Fierce Assault and Defense

Hawk climbed the city wall, with Baron Lukaku beside him, and they gazed solemnly at the scene below.

"Lukaku, have they used a similar formation when we were defending the city these past few days?"

Hawk pointed to the siege ladders, siege towers, and battering rams in the Duchy Army formation and asked Baron Lukaku a question.

Baron Lukaku wiped the sweat from his brow. "How could that be? If we had this much force before, plus that traitor Rubio, the north wall would probably have fallen on the first day!"

"It seems that what happened yesterday made them very angry, otherwise they wouldn't have taken out these siege weapons directly."

How many people do you have under your command?

"We suffered heavy losses yesterday, with 1,500 men remaining, some of whom were Rubio's soldiers."

"This is bad. You, go find Ricardo right now and tell him to find a way to transfer a whole battalion over here for me."

Hawk pointed to one of his guards and said that the guard left immediately after receiving the order, knowing that time was of the essence.

Hawk then turned to Lukaku and said, "Baron Lukaku, I have brought my legion headquarters with me this time, including the guards and the cooks' battalion, totaling more than 500 men. From now on, we will rely on the troops under our command to hold out until the reinforcements sent by Ricardo arrive!"

Lukaku and Hawk both knew this was going to be a difficult task, since the enemy was clearly serious and the defenses of the other walls wouldn't be much better.

Even if Hawk gave the order to Ricardo, it was unknown when this large battalion of reinforcements would arrive.

To put it bluntly, Hawk's order was probably just a reason for the two to hold the north wall.

"Waaah!"

The horns of siege sounded in the Duchy's army, and countless soldiers, carrying long ladders, pushing siege ladders, siege towers, and battering rams, charged toward White Earth City.

Hawk gripped his weapon tightly and looked at Baron Lukaku was also gripping his longsword tightly with both hands. Hawk breathed a sigh of relief; at least he wasn't the only one who was nervous.

Logically speaking, after such a long period of fighting, Hawk should have become mentally and physically unbreakable. However, as the Legion Commander and the highest military commander of White Earth City, he was still in a difficult position.

He understood all too well the predicament of White Earth City. The defensive forces were dwindling, and the defensive weapons and equipment were in short supply. The defenses of the four walls were now stretched to their limit, and the city was on the verge of collapse in the face of the enemy's frenzied attacks.

"Archers!"

"One, two, three, fire quickly!"

At Lukaku's command, the crossbowmen on the city wall began to fire arrows at the enemy that entered their range.

Even though the armies of these duchies could guarantee that each soldier had a suit of armor, they still suffered heavy losses from the arrows of the defenders of White Earth City.

In the army formation, soldiers kept falling to the ground with cries of agony. Even some of the long ladders that were originally located at the top of the formation fell to the ground because of the large number of casualties among the soldiers who were carrying them.

However, under the command and drive of officers at all levels, new soldiers continued to lift these long ladders and charge towards the city wall, enduring a hail of arrows in the process.

From the distant army ranks, Labia watched the ongoing siege and suddenly said to an officer beside him, "Pass on my order: move the supervisory team forward and keep them out of range of the enemy's ranged units. I estimate the first wave of routs is about to appear."

"Yes!"

The officer left immediately, and soon a group of soldiers at the front of the formation began to move, slowly advancing towards the battlefield.

Labia nodded in satisfaction upon seeing this. Both he and Kimberley were determined to win this siege, and they immediately brought out a batch of siege equipment that they had just finished, making it a desperate gamble.

Soon, the siege forces' transport units also began to move into their firing positions, using their numerical advantage to suppress the city walls.

In particular, the elite archers on the siege towers used the height difference between the siege towers and the city wall to snipe at the officers and archers on the city wall.

Hawk and Lukaku both saw this, but there weren't many Catapult in the city. In previous siege battles, they had basically traded Catapult with the enemy.

As commander, Lukaku simply used a clumsy method, ordering the archers on the city walls to suppress each other with the archers on the enemy's siege towers, in an effort to minimize interference with the defending troops.

However, this also created another problem: the number of archers on the city wall was not large. After some people were assigned to fight against the archers on the siege towers, it became difficult to suppress the attacking troops below the city.

Soon the attacking forces noticed that the intensity of the arrow rain had decreased and began to accelerate.

The vanguard of the attacking force had already placed siege ladders on the city wall and begun their ascent.

At this moment, the defending soldiers, who were already prepared, pushed the logs and stones off the city wall. With a series of screams, the first wave of attacking troops was suppressed.

However, as more siege ladders arrived, the defenders no longer had time to use push rods to overturn the ladders. They grabbed their weapons and began to assemble into small groups of a few people each.

They waited in front of the siege ladder, ready to fight the enemy troops on it.

With a loud bang, several siege ladders lowered their ramps onto the city wall, and the soldiers inside the ladders rushed up the wall, immediately engaging in close combat.

The enemy troops on these ladders were indeed elite, and equipped with large shields and heavy armor, even the well-prepared defenders could not quickly eliminate them with their numerical advantage.

Just then, enemies began to scale the city walls using the siege ladders, just as Lukaku was preparing to send his Reserve Force to the walls.

Hawk raised his hand to stop him, "Don't use your Reserve Force yet. The space on the city wall is too small, not enough for them to deploy. Save them for rotation!"

"But, Your Excellency, in that case, the troops on the city walls will not be able to repel the enemy at all."

Lukaku was also frustrated, after all, his private War Department was really not very strong and he could only watch helplessly as the enemy, which was outnumbered, pushed back.

Hawk patted him on the shoulder. "Do your job. I'll go up this time. I'll just take a squad of guards with me."

There isn't enough space on the city wall right now. If Lukaku sends his prepared Reserve Force up there, four or five hundred men would just be adding fuel to the fire. Even if they manage to repel the enemy, the losses would be considerable.

Hawk believed that these Reserve Force were better used for rotation. In this situation, it was more appropriate to send a hundred or so elite troops to deal with the enemy, which could reduce troop losses.

Lukaku tried to stop Hawk, but Hawk silenced him with the order of the Legion Commander.

He then led his guards up the city wall, and this action had an immediate effect. The defending troops, who had been suffering repeated defeats, immediately stabilized the situation.

Hawk charged ahead, clad in heavy armor, and led his elite guards to break through two enemy formations attempting to scale the city walls. He also threw torches and oil cans into the siege ladders, setting them ablaze.

These siege ladders were covered with felt soaked in mud, making them impossible to ignite with rockets and extremely difficult for the defenders, who lacked Catapult, to destroy.

After Hawk defeated the siege troops, dealing with the two ladders that had lowered their ramps to reveal their interiors was a piece of cake for him; the torches and oil canisters he had prepared beforehand came in handy.

Seeing this, the enemy was forced to remove the ramps to protect the siege ladders. Without a quick replenishment of troops, the enemy troops who had scaled the city were gradually wiped out by Hawk and his men, and the siege ladders were overturned by the push rods.

Seeing that this round of attack had failed, Labia angrily ordered the ranged troops to fire three volleys directly at the city walls. Hawk, crouching under the parapet, dodged the rain of arrows, knowing that this round had been successfully defended.