Day of the battle.
A few hundred soldiers left Venite City in the veil of the night, each carrying a large crossbow, and a long pole.
After a small trek outside of the city, they disappeared into the waters.
An hour later, the waters north of Venite City churned wildly as fifty ships sailed into view of the city.
Tim, one of the original fifty in Rojan’s group, specialized in hand-to-hand combat. Furthermore, having grown in the southern State of Altina, he’d spent much of his youth swimming off the nation’s southern shores. These were just two of the reasons he’d been chosen to lead one of their main strategies
He and the other two hundred men had left the city in the cover of the night in order to hide themselves in the ocean waters - armed only with the crossbow contraption and a long, hollow tube.
These were the only things they
could
bring - armor and weapons would weigh them down far too much.
The hollow tube was so that they could breathe underwater. Given the time of day, to be unseen, each of them had to be at least a few feet underwater in order to not be seen from the ships - even farther down to be safe from being rammed into.
As for the crossbow…
As the ships neared shore, they turned so that their faced perpendicular to the city, allowing for a full side of their cannons to face the city. At the same time, rope ladders and planks were set down, allowing for the fleet’s soldiers to descend from the boats and charge towards the city’s northern walls.
Before the Peslir fleet’s ships could fire, however, nearly a hundred cannons set atop the city’s northern wall fired upon them first,
Many of the cannonballs fell into the water, but most of the cannonballs hit their mark, smashing into the ships and causing mayhem.
Still, the Peslir Kingdom’s ships quickly fired their cannons in response - the battle had begun.
The situation was similar on the south side of the city - thousands of Peslir kingdom soldiers swarmed toward the city, spearheaded by a contraption of war - a battering ram.
The soldiers were clearly well trained - those carrying the battering ram were well protected by shields, and although Venite City had stacked the walls with archers, few arrows were able to find seams between the attackers’ shields.
Adam shouted orders at the top of his lungs. “Switch and reload! Fire!”
The front row of archers retreated as a second row moved forward, aimed, and fired.
Adam frowned. The original plan had been to use their archers to harass the Peslir Kingdom’s soldiers as they approached the city, but that plan had quickly gone to the wind - against expectations, the Peslir Kingdom’s navy had dropped off a few hundred cavalry a few miles west of the city.
As soon as a Venite scout spotted the cavalry, they knew that they would no longer be able to send out their archers, or they would just be run down and killed.
So, they’d accepted the situation as it was and had set up on the walls instead.
The problem was, it’s a lot harder to bring down foes when they’re facing you with shields at the ready.
At this point, he’d basically accepted that the enemies would be able to break down the southern gates.
So, a contingency plan.
Rojan and Wren stood with five hundred soldiers just on the other side of the gates from the Peslir Kingdom’s forces. For once, Rojan was wearing full armor, with a shield and hammer in his hands.
Wren was armed likewise, but with a sword instead of a hammer.
“You know, I still think it’s stilly that you fight with a hammer. You know, that’s what they use to smith real weapons, right?”
“I can shove this ‘fake’ weapon up your ass right now, you know.”
“Ahem...so the weather’s nice?”
A few of the surrounding soldiers couldn’t help but shift awkwardly.
Was it really fine for their leaders to be so relaxed when the enemy forces were about to break through the gates, not thirty feet from where they stood?
As if on cue, the gates resounded with a *Bang!* as the ram hit the gates for the first time.
Clearing his throat, Rojan took off his helmet and turned around to address his soldiers.
“Alright, men. This entrance is roughly forty feet long. Twenty feet on our side, Twenty feet on their side. Our goal is to keep the fighting to these forty feet. We don’t want to let them push into the city, and we don’t want to push out of it, either. Understood?”
“Yes, sir!”
As another resounding *Bang* shook the gates, Rojan turned back around the face the gates, and put his helmet back into place.
“Remember your training, and fight as a unit...and if I get too crazy, back off.”
Wait, what?
Before Rojan’s soldiers could ask what that last part meant, the gates burst open, creating a temporarily impassable zone between the two forces as they stared into the others’ eyes.
A split second after, though, the two forces surged toward each other, clashing in the middle of the forty-foot “hallway” that was the southern entrance into the city.
With that, all parties involved in the battle, but one, had begun their fight.
The last party, of course, would be the two hundred off soldiers that Tim had led into the waters. As the majority of the fleet’s soldiers surged up the beach towards Venite City, crossbows emerged from the surface of the ocean, and bolts struck the sides of ships.
With a simple wave from Tim, all those who’d hidden themselves in the water pulled themselves onto the ships and headed for their objectives.
A few people drenched in water on each ship wasn’t too conspicuous - perhaps one of the shots earlier from the city had knocked open a hole in the ship. The key was that each of the uninvited guests on the Peslir Kingdom’s ships wore an exact replica of the Peslir Navy’s uniform.
So when Tim walked up to the ship’s captain, it wasn’t until he was in striking distance that he attracted attention.
“Private, what are you doing here?! Get your ass over with the rest of them or I’ll have you killed for desertion!”
“I’m sorry, sir! It’s from the city that I bring news.”
“Huh, what?”
A cruel smile flashed onto Tim’s face.
“They want your ship.”
He lunged forward, and in one swift motion, twisted the captain’s neck, killing him instantly.
Two soldiers had been standing at the side, ready to intervene, but it had all happened too quickly.
Now though, they’d drawn their swords, and were slowly surrounding him.
“If I said that it’d be better for you to just leave me be, would you listen?”
The only response to this was that the two lunged at him at the same time, stabbing their swords toward his body.
Tim ducked under one slash, and in a fluid motion grabbed a soldier’s arm, then karate chopped the soldier’s wrist to force him to drop the sword.
Then he jumped into the air and contorted his body in order to kick the other soldier in the head before landing on the ground.
He then picked up the sword the first soldier had dropped, and used it to deftly stab the two in their respective chests.
“Guess not.”
He walked to the steering wheel and shouted. “Hey boys, you finished up?”
A flurry of shouts sounded from the floor below.
“Yes, sir!”
“Alright then, let’s show these kids what we got!”