Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 507 90 Prelude

The patrol boats on the Styx were the first to sound the alarm.

The objects churning in the water sunk and surfaced intermittently, moving at an astonishing speed and approaching the great bridge after skimming past the small boats.

The bridge had no fear of the barbarian fire ships—this was the unanimous conclusion reached by the bridge-building headquarters.

"Thinking of using fire ships?" Colonel Haug mocked at the meeting. "The barbarians need to have ships first!"

Building ships generally requires wood, nails, adhesives, and sealants, with the composition of sealants varying by local products.

Venetians often use tar, while the United Provincials prefer grass ash tung oil.

Materials might be easy enough to obtain, but skilled craftsmen don't fall from the sky.

Even the seemingly simplest canoes, which do not require glue or nails, still demand high craftsmanship and consume a surprising amount of labor time.

Who cannot wield a sword and hack at people?

But the Paratu Army can smelt iron with furnaces, saw timber using water power, and construct a bridge over the river right under the enemy's nose.

As for the Herders... Colonel Haug remarked, "It'll be good if they could cobble together a couple of rafts."

This was the gap in engineering capability.

Winters also maintained an optimistic attitude towards threats from the water surface.

Shipbuilding was indeed not easy. If it was, the Paratu People would have crossed the river by boat long ago.

Exerting all their manpower and materials, they had only managed to produce twelve barely watertight rowboats fit for ten each. The soldiers even gave them a nickname, calling them the "Angel Envoy."

Even to assemble rafts, the White Lion would have to get his hands on some ropes and nails. Most importantly, he couldn't find any wood.

Within a fifty-mile radius, there was no forest to be found beyond the woods near the bridge.

To prevent the White Lion from taking advantage, not a single small grove, no matter how puny, was spared—the junior officers under Alpad burnt them all to the ground.

This was also why the Paratu People insisted on building a bridge right here.

Besides, Sekler had set up three lines of defense on the water.

Even if the White Lion could manage to make rafts, he would have to break through three lines of defense to even touch the bridge piers.

The dark shadows in the water sped past the Paratu boats, easily breaching the first line of defense.

They were so fast that the gunmen from the main camp were not yet in position—only the sentries along the bank fired a few shots at it.

Thus, the second line of defense also failed to play its role.

The objects were like giant snakes weaving through the water, hurtling towards the great bridge.

Winters squeezed a cold sweat in his palm; now everything depended on whether the third line of defense would be effective.

The moonlight was hazy, and with the dark shadows submerging and surfacing, Winters could barely make out their proximity to the bridge piers.

"Thump!"

A dull, heavy sound echoed.

The dark shadow slammed straight into the "Dragon Slayer Sword" in front of the bridge pier.

Dragon Slayer Sword—that was what Brother Reed called it.

The Selikans often likened the river to a dragon, and the name Dragon Slayer Sword was both poetic and imposing. Winters thought it sounded good, and so he adopted the name as well.

The Paratu engineers, on the other hand, called it "Water Cleaving Pile."

This meant driving another wooden pile two or three meters upstream from the bridge pile, and attaching an inverted V-shaped water divider to it.

The turbulent current would be split in two by the Dragon Slayer Sword, which in turn reduced the impact on the bridge pile.

Usually, the Dragon Slayer Sword's duty was to lessen the erosion of the water flow on bridge piles.

In the event of an attack, the Dragon Slayer Sword would serve as a water-borne wall.

If you were to attack from the surface, you would need to destroy the Dragon Slayer Sword first before you could approach the body of the bridge unobstructed.

But if you wanted to use ships to dislodge the Dragon Slayer Sword, you would have to endure the gunfire and bullet rain from both the bridge and the shore.

This was the third line of defense.

[Note: There are no ropes or iron chains connecting the water-cleaving piles. Otherwise, if one pile were to be pulled out, the others would follow.]

The dark shadow collided firmly with the Dragon Slayer Sword, which tilted violently, but like a boxer struck head-on, stubbornly refused to fall.

The shadow was deflected and drifted downstream.

The Paratu people on the shore—Winters included—regardless of officers or soldiers, all exhaled a collective sigh of relief.

The third line of defense had served its purpose.

But soon, Winters' smile froze at the corner of his mouth.

He saw the Dragon Slayer Sword that had been struck off-center seemed to be subjected to an immense force, slowly tilting in the direction of the current.

Accompanied by the exclamations of the soldiers on the bridge, the Dragon Slayer Sword was uprooted and slammed into the bridge piling, before drifting downstream.

Ensign Varga, with his exceptional vision, pointed upstream and shouted in alarm, "Look! More are coming!"

It turned out that the previous dark shadow was merely a scout, and countless shadows were now rapidly advancing towards the great bridge in formation.

"Could the barbarians also be harboring monsters in the river?!" Colonel Robert exclaimed in shock and rage.

His subordinates didn't know how to respond, the bank fell silent, with only the sound of the rushing water to be heard.

"I've got it!" Winters slammed his thigh hard, startling everyone around him with the force.

But Winters was oblivious to the pain, grinding his teeth as he stared at the water's surface: "Log rafts! The White Lion is setting them loose to break the bridge! No wonder... No wonder General Alpad went north!"

"Log rafts? That thing couldn't possibly be a raft!" Colonel Robert frowned deeply.

"If it were really log rafts, then a couple of boats could kill all those releasing them! I don't know what to call that thing." Winters grabbed the reins and gestured to his colleagues: "What's in the river are trees! The White Lion must have connected two or more trees together with ropes or chains and let them loose upstream."

"[Angry expletive]!" Colonel Robert was quick to grasp the implication and rarely cursed out loud: "Underestimated these barbarians! [Vitriolic adjective]!"

Meanwhile, the other officers were still confused, not fully understanding the reasoning.

Winters grabbed the reins with both hands, using the horse's neck as a stand-in for a bridge pile to further explain: "A single log coming down might simply drift past between the bridge piles. But trees tied together with ropes and sent downstream from upriver can knock down water cleaving piles and bridge piles if they don't have the force to dismantle them, dragging them down. It's like casting a net in the river! This won't work on a Floating Bridge, it's meant to target bridge piles!"

By this point, the other officers also came to a sudden realization.

But seeing through the White Lion's tactics was useless, they all stood on the shore, only able to worry helplessly.

Colonel Robert dispatched Varga to report everything Lieutenant Montaigne had said to headquarters.

Winters also thought of two countermeasures: one, to use small boats to drag a net on the river, pulling away the driftwood; two, to send soldiers who were good swimmers into the water to cut the ropes hanging from the bridge piles—since the White Lion presumably couldn't afford iron chains.

In such a hurry, he could only think of these two methods, and Winters said with little confidence, "Headquarters has probably already thought of what I've said."

"Don't worry about these," Colonel Robert said decisively: "Report everything."

The ever-changing battle situation gave Winters a splitting headache.

During his apprenticeship with the revenge fleet, everything on a ship, on the sea, was arranged to perfection, and he would be considered qualified as long as he didn't vomit into the cabin.

Any of the numerous naval officers from Vineta would be better than him at naval warfare; he was, after all, a landlubber who hadn't even learned to swim.

At this moment, Winters missed the faithful enemy of the Vineta Army—the Vineta Navy.

If Captain Spire and Deputy Cage were here, would they be able to come up with a better strategy?

Thinking too much was futile; Winters shook his head, attempting to empty his thoughts.

"Let's go!" Colonel Robert tugged at the reins and turned his horse around, "Our responsibility is to guard the camp and not let the Herders take advantage of the chaos. The matters on the water are for others to worry about."

The officers all followed suit.

A Centurion complained discontentedly, "If they can't hold the bridge, our efforts will be wasted..."

"One person can't do everything; you have to trust your colleagues," Colonel Robert said without turning his head: "I trust them, just as I trust you."

Winters mulled over these words, recalling what General Nalesho had said during the battle at Lighthouse Port, "Vineta expects every man to do his duty."

An army doesn't just fight with one man, one Centurion. No matter what, he could still trust his seniors, his superiors, and even his generals.

With that thought, Winters felt a sense of calm.

After finding out the situation, everyone rushed back to the camp in the forest of bridges.

All the centuries were already assembled, the surroundings pitch dark, no signs of Herders lurking about.

Colonel Robert suddenly let out a deep sigh, "Now... it all depends on Alpad's skills."

The Centurions didn't understand his meaning.

"The Styx River is tortuous, and the Herders' placement for the 'boom' upstream can't be too far. Otherwise, those 'things' will all be washed ashore."

A Centurion asked, "Did General Alpad lead his troops from the main camp to deal with the Herders upstream?"

"I guess so," Colonel Robert replied with a furrowed brow.

"Where did the savages get the wood?" Winters also couldn't figure it out: "Haven't we cleared all the nearby woods?"

"I don't know either." The Colonel clenched the rod of his whip tightly, expressing anger, helplessness, and reluctance: "The White Lion isn't just any savage, we... still underestimated him!"

...

The Paratu People were fighting desperately to protect the bridge.

The cold wind howled, as brave soldiers, stripped to their skin with only a hemp rope tied around their waists, leaped into the icy river water.

They didn't have much time, every second the water snatched away a great deal of heat from their bodies.

The pilings, one after another, were dragged down, and those that hadn't fallen were merely struggling to hold on.

Due to their own arch-shaped structure, the bridge pillars could bear one or two impacts reluctantly.

Herders' ropes were tangled on the bridge pillars, and the Paratu People who dived into the water had to cut through them before becoming hypothermic.

Bonfires were lit on the bridge to warm the diving soldiers.

But still, many soldiers were pulled out of the water already so cold that they couldn't speak, their bodies shaking uncontrollably.

Some had skin that had turned blue-purple, their limbs swollen like radishes.

Sekler felt a bitter sadness in his heart; these men leaping into The Styx were his finest boys.

But he couldn't show any emotion, only continuing to send more men into the water.

The Styx's currents were fierce, and the waters carried massive logs crashing against the bridge.

The Paratu People were up against the might of nature itself; swords, muskets were all rendered useless at this moment, the only weapons left to humans were courage and will.

All twelve small boats were sent out, but with no fishing nets to be found in such haste, the soldiers on the boats could only try to stop the driftwood with their long spears.

A log, half-submerged and thick as a man's embrace, only surfaced near the bridge pilings.

The soldiers nearby working on cutting the ropes couldn't dodge in time and were struck directly by the log, vomiting blood instantly.

By the time he was pulled from the water, he was already breathless.

This was a very young, handsome fellow, who now lay naked on the bridge deck, his eyes staring blankly, traces of blood at his lips, a great gouge in his chest.

Someone was crying softly.

Sekler removed his cloak and covered the young man's body, gently closing his eyes.

"What was his name?" Sekler asked.

"I don't know, General," Colonel Laszlo replied expressionlessly: "I don't know."

The Herders on the opposite bank also noticed the unusual activity of the Paratu military, and regardless of whether the White Lion had communicated with them beforehand, they were not going to miss this opportunity.

Arrows and stones came showering towards the Paratu People on the bridge, with the bonfires serving as excellent markers.

Hunters carrying rifled muskets hurriedly came to their aid, a symphony of gunshots and the whistling of arrows filling the air. Some fell into the water, others onto the ground.

"Boats!" The Paratu People on the boats cried out in alarm: "Boats!"

On the river surface, a massive object emerged from the darkness, pressing towards the bridge with each passing moment.

"Where did the boats come from?"

"It's not boats." Colonel Laszlo gave it just a glance, answering with a detached calm: "They're rafts, sheepskin rafts."

Paratu soldiers on the small boats rowed fiercely, charging towards the gigantic sheepskin rafts.

And on the sheepskin rafts, Herders were also there, aiming their bows and shooting arrows at the oarsmen on the small boats.

"Such a large sheepskin raft," Sekler scoffed: "I wonder how long they've prepared this… I thought I had already esteemed him highly. In the end, I still underestimated him."