Archers Retreat
From the watchtower behind, Harald felt a slight sense of relief when he saw the first Shield-carts successfully place its front shield on the boulder, forming a stable passage.
A barely perceptible hint of relief even crossed his face, which had been tense for days.
To clear this damned passage, his army has been fighting and bleeding for nearly ten days straight against this seemingly insignificant obstacle!
The casualties among soldiers, the loss of morale, and the delays all posed a tremendous test and blow to his prestige and decisiveness.
Now that the passage is finally open, it means that the most difficult terrain obstacle has been overcome, and the real siege is about to begin.
He took a deep breath and was about to wave his hand, ordering the elite infantry formations that had been assembled and waiting to launch a general attack and charge up the city wall in one fell swoop!
However, just as he was about to raise his arm, a tiny black dot suddenly appeared in the direction of Carnford City in the distance, and rapidly magnified in his field of vision!
That was no arrow or ordinary stone; its speed and trajectory carried a terrifying aura of destruction!
"A cannonball!" Harald's alarm bells rang, and he instantly recognized what it was.
His personal guards reacted quickly, immediately rushing forward with cries of alarm, trying to shield him with their bodies and forcibly pulling him away from the dangerous edge of the watchtower.
"Get out of the way!" Harald shouted, easily pushing aside the overly tense guards with a flick of his arm.
He was a seasoned veteran with a keen eye; in just a moment, he determined that the trajectory and approximate impact point of the cannonball were still far from his command post, and that the target was clearly the dense array of archers ahead.
Instead of dodging, he focused his mind and kept his cold eyes fixed on the iron ball of death that pierced the sky.
He wanted to see for himself just how powerful the Cannon that, according to Ulf's intelligence, had caused such heavy losses to the Sparrow Corps, really was!
The next moment, he witnessed a sight that made his pupils shrink.
The cannonball struck the center of the archers' ranks with the precision of a meteor! There were no screams, only a dull, terrifying impact and a burst of blood mist!
Several archers vanished instantly, like pottery jars struck by a giant hammer, leaving behind a scene of carnage and a cratered ground.
But this is just the beginning!
The shells, carrying their remaining terrifying kinetic energy, bounced up again, tumbling and leaping mercilessly through the dense crowd. Wherever they passed, bones were broken, flesh and blood flew everywhere, and the shells carved a horrifying path of death through the neat ranks, paved with severed limbs and dying screams!
What made his heart sink even more was that, just as he was rapidly assessing the impact of the first shell and his countermeasures, that familiar, muffled boom came again from the direction of the city wall!
"Boom!"
A second shell followed immediately!
It also traced a deadly arc and slammed into another part of the archer formation, which had just been thrown into chaos by the first cannonball and had not yet fully dispersed!
The same scene played out again: the precise landing caused instantaneous destruction, followed by secondary and tertiary damage from the fatal bounce!
Several more archers were smashed into a bloody pulp. Even more horrifying, some soldiers who were closer to the impact point, even if they were not directly hit, were thrown about by the huge shockwave generated when the shells landed, blood seeping from their mouths and noses. Clearly, their internal organs had suffered severe internal injuries, rendering them incapable of fighting.
The two shells not only caused dozens of direct casualties, but more seriously, they completely disrupted the formation of Sauron's long-range attack force, and panic spread like a plague.
Harald could even see some of the surviving archers spontaneously retreating, ignoring the officers' reprimands, trying to escape this inescapable death zone.
"Order the archers to retreat and regroup! Shield-carts infantry, accelerate the charge! At all costs, seize the breach in the wall!" Harald's voice was as cold as iron as he swiftly issued the new orders.
He could no longer allow his precious long-range capabilities to be exposed to enemy fire and wasted in vain.
At the same time, he also realized that he had to take advantage of the precious time between Cannon reloading to get the infantry close to the city wall and engage in hand-to-hand combat, so as to minimize the threat of Cannon.
Within the Sauron Army ranks, the sharp sound of retreat signaling an imminent retreat rang out urgently, like a life-saving signal.
The archers, already terrified by the two precise and deadly cannon shots, were relieved to hear the sound. They abandoned all regard for their formation and turned around, desperately fleeing to what they considered a safe distance, fearing that if they were even a step too slow, they would become the next victims of the cannon fire.
As if to confirm their fear, just as they Queen, the Six-pound Cannon on the Carnford City roared again with a deep, furious roar!
Boom!
The third cannonball came whistling in. Although it did not cause the same terrifying chain reaction of damage as the crowd had dispersed, it still hit a group of archers who were running a little slower!
In an instant, several more unfortunate Sauron soldier were reduced to mangled limbs amidst the explosion and dust, and the terrifying shockwave knocked even more people to the ground.
Harald, looking up from the tower, had a face so somber it seemed to drip water.
He already knew from Ulf's intelligence that Carnford possessed a powerful Cannon, and had been wondering why the enemy had never used it during the fierce early siege battles.
At this moment, he fully understood that the cunning Lord Karl had been holding onto this trump card tightly, waiting for his main archer force to assemble in large numbers and attempt a decisive suppression before suddenly unleashing it to achieve the greatest damage and psychological deterrence!
This precise and fatal blow not only severely damaged his ranged attack capabilities but also dealt a serious blow to the morale of the entire army.
"Order the infantry! Bring the slaves and charge immediately! Seize the passage while the enemy's Cannon is reloading!" Harald suppressed his anger and gave the order in a stern voice.
He had to take advantage of the lulls in the Cannon fire, which was his only window of opportunity.
The order was relayed swiftly.
The Sauron elite, who had been waiting in the middle of the passageway for a long time, immediately used their swords to drive a large number of slaves, like a flood bursting its banks, towards the staircase leading to the inner wall that had just been obtained at great cost.
The battle cries rang out once again.
However, the Sauron infantry's charge was immediately met with a crushing defeat!
Without the constant barrage from their own archers, the Carnford defenders on the hillside positions on both sides of the passageway could finally peek out from behind the breastworks and Suspended Shelters without any restraint! The sounds of musket fire and arrows whistling through the air instantly became more intense!