A Sauron recruit whose mind had completely broken stared with bloodshot, terror-filled eyes at a Carnford skirmisher poking his head out from behind a snowbank seventy paces away to take aim. In his mind, the string called "reason" or "discipline" snapped with a crack.
He utterly forgot the officers' command to "wait for the volley," and forgot whether he had even aimed. Driven solely by the instinct to survive and the destructive urge born of utter terror, he yanked the trigger he had already primed!
Bang!
An especially loud Flintlock Rifle blast, abrupt even amid the ongoing gunfire, erupted from behind a low wall along the Sauron line! Flame and white smoke burst from the muzzle.
That first unauthorized, solitary accidental shot was like a spark cast into boiling oil, instantly detonating the Sauron recruits' defensive line, which had long been teetering on the brink of collapse!
"They've opened fire! They've opened fire!"
"Shoot! Shoot already!"
"Kill them all!"
The chain reaction erupted with astonishing speed! Once their taut nerves were "released" by a comrade's gunshot, the fear they had suppressed for so long instantly transformed into blind, hysterical aggression.
At nearly the same moment, throughout the ruins of Village No. 2, Flintlock Rifles and Matchlock Rifles that had long been loaded, their users' fingers resting on the triggers, began firing in rapid succession from every corner like a string of lit firecrackers!
Bang bang bang bang bang—!!!
Dense, chaotic, utterly uncoordinated gunfire instantly merged into a deafening series of explosions throughout the village!
Muzzle flashes flickered behind rammed-earth walls, in window openings, and amid the ruins, as if the entire village were burning and exploding from within! Thick white smoke spewed out from all directions, rapidly rising and gathering until it shrouded more than half the village in suffocating