Er Mu - Release that Witch

However, Roland soon thought of another problem.

“Have you noticed if anyone of those soldiers that were walking was wearing a God’s Stone of Retaliation?

“I didn’t dare to get so close,” Lightning said, then pointed at Maggie. “But this fellow, after she had turned into her eagle form she could see them many times better than I could.”

But the latter also shook her head, “Haven’t seen, they might have hidden it in their clothes, Goo!”

“If it’s like this…” for a moment Roland pondered about it, “How about you take Nightingale with you. If you only carry one person while flying, you can still reach a height of ten meters, right? You will follow the Redwater River, Maggie will fly in front of you and take responsible of being on guard, as for the possibility of coming across a ship, Nightingale will step into her world of fog,” he said, then he looked at Nightingale. “When you are close enough to the enemy, you will observe them from distance. Find out if the troops are carrying God’s Stone of Retaliations, however, without my permission, you will not attack.”

“Yes,” Nightingale and Lightning said simultaneously.

When the three were ready to go, Roland stopped them one more time, “Remember, safety first, the most important thing is that you protect yourself.”

“No problem,” Nightingale said with a wink and smile.

When the witches had left, Roland felt a little uneasy, wasn’t the last sentence too much like raising a flag?

But he also became aware of a major mistake he had made, which was, that his intelligence control within the Longsong Stronghold was too weak — if it weren’t for the messenger sent by Petrov, he would only become aware of the enemy after it had already hit his door. Once a street fight broke out, the First Army would lose its advantage of firepower, and it would be difficult to get the advantage back.

I’m too young, too simple, Roland thought, after the war, this has to be changed, not only our intelligence system, Petrov should also be placed in my own staff.

In the following time, Roland sat restlessly at his table, even when it was time for lunch he wasn’t in the mood to eat. Only when Lighting, carrying Nightingale, flew in a fairy like manner into his room was he able to breath out in relieve.

Maggie closed her wings, dropped on Nightingales shoulders and chirped in a high voice: “Doesn’t exist goo, doesn’t exist goo!”

“They have no God’s Stone of Retaliation?”

“Most of them don’t possess them,” Nightingale said, taking off her hood, freeing her golden flood. “I have observed them from the front to the end, and I could only detect three to four black holes from the ranks of the militia.”

“Very well,” Roland said, immediately forming a preliminary battle plan. “You all should be hungry by now. In that case, go to the dining hall and order whatever you want to eat from the chef.

“Honey-sauce barbecue, Goo!” Maggie chirped, spread her wing and flew ahead.

***

East of Border Town.

Van’er glanced at the stone masons and workers who were busying themselves at both sides of the road, “In the end, what is it that they are building?”

In the beginning hundreds of people had dug out several huge pits in the ground, and they then built a brick wall at the edge of the pits, he thought that the walls would be connected, cutting off the road this way, so he never expected that they would actually be built around the pit.

“Don’t worry about it; I only know that there is finally another enemy we can beat,” Jop said excitedly while setting up the cannon on the right spot.

Indeed, how satisfying that would be. Last time when we had defeated the Duke’s coalition, His Royal Highness had personally awarded us members of the artillery group with a bronze emblem… No, that’s wrong; it was a medal. The Longsong Stronghold’s wall was depicted on the front of the medal, while the back was engraved with the year and their accomplishment. It was an exquisite production and had led to a lot of envy from the others within the firearm squadron.

And as if that wasn’t already enough honor, they had also been promoted, Van’er was now an artillery captain, and was in charge of ten artillery groups. The Rodney brothers, Cat’s Claw and Jop, were promoted to team captains, with three of them transferred to newly formed groups, where they were in charge to teaching the newly enlisted gunners how to operate the cannon.

However, the most inspiring was, that the Prince, His Highness has honored his promise, and had assigned a piece of land, which laid east of the town, at the foot of the Impassable Mountain Range, to him. Even though it was only a forest for now, but on the ground there now stood a stele, symbolizing that this piece and the rights to it’s use belonged to him.

So when they had learned that an enemy wanted to invade Border Town, the First Army suddenly began to boil, everyone was fully motivated, and hoped to gain some merits within the battle.

When the evening came, and the day’s drill finally came to its end, Van’er wiped the sweat from his forehead, and sat down on the shelves to take a little rest. During the whole afternoon he had gone from one artillery group to another, checking whether the new recruits were following the rules and execution steps when firing, he had yelled so much that his throat was nearly on fire.

“Drink something,” Jop handed him a leather flask.

“Thank you,” Van’er twisted open the lid, drinking thirstily.

“I think I know what they’re going to build,” said the former, raising his lips, proudly.

“Is that so?” He gave the leather bag back to Jop. By now the brick wall has been piled up to half a person’s height, roughly surrounding the pit in a hexagon. However, on each side of the wall, 30–40 centimeters over the ground, they had left open a long and narrow cross, which slightly resembled a window but appeared to be a bit smaller. “It won’t be a house.”

“Calling it a house, wouldn’t be wrong, I just went and asked a mason,” Job nodded, “he told me that this was something His Royal Highness, the Prince had come up with, when the firearm team hides themselves within they can fire while being half buried in the ground, not having to worry about anything. But they also have a unique name; His Royal Highness called it a bunker.”

Three days passed quickly, and the construction of the defense line had finally ended.

Roland stood on a stage far behind the front line, the same way he had done when they repelled the demonic beast during the Months of Demons. Today, he once again went to the battlefield in person in order to inspire all of the officers and soldiers of the First Army.

Due to having a special task, Nightingale had already snuck onto the battlefield, and took Echo along with her. Because of this, it was Anna who stood at his side this time and took over Nightingale’s protection duty.

Roland himself wore a coated armor together with two revolvers fastened at his waist. However, as long as the defensive line didn’t totally fall apart, allowing a rushing enemy to pass through like a fish that was escaping the net, it would be awfully difficult for the enemy to pose a threat to him.

“Currently the enemy is about ten kilometers away from here, Goo!” a giant pigeon informed him as it descended from the sky and landed on his shoulder.

“Well done, keep watching,” Roland took a piece of beef jerky from his pocket and passed it to Maggie’s mouth. Within two or three pecks she had swallowed down the whole jerky, then once more opened her wings and rose into the sky, flying eastwards.

With Lightning and Maggie taking turns investigating, Roland had a clear picture of the enemy’s movements this whole time, allowing him to set the battlefield comfortably to his liking.

When dealing with crazy drugged warriors, confronting them in a line formation wasn’t safe. He was especially taking extra care after Lightning’s report that several hundreds of them were wearing short spears. If he wasn’t wrong, then it was likely that the spears would be used as pre-emptive weapons.

General the range of throwing weapons shouldn’t be longer than 50 meters, however, this was only the case for ordinary people. But, how far they could throw them after taking the pills, Roland wasn’t sure of either. If they could reach further than 100 meters, they would become a threat to the firearm team. Because of that, he had chosen to put down a number of bunkers, and implementing urban tactics. By constructing a barricade, letting the guns stopping them from coming closer, and an artillery barrage as support, he had built an insurmountable line of defense.

Under the current situation of having a sufficient amount of cement, it was easier to quickly construct some bunkers than construct the city wall. Furthermore, the bunkers were only a building with a monolayer of bricks, making it somewhat fragile, but for the militia who weren’t using heavy siege equipment, that should still be an unbreakable fortification.

Ten bunkers forming a rhombus were built on each side of the road, forming a crossfire zone. Each bunker was stationed with twenty-four soldiers, half of whom were veterans with the other half being recruits. The experienced veterans were responsible for shooting; while the recruits were responsible for loading ammunition. Lastly, Soraya had also drawn an “optical camouflage” for the bunker. So that as long as someone was looking from a distance, the bunker would become interspersed into the surrounding environment, making it difficult to distinguish the difference between the two.

Behind the frontline there stood the artillery unit. The twenty cannons were lined up and would follow the same firing sequence as last time, adjusting the firing angle and filling the corresponding ammunition according to Lightning’s signals.

At the side of artillery positions there also stood an emergency force, with about 100 people, equipped with flintlock guns, whose only task was to protect the artillery unit and the Prince, His Royal Highness who was standing behind them.

Watching the line of defense and seeing the soldiers with their high morale and their spirits trembling with excitement, within his heart, Roland was deeply moved. The army, at first extremely weak and fragile, built out of people who only enrolled into the military with the purpose of having an egg to eat; after going through the baptism of the Months of Demons and the defense battle, now stood side by side, proudly wearing on their shoulders the responsibility of defending their home.

“Your Highness, right now the enemy is only two kilometers away from us,” Lightning, reported as she returned.

“Very well, the surveillance task will be fully handed over to Maggie; you instead will have to go into the woods and issue the signals for the artillery.” Roland nodded, then turned to the Chief Knight and said, “Pass my order, all members of the First Army should enter their alert position and prepare to welcome the enemy!”

“Yes!” Carter saluted.

***

Lehman felt it as his hand became harder and harder to move.

Two days ago he had constantly felt a burning pain, but by now he had almost lost all feelings in his arm. He could no longer put his armor over his swollen greenish blue arm. At the place where the iron hammer had hit his arm, it had left behind a blackish red mark, at first glance it looked like a somewhat transparent yet shiny layer was laid over his skin.

The bone must be broken, he thought, if I don’t treat it soon, this arm won’t be preserved. The analgesic drugs we found in the church can alleviate the pain, but they cannot regenerate a broken bone. He decided to wait until the end of the battle before he would immediately return to King’s City, where he would go find the best pharmacists and alchemists in the whole Kingdom of Graycastle. They ought to be able to cure this damned internal injury I have.

“Sir Lehman, your hand… is it really alright?” Levin asked concerned.

“It just looks a bit scary,” he pretended to be indifferent. “Let’s put it off until after we’ve attacked Border Town, for now, the town still isn’t in our hands, so we should keep our concentration focused on that task.”