The battering ram that Count Corbilly's sweep force had assembled overnight was a crude affair — three thick tree trunks lashed into a triangular frame, two such frames joined to form a larger triangle, with a sharpened log suspended by ropes at its center. Once they reached the camp gates, they would use the pendulum principle to swing the log and smash through. Four wheels had been attached to the bottom, and several dozen garrison soldiers shoved the ram forward while others provided cover with wooden shields.
The crossbowmen on the camp's defensive wall naturally focused their fire on the ram. In an instant, bolts rained down and chaos erupted around the device — the screams of the wounded echoed without pause. But the crossbowmen's fixation on the ram gave the enemy longbowmen, advancing behind their shield platforms, the opening they needed. They darted out from behind the platforms, took aim at the crossbowmen on the wall, and loosed a rapid volley. Over a dozen crossbowmen were hit, shrieking as they tumbled from the ramparts. Several of them had long arrows embedded in their faces and died on the spot.
The surviving crossbowmen hurriedly shifted their aim to the longbowmen. One side had wooden platforms for cover, the other had the defensive wall — the exchange of fire was dead even. The longbowmen had closed the distance, which posed a serious threat to the crossbowmen; at this range, both sides were shooting straight on. Crossbows took longer to reload but were easier to aim and hit with devastating force. Longbows had a far faster rate of fire — for every one bolt a crossbowman loosed, a longbowman could release three arrows. The catch was that after firing seven or eight shots in rapid succession, the longbowmen had to stop and rest to recover their strength.
While the crossbowmen on the camp wall were tied down by the longbowmen, the garrison soldiers pushing the ram put their backs into it and quickly rolled the battering ram up to the gates. They were just a few more paces from slamming into the gates when several pots were hurled down from the ramparts flanking the entrance. Some shattered on the ground; others smashed against the ram itself. When the pots broke, the thick, sticky liquid inside splattered all over the battering ram.
One of the soldiers pushing the ram dipped a finger into the substance that had splashed onto him, and his face went pale. He screamed in terror: "It's oil! Fire oil!..."
A burning torch spiraled through the air and landed on the battering ram under the despairing gaze of the garrison soldiers. With a roaring whoosh, the ram became a massive bonfire. About a dozen soldiers near it, their bodies engulfed in flames, stumbled about like headless flies. A few who caught on quickly rolled on the ground and, with their comrades' help, managed to put the flames out. Three panicked soldiers leapt into the moats flanking the road — the fire was extinguished, but the icy water froze them solid in moments, and they sank to the bottom. Four others, drenched in too much fire oil, had become human torches. They staggered along, wailing in agony, until several soldiers who couldn't bear to watch any longer ended their suffering with a spear thrust.
"Aagh..." Another crossbowman, struck in the shoulder, collapsed on the rampart. A few spearmen rushed over and dragged him down. The commander of the sweep force on the opposite side grew desperate and committed all five companies of longbowmen to exchange fire with the crossbowmen. Though nearly a hundred longbowmen had already fallen, the remaining five hundred or so kept up such punishing fire that the crossbowmen on the wall could not even lift their heads.
Taking a deep breath, Lorist suddenly rose to his feet atop the rampart. A figure his size appearing on the wall instantly made him a target for every longbowman in sight. First, several dozen arrows flew at him, deflected one by one by the large shield in his left hand and the long sword in his right. Then came over a hundred arrows. And finally, all five hundred-plus longbowmen focused their fire on Lorist...
Afterward, Lorist crouched beneath the rampart, his scalp still tingling. He had made it sound simple in his head — with his Dynamic Vision talent, he should have been able to catch arrows fired at him, since under his focus the incoming shafts would seem to slow dramatically. A few dozen arrows were no problem, and he had even managed a hundred or so, but five hundred-plus arrows had nearly turned him into a pincushion. There were simply too many to deal with. Had the large shield not covered his body, he would have killed himself through sheer recklessness. What a close call. How could he have forgotten the principle that sufficient quantity triggers a qualitative change?
He glanced at the shield lying beside him, bristling with nearly a hundred long arrows, and felt his left hand still trembling. The combined force of so many arrows striking the shield had been overwhelming — even channeling his internal energy into his arm had barely managed to hold against it. That was something he hadn't anticipated. It had been far too reckless, like dancing cheek to cheek with the reaper himself. The only consolation was that while the longbowmen had their attention fixed on him, the crossbowmen had seized the opportunity to launch a counter-volley, felling another thirty or forty of the enemy longbowmen.
Outside, the sweep force had dispatched sword-and-shield infantry to cover the burning battering ram with sand and dirt. Once the flames were smothered, they shoved the charred wreck off to the side of the road to clear a path for the second ram. The second and third battering rams behind it were being modified on the move. Two small wooden shelters had been added to the sides of the second ram, hiding the men pushing it from view, while others doused it with water and spread sand over its surface.
After roughly half an hour, the second battering ram was wheeled up to the camp gate with a groaning creak. A long rope hung from the massive log suspended within its triangular frame. Dozens of sword-and-shield soldiers ran over, seized the rope, and hauled backward. Then, on a single command, they released in unison. The log swung forward with tremendous momentum and slammed into the camp gate with a deafening boom, sending violent tremors through the nearby ramparts.
Reidi hadn't been paying attention. He had both hands wrapped around a jar of fire oil, reaching out to pass it to Lorist, and when the shockwave hit he nearly toppled off the rampart. If Pat hadn't grabbed him with quick reflexes, the fall would have left Reidi with a split head.
Lorist was stamping his feet in frustration. He had tossed a few fire oil jars down moments earlier, but the position had drawn the attention of several longbowmen. A long arrow shattered the jar he was holding before it even left his hand, spraying fire oil everywhere and dousing Lorist from head to toe. That was mainly because Lorist himself hadn't anticipated it and failed to react in time — otherwise he could have dodged.
"Bodfenger, I'm leaving this section to you. I need to go below and clean up," Lorist shouted to Bodfenger on the other side of the gate. He had to get the fire oil off his head and body, or the next time he got near an open flame he would become a human torch.
Lorist hurried down from the rampart with Reidi and Pat, not going far. Reidi ran to fetch a large basin of hot water and a bar of soap for Lorist to wash his head and face. He took the scale armor Lorist had stripped off, grabbed a handful of sand from the ground, and packed it over the spots where fire oil had stained the scales, then used a length of hemp cloth mixed with sand to wipe the oil clean. Pat mounted his horse and rode toward the main tent, where Lorist's spare clothes were kept — he needed to fetch a fresh set.
The sound of the battering ram striking the gate came in fitful intervals. The fighting was this intense and yet here I am with time to take a bath and change clothes — when he thought about it, Lorist was half-amused, half-mortified. It was almost painfully absurd.
"It's burning!" Ross's triumphant cry rang out from beyond the rampart.
He turned to look outside the camp gates — thick black smoke was billowing straight upward, but the sound of the ram striking the gate kept on coming.
After drying his head and face, changing into fresh clothes, and strapping the newly cleaned scale armor back on, Lorist strode up to the rampart and looked down. The battering ram was indeed on fire, but that didn't stop the sword-and-shield soldiers behind it from hauling the great log and continuing to hammer at the camp gates.
"Reidi, get me two jars of fire oil. Pat, light a torch and bring it here," Lorist ordered.
This time, Lorist aimed for the sword-and-shield soldiers pulling the ropes behind the battering ram. The two fire oil jars landed one after another right in the middle of the soldiers, and the torch arrived moments later. In an instant, dozens more wailing, shrieking human torches lit up outside the gates.
The hammering at the camp gates stopped. More importantly, the ropes pulling the great log from behind had burned away. Once the wet patches on the battering ram dried out, it too would become a large bonfire.
"Master, the gates look like they're about to give," Reidi said.
Lorist went down to take a look. The camp's two wooden gates, each half a foot thick, had been hammered so hard that they were tilted inward a full half-meter — a thin person could have squeezed through the gap. Of the three iron crossbars bolted across the gates, the top one was the most deformed, its entire length bowed inward into an arc. The middle one bulged only slightly, and the bottom one was still mostly intact.
"Forget about the gates — we weren't planning on defending with them anyway. Honestly, even if we wanted to open them normally now, we couldn't; they're too mangled. My only worry is that the enemies outside stop attacking and just pull back, leaving us trapped in here," Lorist said with a laugh.
Fortunately, the enemies outside weren't willing to give up. They sent a large batch of garrison soldiers forward to put out the fire on the battering ram, then dragged the charred wreck off to the side to clear the path for the third ram.
The third battering ram had far more thorough and elaborate protection. It had been turned into a long, house-like structure, with an A-frame wooden shelter built over the top of the ram, shielding both the men pushing the cart and the garrison soldiers pulling the great log. The outside of the wooden shelter was also coated with a thick layer of wet mud.
This sheltered battering ram moved far more slowly, taking over two hours to reach the camp's main gate. Lorist and the defending crossbowmen had already eaten lunch. Bodfenger and Ross had even slipped away for a quick nap.
Lorist found it quite amusing. This Fatty Shi — in terms of personal combat strength, he was already at Silver-three, and before long he'd reach the pinnacle of Silver, with promotion to Gold rank on the horizon. Even with so many matters falling on his shoulders these past days that he was run off his feet, and despite supposedly being head over heels for Morlis, the maidservant Lorist had given him — sweet as honey together every night — he still found time to fit in his
As for capability, even Bodfenger had willingly stepped aside, yielding the position of chief Family Knight to him and making him the Steward of the entire northern caravan. And Fatty Shi hadn't disappointed anyone's expectations — every major and minor affair of the caravan was managed by him in impeccable order. Lorist recalled that Count Mirana had privately praised Fatty Shi to the skies, even envying where Lorist had dug up such a talented steward, and had gone so far as to say right to Lorist's face that Fatty Shi was fit to serve as a cabinet minister of a kingdom. Mind you, at that time Fatty Shi had still been wounded and confined to a cot, managing affairs while being carried about here and there.
Don't let it fool you that Fatty Shi spoke sense during war council — once he actually set foot on a battlefield, all his problems came flooding back. Panicked out of his wits, trembling with fear, sweat pouring from his palms and the soles of his feet, face ashen, expression vacant — he didn't look anything like a Silver-three powerhouse. His showing was worse than a raw recruit who couldn't even use Combat Force.
Lorist wondered — where had all that calm and courage Fatty Shi had shown when facing magical beasts back in his mercenary days gone? It wasn't as if he'd never seen a dead man either; there were several kills under his belt, and he didn't even faint at the sight of blood. So how had he ended up like this?
The thing was, Fatty Shi simply hadn't been exposed to enough large-scale scenes. Once he got used to sitting on corpses for stools and dipping his bread in human blood, he wouldn't be like this anymore.
"Ugh..." Fatty Shi ran off to throw up.
Honestly, this Fatty Shi — clearly suffering from this battlefield syndrome, yet he just had to come running to every battle to join in the excitement.
Lorist answered with great patience, "There's no need. Defense isn't just about staring at a single target — you have to consider every situation that might come up. We could stop this sheltered ram from reaching the gate, but doing so would cost us dearly. The losses wouldn't be worth it — it's what no wise man would do. You can see this ram has been prepared against fire and arrows, but you'll soon witness this ram becoming an aid to our defense. That's something our enemies would never expect."
However, what Lorist had said would happen didn't come to pass just yet. The sheltered battering ram struck for a while first, sending the iron crossbar on the camp gate flying, and punched a large hole through the gate, revealing the faces of several stunned defenders.
Lorist called for a few crossbowmen to unleash a volley of bolts through the hole in the gate. Screams of agony echoed from inside the shelter. It took quite some time before the hole was sealed off with several shields, and then half an hour passed while they adjusted the position of the great log, lowering it to continue battering the lower section of the gate.
It wasn't until Lorist was growing visibly impatient that the ram resumed its work. The boom, boom, boom of its impacts rang out once more.
This time it was quick — after only some twenty-odd strikes, the entire gate frame of the camp collapsed.
"The gate is broken!" The cheers had barely erupted from inside the shelter when Lorist and El charged forward like two violent gales, plunging into the wooden shelters on either side of the ram. The defenders pushing the cart and pulling the ropes on the great log were in for a terrible fate — who carries a weapon when they're pushing a cart or hauling a rope? The unarmed soldiers were slaughtered without any means of resistance. A handful at the very back of the shelters managed to flee on quick legs, but the sixty or seventy men inside were completely cut down by Lorist and El. Corpses piled up in the cramped shelters, leaving the two men barely enough room to stand. Blood seeped out from beneath the shelters in streams, converging into bright red rivulets...
The reason Lorist had refused Bodfenger's offer to go in his stead and instead chose to charge into the shelters with El was that he valued El's dark-attribute Combat Force, which was far more effective in tight, confined spaces. Moreover, El possessed night vision. The shelters were pitch-dark inside, and with El along, they avoided both friendly fire and the risk of missing any hidden enemies.
While Lorist and El were busy inside the shelters, the people inside the camp were far from idle. Reidi and Pat hauled several thick ropes over and tightly bound them around the battering ram, then secured the other ends to several wooden stakes, which they hammered deep into the ground. The sheltered battering ram was now fixed in place before the shattered camp gate, turning it into a new obstacle. This finally made Fatty Shi understand why Lorist had said the ram would become an aid to their defense.
Outside, the spearmen, cavalry, and commanders of the sweep force were each wide-eyed with fury. It was simply infuriating! Couldn't they follow the rules? Wasn't it the norm that after the attackers broke through the gate, the defenders would either scatter or form up in battle array, waiting for the attackers to withdraw the ram before charging in for a decisive clash? How could anyone seize the ram and turn it into a defensive tool? The sheer audacity of it!
"Tear it down!"
And so the attackers set about dismantling the shelter on the battering ram once again. After an hour of toil, they finally stripped the shelter clean and removed the bodies of their fallen. But the ram was fixed in place and couldn't be pulled back — what were they to do about that?
A squadron of lancers was mustered, their mounts facing away from the camp, several long, thick ropes attached to the battering ram, and a tug-of-war commenced between the lancers and the wooden stakes.
The contest lasted over half an hour. Even the lancer squad guarding the camp's rear gate was called back, and with nearly a thousand draft horses driven out from the main camp, the sweep force finally claimed victory in the tug-of-war. The result was rather gruesome, however, because Lorist had been mischievous. Just as the ropes were pulled taut, he severed them, sending the ram hurtling back at the sweep force. It rolled over them, and dozens of unlucky men and horses, caught off guard, became blood-and-flesh offerings.
Seizing the moment when the attackers outside were stunned by the carnage the ram had wrought, Lorist ordered everyone to push a pre-prepared log cart forward to block the shattered camp gate. By the time the stunned attackers reacted and tried to stop it, the log cart had become the new gate.
"Damn it, is this ever going to end?!" the attackers outside unleashed a torrent of curses. Some of the more impetuous ones surged forward, trying to shove the log cart back. The men behind the cart showed no mercy. Three rows of spear tips were mounted on its front. The leading attackers had thought they were fixed and purely for intimidation, not realizing they were individual, movable lances. When the men behind the log cart pushed forward, those who had rushed up to shove the cart became ghosts beneath the spears. After that, no one dared approach the log cart.
Count Corbilly's several bastards, who commanded this sweep force, were seething with rage. They had been fighting since dawn until afternoon — nearly a full day. Their casualties numbered five or six hundred, yet they hadn't even managed to breach the camp's main gate. Now the ram was gone, and the log cart was impassable. What were they to do?
"Burn it! Set fire to that log cart!"
A few soldiers tossed several sacks of oil onto the log cart and ignited them.
You burn it, so we burn it too. "Come on, pull up the carts of firewood we've prepared. We'll be keeping warm by the fire here tonight," Lorist said.
When the report reached Count Corbilly's bastards that the defenders were also throwing firewood onto the log cart, turning the camp entrance into a massive bonfire, they were practically apoplectic. Just then, heavy snow began falling from the sky. The leading bastard was overjoyed. "Aha! Heaven is helping us! It's snowing hard! Let's see him burn now!"
Lorist was also somewhat regretful. "It seems even Heaven wants to take these men's lives sooner rather than later. I had thought of letting them live one more night. Notify everyone to prepare. Tonight will be a night of slaughter."
The fire finally died out. A dozen guards rushed in and flung aside the still-smoldering, smoke-belching logs and debris. Outside the camp, the rumbling of hooves could already be heard — the lancer squadron was charging right in. The guards cheered. "Kill them! Kill them all!"