It was the night after the first attack. Anheim’s defenders had staved off their foes’ advance, and after issuing a few orders to his troops, Werner went to take a nap. But it wasn’t long before a quiet thump and vibrations in the ground roused him from sleep. He made fun himself for being so on edge that something so minor could wake him up, but as he did, he ordered his men to armor up.
Werner exited the local lord’s manor with spear in hand, flanked by Neurath and Schünzel. A soldier stood on one knee in wait for them. Werner immediately addressed him. “What is it?”
“The Demon Commander is attacking the northern gate. If you, um, could come with me…”
“Right.” Werner glanced at Neurath and Schünzel before commanding Frenssen, who was preparing his horse, to have the head messenger gather all his troops at the northern gate. Then, he galloped with haste. As he approached the gate’s vicinity, that mysterious occasional thumping sound grew louder.
The area around the walls was lit, which Werner assumed Eickstedt had ordered as he had the night watch. However, he was shocked at the thunderous thumping sound and the shaking it caused. He hurried up the wall.
“What is it?”
“Over there.” Eickstedt gestured at a point in the distance.
What he saw caught Werner off guard. Gezarius was bombarding the wall with logs so huge no human could’ve even lifted one on their own. To put it in terms of Werner’s previous life, they had the diameter of a motorcycle wheel. Gezarius held the logs with both hands and threw them at the gate like spears.
Werner had predicted that Gezarius would use long-range weapons, but the force and scope of the attacks went beyond what he had imagined. The force shook not just the gate but the entire length of the walls.
“He’s using a battering ram by himself?! What a monster.”
The night prevented Werner from seeing too far, but it seemed like Gezarius had prepared multiple logs in a heap beside him. As far as Werner could tell, they had been broken off crudely by brute force, rather than cut cleanly. A cold sweat ran down his back. They weren’t branches he was hurling but whole trunks broken right off their roots. This was more than Werner had expected. He cursed under his breath and checked the surroundings.
Other than Gezarius, there were no monsters in sight. The thump of a log colliding with the wall occasionally reverberated throughout the town, but that was it. Werner watched them curiously.
“Did our enemies set all this up in a single day?” Eickstedt exclaimed.
“They may have held off on attacking by daylight in order to prepare,” Schünzel said, similarly agitated.
Werner didn’t linger on their musings. He turned to the Eickstedt. “You stay on watch here. Bring in more men from the garrison. If they suddenly launch an assault, buy time with the blinding agent.”
“Understood. Do I have permission to operate the ballistae?”
“Yes. You take care of the rest. Neurath, Schünzel, let’s go.”
Thunder shook the air every time a log collided with the wall. There was no time for discussion, so with a gesture of his hand Werner ordered Neurath and the others to hurry up. They descended the wall and found around ten messengers waiting for them.
“What is it, Lord Werner?”
“We don’t have much time. Tell Kesten to take the volunteer forces on night duty to protect the eastern gate. Tell Holzdeppe to take the remaining volunteers to the western gate and tell him that the infantry and knights assigned to the deputy will now operate directly under me. Go and wake every one of them.”
“Lord Werner, is something—”
“They haven’t thrown anything directly into the town yet.”
After shutting up the questioning messenger and giving his orders, he sent them into the town. Once their horses had left, he looked up to the night sky.
Neurath and Schünzel shared a glance and began to speak. “Do you think they’re targeting the walls specifically?”
“Is it a diversion?”
“I didn’t expect the Demon Commander to use himself as bait either.”
At that exact moment, the gate trembled wildly. Werner once again cursed under his breath, unable to tell if the Demon Commander was intentionally modulating the strength of his attacks. Then, he turned to the soldiers gathered before him.
“The first through third squads of infantrymen are under Neurath’s command, and the fourth through sixth under Schünzel’s! The Demon army has yet to make their move, but they may be underground. Neurath, you check the water vessels at the western walls, and Schünzel the ones on the east and report back to me. I will remain here.”
“Yessir!”
“Understood, but what about the south?”
“I’ll leave that to Sir Goecke. I’m sure he’ll make the right call.”
Shortly after sending off Neurath and Schünzel, a messenger arrived from Kesten at the eastern gate, alerting them that their enemies had begun their attack. However, the Demons’ best shot at avoiding Werner’s focused bow attacks meant dividing the enemies’ archers. As an attack had not been launched to the west, Werner concluded that their enemies were after the underground.
Having regained his composure, he nodded. “What did Kesten say?”
“He says that they should be able to hold out for now.”
“Got it. Sorry, but I’ll need you to tell Rafed to gather what’s left of our blinding agent at the northern gate.”
Amongst the garrison members who rushed over to answer his call, Werner sent half up on the wall with orders to wait for Eickstedt’s command and toss anything they could find over the wall. He took the other half with him and pointed at some objects a short way away from the gate.
“First, we push those catapults against the gate. Let’s go.”
They may have been small, but they were still catapults. They had some weight to them. He attached a board to the bottom half of the catapults’ fronts and covered it with Alligator Warrior hide to create a simple armored plate. By pushing them against the gate, he could support the doors from behind. He hadn’t predicted that their foes would utilize a battering ram, and thus, he hadn’t foreseen this attack. Still, he ordered the soldiers that rushed to his aid to move the catapults.
All the while, the vibrations and clamoring continued, but Werner maintained a facade of composure as he gave his commands. He used logic to push down his fears and anxiety, telling himself that no proper commander let such things get to them. But on the inside, he was going through it.
While the catapults were equipped with wheels, their mass made them hard to move. When the soldiers finally had them bracing the doors, Werner ordered logs to be wedged behind the wheels to fix them in place. Once that had been completed, Werner ordered the infantrymen to head to the eastern gate and follow Kesten’s commands.
It was around then that all the soldiers under the deputy had been gathered. Werner made sure those who had been on daytime duty had freed themselves from sleep’s grasp before calling the roll and verifying the chain of command. That was when one of the soldiers approached.
“Lord Werner, it’s the first infantry squad. Lord Neurath has—”
“Got it. Send one of the knights to Schünzel with the message to bring all his men to the west as soon as he can.”
“Yessir!”
“You over there! Head to the lord’s manor and have Frenssen prepare lamplight to bring to the west. And you! Stay here and tell anyone looking for instructions that I’m at the western gate. Everyone else, follow me!”
With that, Werner took to his horse and set off with haste. He never thought the town was too big, but with the frontlines spread to every edge of the town, movement proved a hassle. The western gate was still sealed when they arrived, but Werner confirmed that the tops of the walls were lit up around where Neurath stood. Holzdeppe had arranged it. Werner was thankful for his astute measures and walked over to Neurath.
“What’s the situation?”
“The buckets here, there, and over there are—”
“So there’s two places—no, three. Got it.”
Usually, they would have been able to refill the land that had been dug, but they lacked the time. They had no choice but to meet their enemies with military force.
Had their foes been fellow humans, they wouldn’t have been able to tunnel under the walls and into the cities so quickly. With a grimace, Werner realized his half-joking remarks before the battle had proven true. Then, as if struck by some realization, he ordered his troops to retreat.
“But Lord Werner,” they said, confused, “if we attack right as they come out of the ground, we’ll be able to fight back with superior numbers.”
“I’ve considered that. But if we do, they might just dig deeper into the heart of the city next time. If that happens, we won’t have any idea where they’ll emerge.”
Thus, he would have his enemies come to the surface as soon as they crossed the walls. Werner needed his men to wipe the monsters out right at that spot, and he gave those exact orders. Fighting monsters posed very different dangers than fighting humans did, and he had to account for those. He succeeded in convincing his soldiers, and they concealed themselves in the shadows of buildings as they wait for the ground to be dug through.
Just as the defenders were reaching the end of their patience, three holes opened up before them. Then, the Lycanthropes emerged. They didn’t seem wary of their surroundings. For better or for worse, their infiltration squad lacked numbers. As soon as Werner determined that all his foes had reached the surface, he gave his orders.
“Light the lamps! Charge!”
All the magic lamps laid out by Frenssen came on in a flash. The soldiers rushed on the Lycanthropes with a battle cry, and soon, a bloody battle was waged.