Night Battle to Seize the City (II)

Victor led his team from the temporary encampment to the Woven Fern Territory. This time, Victor did not bring all the horses; each person had one horse. Victor and the other forty-nine people led packhorses, while the others led warhorses. Alex arranged for trusted men from the trading post to stay at the encampment to guard the horses.

After walking two kilometers along the land route, Victor arrived at the place where he had gone into the water during the day, which was the route he had chosen for his night raid.

Victor initially planned to enter the Woven Fern Territory via the field paths, but the land was very flat, mostly plains, with many checkpoints along the main road and farms along the way. The farms all had dogs, making it difficult to avoid these places and easy to be spotted.

Unexpectedly, there was always a way out. Victor noticed the river embankments on both sides, which proved that at least the former Baron of Woven Fern had built them. Sure enough, he walked along the bank into the river. Near the bank, the riverbed had only a shallow layer of sand, with rocks underneath.

These are all part of the river embankment built by the former Baron of Woven Fern. The hard stones extend from the riverbank to about three meters into the river. The slope of this stone embankment is very gentle, and people leading horses on it don't have to worry about slipping if they are careful.

Victor led the way into the river; he was to guide the way, and all the men and women would follow his direction so that no one would stray from the path.

At first, the horses resisted entering the river, but Victor and his men had already covered all the horses' hooves and legs with thick fur, so the horses did not feel the coolness of the river water and stopped struggling.

The entire group traveled along the Great Fish River. Before setting off, Victor and Alex emphasized the discipline of this operation. Everyone had their mouths gagged with burlap, and the horses in the group had wooden sticks in their mouths. The only sound was the splashing of water, and it was very quiet.

As Victor advanced, he kept his attention on the troops behind him, very satisfied with their performance. They truly lived up to their reputation as the elite of Iron Birch Territory. If combat skills represent an army's fighting ability, then such strict discipline represents its execution ability. The combination of both definitely demonstrated the strength of this force, Victor felt even more confident about the battle to come.

The group trekked across the river for more than an hour before finally reaching the vicinity of the dock. Led by Victor, they went ashore twice to rest and adjust their condition, ensuring that the wooden sticks around the horses' mouths and the fur covering their limbs did not come loose.

Victor led his team ashore from the side of the dock. The dock was quiet at this time, with only a few boats moored there and people resting in the houses along the dock.

Victor, along with a dozen or so warriors clad in leather armor and armed with longswords and short bows, left the group and approached the houses.

When they were ten meters away from the houses, Victor waved his hand, and everyone approached the houses in groups of three. One person in each group was armed with a short bow and light arrows and approached the window, while the other two moved to the doorway with swords.

Victor led the two to the outermost house. He took out a short bow and walked to the window of the house. After finding a suitable angle to see the bed inside, Victor turned his attention to the other teams.

After all the groups had reached their designated positions, Victor extended his left hand and made a downward waving motion. Then, he raised his short bow with his right hand, held three light arrows between his little finger and ring finger with his left hand, nocked the arrows with his index and middle fingers, aimed at the bed, drew the bow fully, and fired a four-arrow volley after aiming at the bed.

At this moment, the archers from the other groups also fired their arrows, but the sound was very faint, and they could not be noticed unless they listened carefully. All that could be heard was the "thud" of the arrows hitting the wooden planks and flesh.

Then, the two soldiers at the door pushed the door open and rushed into the room. The people inside, who had just woken up from their sleep, were killed one by one by the soldiers who rushed into the room.

A few low screams and chopping sounds were heard. The birds on the dock railings were disturbed from their sweet dreams and flapped their wings to fly away from the dock. A few minutes later, the entire dock fell silent again.

A soldier approached Victor and whispered, "Sir, there were thirteen people here at the dock, and they have all been confirmed dead."

Victor replied in a low voice, "Have any of our men been injured?"

"No, everyone is fine and no one is injured."

Victor nodded and led his men to search the dock twice more. After confirming that there were no survivors, they left the dock and rejoined the main force.

Alex saw Victor leading the team back and went up to him to ask, "How did it go? Was it successful?"

"Thanks to the shortbow and light arrows you found, everything went smoothly and it's all cleared up now."

Victor had Alex find a batch of shortbows for nighttime use. These shortbows have very little power and use very light arrows. Although they have a short range and poor lethality, they are very quiet when fired, making them suitable for nighttime ambushes. Moreover, as long as the distance is not too far, they are easy to deal with unarmored targets.

With the biggest obstacle to the castle cleared, Victor knew his plan was halfway to success. Victor then led his team to change clothes, with everyone taking off their leather armor and putting on chainmail, and then donning half-body armor made of Iron Birch bark.

Fifty men dressed like Victor were leading packhorses, with several planks on them. After changing into his armor, Victor directed a dozen or so soldiers to make ladders from these planks.

Working until 1 a. m., they made a total of six sturdy ladders, with iron hooks at the front of the ladders, which could be easily fixed to the city wall.

After taking care of everything, the team began to head towards the castle, which was only a little over a kilometer away. In just over twenty minutes, they arrived at the castle's dry moat.

Victor led a team of fifty men and a long ladder away from the main force. They began to use the ladder to cross the moat. Because each of these fully armed soldiers was carrying more than 50 kilograms, only two people could climb the ladder at a time, so the team moved very slowly.

Alex wasn't idle either. He directed the remaining warriors to slaughter the packhorses. Five men controlled one horse, and they made a cut directly into the horse's carotid artery. They tightly bound the horse's mouth to ensure that the horse couldn't make a sound before it died. As the horse fell to the ground, the smell of blood began to slowly spread.

Victor had just crossed the moat, also smelled the blood. He knew that time was running out, so he led the soldiers who had already crossed the moat, carrying half of the ladder, and rushed toward the city wall.

There were no patrols on the city wall at that time, Victor and his men quickly set up ladders. He took the lead and began to climb the city wall.