"Fire at will! Kill them all!" Captain Willem's command thundered over the cacophonous rooftop as the hard-pressed defenders went to full offensive against the diving, shrieking shapes plunging down from the slate-grey heavens.
All around him, the antique hwachas roared like the angry voices of ancient gods as their groaning spin-arms unleashed rippling volleys skyward. Explosive-propelled arrows hissed through the air in swirling cyclones, joining the staccato barks of the boltcasters frantically losing their payloads. Acrid gunpowder smoke billowed in thick banks to merge with the all-consuming pall of dust and shattered masonry raining down in an unrelenting, punishing fusillade.
The veteran knights and the volunteers moved with grim determination despite the earthshaking detonations concussing all around them. Ser Cedric, Ser Percival, Ser Gareth, and Gilbert worked the hwachas in fluid concert - one hand steadying the massive Oriental siege weapons while the other gripped white-knuckle tight to shields or stout boards lifted high to deflect the worst of the falling debris.
Nearby, Ethan and young Oliver risked their lives in the open, scrambling to feed fresh cartridges of ammunition to the insatiable maws of the ancient war machines. Even Old Man Jedd contributed what he could, his gnarled hands deftly making running repairs to the hwachas' mechanisms in the lulls between bombardments.
Captain Willem himself bellowed orders and warnings from his vantage point near the roof's center. One hand clenched the boltcaster's gunstock tight against his shoulder, thumb working the glazier's lever to rapidly cycle fresh quarrels into the firing groove. The other gripped the sturdy kite shield strapped to his forearm, deflecting head-sized rocks and jagged shards of shattered timber indiscriminately away from his body.
Nearby, Corporal Knightly held a similar watchful vigil at the captain's back - his own boltcaster working in tandem as they scythed intersecting fields of fire across the churning, smoke-wreathed skies. Yet despite their best efforts, and that of their beleaguered comrades all across the sprawling defense line, almost none of their furious fusillades could seem to deter the marauding harpy flocks from their unrelenting assaults.
Through the chaos, a telltale creaking, groaning sound began to worm its way into Willem's consciousness. At first nearly imperceptible over the din, it rapidly crescendoed into an ominous, unignorable grating. A tremor shuddered through the rooftop's timbers underfoot, intensifying with every fresh craterous impact from above.
He swiveled his head, one eye squinting through the gunsmoke to scan for the source of this new threat. His heart clenched when he saw the dangerously unstable, towering piles of debris accumulating all around the rooftop's edges. The densely packed stone and shattered roof beams leaned precariously, unnervingly top-heavy mounds shedding smaller cascades downward with each reverberating tremor.
Willem knew precisely what would happen if those precipitous slopes of rubble continued to grow unchecked. When their sheer mass crested beyond the rooftop's tolerances for compression loading, the entire timber framework would violently, catastrophically buckle inwards upon itself and all those atop it. With a sharp bark, he pivoted towards Knightly.
"Bring some men up from the ground and help me get rid of these rocks from the rooftop!" the captain commanded. "And tell Father Edgar to evacuate the villagers, move all of them to the cellar!"
Though he could scarcely make out the corporal's terse affirmation over the bellowing hwacha-roar of explosions and screeching harpies, Knightly clearly grasped the urgency encoded in his commander's expression. He hastily bellowed new orders to the lower defensive screen.
Like a well-oiled machine, a fresh cadre of men swiftly peeled away from the groaning barricades shielding the courthouse. They raced toward the stairwell access, moving as a single coordinated body, their determination etched onto their soot-streaked faces.
Moments later, Maeda, Hjalmar, and Aden emerged onto the embattled rooftop, their arrival heralding a renewed effort to stabilize the crumbling defenses before the accumulated weight of debris crushed them beneath an avalanche of their own creation.
"You guys, get rid of these rocks before the rooftop collapses!" Captain Willem commanded, his voice cutting through the chaos like a whip crack.
Without a moment's hesitation, the trio sprang into action, their movements fueled by a sense of urgency that bordered on desperation.
"Right away, sir!" Aden shouted, his lean frame already straining against the weight of a rock as he heaved it toward the edge of the roof.
"On it!" Hjalmar grunted, his muscles rippling beneath the strain as he joined Aden in their Herculean task.
"Wakarimashita!" Maeda replied, his lithe form darting between the two men as he deftly cleared smaller debris from their path.
Together, they toiled relentlessly, their efforts punctuated by the thunderous roar of cannon fire and the piercing screams of the harpies that circled overhead like harbingers of doom. Each rock, each boulder that they dislodged and cast from the rooftop was a small victory in the face of overwhelming odds, a defiant stand against the forces that threatened to bury them beneath the weight of their own fortifications.
As they labored, the sound of Father Edgar's voice drifted up from the ground below, urging the villagers to seek shelter in the cellar's relative safety.
<> during the bombardment, Old man Jedd knocked unconscious by the boulder splash damage, the boulder landed direct hit on one of the hwacha near him. He dreamed about his past. how he became a renown sapeur, a military contractor engineer, how he able to met the impossible of the Imperial Ministry of War's demand and invented a portable knock-down hwacha which can be installed easily. how his heart yearn for his love Lororis which he did an unforgivable mistake to her. how all the coins and benefits he got from the empire won't make his heart content, only forgiveness from his long lost love could make him go to the otherside in peace.
"Old man!" Gilbert yelled as he saw Old Man Jedd drop unconscious.
Aden got to the rooftop just on time. the rooftop units were busy tossing out the rocks and boulders
The thunderous bombardment shook the very floor beneath their feet, as the harpies hurled rocks and boulders with devastating force. Amid the chaos, a particularly large boulder found its mark, obliterating one of the hwacha siege engines – the ingenious portable knock-down design that Old man Jedd had painstakingly crafted for the Imperial Ministry of War.
The impact was cataclysmic, sending shards of shattered rock and splintered wood flying in every direction. A jagged piece of debris caught Jedd squarely in the head, the force of the blow rendering him unconscious before he even hit the ground. His body crumpled lifelessly, crushed beneath the immense weight of the boulder that had decimated his prized creation.
"Jedd! Jedd!" The frantic cries of the young acolyte, Gilbert, pierced through the din of battle, his voice growing increasingly faint as darkness enveloped Jedd's senses.
The last thing he knew was that a huge arm picked him up and took him to the lower level.
In the twilight realm between life and death, Jedd's mind drifted back through the decades, revisiting the pivotal moments that had shaped his legacy. He saw himself as a young, ambitious sapeur – a brilliant military contractor engineer – driven by an insatiable hunger for knowledge and a burning desire to push the boundaries of what was possible.
The memory played out vividly: the Imperial Ministry of War had presented him with a seemingly insurmountable challenge – to design a portable, rapidly deployable version of the formidable hwacha, the Essen Myong-In multiple rocket launcher. With unwavering determination and countless sleepless nights, Jedd had pored over blueprints and calculations, tinkering and experimenting until he had achieved the impossible – a knock-down hwacha that could be swiftly assembled and installed in even the most inhospitable terrain.
His groundbreaking invention had brought him fame, fortune, and the admiration of his peers, but at a devastating personal cost. In his single-minded pursuit of greatness, he had driven away the one person who truly mattered – his beloved Lororis. The memory of the unforgivable mistake that had shattered their relationship weighed heavily upon him, a specter of regret that no amount of wealth or accolades could banish.
As Jedd's consciousness slipped further into the ephemeral realm of his past, he found himself yearning for Lororis's forgiveness with every fiber of his being. In those fleeting moments between life and death, he realized that all the riches and adulation he had amassed meant nothing without her love and absolution. A profound sadness washed over him as he accepted that his heart could only find true peace in the afterlife, should he be granted the mercy of reuniting with his long-lost love.
The cacophony of battle faded into silence as Jedd's grip on reality slipped away, his battered body left to the mercy of the unforgiving conflict raging around him, while his spirit wandered through the labyrinth of his memories and regrets.
<> Hjalmar brought Old Man Jedd to the cellar. and then the rooftop collapsed.
<> The rooftop caved in to the second floor. Aden swallowed. slided on a tilted plank, dropped on to the first floor. Aden's head was ringing, his vision blurred. smoke and dust covered the caved in courthouse. he tried to get up but he couldn't, his body still in shock. His ears echoed. Aden checked on his body, nothing broken or serious wound. only wooden graze his back, bruises, and cuts wound. the tilted plank helped Aden reduced the fall damage to his body. beside him some people became casualties, under the debris and rubble. Those who didn't get into the basement were scrambled into four wings in panic.
<>Everyone panicked, scrambled to four winds seeking refuge. only half of the refugees were able to got into the cellar just in time.
<>The harpies stopped the bombing and start hunting the people who went astray.
The rooftop groaned like a wounded leviathan as structural supports failed, collapsing inwards and spilling rubble down into the courthouse's lower floors in an ever-expanding plume of choking debris. Aden felt the floor quite literally drop out from under him as the bombardment reached its catastrophic crescendo.
Scrambling for purchase, his boots slipped and skidded on a tilted length of timber jutting from the devastation. He slid in an uncontrolled descent, arms pinwheeling wildly until gravity asserted its dominance. With a teeth-rattling impact, he crashed through the remnants of the first floor in an explosion of pulverized beams and plaster dust.
Coughing and gasping for air amidst the rubble-choked haze, Aden blinked in stunned disorientation. His head swam as ringing echoed through his skull loud enough to drown out all other sounds. Instinct overrode conscious thought as he immediately took stock of his physical state - a reflexive triage drilled into him through years of combat experience.
Relief washed over him as a hasty examination revealed no grievous wounds or shattered bones. Only a myriad of scrapes, gashes, and blossoming bruises marred his physique. It seemed the plank that had precipitated his precipitous descent had also mitigated much of the fall's crushing force. He'd been fortunate...the same could not be said for those now entombed within this wasteland of splintered timber and crumbling stonework.
All around, a nightmarish tableau emerged as the clinging pall gradually dispersed. Forms twisted at unnatural angles, crushed and mutilated beneath towering masses of debris. Those who had managed to avoid being interred in the greater collapse had scattered in a blind panic at the first signs of the courthouse's catastrophic structural failure. Only a scant few had heeded the calls to seek shelter in the reinforced sub-basement as the first boulders began raining down from above.
Now the village square more closely resembled the shattered vestiges of an ancient battlefield strewn with the gruesomely broken dead and critically wounded. And as the thunderous barrage from above finally lulled, a new predator arrived to prowl amidst the carnage.
Harsh screeches and chilling skrees cut through the dust-choked air as the sleek forms of diving harpies arrowed in from every compass point. Having so effectively culled and scattered their prey, these winged terrors now took to the hunt. Cruel talons flashed in the guttering light as they fell upon any hapless survivors unwise or unlucky enough to have strayed from what little shelter the cellars provided.
"Kheeaah!" the harpies screeched loud. dozens of them descended to the courthouse and hunted every person who went astray.
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