On both sides of the North Gate of Crystal Radiance Fortress, the siege vehicles' scaling ladders had been propped against the walls. Royal Army soldiers climbed desperately while raising their shields to defend against the rebel army's arrows, scalding oil, and even boiled excrement.
Some siege vehicles drenched in hot oil were set ablaze by the rebels' fire arrows. The flames quickly engulfed them. Soldiers whose bodies caught fire had no choice but to jump down from the upper levels, while many unfortunate soldiers failed to escape. The smell of charred flesh spread everywhere.
The first batch of Royal Army soldiers wore thick armor. Holding a blade in one hand and a shield in the other, they forcefully blocked the rebel soldiers' slashes and axe blows before leaping from the siege vehicles onto the walls. The soldiers behind them quickly followed, constantly widening the breach.
For a while, battle cries rang out across the walls.
The brutal fighting continued until noon. Both sides were utterly exhausted, so Duke Walker ordered a pause in the attack, while the rebels took the opportunity to reorganize and rest.
In a civilian residence near the North City Gate, several people sat in the living room with worried expressions.
"How many men did we lose this morning?" Hals, the former commander of the City Garrison and now the rebel leader, asked wearily.
"About four hundred old brothers..." one of his subordinates replied cautiously.
Hals weakly rubbed his forehead. As for the militia losses among those forcibly conscripted, he could not be bothered to ask.
At that moment, regret, anger, fear, and various other emotions repeatedly welled up in Hals's heart.
Trapped in an isolated city, he had waited in vain for the reinforcements he had hoped for. As for the army coming to aid the King, it was obvious without thinking that they were gathering nearby in an endless stream.
He viciously cursed, "Damn you, Giles! Go to hell!"
He had always acted like a loyal dog of the Royal Family, but in truth, he had secretly colluded with Giles all along. Because he had always been cautious, he had never revealed any flaws and had firmly held onto the position of City Garrison commander.
This time, when the eldest princess led an army on an expedition to the highlands, Giles finally could not suppress his ambition. He took the opportunity to launch a rebellion and sent someone to notify Hals to rise up and respond before the princess's army returned.
At first, Hals had refused. Giles's army is still far away. Wouldn't causing trouble in the Royal Capital be tantamount to suicide?
But the later contact had told him that Duke Dodge in the south had already sided with Giles. The greatest obstacle to the army's advance north had been cleared, the other minor lords were no cause for concern, and Giles had even promised to grant him the rank of count once everything succeeded.
In a moment of hotheadedness, Hals had wanted to establish a great merit. If he waited until Giles's army reached the gates of the Royal Capital before responding, wouldn't Giles look down on him? If he seized Crystal Radiance first and captured the king, that achievement would certainly overshadow anyone else in Giles's faction.
And so he had rebelled. Apart from failing to capture the king, everything else had gone fairly smoothly. The City Garrison's command structure had been purged. Officers who refused to obey had been killed or imprisoned, and the entire army was under his control.
After imprisoning the Palace Minister and a group of other officials and getting rid of several troublemakers, the nobles who remained in the Royal Capital neither clearly opposed nor clearly supported him. Whatever. He would let Giles deal with those fence-sitters personally once he arrived.
Quite a few nobles had fled during the chaos of the uprising. Hals did not care. Let them flee and cause trouble for Princess. As long as they left their property behind, that was enough.
After Hals had done everything he needed to do, the Giles army mentioned by the contact still failed to arrive. Sensing that something was wrong, he immediately sent people south to investigate. The news they brought back nearly made him vomit blood: the Dodge Family had never sided with Giles, and the army advancing north had been stopped beneath Thorn Gate.
"It's over, it's over, it's over..." That was the only thought he had after learning the news.
But he had no way out now. After enjoying a period of holding absolute power, he was even less willing to abandon everything before him and flee in secret. He resolved to make one desperate gamble: hold the Royal Capital until Giles's army arrived.
The army coming to aid the King quickly gathered near the Royal Capital. After waiting for the princess's army to return, they launched an offensive this morning. Hals moved his headquarters to the North Gate, where the Royal Army was attacking, and personally commanded the defense. He had spent the entire morning trembling with fear, but had ultimately repelled the first wave.
Just as he was about to take a short nap, the sound of horns suddenly rang out again.
A soldier hurried inside. "Lord Hals, the enemy is attacking again! The defenders on the walls are requesting reinforcements, or they won't be able to hold!"
Hals decisively ordered, "Draw half the troops from every other direction and send them to reinforce the North Gate. After repelling this attack, open the gates while the enemy retreats. I'll personally lead the troops in a counterattack!"
"Yes!" The soldier accepted the order and left.
No one noticed the two officers in the hall quietly exchanging an almost imperceptible glance.
"Lord Hals, although the enemy is only attacking the North Gate for now, we cannot let our guard down in the other directions either. Please allow me to inspect the posts."
"You're right. Go, and keep a close eye on those bastards." Hals truly did not feel at ease with certain subordinates.
"Your Highness, the carrier pigeon has brought word. We can attack." Auffina reported the enemy situation to Catherine.
Hidden in the dense forest outside the East City Gate was the Royal Army's main force of twenty-five thousand men. They had been waiting for this moment.
Catherine drew her sword, turned around, and shouted, "Warriors, the moment you've been waiting for has arrived. Many of your parents, wives, and children are in this city. It's time to rescue them from the rebels. Show your loyalty to the kingdom! Long live Aldo!"
"Long live Aldo!"
"Aldo will prevail!"
The soldiers answered Catherine with wave after wave of cheers.
"Sound the horns. Attack—" Catherine ordered.
As the horns sounded, the Royal Army soldiers charged out of the forest, carrying scaling ladders and battering rams, and rushed toward the East City Gate. The real attack had begun.
The second wave of attacks on the North Gate was repelled, and the Royal Army soldiers retreated in the direction from which they had launched their assault.
Hals ordered the gates opened, then roared at the five hundred cavalry behind him, "Brothers, show these bastards what we're made of! Everyone gets five gold coins when we return!" After saying this, he brutally whipped his horse and charged toward the retreating Royal Army soldiers at the head of the formation. The cavalry behind him followed closely.
The retreating Royal Army had not expected the enemy to launch a counterattack. Caught off guard, they were temporarily unable to stop the more than five hundred cavalrymen from charging back and forth through their ranks.
However, just as Hals was venting the frustration he had accumulated over the past few days and slaughtering his way through the enemy, he caught sight of a rider charging toward him from the city gate, shouting something anxiously.
When the rider drew closer, Hals finally heard what he was shouting.
"The East City Gate has fallen! Please send reinforcements at once, my lord!"
Hals's vision went black, and he nearly fell from his horse.
"Lord Hals! Lord Hals?" the rider called anxiously. The commander could not afford to collapse at a moment like this.
Hals steadied himself, then suddenly thrust out the cavalry spear in his hand.
The rider stared in disbelief at the spear that had pierced his chest, then fell from his horse and died.
"Haha! You lied to me! You lied to me!"
Now completely insane, Hals flung off his helmet, raised his cavalry spear, and charged again toward the densest concentration of enemy soldiers.
His frenzied voice drifted across the battlefield:
"You lied to me! All of you lied to me!"
On Labusen Mountain near the Royal Capital, two men dressed as traveling merchants silently watched the battle raging in the distance.
"Ah..." One of them, a young man with a frivolous gaze and an earring in his right ear, sighed.
"Lord Hals had been cautious for so many years, only to suffer a shipwreck at the very last moment. What a pity."
"Hmph. Stop pretending to pity him. If you hadn't dropped hints from the sidelines, I doubt I could have brought out the little schemes hidden in his heart no matter how much I explained. But the man was useless too. He was finished after holding out for only one day."
The one who answered was a middle-aged man with a walrus mustache.
"People shouldn't be too greedy. If the princess hadn't returned to the Royal Capital and had instead gone south by the eastern route, joining forces with Old Man Dodge to attack from both sides, then the one in trouble would have been the Grand Duke. The princess took such a long detour, and the extra time she gained was more than just one day."
"Hmph. I know that without you telling me. By the way, have you prepared the gift for Princess?"
"Heh heh. How could I possibly be negligent or discourteous toward such a beauty?"
The young man's lips curled slightly upward, and a wicked smile appeared on his face.
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