Chapter 115: War for Border Town (Part 1)

The knights came over the road like something from a painting Van’er had once seen on a church wall.

He’d never seen a hundred of them together before. Individually they were impressive enough — the clink of articulated plate, the height of the warhorses, the particular way a trained knight held himself in the saddle as though the saddle were his natural habitat and the ground something other people used. A hundred of them together was something else. His palms went wet against the cannon’s elevation wheel.

Same species as yourself, something said in the back of his head.

He spat and shoved the thought aside.

When had the nobles ever treated him as the same species? The old Count — the one before Roland — had run acquisition through armed guards who used the threat of their swords to set the price of furs. When the Months of the Demons came, those same guards disappeared to Longsong Stronghold with their lord, and the rest of Border Town huddled in whatever wooden shed would hold them and tried to survive until spring.

Duke Ryan had come here to take that back. To put the mine back under noble management, to drive Roland Wimbledon out of the western territory, and to dismantle everything that had been built in the three years since the fourth prince had arrived with his strange ideas about wages and walls and a first army staffed by the people who actually lived here.

No, Van’er thought. Not if I can help it.

He took a long breath and watched the sky to the left.

There — barely visible against the treeline, circling at a height where any casual glance would mistake her for a large bird. Lightning, using the canopy as cover, watching the column. She had demonstrated this to them in practice: as long as she stayed over the trees, ground observers saw branches. Only when she moved to open sky did she become visible, and she had never needed to. She kept the treeline between herself and the enemy and read the column from above, flags tucked under her arm, waiting.

A quarter of an hour in, she flew a pass closer to the line and shook out the green ribbon.

One thousand meters. Prepare to fire.

Van’er didn’t know what a thousand meters looked like, exactly. He knew what the green signal meant, which was the same thing. He passed the order and his team ran through the sequence — angle adjusted to the third notch, powder charged, solid shell seated. Around him the other three teams did the same. He checked their work without looking like he was checking their work.

He had thought, after the wall — after the demonic beasts, after three Months of Demons and the final push when they’d held the line at the gate — that he’d become something approaching a fighter. But watching Iron Axe and Brian this afternoon had adjusted that estimate downward. Brian had led his group to position with something in his voice that sounded, Van’er realized with faint disgust, like eagerness. Iron Axe had simply looked at the road and waited, in the way that a stone waits: without any particular need for the waiting to end.

Van’er had sweated through his shirt by the time they reached position.

Even the Rodney brothers seemed steadier than him today. That thought sat in his chest like a coal.

“What are they doing?” Rodney asked, watching the column slow.

“Formation,” Cat’s Paw said. “Or something like it.”

“Waiting for their rear elements,” Jop said. His voice had a slight shake in it, but he was still talking, which Van’er thought was something. “Knights don’t fight alone. The Duke has at least a hundred — that alone means two hundred squires, plus serfs, plus the counts’ own retinues. And the mercenaries. They’ve tasted blood, all of them. They don’t blink when they kill.” He looked around at the team. “We’re two hundred seventy.”

Two hundred seventy, Van’er corrected inwardly. Because they were short on production — guns enough for two hundred seventy soldiers, the rest assigned to the artillery teams to handle ammunition. He had noticed earlier that the ammunition handlers were slower than his own team. The observation had made him feel obscurely better, which told him something about his state of mind that he didn’t want to examine too closely.

The mercenaries came forward first — motley in armor, loose in formation, moving in small clusters without any particular march discipline. The knights spread left and right, ceding the center to the mass of hired men. After another quarter of an hour, the allied forces had finished their arrangement and gone still.

And then a single rider came out toward them, white flag raised.

Van’er’s hand moved toward the signal command and stopped. He looked at the sky. Lightning wasn’t visible. The rider kept coming.

“Messenger,” Jop said quietly. “From the Duke. He’ll offer terms.”

“Not our business,” Rodney said, already crouched at the cannon’s sight line, aligning the barrel on the cluster of knights to the right. “Leader — the main force has moved outside our centerline. We need to adjust.”

They swung the cannon. The messenger arrived at Carter’s position and was escorted to the rear, and Van’er tracked his movement without thinking about it, knowing what was being said inside those walls, knowing Roland Wimbledon would look at the terms and decline. The question was not whether the first shot would be fired.

The question was whether he could hold his voice steady when he gave the order.

Lightning came in hard from the treeline, yellow flag snapping overhead.

Eight hundred meters. Target in range. Fire at will.

His team had already looked at him. All of them, at once — Rodney and Cat’s Paw and Jop and Nelson and the others, waiting for him to be the thing they needed him to be.

He took one breath. Let it out.

“Fire.”

Chapter 115 War for Border Town (Part 1)

When the enemy finally entered his field of vision, Van’er immediately noticed the heavily armed knights who were riding on huge horses, wearing bright and dazzling armor and slowly riding towards Border Town. It was usually the case that the rank of a knight was much higher than that of the common town’s people, and when he was suddenly confronted with about one hundred of these, he had to take some deep breaths to calm himself.

Van’er felt how his palms became sweaty, it was just like the time on the wall when he had to face the demonic beasts for the first time, but this time he faced creatures that were the same species as himself – the joined forces of Longsong Stronghold’s Nobility.

No, That’s wrong. He angrily spat out and threw his former thought aside, You think they’re the same as yourself? When have the nobles ever treated you as if you were of the same species as themselves? He asked himself mockingly.

The only goal of their trip is to snatch Border Town away from us and bring the Northern Slope Mine back under their control. More importantly, they even intend to drive His Royal Highness out of the western territory, as a member of the First Army I cannot simply allow this.

During yesterday’s pre-war lecture, His Royal Highness had made it clear that Timothy Wimbledon, the brother of His Royal Highness, had conspired against the throne and in the end even killed his own father King Wimbledon III for it. Originally these happenings between the royalty and aristocracy, hadn’t mattered that much to him – Is there any difference for me if the King was to change?

But now that Duke Ryan wanted to grasp this opportunity to take His Highness’s territory away, this he now found totally unacceptable!

When he thought about it, just how had his life been before His Highness had come to Border Town? If he was remembering correctly, the former Lord was actually a Count who had rarely shown himself. The acquisition of the furs was done by his personal guards who often used their weapons to lower the prices. And when the Months of the Demons arrived they would all flee to live in the slums of Longsong Stronghold and end up suffering during that whole time.

But today, under His Highness’ control the life in Border Town had become better and better, with changes being visible for everyone to see. Van’er thought, for example, when the miners had achieved a higher output they would also receive a higher payment. And even after His Highness put this black machine into the North Slope Mine, the additional output had still counted for the miner’s work. Whether it was when building the walls, or mining gravel everyone was paid on time. During this whole winter, there wasn’t even one person who had frozen or starved to death.

Of course, the biggest change was the implementation of the militia – no, now it’s called the First Army.

Having them guarding the town, we commoners don’t need to huddle together in these wooden sheds begging for others to give us food. If the Prince isn’t here any longer, would the Duke still allow for the First Army to keep on existing?

Van’er took another deep breath and wiped his palms against his clothes. No, he certainly would not allow it. The nobles of the stronghold don’t care for the lives of us commoners, it is exactly as His Highness had said before: Only an army composed of the commoners will be willing to fight for the lives of other commoners.

Van’er raised his head so that he could keep the left part of the sky inside his field of view, there in the distant he could see a small black dot circling around, when one was only taking a casual look, anyone would think it was actually just a large bird. But in truth, it was the artillery intelligence commander – Lightning, who was using the trees growing on both sides of the road as cover while constantly observing the enemy’s movements. When she flew back, Van’er also noticed that as long as she did not take the initiative to

fly over open areas, the people on the ground would only be able to see tree branches if they were to look upwards, so it was nearly impossible for them to detect that there was a witch that was flying over their heads.

After a quarter of an hour, Lightning flew closer to their frontal position while flashing a green ribbon.

This was signaling to them that the enemy had entered a range of 1000 meters and that they should prepare to start shooting. Van’er didn’t know how far the distance His Highness called “1000 meters” was, but when he saw the green signal, he just subconsciously followed the rules of the comprehensive exercise, giving the command to load the cannon and adjust the angle.

It didn’t take the four groups of gunners a long time to complete their tasks, the canon angle was adjusted to the third setting while the gunpowder and the solid artillery shell were also inserted into the cannon’s barrel.

He had thought that after he had stood on the wall and fought against the demonic beasts he could regard himself as an experienced fighter and also thought that he was talented, but today he came to discover that there was still a huge distance between himself, Iron Axe and Brian.

During the afternoon assembly, he’d had great problems trying to calm his heart. But these two men, when they led their groups to the appointed area, they not only looked as if there was nothing special about today, no, he could even hear from Brian’s voice just how eager he was to fight. But he himself until now was unable to calm himself. With a bit of shame in his heart, he had to acknowledge that even the Rodney brothers seemed to be acting better than his own performance. This thought made Van’er feel very depressed.

He nervously licked his lips and checked Lightning’s position once again.

But at this moment, the enemy’s movement slowed down by a lot.

“What are they doing?” Rodney asked.

“That’s currently unknown,” Cat’ s Paw answered. “For me, it seems like they are adjusting their formation? But they still look a little chaotic.”

“They are waiting for the other troops,” explained Jop with a slightly trembling voice, “It’s impossible for knights to fight alone, they always need a large number of people to follow them.“

“How do you know all this?” Nelson wasn’t convinced.

“I have already seen it! A knight will always take along at least two squires, while there will be another dozen serfs who have to handle their foraging,” he began to count it off on his fingers, “First, there is the Duke, as the Lord of Longsong Stronghold, he has at least a hundred knights, right? Then there is the light cavalry, who are at least three hundred people. Plus, the counts and viscounts who have their own territory… Many more! And don’t forget the mercenaries, they have all already tasted blood themselves, so they won’t even blink as they kill you! They will do anything for money! While we only have three hundred people.”

Actually, less than three hundred people, Van’er corrected in his mind. We only have two hundred and seventy soldiers armed with weapons, according to His Highness’s explanation it is because we lack in the area of production capacity. Now those who did not have guns of their own were sent to the artillery teams, they were to handle preparing the ammunition for the four cannons. When Van’er discovered that they were a lot slower than his own group, he also felt a lot better.

“The mercenary, they’re coming!” Jop cried out.

Van’er looked towards the enemy, there he could see a group with various kinds of armors taking the front in their battle formation, they did not ride, nor did they march in line, they just walked in small groups of twos or threes to the middle of the field. While the knights scattered to both sides, it seemed as they were giving up their position for the mercenaries. After a quarter of an hour, the Duke’s allied forces were finally ready.

At this time, a knight came riding out of the enemy’s camp into the direction of Border Town. Van’er became so nervous he almost gave the command to fire.

What should I do? Van’er looked once more at the sky, but he was still unable to discover Lightning, while the enemy was constantly coming closer while waving a white flag.

“He is the messenger sent by the Duke,” Jop muttered, “He should be coming over, trying to persuade the Prince.”

“It’s none of our business,” Rodney squatted down behind the canon and aligned his line of sight with the centerline of the barrel. “Leader, we need to adjust the canon, most of the knights have left the impact zone.”

During their previous practice with live ammunition, they were repeatedly taught, that the canon attack range was represented by the centerline of the barrel, so if they wanted to hit their target, they had to make sure that the target overlapped with the barrel’s centerline. So the five men began at the same time to turn around the canon until the canon once more pointed in the direction of the knights.

The messenger who had come in alone was then escorted by Carter to the back of their defense line, but Van’er knew that this move of the Duke was just a waste of time, the Prince would never agree to surrender.

Suddenly, Lighting abruptly flew in the direction of the defensive line, wildly waving a yellow flag in her hands.

The yellow signal meant that the opponent had entered the 800m range, at this distance, they had the chance to hit the target with a solid projectile. It also meant, that as long as the gunner captain didn’t prohibition firing, the gunner teams could fire at will.

His other team members also noticed the signal, so they all looked into his direction, and after he nodded once he took a deep breath then shouted, “Fire!”