Siege

The people of Taiwei Four had not been kept waiting long. Once the Valantians had established their siege camp, they began mustering their troops. Valantis's slave army was trained from child captives purchased from various places. From childhood, they were taught by slave masters to wield weapons and indoctrinated to obey their masters' will no matter what.

These slaves usually farmed and labored, but in wartime they took up weapons as Valantis's vanguard. Whenever there were too many slave soldiers, Valantis sold some to other city-states, easing the burden while making a profit. These slaves had been castrated from childhood to suppress their desires. Their lives were numb and miserable; they generally did not live past forty, dying either on the battlefield or amid grueling labor.

The slaves had already donned sleeveless leather armor, short swords hanging from their waists and black round shields in their hands. Several thousand gathered together, forming a dark, oppressive mass.

The slave soldiers slowly wheeled five catapults forward from the rear. The front-rank troops carried scaling ladders while raising shields above their heads.

Since the enemy was attacking from only one direction this time, Bamba had already had the villagers take shelter on the western side of the castle. That way, the stones and arrows that came flying in later would not harm them.

The horns sounded, and the enemy army began moving forward, gradually picking up speed. The slave soldiers in the foremost ranks ran swiftly with their scaling ladders. Once they entered bow range, the archers on both sides began exchanging fire. The defenders atop the walls were arranged in three ranks: the first held shield-spears to guard the battlements, while the two ranks of archers behind them fired in turns under the cover of the front rank's shields.

Dense volleys of arrows crossed through the air. The defenders still held a decisive advantage in such conditions. Aside from a few unlucky men whose heads were struck through gaps while shooting, nearly every arrow was blocked by shields and battlements.

The defenders had greater range and larger targets. Many Valantian slave soldiers were wounded by arrows falling from above. Their round shields offered limited protection, and their bare arms exposed by sleeveless leather armor were easily struck. Yet these slave soldiers seemed unable to feel pain. Even when their arms were slashed open in bloody gashes, they did not waver.

After more than a dozen exchanges of arrow volleys, the Valantians had clearly suffered more casualties than Taiwei Four's defenders. But the slave soldiers had finally carried their scaling ladders to the foot of the walls. With their backs against the wall, they slowly raised the ladders and set them against the battlements, while more than a dozen soldiers below held the lower sections firmly in place, preventing the defenders from overturning them.

The arrow volleys continued. The slave soldiers raised shields over their heads with one hand and gripped the ladders with the other as they climbed. The defending archers leaned out through the battlements and fired downward. Although most arrows were blocked by shields, several poorly protected slave soldiers were still shot dead and fell.

The defending infantry also thrust downward again and again with their long spears. Several slave soldiers who had just reached the top were forcibly shoved back down with shields before their hands could even touch the battlements.

As the scaling ladders reached the battlements, the battering ram moved out as well. A group of soldiers gathered around it and slowly pushed it out from the formation. Rexa immediately spotted the ram and hurriedly called for the archers to focus their fire there. But the slave soldiers' defenses were excellent; most arrows were blocked by shields, and whenever one man was shot down, nearby soldiers immediately took his place.

Rexa frowned and ordered the defenders above the gate to prepare hot oil, Fire Arrows, and stones. Taiwei Four's gate was reinforced with iron, so it was not afraid of fire, but the wooden ram of the enemy's siege engine was another matter.

The battering ram was slowly pushed into position. The nearby slave soldiers shouted slogans as they heaved the ram forward and began striking the gate. But after just one blow, hot oil was poured down from the walls onto them. The slave soldiers screamed and rolled across the ground. Being drenched in scalding oil was bad enough, not to mention the Fire Arrows that came down immediately afterward. The battering ram burst into flames at once, and the soldiers nearby who had been splashed with oil began burning as well.

Engulfed in flames from head to toe, they screamed and rolled on the ground. But oil-fed flames were not so easily extinguished. In the end, they could only become charred corpses, flesh and armor fused together.

While the defenders dealt with the battering ram, Valantis's catapults began their attack. Most of the stones struck the walls, while a small number flew into the city and hit the castle or the open ground within. But Taiwei Four's walls and castle were sturdy. The stones could only send fragments flying and could not inflict much damage. Perhaps if they fired catapults without rest for a year, they might break the walls.

But even if they could not shake the walls, the vibrations caused by stones striking the battlements still knocked down several unprepared defenders. Valantis's slave soldiers seized the chance to climb onto the wall.

Another stone flew precisely through a gap in the battlements and struck the top of the wall. A soldier holding a shield and thrusting downward with his spear was blasted backward, falling below the wall and becoming an unrecognizable heap.

More and more enemy soldiers climbed onto the wall under the cover of catapult fire and arrow volleys. Close-quarters fighting began. Several slave soldiers had climbed up near Ronan as well. Seeing them, Ronan put all his strength into hurling his spear like a javelin. It pierced straight through an enemy who had just climbed onto the wall. The tremendous force even sent him flying back more than a meter before he crashed into another soldier.

Ronan drew the two-handed sword resting against the battlements and swung it down with all his strength, driving a shield-raising soldier to his knees. Ronan then lashed out with a fierce kick, his hard iron boot smashing into the man's face and breaking his nose. The soldier fell backward with his knees still on the ground, and Ronan pressed the attack, driving his greatsword down through the man's neck.

Then Ronan gripped the blade in reverse and spun around with a brutal swing. The pommel's counterweight slammed into the shield of a soldier who had just climbed over the battlements and had not yet found his footing. It dented the shield and sent the soldier crashing from the wall.

He gripped the blade with both hands to block an enemy's descending short sword, then drove him forward hard against the wall. As the man bounced back after his back struck the stone, Ronan thrust the sharp crossguard into a gap in his helmet, stabbing through his eye and piercing his brain.

At that moment, another enemy who had just climbed up slashed Ronan fiercely across the back with a short sword. But it left only a scratch and a few sparks on his heavy plate armor. Ronan roared, wrenched free his greatsword's crossguard, gripped the blade with both hands, turned, and thrust viciously. The blade drove straight into the slave soldier's abdomen. Ronan's arm muscles bulged as he heaved the man into the air, then hurled him down from the wall.