assisting her with the rescues. The young man’s expression was one of anguish.
“Bring him,” she yelled, barely able to hear herself.
“Let’s get into that basement while we can.
” Someone helped her to her feet. She glanced back at Denzel’s body, crushed under a piece of the fractured wall.
To one side lay a pile of bricks and concrete chunks.
Was that what had been on top of them? Weak and wobbly, she held onto the chief, watched soldiers stretch Sergeant Sutter onto a plank of wood and lift him.
She recognized one of the medics who’d been with them during the search at his side.
He saved my life.
“Hurry, my lady,” the fire chief urged. They dashed across the street. The smoking tail of another rocket trailed overhead. She stumbled. His firm grip kept her on her feet.
“All those people,” Cassandra whispered. “Just gone.” She glanced over her shoulder at the scene, horror-stricken.
“This way.” The chief moved with purpose, led them into a building, and down the stairs to a dark room.
Someone flicked on a flashlight. It looked like a laundry, with large round tubs and cords strung across rafters for drying.
Dusty storage shelves lined the walls. The concussion of another impact shook the basement.
The last man closed the door at the top of the stairs.
Cassandra glanced around at perhaps sixteen men and women who’d escaped the hospital’s destruction—some bleeding, all traumatized. Something warm and thick rolled into her eye. She wiped the blood away and leaned against a post.
“Lady Cade,” said the medic, rushing to her side. “Let me tend your wounds.”
She shook her head, her gaze on where the sergeant lay. “Sutter is the priority. Help him.”
The medic, a Black man about her size and age, steadied her as she crossed to the unconscious man who’d shielded her from the blast. “He has a head injury and was crushed under piles of rubble. Probably internal bleeding. I’m only a medic, not a surgeon.
I’ve done all I can for him. When this bombardment ends, we’ll get him to the base infirmary—provided it hasn’t been leveled as well. ”
Cassandra stared into Sutter’s tan face, covered in brick dust, blood, and grime. “He saw the missile coming. Reacted. Saved me.” She lifted her gaze to the medic. “Now we must save him.”