Steel, gunpowder, and spellcasters

Chapter 90 Destruction
Without the two iron chains blocking the sea, the Venetians' warships charged menacingly into Chiliu Bay and headed for the dock.

Under the moonlight, warships carrying torches stretched out in the bay like a long dragon.

These warships weren't the "big guys" from the Revenge Fleet; they were all Fusta ships.

[Note: A forster is a light galley with a full deck and only about thirty oarsmen; the Gold's Good Fortune was such a vessel. These light galleys, though small in size, had a shallow draft and were agile.]
The vanguard warships had already stormed into the dock, where the Venetians were fighting the port's defenders. Gunfire and shouts of battle were heard from the direction of Red Sulfur Harbor, and flames were raging around the dock.

In the middle of the bay, the hulls of two Foster ships below the waterline were blasted open by heavy cannons from the fortifications, and seawater surged in, causing the warships to spin and sink.

To prevent the sunken warship from blocking the waterway, nearby warships deployed grappling hooks and struggled to tow the sinking vessel away. Other warships bypassed the wreck and sped towards Chiliu Harbor.

Both the attackers and defenders knew that the outcome of this battle depended on speed, on the speed at which the Venetians could deploy their forces.

Just as the Venetian warships were racing against time to clear the waterway, the heavy cannons in the fortress roared incessantly, firing shell after shell, stirring up waves around the Venetian warships.

Another Venetian warship was sunk, and the Venetians on board abandoned ship to escape. The warships behind them didn't bother to rescue those who had fallen into the water, and even sailed directly over their heads.

When Winters' surviving men on the shore witnessed this scene, not only was Veneta heartbroken, but even the Heds felt as if a heavy stone was pressing on their chests, making it hard to breathe.

So many people died during the attack on the fortress, yet the heavy artillery inside remained intact and continued to fire deadly shells one after another.

What about all that desperate fighting? What about those who sacrificed their lives? Did they die in vain?

Andrei's face turned ashen, and he stammered out several curses over and over again.

A sense of despair, depression, and sorrow spread among the survivors.

How to do?
Everyone looked at Centurion Montagne.

Winters remained silent, his eyes fixed on the fortifications and the direction of Red Sulfur Harbor.

Finally, a young Venetia soldier couldn't hold back his tears.

Amid sobs, Winters turned to face the crowd, his eyes wide, breathing heavily, and he shouted fiercely, "Saber!"

His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked extremely terrifying.

Everyone was stunned, wondering what Warrant Officer Montagne was up to.

A thin, dark-skinned figure with a gap-toothed tooth squeezed from the back to the front row. Gold stepped forward and respectfully presented Winters with a scimitar with both hands.

Everyone then realized that the centurion's weapon had been lost in the fort, and that Warrant Officer Montagne was demanding it back.

Winters ripped off the sling securing his right arm and threw it to the ground. He picked up the scimitar and gave the order, word by word: "Attack again!"

"Are you crazy?" Andrei was shocked upon hearing this. He didn't care that there were other people present and immediately retorted to Winters, "There are at least fifty people in that fortress. We had the advantage of surprise attack just now and we still couldn't break in. If we go in now, aren't we just sending ourselves to our deaths?"

“Attack again,” Winters repeated firmly.

“I know how you feel, but we’ve done our best. We can’t just throw our lives away, can we?” Andrei was also anxious. He looked at Bader: “Bader, why don’t you try to persuade him too!”

“I think…” Bard squinted and said thoughtfully, “…we can attack again.”

"Damn it! Why can't I explain this to you two?" Andrei punched his head a few times.

“Look, Chiliu Harbor is now preoccupied with its own problems. The reinforcements that set out from Chiliu Harbor have already returned along the same route, and only the original garrison remains in the fortress.” Winters pointed his scimitar at the returning torches outside the harbor and said with a sneer, “The garrison in the fortress knows we are outnumbered and can only launch a surprise attack. They would never expect us to dare to return. Moreover, a considerable number of the surviving garrison members are still operating the cannons. In fact, we have the advantage of a surprise attack.”

Andrei roughly understood what was going on, but instinctively wanted to retort: ​​"But..."

"Team Leader!" Winters shouted, not giving him a chance to speak.

The Venetians looked at each other, but no one answered.

"What about people?"

“Sir, the old sergeant is dead… he was stabbed in the stomach…” a Veneta soldier replied softly.

Winters paused for a few seconds, then asked, "I ordered him to destroy the gun emplacement hinges. Were the hinges destroyed?"

“It’s destroyed,” replied the Veneta soldier who had spoken earlier. “I destroyed it with the sergeant.”

“From this moment forward, you are the sergeant,” Winters said, pointing to the soldier who had answered. He then looked at the crowd: “Are you afraid now?”

The surviving Venetia soldiers lowered their heads, and no one spoke.

“I’m telling you! Those Tanilians are even more terrified!” Winters said viciously. “Their courage just now was nothing but sheer numbers! Now they’re filled with dread! They’re trembling as they clear away the corpses! Just thinking about our bravery will make them shudder! The gate to the fortress is broken, this is our golden opportunity! Go through the gate, kill them one by one! Catch them off guard!”

Andrei's face turned from pale to red. Gritting his teeth, he made up his mind and shouted, "Do it! Kill these Tani bastards! Slaughter them all!"

"Once we charge in, we need to make a big splash and shout it out," Bud added. "Even though we only have a dozen or so people, we need to act like a hundred-man squad."

“Old man, you Hed people have already kept your promise, you don’t need to come with us.” Winters looked at Herstace and said earnestly, “But I hope you can help us this once, we will be extremely grateful, and Veneta will also be extremely grateful.”

The Venetians, including three officers, numbered only eight, and they needed the Heds' strength no matter what.

"Our pact is that we entrust our lives to you, and you send our women and children home." Herstas laughed heartily, raising a scimitar as well: "Get our women and children safely back to our homeland. As for our lives, you can do with them as you please."

“Thank you.” Winters bowed gratefully in thanks, then looked at Veneta’s soldiers: “And you? Are you willing to fight with me again?”

“Sir! We’ll go wherever you take us!” Gold was the first to shout, and the other Venetta soldiers echoed his agreement.

"After this battle, I will find you a good place where you will never have to fight again."

……

Under the cover of the roar of cannons, Winters led a dozen men to quietly approach the fortress.

Apart from Herstave, all were lightly wounded. There were no seriously wounded; the seriously wounded had all died inside the fortress.

"Old man, please don't risk your life with us," Winters said softly to the gaunt old shaman.

"What? You look down on me?" Herstace coughed twice and said in a muffled voice, "You weren't even born when I was already on the battlefield killing people!"

The group crawled to the closest possible distance where they could approach discreetly; crawling any further would expose them to the leveled ground surrounding the fortress, leaving them nowhere to hide.

Herstace grabbed a handful of dirt from the ground, raised it to his forehead, and chanted in a special guttural sound, as if casting a "healing spell," before slowly releasing his grip.

As Herstas gradually smeared the dirt back onto the ground, Winters' fatigue and fear gradually disappeared, and he felt fearless, entering a state of euphoria.

He glanced at Herstius in surprise. Could divine magic really work on people who didn't believe in gods?

Under the influence of Herstas's shamanic magic, even the most timid among the group were filled with boundless courage.

Winters realized this was the moment, and with a roar, he raised his sailor's scimitar and charged towards the fortress.

The two large gates of the fortress, which opened to meet the wall, were damaged and lay helplessly on the ground. Three Tanirian soldiers were using tools to try to repair the gates.

A Tanirian soldier who was moving a wooden door heard footsteps, turned around and saw a row of figures rushing out of the bushes not far away.

The Taniri soldiers were taken aback at first, then hurriedly shouted warnings.

However, Winters covered a distance of only a dozen meters in the blink of an eye and was right in front of them.

The three Tanilians who were repairing the gate turned and fled into the fortress. In desperation, Winters threw his scimitar at them like a throwing axe.

The scimitar spun and pierced through the back of a Tanilian man, pinning him to the ground.

The other two Tanirians yelled and fled into the fortress.

Winters strode to the door and pulled the scimitar from the Tanilian man lying on the ground.

The Tanilian man who had been pierced by the scimitar was not yet dead. He was groaning in pain, clutching the dirt with his hands, and spitting out blood bubbles.

Winters bit his lip and gave the Tanilians a quick death.

"Don't scatter! Find the gunpowder depot first! Let the enemy escape if they try, but kill anyone who resists!" With that, Winters was the first to charge into the artillery battery: "Kill!"

The Venetians and Heds, shouting their battle cries, followed Winters into the fortress.

In the corridor where the bloody battle had just taken place, neither the Venetians nor the Tanirians had moved the bodies.

The corridor, which was more than ten meters long, was horrific, filled with the corpses of both sides. There was nowhere to step; one could only walk through by stepping on the bodies.

Winters kept in mind what Lieutenant Colonel Field had said: "The powder magazine is always the furthest place from the cannon."

He led the group to attack in the opposite direction from the artillery position.

The Tanirians in the fortress were caught off guard; they never expected this small group of enemies to be so fierce and even dare to launch a counterattack.

In the chaos, the defenders inside the fortress failed to mount an effective resistance and Winters stormed into the eastern building.

"Find the gunpowder depot!" Winters shouted, ordering a search of each storeroom.

However, at that moment, a well-organized garrison ran headlong into the attackers.

When the commander of the artillery battery learned that the enemy had breached the eastern building, he immediately realized that their target was the powder magazine. He quickly organized the troops around him to intercept them.

"Don't let them get near the powder magazine!" The commander of the artillery fortress drew his sword: "Kill them all!"

The defenders were armed with two-and-a-half-meter-long spears. Spears were not very effective in the narrow corridor, but when several men with spears advanced side by side, the wall protected the flanks of the spearmen, thus forming an invincible front.

In this situation, it's like two rats fighting in a sand hole; there's not much to say, whoever is more ruthless wins.

Two Hud men immediately hurled javelins. In the narrow corridor, there was almost no way to hide. Carried by the kinetic energy of the Hud men's muscles, the javelins pierced through their bodies like hot knives cutting through butter.

However, as soon as one Tanilian fell, another would immediately take his place, their spears forming a forest as they closed in on the Venetians and Hedians.

Seeing the enemy reinforcements arrive, Winters knew he had come to the right place. He fired a steel spike at the enemy commander, missing his head but striking his chest with a sharp crack—the man was wearing armor.

With spears advancing, short-range weapons had no room to launch an attack. The Venetians and Heds were forced to retreat.

There was nowhere left to retreat, so Winters grabbed a bucket lid from beside him and squeezed to the front. Facing the menacing forest of spears, Winters gritted his teeth, used the bucket lid to prop up the spear tips, and charged towards the enemy.

When the long spear formations clashed, soldiers would crawl under the spear shafts to kill enemies from the blind spots of the long spears; this type of combat was known as rat warfare.

Winters did just that; the spear left several wounds on him, but he still managed to knock it under the shaft.

Without hesitation, Winters plunged his scimitar into the enemy's vulnerable abdomen. The spearmen, caught off guard, frantically dropped their spears and drew their daggers in self-defense.

However, as soon as the spear formation broke, the other Venetians and Heds immediately rushed forward.

The scene was extremely chaotic and bloody. People behind were pushing those in front, and those in front were squeezed together like a vise, with no room to even swing their weapons.

Winters was squeezed down there and couldn't tell who was in front of him or how many people were in front of him. He just gritted his teeth and kept poking, twisting, poking, twisting in the direction of the enemy.

Finally, the morale of the Tanilians collapsed; they could no longer endure such bloody fighting. The Tanilians in front cried out and tried to flee, and those behind them also deserted.

The commander of the artillery fortress angrily dragged away the soldiers who wanted to escape, and personally killed two of them. However, everyone wanted to run away, and he could no longer control the rout.

Just as the fortress commander was about to kill the third deserter, Winters rammed him in the waist. Riding on the fortress commander, Winters thrust his scimitar into the man's chest, but with a screeching sound, the scimitar slipped away—Winters had forgotten that his man was wearing armor.

Blocking the opponent's arm as he tried to retaliate, Winters slammed his scimitar weight into the artillery commander's face: "Just because you're wearing armor doesn't mean I can't handle you!!"

The fortress commander's head was impaled on a spear, but inside the fortress, the Tanilians still outnumbered the Tanilians.

"Sir! There are only two barrels of gunpowder in the magazine," a Veneta soldier hurriedly reported to Winters. "Take them out and set them on fire!" Winters, not even wiping the blood from his face, ordered, "Spread out and set them on fire! Don't let the Tanilians stick together!"

Following Winters' orders, the group began to clear the first layer of the fortifications while simultaneously setting them on fire.

The main structure of the fortress was rammed earth, but it also had a considerable amount of wooden structure. With the help of gunpowder and pitch, the wooden structure was quickly ignited, and the interior of the fortress was immediately filled with smoke.

Following Bard's instructions, Gold used his spear to hoof the fort commander's head and shouted at the top of his lungs: "[Tannilla dialect] We've lost! We've lost! It's on fire! Captain Kidd is dead! The captain is dead! Run..."

Having dealt with all the enemies at the bottom of the fortress, Winters shouted, "Andrei! Take us to the gun positions!" At the top of the fortress, the heavy artillery was still roaring, making Winters increasingly impatient.

This is a two-story gun emplacement. To ensure the field of fire, the heavy artillery is located on the third floor, which is the top of the rammed earth structure.

However, no one responded.

"Stop shouting, it's just the two of us now, we don't even know where everyone else has gone," Bud said with a wry smile.

Winters suddenly realized a problem: he shouldn't have started the fire. The billowing smoke and raging flames not only destroyed the organization of the Tanilians, but also the organization of his own people.

Winters' orders couldn't reach the soldiers scattered throughout the lower levels, so he had to shout through a megaphone: "Everyone! Charge up! To the gun positions!"

"Let's not get separated." Without caring about the effectiveness of the order, Winters and Bud groped their way upstairs.

On the second floor, the smoke was even thicker, making it hard to breathe.

Amidst the chaos, the two finally reached the top of the fortress.

Because it was the top of a rammed earth building without walls or a roof, the smoke here was actually quite light. A 32-pound cannon was positioned here, and next to a sturdy and imposing bronze cannon, several gunners were busy reloading it.

Winters and Bud charged forward with their scimitars, and the gunners scattered like birds.

Walking to the cannon, Winters looked at the cannon's firing port, only to find it had been nailed shut!

“Andrei wasn’t lying, the cannon was nailed shut.” Bard was puzzled: “Then how did the cannon fire?”
At that moment, the roar of heavy artillery came from the other side of the wall.

The two men exchanged a glance, and Winters gripped his scimitar tightly: "Let's go!"

Hugging the rooftop wall, Winters and Bud reached the corner and cautiously peered out.

In addition, three heavy cannons are positioned here.

The gunners are busy working beside the cannon.

However, besides the gunner, there was also a masked person next to the cannon.

After a cannon was loaded, a masked man walked to the side of the cannon. There was no match or red-hot iron rod in sight; the masked man simply held his hand above the cannon.

The next second, a roar was heard and the shell shot out.

The gunner reset the cannon and immediately began cleaning the breech and reloading.

“A dozen or so gunners, the two of us definitely can’t handle it,” Bard said to Winters in a low voice. “Wait for the others to come up.”

Winters, his face grave, pulled out a steel cone and gripped it tightly in his hand. He said with difficulty to Bud, "I'm not worried about those dozen or so gunners; we've probably encountered..."

From the other side of the rooftop, the familiar Vineta accent and shouts of battle came, clearly indicating that one of their own men was attacking from another passage leading to the roof.

Bard immediately drew his knife and charged out to attack the gunners on the roof from both sides.

But Winters grabbed Bud and made a shushing gesture.

On the rooftop, the gunner wanted to escape, but dared not run in the face of the masked man's overwhelming power. The masked man seemed to care little for the enemy before him.

Several Venetians and Heds poured out of the stairwell, and the Venetian soldier at the front raised his knife and attacked the masked man.

However, the masked man didn't move at all; he just stood with his hands behind his back, watching Winters' soldiers.

Before the Venetta soldiers could even reach the masked man, they were bleeding from all seven orifices and collapsed to the ground.

Then, the masked man looked at the other Hed people. He simply watched with his hands behind his back, and one by one, the Hed people bled from all seven orifices and died.

The whole process took only a few blinks of an eye, as if the goddess of fate would sever the lifeline of whoever the masked man looked at.

The cruelty, efficiency, and ruthlessness of this life-snatching process chilled even Bard to the bone.

Bud noticed that Winters' knuckles were clenched white, his chest heaved, his eyes were bloodshot, and the anger in his chest was almost setting his hair on fire.

The last Hed was too late to reach the masked man. Before he died, he shouted Hed words that Winters couldn't understand and threw a javelin at the masked man.

This time, however, the masked man was not as composed as before, and dodged the javelin in a disheveled manner.

Winters narrowed his eyes.

Just then, a hoarse voice with a Tanilla accent came from the stairwell shouting: "We've lost! We've lost! The captain's dead! Captain Kidd's dead! Red Sulphur Harbor is gone! Run!"

This shout became the last straw that broke the camel's back. The gunners, who had originally wanted to escape, scattered in all directions, no one knowing who led the way.

The masked man shouted angrily, "Come back!"

However, he said it was the common language, and the gunner, regardless of whether he could understand it or not, ran away without looking back.

Several gunners even ran towards Winters.

However, the masked man did not chase after that location, but instead followed Gold's voice down the stairs.

Winters and Bud immediately followed, but when they were halfway there, the masked man came back from the bottom of the stairs.

Winters cursed and raised his hand to shoot a steel cone at the masked man.

At the same time that Winters saw the masked man, the masked man also saw Winters.

The moment the masked man's gaze fell on Winters, Winters felt a sharp pain in his skull, his mind went blank, and the steel cone deflected two inches, flying past the masked man's ear.

Bard charged forward with his knife, but the masked man looked at Bard instead.

With his last bit of strength, Winters pulled Badra back.

“Run! Bard! Run!” he struggled to utter a few words.

Just as Winters and Bard's lifeline was about to be cut, a somber, guttural sound suddenly echoed from the top of the fortress.

The masked man screamed as if he had suffered great pain, and Winters, who was on the verge of death, was pulled back from the brink. He struggled to pull another steel cone from his belt.

The masked man, suffering immense pain, laboriously chanted in the ancient imperial language: "[Ancient Imperial Language] Gather flames into fire!"

"Pfft." That was the sound of something bursting open.

The masked man's expression instantly relaxed; his pain had greatly subsided.

The next second, a steel cone pierced the back of his head and came out of his eye.

Before the masked man could fall, Winters roared and charged at him. He plunged a knife into the masked man's heart, twisting it violently, and then pulled out his scimitar, leaving a deep, bone-revealing gash on the masked man's neck.

Having done all this, Winters, panting heavily, walked down the stairs after confirming that the masked man was definitely dead.

The thing he least wanted to see still happened: amidst the swirling smoke, several Hed people wailed and wept around a gruesome corpse.

The corpse's head exploded open, like a watermelon bursting open from the inside.

The deceased was completely unrecognizable, but Winters knew who was lying there.

He seemed to have all his strength drained away, and suddenly knelt down beside the corpse, tears streaming down his face: "Grandpa..."

“Herstus saved us, didn’t he?” Bard asked with difficulty as he came down. He was in even worse shape than Winters, barely able to stand.

Winters didn't say anything, but took off his clothes and covered the old shaman's upper body, then picked up the old shaman's body: "We have to take him home."

Through the smoke, another group quietly approached. When they saw it was Winters and Bard, they breathed a sigh of relief.

"It's about to burn down! Hurry up and leave! It'll be too late if we don't leave now!" Andrei urged, coughing as he spoke.

Winters carried the old shaman's body; the old man was so thin and light, almost weightless. The remaining Venetians and Hedians, covering their noses with cloth, rushed out along the path they had come from.

Without stopping for a moment, the group ran all the way to the shore.

Behind them, the central fortifications of Chiliu Bay were ablaze.

"It would be a real shame if we didn't get a medal weighing a pound!" Andrei said with a laugh, then asked, somewhat puzzled, "Who are you holding..."

Before he could finish speaking, several gunshots rang out from the water, and the stones around Winters were blasted apart by lead bullets.

"Damn it! This bastard is treating us like the enemy!" Andrei cursed, roaring furiously at the Veneta warship on the water, "Friendly! Friendly! Bastards!"

As he shouted, more gunshots rang out.

“We need to find a way to tell them we’re allies, or get out of here,” Bud said, frowning. “If you yell at them, they’ll take it as a provocation.”

“A token? Yes, I have one!” Andrei’s eyes lit up, and he suddenly burst into wild laughter. But as he laughed, he started crying again: “I’ve kept it ever since the day I came ashore!”

After saying that, Andrei took out a cloth bag from the innermost layer of his clothes. When he unfolded the bag, a blue flag with gold embroidery of a double-winged lion appeared before everyone's eyes.

It is the military flag of the 100th Company of the Chief Battalion of the Third Army Corps.

The military flag that Andrei held high on the day of the landing.

Andrei hung the battle flag on his spear and was about to wave it at the warships on the water, but he stopped.

He walked over to Winters and handed him the battle flag: "Commander Montagne, the honor of displaying this battle flag belongs to you."

Winters took the flag, gripping the spear shaft tightly, his mind filled with a thousand thoughts.

“Did I do the right thing? We sacrificed so many lives, did I do the right thing?” he asked Bud.

"That's not important. What's important is that we're willing to follow you, even if it's heading towards hell."

Winters raised the military flag, which unfurled naturally in the sea breeze. The golden embroidery shimmered brilliantly in the firelight.

There were several more gunshots.

"Who the hell fired that shot? Are you blind? Those are our own men!" A voice amplified by magic echoed across the sea. It was a voice Winters recognized—the voice of Lieutenant Colonel Field: "That's Warrant Officer Montagne, who destroyed our sea-blocking chains and cannons! The entire Second Battalion! On my command! Shout three times for Warrant Officer Montagne!"

“Urrah!”

“Urrah!”

"Urrah!!!!!!!!!!!!"

When the deafening shouts erupted, no one knew what Winters was thinking.

I wrote over three thousand words yesterday, and I felt that splitting this chapter into multiple chapters wouldn't be good, so I'll combine them into one long chapter over two days.

Thank you to all the readers who voted for the book before. Thank you everyone. Thank you to reader "社会正义老王" for the monthly ticket, and thank you to readers "天水有佳人", "writersblock", "烟云散", "社会正义老王", "请叫我喜羊羊", "正义纯洁是考拉", and "阿咪" for the recommendation votes. Thank you everyone.

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(End of this chapter)