Almost two-thousand Golden Isles men were killed in the aftermath of the ritual. The Golden Isles men had suffered a great hit to their morale as a result of losing so many. Their morale was further lost as they returned to continue the siege, and had to pass through the camps and see their brothers in arms frozen solid to the ground, expressions of fear and pain still visible through the crystal like sheet of ice covering them.
As the enemy returned to the siege, they found that the ballista was useless, as the string was frozen solid and had been broken into millions of pieces, scattering into the wind. The only thing they had to take back their city was the gate smasher. All they could do is throw their entire force at the gates to smash them open. It was their only hope.
Trudging through the deep snow, the enemy attacked. The Northmen were ready however and a horn was blown, signaling all men to the walls. Bundles of arrows were prepared, as well as barrels of pitch and fire braziers for the archers to light their arrows and send them flying at the Golden Isles men. Jon was also on the wall right next to his father, they had a few arrows soaking in the flammable pitch, ready to be sent rapidly at the enemy. Both men were nervous as they could be overrun, due to sheer number differences.
As the Golden Isles men charged into the Northmen's archery range, the Northmen began loosing a storm of fire at them, seeing the arrows bury themselves in shields, men began having to drop their shields as they caught on fire from the sticky pitch. The men who were unlucky enough to be struck by these arrows meant that the flames were burning them from the inside out, even after they were snuffed out, if the men were not dead, they could not continue to fight.
The Golden Isles men were suffering heavy casualties as a thousand arrows were flying at them at one time, all flaming, while many hit their targets. To make things worse the Golden Isles warriors still had to make it through the thigh deep snow, slowing their travel significantly. Once the enemy reached the siege machine, they tried hard to get it swinging, as the thing was so heavy and still somewhat frozen.
By the time the Golden Isles men had reached the siege machine, they had already lost almost four hundred men. As the enemy began to reach the siege machine, the Northmen prepared to dump pitch on them, they just needed to wait for them to clump together more. As the archers continued to rain fire upon the enemy, the enemy was constantly losing men, as their bodies littered the snow. Jon was shooting like a mad man, no longer dipping his arrows in pitch, he picked his shots on men without shields. Jon missed many shots, but was able to shoot because his quiver never ran out of arrows, as this was a gift from the Old Goddess Freyja.
As the fighting went on, Jon was able to better judge his shots and how they would drop at distance. He was hitting men at such a high rate, men were stopping to watch this feat. As Jon noticed he corrected them, and they began shooting again.
Once the men manning the middle rampart deemed there were enough men on the siege machine, the barrels of Pitch were dropped on their heads, one man actually being crushed under the heavy frozen wood. As the barrels of pitch hit the ground, they splattered pitch across everyone around the siege machine, torches and lit arrows were shot into the flammable black tarry substance. As soon as the flames got near, the pitch exploded into a raging inferno, men screaming and trying to put themselves out in the snow, however the pitch clung to their clothes and melting skin as they cried out in tremendous pain.
The men who were fortunate enough to not get caught in the inferno quickly turned and ran as fast as they could through the thick snow, moving quite slowly. Flaming arrows flying through the sky, hitting their exposed backs as they fled, killing more and more of them. As soon as they were out of range from the archers, the men began digging their camp out of the snow. The failed "siege" if you could call it that, lost them another one thousand men plus another three hundred on the retreat. The Golden Isles men who entered this valley outnumbering the Northmen five to one, now had no morale and were only twice their number now, if that. However this act of defense had cost the Northmen almost all of their pitch and half of the arrow supply they brought with them. This defense could not be kept up, unless the next attack crushed the Golden Isles men completely. The Northmen needed to brace for a brawl, as they may be fighting two to one odds. Those were never good, but proper tactics, better positioning and better equipment could make a big difference. The mages could not do another spell of that magnitude for quite some time, as the Gods gave a lot of energy themselves to help the situation, they needed time to recover. The spell did not take so much from the individuals, as most of the power used was borrowed.
If the leadership saw fit, they could try it again, but the land might be ruined afterwards, as the magic taints the ground as the snow melts, in large quantities, it will make the land unable to grow things and next year's harvest was already most likely lost. Another spell like that and the ground may be infertile for decades or even centuries.
Eventually the Golden Isles men had licked their wounds and as they wanted one more round. Half of the enemy forces began to go around the city, covered by the hills and deep snow, while the other half started back towards the siege machine. The horn was blown signaling an attack, and the Northmen rallied to the walls. Jon was out of breath by the time he reached the ramparts, he needed a moment before he could shoot accurately. The enemy was advancing, trying to get back to the siege machine, which might be inoperable, as it is made of wood and was soaked in pitch. Even though the siege machine was charred it had gone out days ago and looked like it retained its structure.
All of the Northmen began losing their arrows at the entire force of enemies below them, killing many of their men before they were even able to check the siege machine. Most of these men were unarmored and had only light weapons, unable to collect their fallen comrades' weapons from the ground without becoming a nice target for an archer.
As the men reached the siege machine the archers were dumping a thousand arrows into them, while a majority of the forces lay dead or dying in the field or next to the siege machine. Upon using the siege machine, the men were shocked to find as it stuck the thick iron gates one time the entire structure crumpled, smashing all of the men too close to run into a bright red paste on the white snow.
With almost all of the men who rushed dead, the rest of the remaining forces were forced to retreat, nearly all of them killed with the last remaining arrows in the Northmen supply. Seeing only about one hundred men fleeing out of range, the entire Northmen army began to cheer in celebration. As they left the battlements they were smiling and cheering, ready to drink and celebrate the successful defense of the city.
Soon, men began to drink and make their way back to camp. However screams of pain and horror filled the air as another, louder noise began to fill the city streets. Yelling and shouting and the sounds of combat filled the entire city, as somehow an enemy force of one thousand men had made it into the city and were slaughtering unsuspecting Northmen on their way to the Jarls' tower.