Release That Witch

Due to limited physical strength, horses carrying knights could only maintain a high-speed in a short time. As a general rule, in a charge, the knights would let their horses trot first when the enemy was around 800 to 1,000 meters away. They would speed up once the distance was shortened to 500 meters and sprint for the last 200 meters.     

Theoretically, the shooting range of a 12-pound Napoleon cannon was 1,300 meters for solid shells, but the cannons designed and made by Roland tended to miss targets over 1,000 meters away, which might result from a small ratio of the barrel caliber to the barrel length. To ensure a high hit ratio, he made it a rule that artillerymen could only fire when an enemy was within 800 meters. In this way, shells would also be very destructive especially to a crowd of enemies as they would bounce forward on the ground after landing.     

As Duke Ryan had ordered mercenary fighters to charge first, all the knights were standing by in a charge distance. This was usually a distance of absolute safety, as the enemy's arrows could never shoot that far. Meanwhile this distance also gave knights enough space to speed up their horses step by step during a charge. The slow assembling of mercenary fighters made the knights hold their horses to wait in their positions. In this way, they became easy, fixed targets for the mortar teams.     

By now, the duke's army had already unknowingly stepped on Roland's planned battleground. They could only see a flat, wide main road in the middle, with green grasslands on both sides, but those seemingly ordinary grasslands were actually full of plants grown by Leaf for special purposes. Hidden in the knee-high grasses, stout vines worked as heel ropes to prevent the knights from swiftly outflanking the First Army from the sides. Within 1,000 meters on this battleground, there were distances marks left by Soraya, which were also invisible to the people on the ground. Up in the sky, however, Lightning could clearly see that the battlefield was split into segments by different color marks. Each colored mark represented a certain distance from the defense line. From above, the enemies seemed to march on a straight ruler. That saved the Artillery Squad the trouble of calculating and correcting angles by themselves before firing. They just needed to act according to steps that they had learned in their previous manoeuver.     

Van'er's team was the first to fire their 12-pound cannon at the enemies.     

A gust of air caused by the explosion of gunpowder sent a shell out of the barrel and flying at a speed of over 400 meters per second in the air. In the blink of an eye, it struck the ground with a whistling sound. It passed between two knights and finally fell into the grassland aside. The earth and crushed stones flying in all directions startled the horses. One of the knights had even fallen down from his horse before realizing what had happened.     

Two following shells also missed their targets. They only created more dust and dirt springing up into the air.     

In the first round of firing, only the fourth shot of the four cannons turned out to be lucky. There had been nothing in front of the iron ball, but then an unlucky knight happened to step into the area where the shell struck. His armors were of no use facing a high-speed iron ball. It broke the thin layer of iron and went through his body. After that, it bounced on the ground, hit and broke another knight's calf and then cut open his horse's tummy. The inner organs of the horse poured all over the ground.     

The artillerymen would have to readjust for the next round of firing, if the knightage were accelerating their horses. However, the sudden strike apparently shocked the duke's alliance army. The knights did not receive any order to attack and still stayed in their positions, trying to calm down their frightened mounts. They did not know where those iron balls came from and how they came, as naked eyes could hardly observe objects flying at such a high speed.     

Van'er's team reloaded the cannon as fast as they could to start the second round of shooting.     

Hot weapon attacks were more than what flesh and blood could bear. Even rubbing against a fast-moving iron ball could severely injure a human body. The knight hit directly by the shell was blown to bits. His blood gushed out, forming clusters of blood mist in the air. The soldiers of the alliance army could only catch a glimpse of a black item when it bounced on the ground. It looked like a black ghost slaughtering their comrades.     

After the two rounds of attack, the duke finally linked pieces together. He sank into thought. "The flames and the loud sounds must have something to do with the sudden strikes. The enemy forces seem to have some incredible weapons that shoot much farther than crossbow bolts. They may have the same firing range as mangonels of the stronghold." At this thought, the duke gave the knights the order to charge by having a soldier blow a horn, as he believed that weapons for long-range strikes would not work once the distance was shortened.     

Hearing the horn, the knights reacted quite differently. Some of them followed the order and quickened their pace, heading for the town. Some were still trying everything to calm down their mounts. A small number of them were even retreating at the moment. The mercenary fighters rushed toward the sides where the knights stood, making the formation in utter disorder.     

Seeing the knights taking their positions on the main road and getting ready to charge, mortar teams stirred at once. Apart from cleaning bores and reloading cannons, this time, they needed to move the cannon carriages again, as they saw a red ribbon in Lightning's hand when she returned to the sky above the defense line.     

A red signal meant that the enemy forces were only 500 meters away. That was the cannons' point-blank range. At this distance, they had an 80% hit rate.     

Van'er cried out, "Remain flat! Be quick, fire, fire!"     

He did not even stop to look at the situation of the enemy when deafening noises of explosion died down. Instead, he directly turned around and shouted to the soldiers in charge of distributing ammunition. "Grapeshot! Give me grapeshot!"     

During artillery training, His Highness had emphasized many times that once they saw red signals, they must reload their cannons with grapeshot and fire at the enemy forces when they were within 300 meters. His Highness had also reminded them that they must shoot out all the solid shells in the bore first before reloading grapeshot if their cannon was not empty.     

Looking like an iron can on the outside, grapeshot was a cylinder stuffed with small iron balls and sawdust. Before the soldiers put the grapeshot in the bore, they needed to reload gunpowder and stuff a thin, wooden board inside the barrel, as grapeshot's diameter was smaller than that of the bore.     

The moment Lightning raised a purple signal, four cannons fired all at once.     

This was the first time for Van'er to shoot real grapeshot. The artillerymen including him had only received training without ignition because His Highness said that it was difficult to collect and reuse grapeshot. Today, he witnessed how destructive it could be for the first time.     

After the grapeshot flew out of the muzzle, its iron container violently broke open due to huge pressure differences. The iron balls inside rained on the knights within 300 meters like a downpour. Blood gushed out of the knights and their horses. The grapeshot shot down a crowd of enemies as easily as reaping wheat. Some iron balls could even maintain a high speed after they went through a human body. When that happened, even hiding behind someone else could not save a knight's life.     

There were still some lucky knights who escaped the iron ball shower and came to the sprint distance. They all lowered their upper bodies and rode forward at the highest speed, with only one thought in mind, which was breaking the weak defense line and killing the cowards who had been hiding behind it and operating those vicious weapons all the time. At their current speed, the knights only need less than two minutes to finish this 150-meter sprint.     

However, it turned to be extremely hard for them to complete this short distance of 150 meters. The last round of grapeshot firing totally destroyed their will to fight. Within 100 meters, the undeformed, high-speed iron balls could go through two to three people at once. A cone-shaped area in front of each muzzle now was a realm of death. Each of the fastest 20 knights ended up dead. The only difference was how many shots he had got before he fell down.     

The knightage collapsed.     

Nothing could save this routed troop now. The frightened knights in the back of the troop pulled their horses, trying to flee the field.     

Seeing the knights escaping, mercenary fighters would naturally refuse to move any step forward. They did risk their lives in battles for money but they never defy death. Now it was apparently the time to flee, and they were running much faster than they had when they had come to the battle.     

The panic quickly struck the whole of Duke Ryan's army, making the situation out of control. Soldiers pushed their way to flee the battleground. Those people who were knocked down on the ground were stamped to death. Everyone was too busy running away to attend to others, wishing they could grow two extra legs.     

At the same time, Guerillas' Song rang on the battleground. Borden Town's infantry marched out in lines to clean the field.