Looking into Dick's calm, unruffled eyes, the soldier recalled the tales circulating in the army of his heroic feat of fighting three monsters alone.
Suddenly, he no longer found the Jatu army outside so frightening:
When the time comes, the master witcher will surely lead us to victory!
"Yes, I'll muster my courage. I'll protect my home!
"Oh, and Master, my name is Carter!"
"I'll remember that, Carter."
Another hour or so passed, and dawn arrived. The moonlight faded as the morning sun slowly emerged.
The light of dawn spread over the outskirts of the castle, lending the scene the warmth of an oil painting.
Yet the bleak autumn wind and the army pressing against the walls turned that warmth into a silent chill.
In the darkness, the defenders had not found the Jatu below particularly frightening. Only when daylight revealed the dense mass of fully armed figures beneath the walls did they belatedly realize what they faced.
But now, whether they felt fear or regret, no one in Odinburg had any way out.
The Jatu soldiers had already spent the night constructing siege equipment below the walls, including arrow screens and a battering ram.
They did not attack first, however. Instead, they cleared a path, and a man riding a tall, powerful horse emerged.
The man wore an arrogant expression and kept waving a small flag in his hand.
Kebi had already come to Dick's side. Looking down, he knew the man was an enemy envoy.
When two nations were at war, envoys were not to be killed.
He waved a hand, and the soldiers around him lowered their drawn bows. The envoy rode swaggeringly up to the gate and looked at Kebi, surrounded by people atop the wall, recognizing him as the commander here.
Then he raised his face and shouted in broken Common, "Commander of Odinburg, our commander orders you to surrender now. Once we've taken over this territory, we'll spare your lives. What do you say?"
Then his tone changed. "Otherwise, once we take the castle, we'll slaughter everyone for three days, leaving neither chickens nor dogs alive!"
"Absolutely not!" Kebi's expression was resolute.
But after hearing the envoy's words, the soldiers around him seemed tempted. He knew this was the Jatu soldiers' attempt to undermine their resolve. They would never accept surrendering troops; they merely wanted to make Odinburg's defenders hesitate.
Kebi grew anxious. Looking at the smug Jatu envoy below, he wished he could shoot him dead:
I spent so long preparing that speech and finally managed to raise morale, only for a few words from this Jatu envoy to undo all that work.
But Kebi had joined the Order of the Falcon early in life and had always adhered to the knightly code. He could not bring himself to kill an envoy during a war.
Whoosh!
The sound of a bolt flying past reached his ears, and the Jatu envoy below clutched his throat and fell from his horse in disbelief.
Seeing this, the distant Jatu soldiers did not dare come to retrieve the body. They simply began forming up for the siege.
"Dick, you..." Kebi stared in disbelief at Dick as he put away his short crossbow.
"Commander, I'm neither a knight nor a soldier. I don't follow your rules. Besides, don't you know whether that Jatu envoy was telling the truth or lying?"
Kebi froze at his words:
The witcher has a point. Whatever the Jatu do afterward, they'll certainly attack the castle. And once the castle falls...
Only then did the knight aspirant understand the witcher's actions. He was putting an end to the defenders' wishful thinking.
Kebi could not help giving Dick a grateful look, but the latter clearly had not noticed how much was going through the knight aspirant's mind.
He was looking around at the soldiers, some bewildered, some resentful, and some numb, as he said loudly:
"There's no evil the Jatu soldiers won't commit. According to accounts passed down in my school, wherever they go, they first urge the people there to surrender.
"Once those people actually surrender, they still torture them to death and mount their heads on spears.
"Besides, I've already killed the Jatu envoy. But the Jatu won't bother looking for the killer. In their eyes, we're all killers.
"You can resent me or hate me, but...
"From now on, our only choice is to hold the castle. There's no way out."
Only after hearing this did the temptation gradually fade from the surrounding soldiers' faces.
Kebi also came to his senses and shouted, "All troops, heed my command! Spread out to your assigned defensive positions and prepare to defend the castle!"
"Yes!"
The soldiers answered loudly, then spread out in an orderly fashion along the inside of the wall, shields and bows in hand.
The wall alternated between high and low sections, with an opening at regular intervals.
The soldiers could fire their bows and crossbows through the low openings, then step sideways behind the adjoining high sections. The thick wall sheltered them from attacks while giving them a chance to reload.
Those below, meanwhile, had only fragile arrow screens and could not effectively return fire from their lower position.
Thus, in ancient times, if the attacking and defending sides were evenly matched in strength, the attackers needed ten times the fighting power to take a fortified city, simply because the defenders' terrain advantage was so great.
Odinburg's walls were not especially high, only six or seven meters, but under normal circumstances, that was enough.
Yet the enemy facing them consisted of a full three hundred Jatu soldiers.
These Jatu soldiers were skilled horsemen and archers. Even dismounted, they were excellent foot archers.
Their own side, meanwhile, had mediocre fighting ability, and many had not seen battle for years.
Only a few dozen men had any real fighting strength.
A comparison of the two sides' fighting strength made the disparity immediately clear.
With the sorceress's help, things might have been somewhat easier.
But now only Dick remained to help Kebi. Fortunately, his recent breakthrough made him a powerful source of support.
Putting other thoughts aside, Dick had already spotted the Jatu soldiers' siege preparations outside through a gap in the battlements.
Some distance away to the left and right outside the wall, several wooden barriers had been erected-arrow screens.
Each screen had only a narrow vertical opening in its center, about as wide as an adult's forearm. Archers could fire through the small opening from behind the screen to counter attacks from above, then shelter behind it from attacks coming from the walls.
There was also a hastily built little wooden hut, with wooden planks forming a sloping roof on either side and a crude, large eight-wheeled cart beneath it.
The Jatu soldiers beneath the sloping roof were slowly pushing it toward the gate.
Directly beneath the center of the "little hut" was a metal ram head attached to a huge tree trunk.
Dick's expression tightened. Although he had not been a cold-weapons enthusiast in his previous life, he had played Mount & Blade. This was a battering ram!
This type of battering ram carried its siege weapon directly beneath the center of its "roof," swinging it back and forth like a swing to strike its target.
If that ram head reached the foot of the walls, just a few blows would surely shatter the gate.
The screens above could block some attacks from the walls, allowing the Jatu soldiers to shelter beneath them as they pushed the siege engine.