In the night, Carnford Mountain—the site of Carnford's main castle—rose amid treacherous terrain, easy to defend and hard to attack. It held little strategic value; even if a small enemy force seized it in a surprise raid, the rugged landscape made it impossible to deploy a large army, and it would be difficult to pose a fatal threat to the main city.
But capturing it came with several advantages.
The several heavy cannons with extraordinarily long barrels atop the mountain had a range of over two kilometers. Firing down from above every day, they inflicted constant pressure and casualties on the Sauron army's assembly grounds, supply routes, and frontline command headquarters, forcing Harald to establish his main camp farther north and increasing the distance and risks of command and resupply.
If those few nails could be pulled out, the Saurons' room to maneuver and sense of security would greatly increase.
More importantly, the castle housed someone of great importance. From intelligence his spies had risked their lives to send back, Harald knew that Charlotte Knight and her mother were in Carnford's main castle—Karl's wife and mother-in-law.
Karl had even dared to divorce the Princess for Charlotte's sake. That showed just how important Charlotte was to him. Harald intended to carry out a decapitation strike.
That was Harald's true killing move. The relentless, high-intensity bombardment at the front was merely meant to numb the defenders and draw every eye toward the plain battlefield.
The truly lethal dagger, under cover of night and hidden by the earth-shaking cannon fire, was quietly thrust toward the rear—a place that appeared safest, yet might have grown lax through long years of peace.
Harald's designs on this mountain had begun far earlier, and gone far deeper, than outsiders realized.
He had begun scouting it at the