LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 100: Chapter 100
The Bloody Gate stood between two perilous cliffs, the only passage from the Mountains of the Moon into the Vale of Arryn. It consisted of two watchtowers clinging to the rock face, a sealed gray stone arch bridge connecting them, and a series of battlements reinforcing the structure. From a distance, it looked like a massive rock had fallen from the sky, completely blocking the sole entrance to the valley.
The terrain leading up to and beyond it was relatively flat, without significant elevation changes. Instead, the gatehouse itself completely "sealed" the pass, leaving not even a gap for a cat or dog to slip through, unless the defenders chose to open it.
Regardless, the Bloody Gate certainly deserved its reputation as the most dangerous pass in Westeros. With such a natural barrier, how could anyone hope to break through if the defenders were well-prepared?
Doubt gnawed at Aegor, but he wasn't about to make rash assumptions about something outside his expertise. He decided to wait and see.
That was all he could do, in fact. As a sworn brother of the Night's Watch, he was merely an observer. Even if every soldier nominally responsible for his safety charged into battle and perished, no one would expect or allow him to join the fight.
One of the few benefits of being a man of the Night's Watch.
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The sun crested the peaks of the Mountains of the Moon. The army had already finished breakfast, and the morning's cooking smoke dissipated into the clear sky. Finally, the assault on the Bloody Gate began.
The first weapons to be deployed were the crossbows and catapults. The soldiers hadn't been idle during their time camped outside the valley; in a matter of days, they had hastily constructed a large number of siege engines, with catapults being the most numerous. Now, these primitive but powerful machines were rolled into position. They lined up in rows, though the narrow entrance of the valley limited their deployment. Had the space allowed, with the combined manpower and resources of the six assembled kingdoms, they could have built thousands of siege engines to batter the Bloody Gate into rubble.
At the officers' shouted commands, bolts the size of spears were loosed from the crossbows, and the arms of the catapults swung forward. Stones—far deadlier than any spear soared through the sky. The largest were so heavy that grown men struggled to move them, while even the smallest were the size of a man's head. The crossbow bolts proved ineffective, but the stones arced high, crashing down hundreds of meters away. Some smaller ones sailed over the Bloody Gate and landed inside the pass, while others struck the gatehouse or the walls. Those that hit men crushed them before they could even scream, reducing them to shattered bones and torn flesh. The stones that struck the walls sent splinters of rock flying in all directions, and the repeated impacts created the illusion that the entire Bloody Gate was shaking.
The defenders fought back, but their counterattack was far weaker in comparison. Even with the advantage of high ground, their projectiles couldn't reach the enemy siege lines with enough force. The narrowness of the Bloody Gate made it easy to defend but also restricted the defenders' ability to deploy large siege weapons of their own. In terms of firepower, the "rebels" had already gained the upper hand.
And the projectiles being launched weren't just stones. Aegor saw thick smoke beginning to rise behind the Bloody Gate's walls. After several more rounds of bombardment, the defenders retreated into their fortifications, and their counterattacks grew sparse.
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"It's impressive," Aegor admitted to himself. But then what?
The reason the Bloody Gate had remained unconquered for centuries wasn't just the massive wall blocking the valley entrance, it was the entire defensive complex behind it. The builders and their successors had reinforced the position with numerous battlements and towers, creating a layered defense system as formidable as a mountain. Even if the gate was breached, the fallen structure itself would still be an impassable obstacle. If the gateway collapsed entirely, forcing an army through would become even more difficult.
Before Aegor could dwell on his doubts, he got his answer.
Once the catapults had destroyed enough of the defenders' equipment and forced them to take cover, the next phase of the assault began. The first wave of archers and crossbowmen stepped forward, moving into position even as the siege weapons continued their bombardment. Advancing in disciplined ranks, they closed the distance by more than a hundred meters before stopping within range. Then, they raised their bows and loosed a volley of arrows.
Something about the scene struck Aegor as eerily familiar. Fire support? He stood there, momentarily stunned.
In his mind, warfare in this world was crude, primitive. He had assumed Robert's strategy would be a simple brute-force assault: waves of soldiers carrying ladders, charging the Bloody Gate like a relentless tide, clambering up the gray stone walls while the defenders did their best to hurl them down.
But this… This was something else. He had guessed wrong.
Damn television shows were messing with his expectations.
As he stood there, still processing what he was seeing, the war drums began to thunder, and the battle cries rang out.
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The Bloody Gate was positioned at the narrowest section of the pass leading from the Mountains of the Moon into the Vale of Arryn. The space available for an attacking force to maneuver was extremely limited. Though 80,000 troops and over 100,000 logistical laborers were stationed here, no more than a thousand men could charge the canyon entrance at any given time, meaning that most of the gathered army could do nothing but watch, much like Aegor, their only contribution being their shouts of encouragement.
Amid the deafening cheers, a group of several hundred soldiers bellowed in unison as they surged forward, surrounding a massive siege engine, a chariot-like contraption, 20 to 30 meters long, equipped with a gilded battering ram. As the ram emerged from the crowd, a portion of the soldiers pushed the great machine forward, while the others clustered around it, likely to take turns operating the ram or replacing the fallen once the assault began.
The siege vehicle was reinforced with fixed shields to protect both the structure and the soldiers escorting it. It sped past the trebuchets, pushing through a gap left by the crossbowmen who had been providing covering fire, and advanced toward the Bloody Gate.
Aegor could hear the defenders shouting commands. The valley's garrison, which had been suppressed by the relentless barrage of stones and arrows from the besieging army, now reemerged atop the battlements to retaliate. Rocks rained down from above, while countless arrows formed a misty curtain over the battlefield. The attacking archers did their utmost to pin down the defenders atop the walls, their arrows striking true and eliciting screams of agony. Meanwhile, the defenders focused their fire on the advancing siege engine, their arrows embedding themselves in the vehicle's frame and protective barriers, soon making it resemble a massive, bristling hedgehog.
The narrow terrain of the Bloody Gate was both a blessing and a curse for both sides. At this moment, its greatest disadvantage was that the passage before the gate was too confined to allow more than one siege engine to approach at a time, making progress slow and arduous. Yet the overwhelming firepower of the besiegers was sufficient to cover the narrow battlements barely a few dozen meters wide, ensuring a steady toll on the defenders.
A commanding voice rang out, and the catapults ceased fire. With the siege vehicle so close to the Bloody Gate, further bombardment risked hitting their own troops. Under the watchful eyes of tens of thousands, the siege engine pushed past obstacles, rolled over a shallow trench, and finally slammed into the gate itself.
The defenders retaliated fiercely, hurling burning barrels of oil and heavy stones down upon the attackers. But despite the flames and falling debris, the battering ram swung into motion.
Boom. Boom.
The dull, reverberating crashes sent a shudder through the battlefield.
The cheers of the rebel army's spectators faded. Even Aegor found himself holding his breath.
At that moment, it seemed as if the only sound in the world was the rhythmic pounding of the ram's iron head against the gate.
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