The walls were packed with soldiers, Iceborne and human alike. Nearly all of these were emptyhanded at the moment with rocks of Ice laying at their feet. The plan was simple, first they would wait for the enemy to get a little closer, then they would get shot by the ballista. After the enemy passed this hurdle, the Giants would throw their large boulders towards the enemies. Lastly, when they reached the wall, rocks would rain on them from above.
The magical ballista could shoot further than 500 meters, but since he wanted to hit as many people as he could, he waited for them to get a bit closer.
The enemy was very organized, moving in 3 solid groups. This was the perfect situation for a weapon such as the magical ballista. Since the enemy was so close to each other a single shot could take out a number of enemies.
Yet, the weapon that fired first wasn't the ballista Jay was handling, instead, on the mountain next to the red Iceborne an icy piece of machinery had appeared. First Jay wasn't sure what it was due to the distance between them. But when a rock landed just a few meters before the wall he realized it was most likely a trebuchet.
Realizing the next shot was likely to hit the wall, Jay rapidly gave out orders. All the non-archers were to evacuate the wall and prepare to charge out the gate. Meanwhile, 10 blue-furs were told to go out the south gate and make their way to that ballista as soon as possible.
As for himself, he knew he had to shoot the ballista now or he might lose the chance in the next second. He aimed the large machine towards the leftmost group of enemies. Once it pointed to the middle of the group he pulled the trigger and a second later 2 separate explosions sounded out.
The first was the ballista bolt made purely out of magical energy. It headed straight into the group of enemies. A loud explosion sounded as a blue magical fire started burning the bodies of over a dozen Iceborne. The fire didn't cause any physical burns but attacked the soul instead. They were lucky they had such lacking cultivation or they might have had to suffer the pain of a burning soul for hours.
Normally this would be followed by Jay being content with the effect and aiming for the second group but sadly it wasn't so. Just a moment after he shot the first bolt the ballista exploded in a hundred pieces. The enemy trebuchet hit the ballista straight on.
As the person just next to it, Jay suffered great damage. He was knocked over the wall and had over a dozen large splinters sticking out of his body. He was extremely dazed and severely hurt. He chugged 2 health potions before some of the soldiers who were shocked their Lord got wounded so early in the fight came up and helped him remove the splinters. Forced to chug 2 more potions Jay was still wounded quite severely.
Health potions were able to lessen most wounds but there would always be some residual damage that had to heal in itself. Furthermore, he had also taken some spiritual damage. The magic crystal that was mounted on the ballista had also exploded causing mana to explode right in his face. Even if this wasn't visible it was still a hefty wound that would limit his magic usage.
Once he managed to properly get up, he slowly moved to the rampant with a frown. Right now he had to pretend nothing was wrong with him for the sake of morale but he knew this wasn't the case. Right now his moveset would be more limited than usual and his speed would also be less by quite the amount.
Frowning, he assessed the strength of his own troops compared to theirs. With his giants and well-trained troops, he should be able to beat them but there were 2 uncertainties. The strength of the red Iceborne and the trebuchet.
The trebuchet was already a big problem now, as it would probably be able to make a hole in the wall with its next shot. How much damage it would do depended on how long the blue-furs would take to get to it.
The red Iceborne was someone whose strength he had no idea of. It might just be a noble with no real strength, or it could be a great expert with sword intent.
Due to these uncertainties, a retreat was not yet off the table. At this point, the 2 undamaged squadrons were only 150 meters away from the city, while the damaged one had only just started moving again.
And so at his signal, the archers started shooting. Unlike most archers in medieval times they weren't supposed to simply fire in an arc using a preprepared stance. Instead, these archers all aimed at a small group of enemies before firing their shots. This was done in order to slow down the enemies by having a part of their groups be under a significant amount of more fire than the rest.
This technique actually worked better than expected. His small group of 10 archers was able to put enough pressure on a group of 15 Iceborne that it made them slow down and thus separate from their formation in order to defend themselves. And from there it wasn't too hard for the archers to slowly kill them off.
Now it was time for the first Giant to step forward, he had a massive block made out of ice, if this was properly thrown it could kill a whole bunch of the enemies. Yet, just before the giant had the opportunity, he was attacked himself. A ball made of ice struck his massive chest, surprising him. Due to the surprise, he stumbled over his own feet falling backward.
This made Jay curse inwardly, he hadn't expected the giant would be shot next. He knew that if he were at the trebuchet he probably would just have his men spread out to take as little damage as possible by the giants and use his shots to break through the walls.
Jay was the only one that knew the enemies' move couldn't be considered smart. Usually, a single ballista shot would have no way to take out a giant. They probably had never seen a giant before and underestimated its strength, getting lucky in the process. Now the second giant came up, he was on the other side of the village and had to throw his rock quite a bit further.
Even if the enemies saw the block of ice coming, they couldn't do much to defend against it. A few people managed to dodge out of its range but 6 enemies were still killed under its weight.
But now, time was running out. The Iceborne had almost arrived at the walls and Jay knew the trebuchet was sure to breach the outer wall with the next shot.
Seeing this situation unfold, Jay decided to so on the offensive. This way the archers could keep shooting and the trebuchet wouldn't be inclined to destroy the village. Furthermore, Jay felt very uncomfortable defending. Attacking was simply more his style.
The gates opened and 40 men and women ran out with weapons in their hands. It seemed Geralt had decided not to put them in formation as per Jay's advice and told them to spread out a bit instead. This odd tactic was also the one Jay used when his guild had to fight in a war in his last life. By doing things this way you would allow your troops to use their individual strength instead of the strength of a group.
In a world such as this, there would be some that were many times stronger than others and thus fighting as a group was often the wrong call. Right now the plan was for the individuals to lure the enemies out of their formations and kill with superior skill… and weapons.
Geralt and Jay were the last to exit the village. They both went to deal with one of the dark blue Iceborne. Even if he was wounded, Jay was confident he would be able to take care of one of these guys!