086 Xue Hui’s Stratagem

On the defensive line at the center of High Court City’s walls, the stubborn ratmen had beaten back one human assault after another.

After nearly two hours of bitter fighting, the battlements were already awash in blood. It streamed down the steps in red rivulets, and the dead had piled up like mountains. Rough estimates put the Black Banner Army’s losses at more than two hundred dead, with nearly half the rest wounded.

The reserve forces rotated in afterward only to suffer at least five hundred more dead, with casualties too numerous to count.

The two-thousand-bed field hospital was long since packed to the rafters. Julie, Old Sandy’s eldest daughter, was crouched on the ground, trying to stop the bleeding of a young soldier. Her delicate features, once her pride, were now smeared into a blur by blood and sweat.

“Someone help here! I can’t stop the bleeding!”

Julie shouted in desperation, but the place was already in utter chaos, and no one answered.

Inside the hastily built field hospital, groans, cries, and muffled sobs mingled together. The air was thick with the stench of blood, like a living hell.

Most of the nurses had once been farm women and had never seen such scenes before. Many could not bring themselves to lay a hand on the wounded; some retched until they collapsed unconscious.

“I’ll help you, child!”

Julie’s mother, Susan, rolled up her sleeves and rushed over. At the sight of the young soldier’s horrifying wound across his back, she could not help shivering.

“Hold still!”

As she spoke, she scooped up a handful of ash and scattered it directly over the wound. Then she spat on it, pressed the ash into place, and finally covered it with leaves. That was the most common way to treat wounds in this age. Whether the patient lived or died was left to fate.

The young ratman soldier lay face-down on the blood-soaked mat, gritting his teeth and enduring the searing pain on his back.

In the Dark Age, medicine was appallingly primitive. This, at least, was a method Yang Jie had thought of using modern medical knowledge. So long as the bleeding could be stopped, it counted as a good method.

...

On the human side, casualties were no lower than among the ratmen. The main corps under Liu Wei and Feng Wanqing had suffered nearly two thousand dead and severely wounded combined, and only about half the soldiers were still combat-capable.

“Pull your men back,” Xue Hui said, turning to Feng Wanqing and Liu Wei.

“Big brother! Give us another hour at most...”

Before Liu Wei could explain, Xue Hui reached out and patted his shoulder.

“Listen to me. I have a way to breach the city.”

“But this...”

“Enough with the buts. We’ll just follow Big Brother’s lead. My losses are no less than yours. Zarudi! Send word for the frontline troops to withdraw.”

“Understood!”

It was Feng Wanqing who spoke. His giant-shield infantry regiment had suffered even worse losses than Liu Wei’s forces, yet he still trusted Xue Hui completely. Without another word, he immediately had someone relay the order to pull back.

Liu Wei had wanted to fight for a little longer, but since Feng Wanqing had already said as much, there was nothing more he could say.

He took a deep breath of the foul, stagnant air and slowly exhaled the stale breath trapped in his chest.

“Let your men rest well tonight. Tomorrow, I’ll take the lead in the assault!”

As the guild master of the Brave Ranger Guild, Xue Hui spoke in his usual concise fashion.

As the commander-in-chief, he had naturally watched the entire siege unfold.

Xue Hui knew the combined strength of Feng Wanqing’s and Liu Wei’s legions very well. In the past, they had been the kind of force that could sweep across the entire Palando Plateau.

And as for the ratmen’s fighting power?

It was stronger than Xue Hui had imagined, strong enough to withstand the two of them joining forces for a full two hours of furious attacks.

The reason the ratmen had managed to hold was partly the advantage of fighting on home ground, and partly because Feng Wanqing’s racial hero, the Flame Witch, was still counting down in the altar, waiting to be revived. Meanwhile, Xue Hui’s hero, the paladin Sager, had been sent to guard the western pass of the Palando Plateau.

Likewise, Yang Jie’s legendary hero, Twitch, had been sent out to explore mines in the wilderness. The rise and fall of each side had little real impact on the whole.

But siege warfare was very much a matter of tactics, not only of real blood-and-steel combat, but also of psychological warfare carried out beneath the table.

Although they had failed to break the opposing wall on the first day, they had still piled tremendous pressure on the enemy and, at the same time, probed the truth of their strength.

After thinking for a long while, Xue Hui continued:

“I estimate the ratmen army numbers at more than ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand? Big Brother, are you sure you didn’t misread that?”

Liu Wei was somewhat stunned. This was far from his own estimate, and he found it hard to accept at first. Feng Wanqing said nothing, remaining silent. He knew Xue Hui was not joking.

“You have to understand that these ratmen have been preparing for a full half-month. The earlier estimate of six thousand was based on data from half a month ago. After half a month of consolidation, the number of warriors they can field on the battlefield is probably no less than ten thousand.”

“I observed carefully. The enemy’s most elite force is no more than two thousand, namely the troops stationed on the battlements today. The fact that they sent out their main force on the first day shows that even their commander was not confident.”

“Right now we have two advantages.”

Xue Hui gestured with his hand and went on:

“First, we have the advantage in overall manpower. Our total force is greater than theirs.”

“Second, we have the advantage in information. I’ve already figured out most of the enemy’s actual strength, while they still know very little about us.”

“They should still have other cards to play, right?” Liu Wei said, half believing, half doubting.

“They absolutely do, and probably more than one. So far, their lord hasn’t taken the initiative to contact me. I suspect they’re still relying on something.”

Xue Hui did not know that at this very moment, Yang Jie was gravely wounded and had been lying unconscious in a primitive version of the intensive care ward for three days, surviving only because attendants fed him water.

“But even if they have hidden tricks, so do we.”

“Seven days at most.”

“Within seven days, I will breach their walls.”

Xue Hui declared with iron certainty.

Seeing their commander so confident, Feng Wanqing and Liu Wei both felt more at ease. So long as they could take the city, today’s losses could still be recovered by any means necessary.

While Feng Wanqing and Liu Wei’s troops were busy assaulting the front, Xue Hui’s dwarven legion was not idle either.

Under the command of the white-bearded Gri, his men used wet soil to dig a simple pit one hundred meters outside High Court City’s walls, large enough to hold a small car. On the side facing the city wall, they packed the earth up into a two-meter-high embankment.

By now, some readers should already have guessed what these pits were for.

Xue Hui’s dwarves were not only born master builders; they also possessed an innate and singular expertise in siege engines.

These pits were made specifically to bury catapults. Although they were still in the Dark Age, Xue Hui’s dwarves had already mastered the technology to build the most primitive versions of engineering vehicles and catapults.

More than five thousand men working together could finish the job in less than a day.

The eighteen ballistae atop High Court’s walls greatly extended the ratmen’s defensive reach. Xue Hui’s first plan was to use catapults to eliminate all eighteen of them.

Once those ballistae were destroyed, the area one hundred meters beyond High Court’s walls would become safe territory for the humans. Liu Wei’s longbowmen would then be able to pour fire onto the ratmen soldiers on the walls from every angle, greatly weakening the ratmen’s defensive advantage.

By tomorrow morning at the latest, the long-range catapults would be assembled and tested, and the production of the light battering rams would also be nearing completion.

The Dwarven Vanguard Corps was about to make its entrance.

...