Release That Witch

When the enemy's ships arrived in the fork of Redwater River, they were half a day late as expected. Until an afternoon, four days' later, 10 sailing ships slowly appeared at the end of the horizon.     

On hearing this news, Van'er walked through six compartments to order his subordinate mortar team to get ready, and then went back to his location.     

"Where are they?" Rodney looked out through a crack that he made by lifting the window baffle.     

"They're at least several hundred meters away from us," Cat's Claw, who was responsible for watching signal flags, lay prone to the skylight and shouted. "There're too many wild grasses on the roof, so much so that I can't see them from here."     

Each compartment was equipped with both a shooting window and a hole on the top beside the wall. Stepping on two stairs made of soil, it was quite easy to see the situation of Redwater River.     

"When it comes to wild grass, the witch with green hair has an incredible ability." Jop wiped his semi-rusted shell, saying, "Wherever she went, the hair-like grass would grow so crazily that it would cover the dungeons tightly, which looked the same as an ordinary mound of earth."     

"What? The witch with green hair?" Van'er scolded. "Her name is Leaf. When we fought against the knightage led by the duke, she helped us grow vines on both sides of the woods, blocking the knights from passing. Otherwise, we would have suffered even more once the knights crossed the woods to attack us from behind."     

"Speaking of a miracle, all the witches are incredible." Rodney shrugged. "Such as building bunkers in one night, growing vines and wild grass to cover the ground, flying freely in the sky, even turning into a giant pigeon—none of these things can be done by common people."     

"In my view, Miss Nana is the most incredible one," Cat's Claw said with yearning and anticipation, "I don't know whether I'll be wounded. If it happens, I could meet her at a closer distance and maybe I can hear her comfort."     

"Please fix your eyes on the enemies, OK?" Van'er frowned and shouted, "If you say that nonsense again, I'll dispatch you to sweep toilets!"     

Cat's Claw spat out his tongue and craned his body out again.     

As the leader of the artillery squad, Van'er sighed internally, knowing that those guys were not anxious and would not feel trembling in their hands as they had several months ago when they were first on the battlefield. He could not say whether the change was good or bad but he thought that they were too dismissive of their enemies. However, he could not reproach them, because he was no better than they were—since he became a soldier of His Highness, Van'er had developed a completely different understanding of battle; bloody and cruel fighting seemed to have nothing to do with strength, skills, or courage. All they needed to do to achieve victories was repeating those procedures in which they had been trained by preparing, fighting, and shooting by the book.     

That was especially true when fighting against the militia of the new king in Border Town. Obviously, the enemies had incredible strength and the humanoid beasts did not fear death, but the battle had been over within half an hour. In addition, when cleaning up the battlefield, he had found himself not tired at all, as if he just finished a warm-up before training, and the enemies had already been defeated.     

If this continued, would the day come when they only operated these metal machines to destroy their enemies 1,000 miles away without seeing their faces?     

As Van'er was distracted, Cat's Claw's warning brought him back to reality.     

"I see the enemies!"     

Van'er shook his head to leave that nonsense behind and calmly made an order. "Load the ammunition!"     

They became busy right away and they were so familiar with each step that they could even place the bag and shell into the bore with their eyes closed. Without thinking of resetting and adjusting firing angles, the mortar team could shoot once every 20 breaths.     

Van'er had borne in mind the battle plan set by Prince Roland and Lord Iron Axe—similar to Border Town's defensive battle, and they could not push the disguised window baffle to shoot until the observer saw a red flag held by Miss Lightning. The No.1 and No.2 teams closest to the banks of the river would shoot the deck with grapeshots while the rest would bombard the cabin with solid shells.     

He waited quietly for the red flag to come.     

…     

Without the help of telescopes, Lotus could also see that the ships of the new king got closer and closer to the ambush location.     

Compared with the ships sailing in the sea, these ships were much slimmer without high side ports and railings. Their low hulls made it look like the ships were stuck to the river. In addition to the sails, there was a row of sailors sitting on each side of the deck, slowly pushing their paddles.     

So far, His Highness had not issued an order.     

Lotus became somewhat anxious because the observing tower was built on the top of a high hill and was far away from the river, though it could overlook the whole battlefield. At that time, Lightning and Maggie did not stay with His Highness. Because it still took some time for the messengers to pass orders to all the teams, the ships would cross the fork of Redwater River if His Highness did not give an order right now.     

Seeing the first sailing ship nearing the ambush location, Lotus could not wait to ask while a rumbling sound rolled over the river. As if it was a signal to attack and accompanied by consecutive thunderous sounds, more than a dozen thick smoke plumes mixed with flames were ejected out.     

What happened?     

Fixing her eyes back to the river, Lotus could not believe what had happened—she did not see any fighting knights and mercenaries, but the deck of the first ship was bombed abruptly. Those paddling sailors were half-killed and wounded instantly with debris and broken limbs flying in the sky. As clouds of blood rose up, the deck was painted scarlet red.     

The ship's advance slowed down because of the absence of half the sailors, while the thunderous noise didn't stop. After a while, a towering mast in the center of the ship's hull was cut in half by a cloud of dark shadow and fell down after swaying twice. And two knights, crawling out the cabin just then, were knocked onto the deck by it.     

Propelled by the water currents, the sailing ship slowly retreated backward with the rest of ships giving way to it. On hearing that noise, many sailors walked out of the cabins to see what had happened. Puzzled and confused, they looked at the first ship, which had turned into hell.     

Then, the second ship was attacked.     

Lotus could see that the crowded decks caused the clouds of blood to come more turbulently. After a thunderous noise, there appeared several bloody empty areas between the enemies who were standing shoulder to shoulder. Those unfortunate people in those empty spaces were broken into a couple of pieces forcefully, while some who were still alive shouted painfully with their guts flowing outward. The survivors all jumped into the water to save their own lives and would not dare to stay on the deck any longer.     

Lotus finally understood what His Highness meant when he said, "They can't make it", but how did his subordinates achieve that?