"Damn this Deadman's Path, it should be half a meter wider," Daili Brand cursed bitterly in his mind, "And this slope, allowing cavalry to charge straight up? How did Major Montekucoli design it?"
Seeing the captain in a predicament, the sergeant following behind Brand quietly suggested, "Sir, perhaps... let the warrant officer rest in the trench first? We can collect the body after dawn."
Brand steeled his resolve, stood up straight, and shouted towards the main castle, "Sergeant Lundale! Lower the drawbridge!"
A commotion erupted behind the castle walls, and someone nervously peeped half a head out of a firing port.
"What are you looking at?" Daili Brand shouted angrily, "Light the fire basin! Lower the drawbridge!"
Knight's Castle was finally illuminated by firelight; previously, to avoid giving enemy artillery a target, the interior of the fortress had only minimal lighting.
After a while, a crude drawbridge wobbled down from the castle walls.
Brand ordered the retrieval of Chris Marlow's body back to Knight's Castle, and after lighting the fire basin, another corpse in the trench was also revealed.
Thus Marlow ordered people down into the trench, picking up the musketeer's corpse and Chris Marlow's head to bring back.
Now that their position was exposed, Daili Brand no longer bothered to hide. He boldly lifted a torch and moved openly.
Brand first climbed out of the Deadman's Path and onto the slope.
Approaching, he found that the "log stakes" the "Rebels" had brought to the front of the trench were actually not wood at all, but bundles of straw.
It seemed the smoke released by the Rebels before their attack was also made using wet straw.
Brand couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief — at least it wasn't alchemical smoke.
He had been curious earlier about where the Rebels had acquired so many logs. Had they transported them all from the rear? That would be too costly.
It's worth knowing that Minister Cornelius had systematically destroyed every wooded area within dozens of miles.
Eventually, the United Provincials even stopped chopping trees directly, opting to set fires first, waiting for the flames to die down, and then taking the unburned timber to save time cutting branches.
Straw, being an easily obtainable combustible, was also ordered by Minister Cornelius to be burnt as much as possible.
However, with the winter wheat harvest season just concluded, Paratu's rural areas were covered with straw, and farmers were very resistant to the actions of the United Provincials, making it understandable how the "Rebels" could acquire some straw.
"But straw can't stop bullets, let alone shells," Daili Brand thought disdainfully, "No wonder as soon as the cannons fire, the Rebels flee."
He kicked the Rebel's cover — using straw was a convenience for him.
Captain Brand had originally thought the Rebels had brought real logs up and had specially brought an axe and lamp oil.
Since it's straw, then it's simple.
Throwing the torch upwards, the "Rebels'" cover immediately burst into flames, dispelling the darkness in an instant, lighting up the slope as bright as day.
"Let's go," Captain Brand clapped his hands, "Let's check the sentry post."
Considering the enemy's possible attack direction, Major Montekucoli had specifically widened the southwestern corner when planning hidden routes and set up a sentry post there as the forefront of the entire defense position.
The major's judgment was accurate; the Rebels' assault tonight was launched from the southwest direction.
And in the southwestern sentry post, Captain Brand saw a scene that would haunt his nightmares, the joy of burning the "Rebels'" cover vanished in an instant.
Chris Marlow's body was saddening, but the gruesome deaths of the sentries were beyond just sad — half of Brand's bold subordinates, whom he had carefully selected, had vomited up everything they had eaten that night.
Three sentries, all dead in the gully.
The "Rebels'" horses were too swift, they couldn't make it back to the main fortress;
The "Rebels'" blades were swifter than the horses, and not one of the three sentries' bodies was intact.
One sentry was almost split diagonally in half, from collarbone to abdomen, only a small piece of flesh held them together. Organs were exposed to the air, and greasy intestines spilled across the ground like fat maggots.
Another sentry's left arm was missing, leaving only the shoulder. At the severed end of the flesh, stark white bone shards and pink marrow were clearly visible.
The armless sentry crawled a short distance in the gully before dying, and not just his nails, but his mouth was filled with filthy mud. The living couldn't imagine such suffering, enough to make a dying man stuff dirt into his own mouth.
Daili Brand had once envisioned the scene of "civil war" in his mind — probably every United Provinces soldier had imagined fulfilling Marshal Ned Smith's vision, making the Union great again.
Of course, he had also thought of bloodshed and sacrifice — how could a war not claim lives?
But until this very moment, seeing his subordinates' incomplete bodies firsthand, he realized how pale his fantasies were.
Daili Brand now truly understood that war was an unimaginably cruel atrocity.
At the same time, he realized the Paratu People had adapted to such cruelty ahead of the United Provincials.
The Paratu People would never show the slightest mercy, because to them, the civil war had already begun.
Daili Brand bowed his head, silently mourning his fallen subordinates.
But the battle would continue, leaving him no choice.
He now only hoped for one thing, that when death came to him, it would be swift and merciful.
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[Old Town]
[Old Castle]
Jansen Cornelius, the longer he stayed in the Old Castle, the more he admired the unique vision of the early settlers of Paratu.