Twin columns of dark grey smoke rose from either side of the city wall. The twin concussions that followed were deep and physical — not merely heard but felt through the floorboards of the lookout tower, a shudder climbing up through the soles of Wilion’s boots. Beneath the wall, his soldiers erupted into cheers.
He let them have it. The first round always did this.
But Wilion had already looked past the sound to the evidence: the mud eruptions in the field, scattered wide and off-center, neither shot finding the enemy’s position. Worse, they had landed well beyond the calculated range from yesterday’s practice, the stone balls bounding up on impact and rolling forward to carve a shallow groove thirty feet long through the churned earth. A breezy day. He had known this going in — the adjustment shots were planned — but watching the actual misses still tightened something in his chest.
He lowered the telescope.
The gap between his huge rock cannon and Roland’s culverins was not a matter of degree. It was a matter of kind. The culverins were finer instruments in every dimension: lighter, more accurate, quicker to load. The flintlock advantage over a conventional firearm was nothing compared to this. And the great rock cannon’s central defect — its immovability — made every other comparison feel redundant.
The barrel alone had consumed every scrap of bronze in Valencia. They had even pulled down the bell tower to melt the ancient bell and reinforce the barrel walls against bursting. The resulting tube was as thick as a man’s forearm and so heavy that no wagon axle had survived under it; they had poured the foundations of a dedicated firing platform instead, anchored it in stone, and rigged a rope-and-pulley system for angle adjustments. Fifteen minutes to reload. A spherical granite shot that shattered rather than penetrated.
And even when he had experimented with snow powder charges — fragments packed into iron casings — the results were inconsistent. The iron work was slow. The failure rate was too high. Wilion had no answer for the question of where Roland’s foundries found their materials in such quantity.
So his strategy had never been to outgun the prince’s army. His strategy was simpler: do not let them use the guns.
Force them close. Fill the field with mud. Make the terrain the weapon. The huge rock cannon, at its effective range, could still hit a massed formation. He had believed that.
Roland’s army had halted after the first salvo. They were retreating, he saw — falling back to a distance of roughly a hundred paces beyond where the stone balls had landed. Some disorder there. Some hesitation. Good.
“What are they doing?” Galina asked.
Wilion raised the telescope again. Perhaps a hundred men, their packs set down in the field, had begun digging. Not entrenchments — the excavations were too small for that, each pit barely large enough for two people to stand in. They were creating platforms. Cleared ground. Space for something.
“Regrouping, I’d say,” offered one of the viscounts at his shoulder. “The rumor is that Wimbledon disbanded his knights entirely and rebuilt around common farmers. His previous victories came from firearms, and now that we’ve brought him to ground — turned the earth to mud, my lord, a masterstroke — he must be hesitating. An army of farmhands won’t assault a prepared position.”
“Our revenues have fallen sharply regardless,” said another man from further down the railing. “Half the workshops shut. Half the squires fled before the Month of Demons even ended. Perhaps negotiating a truce—”
“Win the equal footing first,” the first cut in. “Then negotiate.”
“Enough.” Wilion didn’t raise his voice, but something in the word made the space around him go still. “The next man who suggests surrender or truce will spend tonight below with the common prisoners. I will not bend to a kingslayer. If any of you would rather sacrifice your titles and betray His Majesty Timothy, say so now and I’ll arrange the accommodation personally.”
The parapet fell quiet.
He kept his eyes on the field.
Valencia had given everything for this. Two years of preparation — the workshops redirected, the roads flooded, the bell tower stripped. The entire feudal calculus of the Eastern Region turned toward a single defensive pivot point. He had done this not from stubbornness but from a clear reading of the stakes. Roland was not simply a competing prince. He was the end of the system itself: a man who intended to dismantle the entire structure of noble obligation and replace it with something no one had a name for yet. That threat was worth defending against with everything Valencia possessed.
And if Wilion held here — if he made Roland bleed enough — the other lords would reconsider. The fence-sitters would choose. Timothy’s cause would find its voice again.
“The rock cannons are loaded, my lord,” a servant reported.
“Are we firing again?” Galina asked.
Wilion hesitated. In the field, those hundred men were still working, still assembling something from the long green barrels they had unshouldered. The range was wrong for the cannon without an adjustment shot. “Hold. The wind hasn’t changed and we haven’t corrected. Snow powder might close the distance but the risk of a burst—”
He stopped.
Through the telescope he watched them finish. Each position — roughly a dozen of them scattered across the cleared ground — held a single long tube mounted on a folded tripod, the base fitted with a concave iron plate that cradled the barrel at its angle. Additional rods braced the assembly. Every component had been carried separately on someone’s back, and it had taken them less than fifteen minutes to assemble the entire battery from parts.
He had never seen anything like it. The engineering was — he struggled for the word. Ingenious was insufficient.
Then one of the crews dropped something into the barrel. A spindle-shaped canister, held upright and released. A puff of white smoke, gentle and small, almost nothing.
Wilion was still processing the image when a dozen fireballs erupted along both sides of the city wall.
The sound arrived a heartbeat later — not a single report but a rolling sequence of detonations, one into the next, the air vibrating with each. The explosions cratered the inner approaches and blew a swath of the oil basins over, scattering burning liquid across the stone. The structures nearest the wall — already cleared and trapped, as planned — caught at once. The nobles on the tower scrambled back.
Wilion stood still, the telescope still in his hand.
That is a cannon.
The thought formed slowly, like a crack working through stone. He had heard the descriptions of Roland’s artillery. Two varieties, portable and naval-scale, neither light enough for foot soldiers to carry. That was the intelligence. That was what everyone had confirmed. A weapon that required wagons at minimum, draft animals, roads capable of bearing the weight.
What he had just watched a hundred ordinary men assemble from their own backpacks in less than a quarter-hour could not be a cannon. The barrel was too thin. The walls couldn’t be thick enough to contain the powder charge. By every principle of metallurgy Wilion understood, those tubes should have burst on the first shot.
It doesn’t make any sense.
“Replace the granite with half a powder bag,” he said. He had already turned and found his servant. “Fire as soon as you’re loaded. Ten gold royals for every man you bring down.”
“Half a bag, my lord?” The servant’s voice was careful. “That could destroy the—”
Wilion had the man’s collar before he’d finished the sentence. “If we let them hammer this wall without answering, the rock cannon is already useless. Move.”
The servant ran.
From the field, another drift of white smoke rose from the assembled battery. Wilion heard it before he saw it — a high, thin whistle, almost melodic, like arrows moving fast through cold air.
The fireballs hit the top of the wall.
The heat came in a wave. Bonfires toppled. The oil basin nearest the parapet caught and spread in a sheet. Stone that had been cold all morning was suddenly radiating. The soldiers on the wall — those still standing — were silhouettes against the light.
Wilion watched the wall burn.
Thirty seconds. They had reloaded in thirty seconds.
Translator: TransN Editor: Meh
A thick tendril of dark gray smoke rose from either side of the city wall, accompanied by two huge booms that shook the entire floor of the lookout tower. After the loud noise subsided, a gale of cheer came from the bottom of the wall. Apparently, their first strike significantly boosted their soldiers’ spirits.
But Wilion knew that was all that the first round of firing could make.
Judging from the locations of mud splash in the field moments later, he knew he had missed the target. Neither of them had hit the enemies, but they actually landed pretty far away from the default landing spot set in the previous exercise. The shell bounced up after its landing and rolled over for a few meters, leaving a ten-meter shallow groove in the muddy battlefield.
As it was a breezy day today, he had to have a few trial shots before he could accurately hit the target with the huge rock cannon.
Wilion knew very well that the culverin in Roland’s army was way better than Valencia’s cannon, although the latter cost a ton. The gap between them was even more unbridgeable than that between the flintlocks.
The biggest defect of the huge rock cannon was its non-portability.
The cannon barrel had cost all the bronze wares they could find in the city, and they even melted the ancient bell on the bell tower to prevent the cannon from exploding. After numerous experiments and tests, they forged a cannon with a barrel wall as thick as a man’s arm, so heavy that no wagon could support its overwhelming weight. They had no choice but to build a specific turret to place the cannon. A strong rope was used to control and adjust its
firing angle and direction, and it took them at least 15 minutes to load the weapon.
What was worse was that the spherical shell made of granite did not create as much as damage as Roland’s cannon had done when he had attacked the king’s city. Wilion had tried shells filled with snow powder, but their performance fluctuated. As the outer part of the shell was made of iron, the production rate was low as well. He wondered where Roland found so many materials.
So the Duke had decided, from the beginning, to do their best to prevent his enemies using cannons.
He believed that as long as they forced the enemies to approach the city, his cannon would eventually manage to hit them.
Roland’s army halted after their first firing, appearing to be shocked by Wilion’s expected attack. They started to retreat until they were about 100 paces away from the shell’s landing spot.
“What’re they doing?” Galina asked, puzzled.
Wilion raised the telescope, through which he saw the enemies, about 100 men, who had taken their equipment off their backs and started to dig in the ground. It seemed they intended to create an empty space in the field.
“I guess they must be afraid and plan to reorganize the troops to have a prolonged battle.”A viscount who watched the battle at the lookout tower with them said, “It’s rumored that Roland Wimbledon abandoned all the knights and has formed an army of uncivilized farmers. He did not suffer any setbacks in the previous wars because of his fine firearms. But now he must be very hesitant to launch an attack at our defensive line. You turned soil into mud. What a nice move, my lord.”
“But our incomes have reduced drastically, and we lost many squires as well,” another man said, frowning. “Many people fled in the Months of Demons of this year, abandoning half the workshops in the city. I suggest it’d be better to negotiate a truce with Roland Wimbledon.”
“We have to win an equal position before jumping into a negotiation. Let’s just win another battle first.”
“Shut up, all of you,” Wilion said agitatedly. “I’ll never bend to the kingslayer. If you would like to sacrifice your noble titles and betray King Timothy, I’ll lock you up with the nasty mob in the cellar first.”
That silenced everyone instantly.
Such a great price had Valencia paid to prepare for this battle. The former trade center had not only converted to a stronghold, but Duke Wilion had also bent his rules as well. However, in his opinion, all the sacrifices would pay off. If Prince Roland had decided to form an alliance with nobles to rule Graycastle in the first place, he would have been defeated long before. In fact, the prince intended to overthrow the entire feudal system and have full control over the kingdom, a monstrous decision that would outrage the whole high class. This bold move actually gave him a perfect reason to resist.
If he could thwart Roland’s army this time, the other nobles would change their minds and support him in keeping in charge of the Eastern Region. Meanwhile, more protesters would emerge in Graycastle. He would say that it was not only a battle for King Timothy but also a defense for the feudal system.
“Huge rock cannons are loaded, my lord,” a servant reported.
“Are we going to keep firing?” Galina asked.
“No, hang on… it was hard for our cannon to hit the enemies now unless we add snow powder.” Willian shook his head. Now he regretted his proactive strategy a little. He had thought that an early firing would help to finish the adjustment earlier, but he did not expect the enemy to halt after seeing their first firing. Now the sight of the enemies busy in mud gave him a disturbing feeling.
The 100 men, dividing into a dozen teams, shoveled and created an empty space that could merely accommodate two people. It was unlikely that it was
prepared for camping. After the cleaning, they started to fiddle with those green long barrels.
Through the telescope, Wilion could spy the enemy’s every movement. It seemed that the long barrel was only a component supported by a tripod beneath it and was padded with a concave iron plate at the bottom. Other than that, a few sticks were strangely attached to the barrel. All the parts were separately carried by a different person, but it only took those men less than 15 minutes to assemble all of the components. How ingenious the design was!
However, the Duke almost could not believe his eyes as he saw what happened next.
A spindle-shaped can was put into the barrel before a puff of white smoke ejected out of the mouth of the barrel.
As the nobles were wondering what that thing was, all of a sudden, a dozen dark red fireballs blasted on either side of the city wall, followed by a series of thunderous booms.
As the houses close to the inner side of the city wall had been replaced with all kinds of traps and obstacles, the explosions did not cause much damage, but the mighty scene gave Wilion an ineffable shock.
At that moment, there was only one voice left in his mind.
“That is a cannon? Really?”
How can it be?
The Duke had not witnessed Roland’s cannon troop, but he had heard so much of it. The cannons they equipped could categorized into two types based on their lengths: one portable type that could be placed on a wagon, and the other must be transported by boat. Nither was, however, light enough to be carried by ordinary men.
It took all the craftsmen and materials in Valencia, and two years to forge the two cannons that barely worked. Wilion admitted that it all attributed to the lack of techniques and experience, but he believed that the principle they had applied was no different from Roland’s. He was confident that with a few more years, his craftsmen would surely be able to make similar weapons.
But what happened in front of him totally blew his mind.
How could such barrels with such thin tubes bear the enormous pressure generated by the explosion of snow powder?
“It doesn’t make any sense!”
“Replace the rock shell with half a bag of snow powder!” Duke turned around and growled to his servant. “Fire right after you finish loading. 10 gold royals for one man you shoot down.”
The servant was a little uncertain. “Half a bag? My lord, that may destroy the cannon…”
“If we let them strike our wall without any defense, the huge rock cannon will be useless!” Wilion grabbed the servant’s collar and said, “Do as I say! Now!”
That was when another cloud of white smoke rose from where the enemies were stationed.
“How could they fire again within no more than 30 seconds?”
This time, Wilion heard a soft buzzing, like birds’ singing or the whistling sound when arrows pierced the air.
“Whew——”
The next moment, several blazing fireballs soared on the top of the wall. Scalding heatwaves spread and knocked down the bonfires and the oil basin. Within a blink, the wall was ablaze.