The Barbarians had actually prepared Armored Troops for taking the walls, but unfortunately for them, the siege ladders meant to carry those troops up the walls had been destroyed by the fortress's Catapult units during the march.
The Barbarian Catapults originally meant to cover those siege ladders had also failed to serve any purpose. They had been destroyed by the fortress's Catapult units even earlier. Although the Barbarian Armored Troops had not suffered many casualties, they lacked any means of climbing the walls.
Without heavily equipped units capable of contending with the fortress defenders' Heavy Infantry, the Barbarian forces could reach the walls, but they simply could not hold their ground there.
Yet Heshima still refused to give up. He believed they still had a chance to take the fortress. After all, the fortress did not have many troops at the moment.
Just by observing the battle, he could see how desperately short of manpower the fortress defenders were. Aside from the Heavy Infantry counterattacking the Barbarian troops who had climbed the walls, the defenders had virtually no other mobile forces.
Thus, the Barbarian elite gathered once more and launched relentless assaults on the walls. Heshima did not care about the sacrifices. As long as they could get onto the walls, any level of casualties was acceptable.
For a time, severed limbs and broken bodies littered both the foot of the walls and their crest. Countless Barbarian soldiers fell beneath the walls as both sides fought savagely above and below them. The fortress defenders refused to yield, while the Barbarian warriors attacked desperately, each side determined to crush the other's momentum.
Amid this battle, the Barbarian Ranger Cavalry suddenly spotted a sizable force approaching from the fortress's flank and rear.
By the scouts' estimate, this force numbered several thousand men.