The city of Piedro rang with jubilant cheers. The Grass Barbarian cavalry's two assaults had failed before they even touched the base of the walls. The slope was littered with their corpses—at least five or six thousand by the estimate. And the cost of repelling both attacks had been negligible: the first time, only a dozen or so casualties, and the second time, a handful of unlucky souls who had managed to wound themselves—all minor scrapes and bumps. This gave the soldiers of the Guard Battalion and the ten thousand conscripted laborers tremendous confidence, making them feel that the Grass Barbarian cavalry were nothing special; no matter how many there were, there was nothing to fear.
Edvoc, however, was far less optimistic. On the contrary, he had been on edge the entire time. When the mournful war horns and thundering battle drums drifted across the steppe beneath the gathering dusk, followed by the earth-shaking "Hujora!" war cries of the Grass Barbarian cavalry below the slope, Edvoc knew that the worst had come to pass. The Grass Barbarian cavalry had been enraged by their two defeats, and they were about to launch a night assault. For the defenders of Piedro City, the hardest hour was about to arrive…
The first wave of Grass Barbarian cavalry pushed log-shielded wagons forward and quickly closed in on Piedro. But by the flickering light of the burning wagons still ablaze on the slope, the defenders on the walls soon noticed that the barbarians were collecting the bodies of their fallen comrades.
"My lord, they're carrying the corpses back down. Do you think they'll still attack tonight?" asked a nearby sentry, gazing at Edvoc with a glimmer of hope.
"Perhaps. I can't be sure of their plans. They're still at a distance—let's hold our fire for now. If they're only gathering their dead, we'll let them be. But maybe their real purpose in collecting the bodies is to mount a better assault, so let's not let our guard down," Edvoc replied after a moment's thought.
Darkness fell swiftly, and the massive log-shielded wagons dissolved into hulking black silhouettes that soon merged into a single mass. The nearer burning wagons had been extinguished by the barbarians, making it impossible to see what was happening behind the wall of shadow. That continuous line of log-shielded wagons not only blocked out the firelight from the slope below but also cut off the defenders' line of sight from the walls…
"Longbowmen, arc-fire a volley of fire arrows. Let's see what those barbarians are up to," Edvoc ordered.
Dozens of flaming arrows traced graceful arcs across the sky and fell toward the slope. By their faint glow, the defenders on the walls finally made out what the enemy was doing.
"They're filling the trenches!" someone shrieked.
"So the barbarians really do mean to storm the city tonight," Edvoc thought, his heart sinking. Under cover of darkness, the enemy's movements would be far harder to counter than during the day.
"Steel crossbows number one through ten—bring fire-oil jars and lash them to the bolts. Aim at those shield wagons and fire!"
"Longbowmen, all switch to fire arrows. Target the shield wagons!"
Edvoc issued the two commands in quick succession. Soon ten small clay jars brimming with fire oil were lashed to ten crossbow bolts. The bolts were loosed and embedded themselves in the log-shielded wagons. Not a single barbarian was hit, but the fire-oil jars shattered on impact, spilling their contents across the timber. As the arcing fire arrows from the longbowmen rained down, one wagon caught fire, then another…
"Good." Edvoc was well pleased with his burst of inspiration. "Steel crossbows one through ten, keep lashing fire-oil jars and firing at the shield wagons. Don't let the flames on the ones already burning go out. The rest of the crossbows, use the firelight and shoot freely—target the enemies filling the trenches and trying to douse the flames. Longbowmen, continue your fire-arrow barrage!"
The barbarians filling the trenches had noticed the wagons catching fire. As those sent to extinguish the blazes were picked off by steel crossbow bolts, they separated the burning wagons from the unburned ones. Ignoring the casualties, they held shields overhead and continued filling the trenches under the rain of fire arrows, working with astonishing speed. They had closed to within a hundred meters of Piedro City. But there they could go no further. Every log-shielded wagon that could have sheltered them had become a towering bonfire, illuminating the area below the walls as bright as daylight…
Less than two hours after those barbarians withdrew, another wave pushed forward with more log-shielded wagons—but these barbarians all carried bulging grass sacks on their backs, presumably filled with earth. Using the wagons for cover, they hurled the sacks into the trenches, and a pathway was quickly formed.
The longbowmen had switched to direct fire, and the steel crossbows kept up a ceaseless barrage, but there were simply too many enemies below, and the darkness of night made aiming difficult. The Grass Barbarian cavalry pressed on regardless of how ghastly the casualties were, wave after wave surging forward. They filled the trenches while simultaneously using the shield wagons for cover to fire arrows up at the walls. The defenders on the ramparts began to suffer casualties.
"Aagh!" A Guard soldier firing a steel crossbow screamed, clutching his arrow-pierced right eye as he collapsed to the ground. His limbs twitched, then went rigid. A comrade stringing his own crossbow let out a grief-stricken cry of "Brother…," leveled his weapon, and fired furiously down at the enemy.
A hissing gust of wind swept across the walls as nearly a hundred arrows fell among the defenders. Over a dozen reserve laborers who had been hauling crossbow bolts and tending the wounded were struck down on the ramparts like men caught in a downpour, their bodies bristling with a dozen shafts apiece. Unlike the Guard soldiers, they had no proper standardized armor, and the arrows arcing up from below inflicted devastating losses…
The longbowmen on the walls opened up in retaliatory fury against the Grass Barbarian archers below.
"Hujora!" Another band of Grass Barbarian cavalry surged forward, pushing a dozen more log-shielded wagons.
"Tell the steel crossbows and longbowmen to pay more attention to the barbarian archers firing from below—suppress them…" Edvoc gave an order he would bitterly regret.
The walls of Piedro stood six meters high. The gate was sheathed in iron, with a massive iron-grated door behind it. Even if the barbarians reached the base of the walls, what of it? Breaking through the gate with their hand weapons would take who knew how long. So Edvoc had decided to prioritize neutralizing the barbarian archers, since they posed the greatest threat to the defenders.
He had not expected the barbarians who just charged in to move with such ferocious agility. In three or two leaps they were at the foot of the walls, then they pulled long ladders from the enormous log-shielded wagons, linked them together, lashed them tight, and propped them against the ramparts. Other barbarians swung grappling hooks on ropes that snagged the crenellations above, and they began scrambling upward. Some barbarians even carried quivers of short javelins on their backs, channeled their
"The barbarians are on the walls!" The terrified shout made Edvoc jump. He spun around to see several barbarians already atop the ramparts, weapons swinging as they brawled with Guard soldiers.
Not far from him, a barbarian vaulted over the parapet. A flash of cold steel—an aimed crossbowman's blood sprayed into the air, and he toppled to the ground. Three Guard soldiers assisting him had not even recovered from their shock before the barbarian ran each of them through.
Edvoc's eyes nearly split from fury. He drew his sword and charged, hacking downward. The barbarian saw no blade glow on Edvoc's sword and carelessly assumed he was an ordinary defender. His left-hand short sword went up to parry while his right-hand short blade snaked toward Edvoc's throat like a viper…
But the instant Edvoc's longsword met the short blade, his sword blazed with brilliant qi-light. The barbarian recoiled in shock, but it was too late to change his technique. He could only watch helplessly as the glowing longsword sheared through his short sword and then sliced into his left shoulder and downward…
Edvoc kicked away the barbarian's half-severed corpse, then spun and cleaved down another barbarian who was about to clamber over the wall. He snatched a fire-oil jar and hurled it onto the ladder outside, then grabbed a torch and threw it after it. Only when the ladder was engulfed in roaring flames did Edvoc finally let out a breath. He quickly turned to the messenger at his side: "Hurry—get the Sword-and-Shield Company and the Heavy-Armor Spear Company up onto the walls. Have the reserves arm themselves with spears and stand by to reinforce…"
But the order came too late. More and more Grass Barbarian cavalry were hauling themselves over the parapet. The crossbow teams, grouped in fives, could not hold back these ferocious enemies. Many steel crossbows on the walls had already gone silent, and the barbarian archers firing upward from below were growing in number, dealing punishing blows to the Guard soldiers still fighting back…
Edvoc knew he had done something foolish. The walls were a little over two meters wide, and with the steel crossbows deployed, the longbowmen positioned, and space left open for laborers to ferry crossbow bolts, there had simply been no room to post the Sword-and-Shield Company and Heavy-Armor Spear Company on the ramparts. Their weapons would have been useless against the enemies below anyway, so he had left them to rest at the base of the walls. Who could have guessed the barbarians would scale the walls so quickly? Every defending soldier had been caught off guard…
"Fall back! Fall back to the towers! Seal the iron doors and set up crossfire from the towers onto the walls—make it so they can come up but can't come back down!" Seeing the barbarians on the walls multiplying by the minute, Edvoc hastily ordered a retreat to the towers.
After Piedro City had been converted into a fortress-castle, its front face featured the main gatehouse, which jutted out well beyond the walls and stood two meters taller. At each end, towers connected to the walls, and at the corners where the side walls bent—each about a hundred meters long—stood two more towers. The towers served two purposes: first, they housed the staircases for ascending and descending the walls; second, they were designed for precisely this situation—if the walls fell, holding the towers meant the enemy still could not breach the fortress.
Edvoc seized a soldier beside him. "Singh, organize fifty steel crossbows and get them to the second wall immediately. Focus fire on the enemies on this section of wall. Go, now!"
The second wall stood two meters higher than the first and was set fifty meters back—the fortress-castle's last line of defense. Only by breaking through the second wall could the enemy truly claim to have captured the fortress.
The soldier named Singh, understanding the urgency, snapped a salute without hesitation and rushed off.
"You go too," Edvoc told the longbowmen on the gatehouse. Only a little over a hundred had retreated through the towers to this gatehouse. They had done their utmost—every man had loosed no fewer than forty or fifty arrows. But there were simply too many enemies, and while they rested, exhausted, the enemy had seized the moment to launch their surprise assault. The steel crossbows at that time had been suppressing the barbarian archers below, and the result was that the barbarians had gained the walls. In the fighting, nearly a hundred of them had fallen…
Now the fiercest fighting raged beneath the four towers flanking the walls. Each tower had only six firing slits facing the wall—six arrows at a time—hardly enough to make a dent against the masses of barbarians packed onto the ramparts. The barbarians who had seized both flanking sections of wall went wild with elation. Ignoring the crossbow bolts firing from the towers, they held shields overhead and battered at the iron doors between the towers and the walls. Before long, a few Grass Barbarian warriors wielding Silver-tier Combat Force had hacked a gaping hole in one of the iron doors. But before they could cheer their triumph, four or five spears thrust out from inside the tower like bolts of lightning and punched through their chests.
The defenders in the doorway killed any barbarian who burst through with a single lethal thrust. Yet dying barbarians periodically launched last-ditch counterattacks, wounding the heavy-armor spearmen. The wounded were pulled back and replaced by fresh heavy-armor spearmen standing behind…
The base of each tower was heaped with corpses, nearly choking the doorways. But the number of barbarians on the walls kept growing. They seized the bodies of their fallen kinsmen and hurled them straight off the ramparts. Once the bodies were cleared and space opened up, they charged into the towers—turning themselves into corpses in turn for the next wave to throw off the walls…
A commander always finds his forces wanting in the hour of need. A single Heavy-Armor Spear Company numbered only five hundred men. Across four towers, each had barely a hundred and something. Before long, these heavy-armor spearmen were either dead or wounded. The Sword-and-Shield Company moved in to fill the gaps. But the swordsmen suffered even heavier casualties than the spearmen. Though they held out longer, they too were soon overwhelmed. Edvoc had no choice but to order the reserve laborers into the fray.
Though the reserves were brawny, able-bodied men, they had received no training and were poorly equipped. Most merely carried a long spear and relied on sheer numbers to resist the enemy's attacks. They were consumed even faster—roughly five or six reserves had to fall for every barbarian killed. Now it was the towers that were heaped with the dead, and the dead were these reserve laborers.
As the dead and wounded reserves were dragged out and carried to the rear, some of the reserves waiting for their turn to fight broke down completely. They threw away their weapons, screaming incoherently, and fled in every direction. Edvoc was forced to dispatch the only intact unit he still had—a Sword-and-Shield platoon of some sixty men—as a provost guard. They executed nearly a hundred deserters on the spot, hacking off their heads and impaling them on spears, and only then was the chaos quelled.
When all four towers had become meat grinders of reserve laborers, the steel crossbows and longbowmen on the second wall were finally in position. Their assault on the first wall dealt a savage blow to the barbarians, who had believed the city was on the verge of falling. There were no log-shielded wagons on the bare ramparts for them to hide behind. Barbarians fell in clusters, tumbling from the walls like withered leaves…
Corpses were piled upon corpses on the walls, leaving almost no room to set foot. Blood pooled ankle-deep. Crossbow bolts and arrows jutted from the bodies, and from a distance the ramparts looked as though a neat little forest had sprouted upon them. The sky had begun to lighten. At last, no more barbarians were climbing the walls. From the steppe below the slope drifted the mournful horns of retreat, and the battle drums that had raged through the night had long since fallen silent. The dawn glow on the horizon burned a bloody, dazzling crimson…
Blood-spattered from head to toe, Edvoc struggled to his feet, bracing himself against the rampart bricks. He looked down over the wall and caught only the retreating backs of a few Grass Barbarian cavalry slinging longbows over their shoulders as they withdrew down the slope.
The enemy had finally pulled back. We held Piedro City… Edvoc let out a long, shuddering breath. But the searing pain from his wounds forced a groan from his lips. During the most dangerous moment of the night, a dozen Grass Barbarian warriors had swung onto the gatehouse on ropes. Edvoc and his Guard soldiers had cut them all down, but at terrible cost. Even he himself had taken three sword cuts and an axe blow. Fortunately, none were mortal, and after being bandaged, he had been able to continue commanding his men to hold the fortress.
"My lord, my lord—reinforcements, reinforcements have arrived…" Singh, commanding from the second wall, came rushing up to the gatehouse and steadied the swaying Edvoc. "It's Lord Falea's banner—the Legion Commander has finally gotten here…"
A laugh suddenly bubbled up in Edvoc's chest. He remembered a joke that circulated among the family's troops: reinforcements always arrive after the battle is over… He opened his mouth to say something, but his vision went black, and he collapsed into unconsciousness.
…(To be continued.)