1 Spellmonger The Spellmonger Series Mancour Terry by Terry Mancour

Author:Terry Mancour [Mancour, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-01T06:00:00+00:00

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The attacks became more intense each night. We repelled them easily enough, but we started to lose men, men who couldn't be replaced. I did my part by illuminating the areas under attack so that our archers could see their targets, and occasionally took a turn on the battlements with my warstaff, as did the rest of the "magical corps."

Four nights after I had made my daring foray, the siege engines started inching their way toward the walls, surrounded by a sea of black furry faces. Stones were flung at our walls at far greater velocities than the "pumpkin thrower" had been capable of. For the most part they did little against the strong walls of the keep, but occasionally they would land in the Outer Bailey and hurt some of the peasants. The civilians soon learned which areas of the bailey were dangerous and which were effectively shielded by the walls.

The catapults and ballistae didn't worry me, much. Every now and then they would lob a pumpkin full of flaming oil into the castle, but our anti-arson spells and vigorous fire prevention program made this more of a bother than a threat. What worried me were the five siege towers that loomed like newly-made mountains in the distance – mountains that were approaching at the rate of twenty yards an hour.

The major advantage of a castle in a siege is the fact that the defenders have this whopping big wall to throw stuff from. It gets pretty discouraging to the attackers if they get a rain of rocks on their heads every time they charge the gates. Ladders can be employed to climb the walls, but seeing as how easy it is for one or two burly infantrymen to push the top of the ladders over with the poles that were scattered across the battlements for just such a purpose, the gurvani had stopped that foolishness quickly enough.

Siege towers are made for getting around that problem. Basically, they are large wooden towers on wheels or rollers that can be pushed up against the wall of a castle. Once in position, they drop a plank or bridge over the battlements, effectively eliminating the height advantage of the defenders.

These were worse than normal towers though, I saw, as each one had at least one or two shamans in their peaks. I saw them by magesight, and could feel their witchstones in my bones. Once their shock troops took a section of battlement they would be free to lay about them with bolt after bolt of destructive magic. Those towers had to be stopped, somehow.

We tried shooting fire arrows at them, to no avail. The goblins had been smart enough to cover the exteriors with wet hides and blankets. We tried shooting them with rocks from our ballistae, but the mass of the stones just wasn't enough to do much damage. Our archers concentrated their fire on those that pulled the towers into place. While fun, it was futile, as they had plenty of others to replace the fallen.

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