[b]Chapter 11: The Nature of Man[/b]

[i]"To your stations! To your stations!"[/i]

The order was repeated all along the wall and the town guard rushed into their positions. They were three hundred strong, all armed with longbows - a weapon the Lowburg guardsmen excelled with in marksmanship. A hundred of the king's own men had been assigned to guard the gate while Leofric and his knights took to the wooden walls. A rider had arrived mere moments ago informing them that the Raylian host would arrive within half an hour, and there was little time to waste.

Leofric leered up and down the wall, inspecting the guardsmen formed up in meticulous with their longbows resting against their left shoulders, all of them were gazing out over the fields. Night had begun to fall, and even though they were likely to fight in the dark, the guardsmen were well versed in the distance of their bows, and the enemy would carry torches with them to light their advance lest they were mad. Leofric had ordered torches of his own to be lit up along the wall in a deliberate attempt to draw the enemy's attention solely upon the town - that way they were less likely to notice the sharpened stakes dug down into the trenches in the fields before it was too late. Where the trenches ended they had spread out thousands of small, iron caltrops that were meant to delay an enemy advance against the walls from the sides.

Having seen his fair share of battles and siege warfare, Leofric anticipated the Raylian army would utilize their standard approach in attacking a fortified location that was severely outnumbered by the besieging force. They would place their trebuchets at the rear, guarded only by a handful of men while the rest of their force advanced fifty or so yards, ready to storm the walls as soon they had unleashed a devastating bombardment to soften up their enemy. Lowburg was going to be no different. Leofric knew he did not have enough men to stop the artillery rain itself, but he could prevent the weapons from being used further on. But in order to do that Lowburg had to suffer first.

The sound of marching boots now reached their ears and the illuminations of light-sources revealed the silhouettes of Raylian soldiers marching in columns. In the far distance their enemy was emerging, and as Leofric expected they took to the open fields to the south, after all, it was the only place where they could position their host. Some of the guardsmen shifted nervously on their spot but none made any effort to desert their post in fear. Leofric glanced out to the east and west from his elevation on the walls, but so far there had been no echoing alarms sounding their way. He nodded to himself. They still had a chance.

The defenders watched as the Raylians started to assemble their trebuchets with an unnerving speed and the guardsmen begun to mutter incoherently with one another. Soon they were about to have hell rain over them, and they could do nothing but weather the storm. Leofric cast another glance into the darkness to the far left and right of the Raylian force and he clenched his teeth together, realising that if his plan failed they would be done for, unless Sir Arthur and the Northlands army made a timely arrival. But he knew better.

Leofric turned his attention back to the enemy army as one of the men from the walls called out. Additional fires were ignited amongst the Raylians in a straight line, and all too quickly. It did not take long for any man upon the Lowburg walls to realise that they were setting ablaze the flammable shell wrapped around the stone boulders used by their trebuchets.

"It's time to duck, gentlemen." Leofric spoke up and shifted on his spot, edging closer to the wall and readied himself to dive down behind cover in  case one of the rocks would fall short. Men along the wall prepared themselves too, some had already huddled down and were narrowing their eyes over the edge. Leofric could hear a few guards cursing under their breath and silently taunting the enemy, they waited for the initial volley - it was the worst one. After that it didn't get easier, but the insufferable wait would be gone.


"Get down!" a voice cried out from the wall and almost in sync the defenders huddled down behind the staunch wooden palisade. The Raylian trebuchets set into motion and almost all at once they flung up their beams up and unleashed their volley of fireballs. The boulders came roaring down upon Lowburg in various calibrations, some landed just short of the wall, others crashed into the palisades and set splinters flying, and some flew over the walls and crashed into the buildings beyond, destroying towers and rooftops and setting aflame anything that was flammable. Leofric feared for the few people that remained in town, and all he could hope for was that they had found shelter in time.

One of Leofric's knights turned on his heels and bellowed below for the fires to be put out. A dozen men, townfolks that had been picked for the task, sprung to life and grabbed their buckets, rushing off to the nearest well. They filled them with water and dispered into the streets in a gallant effort to combat the flames, but their struggle only increased as another volley flew in from over the walls, and then another, causing even more destruction to the town. Eventually the bombardment stopped, and the men on the walls slowly rose up to their feet. Only a handful had been injured by splinter. Leofric dusted off his chestplate and narrowed his eyes towards the Raylians who had begun their march forward, offering no respite to the defenders, but as Leofric had suspected they left their siege weaponry behind under a skeleton crew guard. He just had to let their army get closer before he set his countermeasure into effect.

He made a gesture with his hand, one that was picked up by a guard officer.

"Knock arrows! Prepare to rain death upon those bastards!" the officer yelled from the top of his lungs, and the guardsmen did as they were ordered. They ignited their arrows from the braziers positioned along various locations on the wall and stood ready. The Raylians were getting closer, and the sound of agonizing screams rung out into the air as the first attackers fell into the trenches and penetrated themselves on the stakes. Leofric gestured with his hand again, the officer bellowed. "Loose!"

The guards released their volley, the swarm of three hundred burning projectiles disappeared into the enemy host, adding to their disorganized panic and painful screams of the injured. They were ordered to keep up their fire, mowing down the Raylians as they tried to make their way across the first set of trenches with little success, but their numbers appeared near endless in the dark. A few hundred dead would not make much of a difference for the defenders.

Leofric watched the carnage with content, nodding to himself. Every second the Raylians were delayed by obstacles, the better. His gaze falls back upon the siege weaponry in the distance and the took a deep breath. "Now.", he uttered, and one of his knights grabbed a nearby torch and started to wave it sideways over his head. On the far flanks of the Raylian trebuchets hundreds of small fires were lit, at least two hundred on both sides. Leofric watched as his mounted force charged the enemy weapons from both sides with their torches, they quickly closed the distance and few Raylian guards that were assigned to protect them fled in panic. The two mounted troops then completed their pincer, riding past one another and throwing their burning torches over the trebuchets that soon caught fire. By the time anyone tried to get back and douse them it would be too late, the damage would be done. One by one the torches piled up around the siege weaponry, and the riders disappeared into the darkness again, revealed only by the thundering hooves. Leofric was pleased, they had succesfully wiped out their artillery. He turned back his attention to the killing fields.

Now they just had the army itself to contend with...