Chapter 354 - 119 – FIRE!

The city had come to a moment of perpetual silence, as every person whether it be a mother looking after her child, a shop owner opening their store for the day or a lady enjoying a refreshing cup of tea.

At that moment they all stopped what they were doing and turned to the keep, they witnessed groups of soldiers standing atop the walls that surrounded the keep, pulling on thick and heavy chains.

Hugh metallic siege engines of death emerged atop the walls, in all the siege engines counted 20 in total.

"Ballistae," Lirian muttered as he looked at the metallic contraptions, a ballista resembled a cross bow, only it was much larger and a lot more powerful.

While it wasn't extremely mobile due to its massive size, the power of it was not something to be underestimated, a single bolt fired from a ballista was enough to tear through entire ranks of infantry.

When measured by the damage that could be dealt to cultivators, it wasn't a stretch to say that even fourth grade cultivators, could be injured by a bolt, that said to be able to hit a fourth grade cultivator with such a weapon was very unlikely to happen.

And currently twenty such contraptions were lining the walls of the keep, 'It's a great show of power, but what are they planning on doing,' Lirian wondered to himself, but as it turned out the show was only just beginning.

The gates to the keep started to rise and the sound was clearly heard by everyone in the city.

Lirian broke away from the crowds and hurriedly scaled the walls of a building and ran across the roof tops until he reached the plaza at the keep gates.

The roads were still littered with the dead bodies from the night before, and the stench of the dead tainted the air in its foul stench.

A force started to emerge from the open gates, and the residents of the city all gathered up to watch as files of soldiers poured through the gates, and at the front Lirian saw what was probably one of the ugliest men he had ever laid his eyes upon.

"It's no wonder Izlandi says that she feels like throwing up when ever she is in his presence," Lirian muttered softly feeling a wave of sympathy for Izlandi as he looked at the ugly toad like face of Stanley.

In truth Lirian felt like he was doing a disservices to toads, when he compared Stanley to one, if there was an ugly scale, with one being moderately ugly and ten being a blight upon the wold, Stanley was a solid twelve, with toads being a three.

Stanley rode a horse at the front of the army that emerged and behind him the soldiers formed neat files along the sides of the road, they pushed and kicked the dead corpses, shoving them to the sides of the streets to clear the space, and in the next moment the sound of chains clinked loudly.

Lirian looked at the gates and saw a row of four horse's, each one was twice the size of a cow, metal chains where wrapped around their body, with each link of the chains being the size of a large man's hand.

As the horses moved forward, a ballista was pulled forward, this time Lirian could see the siege engine clearly, the head of the ballista, towered over the people at ten feet, and large removable wheels were fixed to the bottom of the siege engines, but even with the wheels the horse's still struggled to pull the siege engine.

But that wasn't the end, because as the first ballista was pulled forward another emerged behind it, and another followed after, Lirian counted every single ballista that came out, and after the first thirty there were no more horses to pull the siege engines.

At that point ten novices worked together to pull each subsequent weapon and another 40 ballistae emerged being pulled by the novices.

In total 20 were placed on the wall of the keep, and now another 70 were being pulled through the city, after hours of parading the ballistae they came to a stop at the walls all around the city, and to the surprise of residents, the novices climbed the walls and using the chains they started to pull the ballistae up the walls.

That same grating sound that alerted everyone in the morning was heard again, and now they understood why, the grating sound and the occasional loud thumps that shook the city was caused by the ballistae being pulled up the walls.

Lirian looked through the memories he took from Izlandi, and was surprised to find that she had absolutely no knowledge about the weapons what so ever.

"That girl is just as clueless as all the others in this place," Lirian sighed in depression.

As Lirian watched he suddenly understood what was going on, 'So they weren't completely shutting themselves off,' Lirian realised and it seemed that House Kurt was keeping a close on everything going on in the city and managed to understand his intentions.

Lirian wanted to drive away all the minor nobles, that were in the alliance, but with this siege engines in play, that entire plan would have to be washed away.

If the nobles tried to back out of the alliance and flee, their manors could be fired upon from the keep if they tried to rebel, and if they dared to flee the ballistae on the walls would be able to make quick work of them.

"Well played," Lirian laughed aloud, with this his past two day of planning was rendered meaningless.

But still he felt like House Kurt was over doing it a bit, they weren't even trying to hide their intention to hold all the minor nobles as hostages, it wouldn't cause any trouble now, but in the long term it would be detrimental, after all at some point they had to return the minor nobles freedom.

Lirian had seen enough, his plans were ruined for now, but he was happy, finally House Kurt was playing along and he was planning to cherish these coming days.

Lirian turned around and started heading for The Red Boar, when suddenly he heard a loud shout reverberate across the city.

He turned around to see Stanley who was currently standing on top of the keep walls, he looked down at the people with disdain in his eyes and acting like he was the king of the world.

"ATTENTION!!!" he shouted drawing the attention of every person in the city.

"As all of you are aware, last night House Kurt was attacked by the terrorist organisation known as Unity!"  he said.

Lirian frowned at that, 'They are accusing Unity,' Lirian thought, 'Why, won't that just create a larger panic?' Lirian frowned, 'What do they get out of making such a statement?', but soon his question was answered.

"It has been brought to our attention that they were led by some cowardly, self-declared god, to that cowardly god I have a message!" Stanley shouted.

"House Kurt has come to understand that you have converted the refuges outside the city into your minions,"

"For the treacherous crime of joining a terrorist organisation, I have but one word," Stanley said with a wide disgusting smile.

"FIRE!" Stanley shouted.

Lirian's eyes widened in surprise and turned to look at the city walls, the ballistae were aimed and ready, at Stanley's word, the bolts were shot in rapid succession, and fell on the refuge encampment like rain.