| Subject: Rampage North- Ch. 3 |
Author:
Conder, AA
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Date Posted: 01:16:25 06/18/07 Mon
Keystone Fortress furiously toiled to prepare for the inevitable attack. Ever since they lost contact with the southern outpost, all of their efforts had switched from outside the fort to inside. A torrent of beasts rushed through the long, narrow armory, grabbing sword, mace and polearm off the walls almost indiscriminately. Up on the ramparts, mangonels were being set up and loaded by the fortress's best engineers. At the center of it all, in the keep's battle room, Commander Darlos pored over a diagram of the structure. The amber-furred mouse beckoned to one of the Majors in the vicinity. The officer listened as Darlos quietly spoke into his ear.
"Sorando, see to it that all shot launched by the mangonels is heated and we use sand from the stockpile if we run out of stones, which we probably will because I need you to take half the stones from each mangonel and load them into the murder holes."
The squirrel gazed at his leader bemusedly. "Sir, won't the stones just spit out the holes at random? And do you want us to heat the sand, too?"
"Yes, heat the sand, and I plan on them being random because then they can't just not stand to the side of the murder holes, since the mangonel stones are too small and probably won't stick to the designated path of the shafts."
Sorando felt a chilling sensation run down through his body. Heated sand was one of the most horrifically effective types of ammunition a mangonel could use. It worked its way in through crevices in soldiers' armor and gave them excruciating and often lethal burns, and was also extremely difficult to medically treat.
"Sir, are you sure..."
"Yes, Sorando, I'm sorry about the sand too, but our lives are at stake here. Keep in mind that these are the vermin who just destroyed our entire southern outpost and everyone inside."
Meanwhile, outside the keep, a contingent of officers simultaneously notified the mangonel crews that they were to launch a test volley at the outer rim of the kill zone, to make sure all of their rope springs were powerful enough to reach that distance. Darlos climbed the stairs to the keep's roof, and shouted out the procedure's commands to the completely silent army.
"Prepare to launch!" 18 arms stretched back on their rope springs, fighting upward but being forced against their tension.
"Load volley!" 18 metal-lined, bowl-like concave discs were filled with stones each the size of a grapefruit.
"Fire!" What was audible after that one word was a collective whoosh, a deafening thud as all of the mangonels' arms struck the crossbar stoppers. A few seconds passed as the stones hurtled through the air, and then a roaring cascade of noise as the ordance hammered the earth just at the outer rim of the kill zone. Dirt was flung up from the ground and debris was scattered in a daunting radius around each impact point, and it was thus proven that the mangonels were in good order. Which, as the fortress's kingpin, they had to be.
Darlos smiled contentedly as he watched the elated wall guard celebrating over the successful test from his vantage point on the keep roof. Nothing boosted morale more than kicking dirt, especially when you kicked the dirt with something thrown out a siege weapon. Those mangonels were the way Keystone Fortress had made its way to becoming a keystone of the region, so it didn't hurt to remind the troops how powerful they were. Now, to wait until there was something to mangle besides the topsoil.
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