Chapter 124 - Shock

The first volley of the mercenaries' arrows obviously took the lives of some of their allies, but that didn't stop them from firing another. As if worrying about the enemies on his front and on the sides wasn't enough, Zaos had to keep his ears wide open in order to avoid being hit by arrows. He already suffered quite a lot thanks to a single one, and he didn't need to be hit by another.

Despite the odds, the defenders managed not only to stop the mercenaries but even pierce through their battalions of infantrymen and cavalry. Now they just had to fight the archers, and they would have succeeded in decimating one-fifth of the remaining enemy forces. However, before they could do that, hundreds of other riders showed blocking their way.

Zaos and Verkan turned around and noticed that they didn't have the strength for another push. From the original fifteen hundred soldiers who were fighting, one-third of them lost their lives, and more than three hundred were wounded. However, things weren't as bad as they seemed. The enemies knew that the defenders couldn't hold back another battalion of riders, so they were moving their siege weapons… They wanted to move the battlefield to the walls.

"Get up here, Zaos," Verkan said when he mounted an enemy horse that wasn't that wounded. "It is time."

Zaos understood the meaning behind his swords and immediately jumped on the back of the horse. While he was exposing himself quite a lot, that was the least of Zaos's worries. He began to cast Fire Swords, and the symbols inside his head were glowing much stronger than they had ever been. When Zaos finished the spell, and the projectile appeared, it looked more like a spear than a sword. While that cost one-fourth of his mana, it had been worth the hassle.

After firing the fired projectile, Zaos barely saw it moving. The enemies were no better. When they felt the flames increasing the temperature, the projectile had already hit the target: a siege tower. Not only the projectile pierced the wood and instantly burned the sides of the weapon, it even crossed the other side of the weapon. It hit a group of soldiers who were guarding it.

Your Sorcery has reached level 46

Your Sorcery has reached level 47

Your Sorcery has reached level 48

Your Sorcery has reached level 49

"… Really?" Zaos opened his eyes, dumbfounded.

In the blink of an eye, the entire siege tower was on fire, and the battlefield fell silent. Verkan was the one who broke the silence.

"What are you waiting for?" Verkan asked. "Make the others burn!"

Zaos recovered from the shock and tried to fire another, but then when he did it, hundreds of archers were pointing their bows toward him and Verkan. Soon after, a catapult began to burn, but Zaos didn't even see that. He jumped from the horse, and so did Verkan. Their company raised their shields in a tortoise formation to stop the projectiles. Zaos only noticed that, but the mercenaries' arrows were powerful enough to pierce even their iron shields. Some of the soldiers got wounded, but they didn't lose their hands because the handler of the shields had an extra layer to protect their arms.

In the end, all the troops returned to inside Rustburg. Zaos decided to clean his gear again, but then Verkan took him and the squires to the top of the wall.

"You can do that later," Verkan said. "We will stay here and make sure those bastards won't make their siege weapons get too close."

"… All right, sir," Zaos said as he was drinking a mana potion and frowning when he saw the looks of the soldiers around.

Zaos believed that he was doing a pretty good job. Still, for some reason, most of the soldiers were looking at him with dubious eyes. Either they wanted the spotlight to themselves, or they didn't like that someone who was using magic did more than them.

"Why didn't you use that spell before?" Verkan asked as he watched the enemy's army entering formation to march once again.

"I already used it, several times," Zaos frowned, and then he realized why Verkan looked confused. "That spell is the same fire spell that I used before, the only difference is that I used more mana. It requires a certain level of concentration and some time, so I can't use it while I fight with a sword."

"If that is the case, save your mana once they are about to use the siege weapons," Verkan said. "In any case, if even someone so young like you can use powerful magic like that, we are wasting a good chance in not recruiting mages. They are more expensive than regular soldiers and they can only fight for a short period of time, but they sure can be handy."

"It looks like not many people here share your enthusiasm for magic, sir," Zaos said.

"It can't be helped," Verkan said. "Most of us never saw magic before and when we saw it, it was used by our enemies."

While that sounded like a proper reason, Zaos felt that there was something more. Come to think of it, he also noticed before that several things were weird regarding magic and the followers of the demon god and magic. However, Zaos won't have time to ponder about that. All of the enemies were marching, and they were really eager to invade Rustburg on a single push.

Those who had bows were already at the top of the walls, and those who didn't have were waiting behind the gates because they knew that the enemies could invade at any moment.

"Fire at will!" Verkan shouted.

Once the mercenaries entered their range, Verkan gave the order. Hundreds of arrows began to fall and hit the enemies, but in the end, almost all of them hit only shields. It looked like the mercenaries didn't bring siege weapons for the show. They really had a lot of experience in siege battles…