leonardwarren Chapter 22: Are you afraid?
Chapter 22: Are you afraid?
When Old Hall wanted to go back to Raron, he saw the corpses of wolf riders, whether goblins or war wolves, each with at least four or five bone arrows in its body.
Looking at the young master again, with that provocative look towards the goblins, Old Hall's lips twitched slightly.
The goblin horn was still echoing across the wasteland when Ron dragged Old Hall up the hillside.
"Young Master, what was that gesture you made just now!" Old Hall was panting, not because he was tired, but because he really didn't know what expression to wear to face what had just happened.
Erect middle finger.
He had lived most of his life and had never seen a nobleman give the middle finger to an enemy on the battlefield.
But he could also see that the gesture had an immediate effect; the goblin hero was enraged, the goblins split up, and they came after them.
"It works well." Ron said without turning his head. "It's more effective than shouting."
Old Hall decided to stop asking about the origin of the gesture.
On the hillside, through his binoculars, Mad saw that a third of the goblin army had split off and was beginning to advance from the foot of the slope.
"They've moved!" Mad whispered, turning to shout in the other direction, "Lord Doron! The lords are coming up the mountain, a third of them, at least three or four hundred of them. Are you ready?"
Doron stood beside the catapult and stuffed the last stone into the counterweight box.
The counterweight box had been loaded to the predetermined weight, and he had personally turned the winch at the end of the throwing arm to the lowest point, with the iron hook locking the throwing arm, just waiting for the final hammer blow.
"It's ready a long time ago." Doron brushed the pebbles off his hands. "Tell the lord to hurry up. Once they're within range, I don't need to wait for orders."
Mad held the telescope up to his eyes.
Ron and Old Hall were climbing the hill at a fast pace, but the vanguard of their pursuers, a group of lightly armed goblins, were running fast, but were far inferior to the wolf riders.
Fanta's ambush position was located on the gentle slopes on both sides. The guards had already reloaded their bows, but according to Ron's plan, their mission was to cover the lord's retreat to the top of the slope and then hold the flanks of the ambush position, without participating in the first wave of frontal resistance.
"Sanlir!" Mad shouted, "First rank, nock your arrows, don't pull the trigger! Listen to me!"
Sanlir had already nocked an arrow, and his palms were still sweating, but the bow was much more stable than before.
He glanced at the militiamen beside him; their lips were still white, and the bow in their hands was trembling slightly.
No, it's not the bow that's shaking, it's the militiaman's arm.
"Stop shaking!" Sanlier whispered. "If you shake the bowstring, it will veer off course, and you won't hit the target."
"I'm not shaking!" the militiaman said. "It's the thing that's shaking."
Shanlier didn't reply. He had no right to judge others, and he hadn't even fired his first arrow yet.
The goblins at the bottom of the slope began to climb.
The vanguard of the pursuers consisted of about a hundred small goblins, lightly armed, fast, and in a scattered formation with no tactical formation whatsoever—just a bunch of short, green-skinned men charging forward. Behind them were two hundred large goblins, carrying short spears and crudely made machetes. They moved slower than the small goblins, but their formation was much tighter, and these were the real threat.
At the very back, a goblin hero walked slowly to bring up the rear, his weapon gleaming coldly in the morning light.
The goblin hero raised his head and let out a hoarse roar, and the entire pursuing force immediately quickened its pace.
Ron climbed to the top of the hill, turned around, and pulled Old Hall up with him.
"Damn it," Ron said, "as planned."
Old Hall immediately took over command of the archers, took a deep breath, and raised his hands above his head.
The archers in the first rank all drew their bows to their fullest extent, the bowstrings taut, their bone arrowheads all pointing towards the gray-green wave surging up the slope below.
"put!"
The first volley of bone arrows shot out, drawing an arc in the air before landing in the goblin's charging formation.
A dozen or so goblins fell to the ground, but the others didn't stop and continued charging over the corpses.
The little goblins' charge doesn't rely on formation or morale; it's purely based on the momentum created by sheer numbers.
This tactic might not be effective against the defenders on the stockade walls, but on open slopes, if they charge fast enough and suffer casualties quickly enough, they can penetrate the defenses before the defenders have a chance to react.
Mad knew this too, so he didn't pause.
"Second rank, prepare, fire!" The crossbow bolts shot out horizontally, their penetrating power being even stronger at close range. Several small goblins at the forefront were impaled by the bolts, and their fallen corpses tripped up their companions behind them, creating a brief gap in the charging front.
But there were too many pursuers.
After three waves of arrows, the small goblins at the forefront were less than fifty meters from the top of the hill, while the large goblins had also entered the catapult's attack range.
Doron stood beside the catapult, clutching a wooden mallet in his hand.
This rough wooden behemoth was already loaded, with a heavy stone weighing over a hundred pounds steadily held in the leather pouch at the end of the throwing arm.
This stone was created last night by Ron using a solidification spell to press seven or eight pieces of rubble together. The surface still retains the ridges where the rubble was pieced together. If you were to smash it, it wouldn't just kill it, it would shatter it.
He kept his eyes on the pursuers below the slope; the little goblins had scattered and were not the target of the catapults.
The goblin phalanx was pressed tightly together in a dense formation, advancing from the gentle slope towards the foot of the slope. The open space was right within the range of the catapults.
"Ready!" Doron raised the mallet and aimed it at the iron hook that was holding the throwing arm in place.
The goblin formation stepped into the open space.
Doron swung the mallet and slammed it hard onto the iron hook.
The iron hook came off, and the loud thud of the counterweight box falling sounded like the ground being cracked.
With a sudden swing of his arm, the leather bag traced an arc, sending a hundred pounds of gravel flying over the hillside and tumbling through the air before crashing into the open space.
The moment the rubble hit the ground, Doron heard a voice.
It wasn't the dull thud of gravel hitting the ground; it was the sound of bones cracking.
The sound shouldn't have come from so far away, but it did, clearly traversing the entire hillside.
The rubble landed in the very center of the formation, killing or crushing at least seven or eight large goblins.
The momentum of the rubble after it hit the ground had not yet dissipated, and it rolled along the ground for more than ten meters, leaving a bloody and mangled ditch.
The goblin formation was breached in the middle, and its formation became chaotic.
"Load!" Doron roared, "Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
Mad took the opportunity to adjust the archer squad.
"First rank, change targets, bypass the square formation, and shoot the skirmishers on the left! Second rank, continue to press the front!" Mad didn't care whether the archers were nervous or not; everyone was shooting, and the sound of bowstrings snapping was so dense that there was no discernible interval.
The goblin charge down the slope did not stop despite the volley of catapult fire.
The little goblin had already rushed to within 30 meters of the foot of the slope. Mad ordered the light crossbowmen to lower their angle and fire horizontally, while simultaneously instructing the bone archers to begin retreating. They needed to create distance to continue firing, but retreating too quickly would create gaps in the defensive line at the top of the slope.
Just then, Leonardo da Vinci led his criminal gang into the gap.
The bone spear lay flat, and the flint axe was tucked into his waistband.
Leonardo da Vinci stood in the center of the first row, his back ramrod straight. The da Vinci who had spent years hunched over in the wilderness stood straighter than ever before. He didn't turn around, but simply asked, "Are you afraid?"
The Adam's apples bobbed behind them. "What's there to be afraid of? We're all going to die anyway, every extra day we live is a bonus."