CHAPTER 130: WALL UPDATE

The man clearly had a concussion, with one pupil blown wide and the other a pinprick of black. But he had been healed, and he headed straight for the window to send signals and receive news.

"The East and West Walls are clear. No movement in the south.

The north wall is holding. There are multiple battle locations on top of the wall, but the riflemen are clearing them as we speak. Casualties are... under five percent. All the cannons are still firing, and the mages are protecting them." He explained as he read the signals being sent.

"The airships are coming down in waves to support the fight and eliminate the back lines, but the radio says that they’re heavily engaged in the sky. Dagos sent another thirty transport airships, which were intercepted to the north."

Dominic sighed. If they got to drop their troops, that was another six thousand paratroopers who would be joining the siege soon.

Even if they had to walk here.

"Have there been any reported losses among the airships?" Dominic asked.

"Negative. We have reports of damage, but they all report operational status."

Then the spotter relayed a whole collection of specific troop numbers by grid numbers, and Princess Alexis made notes so she could rearrange the table to reflect the current situation.

It didn’t look horrible, and the defensive death toll wasn’t nearly as bad as they had feared for the first breach of the walls. But it was still disheartening to see.

More airships dropped out of the clouds, and cannon fire rained down on the Dagos Artillery again, crippling the lines that they had managed to erect in the trenches.

Hour after hour, the battle at the walls continued, but after the second hour, the Cannons were pulled away from the wall, stored in relative safety so that they weren’t destroyed by the breaching forces.

That made the Dagos Army braver, and they doubled their efforts.

{Incoming Mechanized force. They evaded detection by the airships, and they have been picking up paratroopers as they approach.} The radio reported from the walls.

"Well, isn’t this day just one bit of bad news after another?" Alexis muttered.

"Should we order the cannoneers to set up on the roadways? They can fire from there, and it won’t interfere with the battle on the walls." Dominic suggested.

"Order it, but tell them to hold fire until the mechanized force is in range. That’s what we need to stop, and it will be easier if they think that the North Cannons are out of commission." Princess Alexis decided.

The order was relayed, and Dominic saw the mages and cannon teams moving the cannons to the most sheltered areas that they could find, which were still able to fire over the walls.

They were no longer evenly spaced, instead they had been clustered around the mages who could reload them. But that was better for everyone.

They had one hour of tense anticipation before the cannons started firing again, targeting the incoming vehicles. But they weren’t alone. Four of the airships had descended to bombard the convoy as well, and the damage that they managed to do to the vehicles was devastating.

The lowlands around Burton were soft and muddy after all the recent rain, so the convoy had chosen to follow the top of a hill, and that put them in a nice straight line for a set of broadside barrages from the airship cannons.

As the sun went down, Dominic saw the first signs of the battle in the sky. An airship was burning as it fell from the sky, and then another followed soon after.

Their defence fleet had been enough to keep them from airdropping on top of the city again, but the battle at the wall still wasn’t over, and the survivors of the mechanized convoy had pushed through the artillery barrage to join the others at the front.

All night, the battle raged, until the final wave of attackers didn’t even need ladders. There were so many corpses piled at the primary attack points that they could run up them to get to the top of the wall.

But time after time, they were met with the unrelenting fire of the Natural Sons’ Regiment, and driven back over the wall.

Dominic wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he woke upright on the couch in the Command Room with Princess Alexis asleep across his legs, and their breakfast meal sitting on the table.

There was a single mage in the room, who replaced the message spotter at some point last night that Dominic only vaguely remembered.

"How long was I out? What is the situation?" Dominic asked.

"Four hours. The attack is over, and the mages have knocked the corpse pile away from the walls before retiring for the morning in separate houses with guards from the riflemen.

The current state of the battlefield is peaceful, but other than that, I cannot say. There have been no messages at all this morning, everyone is too exhausted for unnecessary movement." The mage replied.

"The mages from the other walls?" Dominic asked.

"Cycled out with the ones loading cannons all night. You ordered it just after dark."

"Right. I remember that part." Dominic agreed.

The mage laughed quietly, so he didn’t wake the sleeping Princess.

"Sit there, I will bring the food cart to you."

Dominic sat and ate quietly as the mage watched for any movement among the enemy troops.

The movement woke Princess Alexis, who shifted to prop herself up on the arm of the sofa and then opened her mouth for Dominic to feed her.

The mage at the window made a point of ignoring the decidedly intimate moment, and the small battle that ensued when Dominic tried to feed her the pineapple slices from his plate, which she absolutely despised.

"Alright, we’re up, and I need a shower. Advisor Dominic will respond to emergencies." She instructed, then got up and walked into the attached ensuite.

The Mage gave a tired sigh as Princess Alexis turned on the shower.

"Between you and me, I don’t think that we can take another assault like that. I haven’t done the math yet, but the combined death toll of the last twenty-four hours has to be close to the total population of the city.

We’ve lost nearly half our militia, an even larger portion of our city guard, and the Riflemen are exhausted, with rifles in desperate need of service.

They’re still working, somehow. But I’ve seen them using loading rods to replace broken levers, and all the rifles look like they’ve been through hell."

Dominic nodded. "At least the rifles are still working. I should go out and see if they need any urgent repairs, though. They were made for hard work, but the number of rounds fired since this siege started is more than anyone had anticipated when they were designed.

I can see that they’re cleaning them properly, and doing their best. But normally, riflemen don’t fire more than a few dozen shots a day. You know how it is."

The Mage gave a cynical smile. "Firsthand. I saw more than ten of the Dagos Riflemen either have a weapon explode on them or fail to fire during my shift on the North Wall last night. Those temperamental rifles are nothing like what was made for the Riflemen."