City of Sin

Book 3, 53

Revolt(3)

When Richard first saw Nyris and Agamemnon, he couldn’t help but be stunned for a moment. The cracks on their armour were unbelievable: the royal family and Duke Ironblood should be able to fix two sets of armour, right? These two were in the line of succession, not some faraway relatives...

However, closer inspection changed his expression greatly. These were no cracks, instead marks drawn on by a master artist!

On the edge between life and death, if anyone believed the armour couldn’t take another blow and tried to push a blade into the cracks, their efforts were fated to end in failure. However, few would be able to see these armour sets and not be fooled. Even with Truth, Richard had only discovered this shameless guise after careful scrutiny.

In stark contrast with the armour, the weapons of the two were shining gorgeously. Nyris carried a large two-handed sword that was nearly as tall as himself, the edge a translucent bright red that looked like crystal. A part of the blade was jagged, and even if the prince didn’t activate his energy it was continuously emitting a flame-like glow. The entire sword seemed to be formed of burning lava. Agamemnon’s weapon was a comically large spiked hammer, bundles of multicolour light dancing from end to end.

The powerful auras of these weapons could not be concealed. Each was likely even better than Extinction which was on his back. Richard believed that the sheer power of the enchantments made all disguises pointless; if not for that, the weapons might have cracks on them as well.

Both weapons were extremely heavy and powerful. The warhorses that had been specially picked out for the two could not take on the weight and needed to be changed after a short gallop. The two changed horses six or seven times overall during the journey, causing the officer in charge of logistics to roll his eyes incessantly.

An hour later, Emerald City appeared before Richard’s eyes.

The walls of the city were not exactly high, less than ten metres tall. Everything was made entirely of wood, clearly meant to defend against wild beasts and not enemy troops. This was because the forest elves were proficient at climbing stealthily; no matter how high the walls got, they wouldn’t pose much of an obstacle. It was the magic towers that could discover them whenever they entered the magic suppression domain.

The army halted just outside the range of the towers, slowly spreading out in formation. Richard watched the enemies on the city wall from atop his warhorse, various numbers flitting through his vision as the entire battlefield was analysed in his mind.

He felt uncomfortable and sticky by the time he was done, wiping at his body only to come up with a damp hand. This plane was extremely humid, the atmosphere slightly foggy and the sun dimmer than on Norland. It was as though the sunlight was tinted by the green.

Trees everywhere, dew everywhere, green everywhere. Such was the Forest Plane.

There were numerous cave-ins in the city wall. Some of that had happened during Gaton’s initial assault on the area, while many others were traces of Lina’s attacks on the city. Their only use was in the battlements giving the archers a vantage point.

“Cavalry, standby. Infantry, archers, advance!” Richard finally sent down the order to start the battle.

Groups of armoured footsoldiers immediately lifted their tower shields, advancing towards Emerald City. The archers practically stuck to the infantry in front of them, using the defence of the huge shields. The army slowly marched forward while a hundred cavalrymen lined up behind Richard, awaiting orders.

The enemy archers began to fire, loosing a messy rain of arrows towards them. However, there was little damage to Richard’s soldiers as they continued to press closer and enter firing range. A single order had all of their own archers shoot together, four hundred arrows forming a shower that was concentrated on a small, isolated section of the wall.

There were dozens of archers and footsoldiers on that section, but the focused fire from tens of times their number left them with serious casualties. The Archeron archers pulled back on their heavy longbows once more, clearing another section of the wall with their fast, sharp arrows. The rebel army was immediately flustered, the counterattack very weak.

By the time Richard ordered the third volley out, few enemies could be seen within range anymore. The three strikes had killed a little less than a hundred enemies. Although a single barrage didn’t cover too much area, anyone caught within it faced almost certain death. This completely shocked the rebel army; nobody was willing to expose themselves to the possibility of such an attack.

The front line thus moved forward slowly, while the central formation that protected Richard followed. When they were a little less than 200 metres from the city wall, he had them all enter staggered formation; he knew they were nearing the towers’ attack range.

The thousand plus divided into their own ten-man squads, each with at least twenty metres of distance from the others as they advanced. The only large, crowded group was the central formation that Richard was in.

......

Within Emerald City, Commander Endor had his brows furrowed as a bad premonition overtook him. Whenever a battle normally reached this point, Lina would have flown into the air to show off her power. The giant dragon of hers would send down torrents of flames from the sky, while the ordinary soldiers were almost completely useless. Both armies basically fought autonomously, with no energy nor desire to interfere in the battle between the powerhouses.

Endor only needed to tie Lina down with the help of the magic suppression domains of the towers, occasionally threatening her so she couldn’t drop her defence and just attack one of the towers. The two unoccupied towers could thus switch to offence as needed, inflicting massive casualties on the Archeron elites.

Although both Lina and Endor believed the battle between the armies to only be an adornment to the true war, these troops were still elites. Lina would feel the pain of the losses, left with no choice but to retreat.

But things were entirely different this time! The enemy had been in neat formation from the moment they appeared, striking at the weakness of the rebel army— the lack of trained archers. A few volleys of arrows dealt a dire blow to their morale. On top of that, the Dragon Mage hadn’t taken action yet! She was merely following the central formation as they slowly advanced!