20 Preparing For The Final wave
Tomorrow was a dead or alive battle. As a commander of this homemade force, he had to make up for numbers, if human lacked then machine. It was fortunate that Heiner had rocks with himself; he realized how powerful they were at the moment ago. The power of nature was playing the primary role in a crisis. Heiner was glad that he had rocks with him. If nature was an ally to human, why he had to fear monsters? The Heiner's task was bringing natural power into play, borrowing nature's power and dominating enemies, With the potential wisdom, an idea blinked in his head, catapults.
Catapult was a mechanical device that could bring the power of nature. With the lifeless rocks, machine, and human, villagers could win this war. Again, why these monsters invaded the village? Who was the mastermind behind this? What was their purpose? Heiner had a lot of questions in his mind, but he could not think of the answers right now. But that was not important at this moment. What they urgently need was catapults, and at least three of them.
Beyhild took charges in collecting logs while Heiner was working in catapult's blueprint. It was an important task, and the commander was the only one who could design it, then the vice commander should take care of materials.
Others could not relax as well: masonries were working with the mound of stone; first, they had to prepare ammo for the catapult, bombarding these bastards, second, they had craft stone into blocks, using them for building a temporary fortress, as for the rest, they followed vice commander to cut the trees and sent them to Eadda.
The catapult did not need accuracy nor long distance shot. Be able to shoot, that was all. Any slingshot, taking advantage of a high number of enemies, would hit some of them randomly without problems, simple but effective.
After Heiner finished his blueprint, the core of this defending mission, he handed it over to Eadda. Receiving the plan and discussing the detail for a while, the older man finally nodded and left immediately. No one could relax tonight. Sitting or resting was not different than waiting for death, then they had to be active to the last moment.
The young man walked around the pit he dug earlier, though for a while then covered the building site, trying to do something in secret. Everyone was not allowed to entered or peeked. If people did not know what Heiner was trying to do, the enemy's scout would have no idea as well.
The long night passed. Eadda team managed to build four catapults. Fro keeping this secret from enemies, Regenmaer and his team patrolled all night, making sure this critical information would not leak. The old man, Eadda, had tested catapults' firepower and marked where it reached. Beyhild also did the same with her bowman squad. Now, she was standing on the wooden wall next to the pit.
The two corners of the wall were made with stones, carrying the catapults and artillerymen. The wooden wall was just an outer layer, filling with rough rocks inside. The entrance was a pit and around the pit was Heiner's building site, no one knew what he did but they could guess it was a trap.
The sun was raising, showing some movement in the eyesight. Seeing the enemies from afar, artillerymen loaded the rocks, prepared for battle. Everyone was standing by quietly but their heart. They were able to hear the abnormal rhythm in their own chest; the heartbeat was racing with each other.
BA-BUMP BA-BUMP
BA-BOOM BA-BOOM
Monsters were getting closer and closer. They were holding weapons marching like the trained soldiers. Strange. How could monsters develop to this point? If they were well trained, then there must be a king of these monsters, invading human's territory must be his order.
"Gulp" Regenmaer could not help but nervous. The goblins' horde, around three hundred, almost reached the mark in ten seconds. "Ten... nine... eight... seven... six... five... four... three... two... FIRE!!"
PHEEEEEEEEWWW... BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
PHEEEEEEWWW... BOOM BOOM BOOM
PHEEEEEEEEWWWww... BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
PHEEEEEEEEWWW... BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM
"Kuuieeekk!! Kuuieeekk!!" The hobgoblins roared, commanding their underling to charge forward and facing the rain of stones head on. Some goblins screamed, losing a limp but it could be called lucky as other goblins were not able to cry, be hitting by falling rocks, their heads exploding like a watermelon, getting a terrible death. Faster. Closer. They keep running forward, shouting the war cry.
"Ready." Beyhild raised her hand, dipping down once invaders reached the range. "FIRE!!"
WHOOSH WHOOSH WHOOSH
THUD! kUIEEK! THUD KUUEEK! THUD!...
The enemies were fallen rapidly, 300, 290, 275, 250, 220, 180, 145 Only half of them were left, reaching the area that Heiner was working on last night. He smirked as a good show was about to run.
