"Fire! Open fire!" Daelin roared.
"Where should we fire, sir?" a human gunner asked.
"Fire in front of the gate! Use grapeshot!" Daelin bellowed.
"Sir! We can't see anything down there!" the human gunner said.
"Fire into the fog, now! Didn't you hear me?" Daelin roared. "Quick! Throw lamp oil and torches down below the gate! Burn that siege engine!"
Boom!
Another tremendous crash nearly knocked everyone above the gate off their feet.
"Yes, sir! Fire!" The human gunners stopped worrying about it. If they couldn't see, so be it. They just had to shoot into the fog.
The other human soldiers picked up lamp oil and torches and threw them down below the gate. Before long, a great fire blazed in front of it. Though the flames burned away some of the fog, the thick smoke rising from them still obscured everything below.
The smoke was so thick that Yu Lin Bloodhawk and his companions had to retreat several steps.
Boom!
The terrifying crashes of the battering ram did not stop because of the flames. It continued pounding the gate with powerful, rhythmic blows. The entire gate shook violently, as though it might collapse at any moment under the repeated impacts.
"What's going on? Why hasn't the siege engine burned yet?" Daelin shouted anxiously as he listened to those terrifying crashes.
"Drop gunpowder! Bundle it into large packages and throw them down! Their siege engine must have fireproofing!" Yu Lin Bloodhawk shouted.
"Right! Drop gunpowder!" Daelin cried as realization dawned on him.
Amid the repeated crashes, the human soldiers on the battlements hurried to bring over gunpowder and wrap it tightly in linen cloth, making an explosive bundle the size of a water vat.
Several human soldiers hoisted the enormous bundle onto the battlements, lit its fuse, and threw