[b]Chapter 15: Stubborn assault[/b]

The enemy ranks were bustling with activity, whatever they had been doing the past day it now seemed to reach its culmination. Leofric stiffled a yawn with a palm and looked across the fields with a tired expression. After Leofric's men had destroyed the siege weapons the enemy had learned from their mistake and now guarded their new project closely. It had ruled out any further lightning strikes from horseback and Leofric realised that they could do very little else now except wait for the next major assault. As he expected they would, the Raylians had harassed the walls every few hours with their own archers, and the defenders had answered, resulting in a bitter exchange of projectiles leaving casaulties on both sides.

Leofric drummed his palms idly against the wall and turned his head sideways. Along the wall a few guardsmen still kept watch while the rest sat slouched against the wall to get whatever spare minutes of sleep they could. They weren't professional soldiers, but Leofric was proud of them all the same. They had performed admirably during the enemy's first attack and never faltered under the Raylians' superior numbers. If they made it out of this alive he'd consider recruiting them into the army. He gazed back over the fields and could see the enemy starting to form up in ranks. He turned to a guardsman standing nearby with a horn in his hand and gave him a nod. The guardsman raised the horn to his lips and soon three short horn-blasts sounded across the town and nearby land. The resting guardsmen flung up on unsteady feet and gripped their bows tight. Not long after that the vast host on the opposite end of the fields began to advance. After their devastating loss in the first strike they had switched up their tactics and their footmen had formed up into a massive turtle formation with their kite shields protecting their front, flanks and heads.
Regardless, Leofric had ordered the guardsmen to open fire once the enemy came within range. There was always a chance a few arrows would slip in between the gaps in the shields, and it gave the Raylians something to be nervous over. A few enemy soldiers fell as a lucky arrow found its target, but it did not budge their advance. Their losses picked up as they reached the first set of trenches, but this time they crossed or circumvented them without too much struggle.

Leofric watched silently as the enemy host came closer to the walls. Their advance was stopped briefly by the next set of spiked trenches and their struggle across took another toll of a few dozen men, but enough of them eventually made it across and reformed in well-drilled discipline. The gaps formed in their ranks while they worked their way past the trenches caused Leofric to catch a brief glance at their next plan of action, several ladders seen carried by men, protected by their shield-bearing comrades around them. He saw men clad in suits of plate armor take point and clear a path through the caltrops field, though a handful of Raylians still fell victim to the dreaded devices, collapsing down with cries of agony. Arrows begun to fly back at the defenders from inside the mass of enemies, and those that did not fly too high pelleted against the wall and bounced off, but it was enough to throw a spanner in the works and briefly interrupt the defenders' volleys.

The Raylians weren't far from the walls now. The first rank broke off and stormed ahead, hugging in against the wooden pallisades with their shields raised above their heads. Behind them came the ladder-bearers. The guardsmen on the walls frantically tried to stop their advance by aiming for the carriers, but another Raylian soldier simply took the place of a fallen as they continued to rush for the walls. Leofric twisted on the spot and cupped a hand around his mouth to shout. "Tar! Fire! Aim for the ladders!"

Several defenders quickly dropped their bows and ducked down behind the walls and shortly after appeared again with pots of tar and firebombs in their hands. They threw them down at the attackers, specifically the men carrying the ladders, and fiery explosions popped off all along the Raylian ranks. A few ladders were put out of commission and the explosions had created a moment of chaos amongst the enemy while they tried to re-organize themselves or put out the fires engulfing their unfortunate comrades. But a few made it through and had raised the ladders up the wall, and Raylian soldiers were already climbing up. A ladder was successfully pushed off, but one was all they managed. The defending guardsmen that tried to push away the ladders were promptly shot down by enemy archers, somewhere outside the walls.

Leofric frowned and stepped down from his overlook. They had depleted what meagre arsenal Lowburg had at its disposal. Now they had to defend the town the old fashioned way. He gripped his sword and released it from the scabbard, but he was abruptly stopped in his track by another three horn-blasts, coming from the northern end of town. He saw one of his grey-clad soldiers come running down a street and he stopped below the wall to catch his breath before hollering up at the king. 

"They're attacking the gate! There's hundreds of them!"