Chapter 81 - Black Plague (4)

At first glance, the trebuchet Dong Bongsu had built looked remarkably sophisticated, but it was not actually all that complicated. A proper trebuchet had pulleys, but he had deliberately left those out. Adding pulleys made the mechanism far more involved. Of course, they made raising the counterweight much easier. On the other hand, they also complicated the device and lengthened assembly time. As he saw it, the manpower here and the strength of his mercenaries made pulleys unnecessary. Unlike ordinary people, these men had trained in martial arts. He judged that, working together, they could readily lift a counterweight weighing hundreds of kilograms, or even several tons, without pulleys.

That certainly did not mean he had thrown it together carelessly. Apart from the omitted pulleys, every component had been precisely calculated.

Over the past several days on the road, he had thoroughly worked out his plans for the trebuchet, forming a clear picture of its shape and range in his mind. Even if Lee Jasong had not given him command of the whirlwind-catapult units, he had intended to send his mercenaries into the nearby Yin Mountains to fell trees and build the machines himself.

THUD! THUD!

The components of the dismantled whirlwind catapults were rapidly taking shape as trebuchets. Their utterly basic design meant they took very little time to build. Just as Dong Bongsu had declared, thirty-two trebuchets stood ready after roughly the time it took to eat a meal. Perhaps because they did not want to die, the crews had used every last scrap of wood, fitting pieces into any gaps they found.

Once the work was finished, Dong Bongsu made the rounds, inspecting each completed trebuchet.

There were no major problems. He noticed minor inaccuracies here and there, but he had no time to quibble over such details. So long as the machines worked properly, he judged that they would serve his plan well enough.

Having checked their construction, he inspected their aim. Since they had been assembled facing Guishui's mountain fortress in the first place, however, little adjustment was needed. Unlike whirlwind catapults, trebuchets could not be turned easily, so they had to be positioned correctly during assembly. A few were slightly askew, but with the Skill [Qi Circulation] augmenting his strength, Dong Bongsu was able to turn them squarely toward Guishui Fortress without much difficulty.

He then immediately began transferring the round rocks brought as ammunition into the baskets attached to the ends of the trebuchets' throwing arms. Each stone seemed to weigh roughly two or three kilograms. Judging by the size of the baskets, each could hold hundreds of them. That meant the total counterweight, including the basket itself, would easily weigh several tons.

If the potential energy of a weight that heavy, raised high into the air and then dropped toward the ground, could be converted entirely into kinetic energy...

'That will be enough.'

With the trebuchets set up, Dong Bongsu turned his head and looked at a dark mound rising in the distance.

WHOOOSH.

A north wind carried the mound's stench all the way to them. Though it was more than a hundred meters away, the smell was so nauseating that everyone except Dong Bongsu grimaced.

That dark mound was a heap of soldiers' corpses, victims of the Black Death. It was still spreading, as soldiers continued to carry bodies there without pause.

While the mercenaries and catapult crews stared at it with contorted faces, Dong Bongsu casually remarked,

"Everything is ready."

What was he talking about? He had filled the baskets with all the stones meant for ammunition. What on earth did he intend to launch?

His words were difficult to understand.

But a few followed his gaze and realized what he was about to do.

It made their skin crawl...

But this was a battlefield. A place where anything was permissible if it brought victory.

For the enemy, having Dong Bongsu in command was nothing short of a calamity.

"If they won't come out, I'll make them."

His quiet voice mingled with the foul stench and drifted toward Guishui Fortress.

The real war was only beginning. Dong Bongsu had arrived.

Timur Khan, who had been ravenously tearing into a horse's haunch, set the meat down noisily on the table and raised his head. Before him stood a giant of almost inhuman height.

The man who had intruded on Timur Khan's mealtime, which no one in Northern Yuan was permitted to interrupt, was Mamorota.

Timur Khan looked at him.

"What did you just say?"

"I said those Central Plains bastards camped outside the fortress are dismantling their catapults and building something strange."

He had not misheard. The enemy really was dismantling its whirlwind catapults. Timur Khan's narrow eyes opened slightly, then closed again. In that brief instant, his one blue eye blazed fiercely.

"Immediately bring every stone-thrower and crossbow mounted on the walls to bear. Fire on the enemy in unison."

He did not know what they were building, but the very fact that the enemy was trying something new displeased him. The only reason he had allowed them to keep firing their whirlwind catapults was that he knew those weapons posed no threat whatsoever to Guishui Fortress.

Whirlwind catapults were a known quantity. Something new was precisely that: new. On a battlefield, something new appearing on the enemy's side rather than one's own always heralded trouble. Destroying such things before they became a threat was a basic principle of warfare.

"Brother, they're dismantling them a full hundred zhang from the fortress. Our stone-throwers can't reach that far. The crossbow bolts and arrows reached them, but they've got shield-bearers, so they didn't do much good."

Timur Khan's face instantly hardened.

A hundred zhang? They were dismantling their weapons and building something new that far away?

He wasted no more words. His instincts warned him of danger.

A sudden gale swept through the previously still chamber as Timur Khan unleashed his Qinggong to its utmost and shot out of his office.

Sensing that something was seriously wrong, Mamorota hurried after him.

"A counterweight trebuchet...!?"

Upon reaching the battlements, Timur Khan saw the "new catapults" the whirlwind-catapult units were assembling. He did not know the weapons well, but he knew something about them.

They hurled stones using the force of a falling counterweight. He also knew their range and power far surpassed those of the whirlwind catapults and crouching-tiger cannons used in the Central Plains.

"Aren't those what the big-nosed bastards in the Western Regions use? But what's building them now going to accomplish? Guishui's walls are incredibly sturdy, and the gates are solid iron. I don't know what you're worried about, Brother, but I don't see much cause for concern."

Despite Mamorota's words, Timur Khan's expression remained tense. His eyes were too narrow to reveal exactly where he was looking, but judging by the angle of his face, his gaze was fixed not on the catapults under construction, but on something far behind them.

Mamorota narrowed his eyes and sharpened his vision. There was indeed something where Timur Khan was looking.

A small mound formed from a great heap of something. He had little difficulty identifying its contents.

"Hmm!? A pile of corpses? Why have they stacked those up there?"

"What's wrong?"

"Take the Gora Hma out immediately and destroy every one of those machines."

The sudden order to sortie did not faze Mamorota in the slightest. If anything, the strange grin spreading across his face made it clear that he was delighted.

"Can I take all of them?"

Still watching the heap of corpses, Timur Khan nodded.

"Hahaha! Perfect! I've been itching for action, cooped up in this fortress. I'll smash the lot of them and be back..."

His last words were barely audible. He had already left to fetch the Gora Hma, the "Gray Wolves."

Just then, Timur Khan saw several of the whirlwind-catapult crewmen approach the corpse heap.

"Brother. Didn't I tell you? There is nowhere left on these grasslands to escape that monster, and those creatures have no eyes. The moment you set foot on the grasslands, you lost any chance of returning. And if you do return..."

I will have to close my eyes and swing my sword at you.

RUMMMBLE.

An earthquake? Pale dust suddenly rose from the ground directly beneath Guishui's walls.

The dry earth splits violently, exposing the grassland's hidden flesh. Everything from tiny, rounded grains of sand to large, angular pebbles leaps into the air, a sight both grotesque and magnificent.

But this was not the rumbling of an earthquake.

It was caused by numerous straight feet dropping from the battlements and pressing into the ground.

Ladders. Iron ladders, made of steel like Guishui's gates. Dozens of those heavy things had dropped onto the parched, hardened earth at once. The ground could hardly help cracking apart.

Ordinarily, it was the besiegers who placed ladders against the walls. Naturally, the defenders inside did everything they could to push those ladders over or remove them to keep the enemy out. That was how it had to be.

The defenders lowering ladders outside their own walls? Under normal circumstances, it was unthinkable.

Yet it happened. Timur Khan's northern barbarian army, the defending force, set ladders against Guishui's walls.

Why on earth?

WOOF! WOOF-WOOF!

That was the answer.

Dogs barking? No. Similar, but distinctly different.

Wildness. Their irrepressible nature, and the unmistakable bloodlust seething from its very depths.

All of it rang out, unrestrained, in the cries of hundreds of canine beasts.

AWOOOOOO!

The extraordinarily long howl that followed put all doubt about their identity to rest.

They were wolves.