As more and more Barbarians gathered beneath the walls, more siege ladders and climbing ropes were secured to them. The defenders could no longer destroy or remove the attackers' climbing equipment fast enough.
The walls were so thick with climbing Barbarians that anyone watching would have thought the fortress was about to fall.
Just then, everyone heard something whistling toward them. In the blink of an eye, dozens of enormous stones came hurtling in and slammed into the battlefield along the edge of the walls.
The stones passed so close to the walls that some missed by mere inches. The soldiers atop them could feel the rush of air as they flew past.
Skimming the walls, the stones knocked great swathes of climbing Barbarians back down. It was a supporting strike from the catapult crews at Blue Lake Bay's Main Fortress.
With their superb aim and firing calculations they had worked out repeatedly in advance, the crews could drop the stones squarely onto the Barbarian forces below.
Objectively, the stones caused relatively few casualties. But the carnage they wrought was so horrific that the Barbarian assault faltered.
Not everyone could bear the sight of a comrade being smashed to pulp by a stone out of nowhere. They knew another volley was unlikely to land so soon, but fear was only natural, and the Barbarians' morale dipped.
By then, the Barbarian assault had also been largely stopped at the sides of the Small Fortress that faced the Main Fortress.
The Main Fortress's Bed Crossbow crews had a clear line of fire straight onto those walls.
Climbing Barbarians were shot down one after another. Some were even pinned directly to the walls by Bed Crossbow bolts, fixed there like fish hung out to dry.
The Barbarians attacking those walls could barely pose