Chapter 422
2021-01-06
Chapter 422 Shadow Tower DefenseDespite criticism of the new Lord Commander's tactics and political leanings And take a wait-and-see attitude, but Denys Mallister has to admit: Igor's "Others killer" title should be changed to "Others nemesis".
He, indeed, seems to have anticipated the enemy's each step.
Night's Watch in the last ages put the defense focus on the Wall. Igor had to open up a mountain road on the south side of the canyon to set up a new defense line, and the enemy finally crossed the canyon and attacked.
The Wall defenders have not built walls in any fortress since its establishment to show that oneself has no ambitions for Seven Kingdoms, but Igor insists on breaking the tradition and ordering every fortress to prepare for defense without Wall, now Others Sure enough, it hit the wall.
When wildling was accepted a year ago, almost half of the Legions were against it, but after Igor took office, he would rather hide in Queenscrown to continue to implement the policy rather than admit it. In the end, it was proved by facts: he can really support himself New land-givers, and let them play a role in the war...
Although he thought so, Denys's reason told him: Igor did not expect the enemy's each step, but the enemy All possible strategies are considered, and the response is arranged and communicated to everyone.
He now has to admit that even with oneself's prudence, Impossible has done a better job than Igor - to serve such a strong and brilliant Lord Commander on the last leg of his life's journey, he I was convinced by the defeat, and even thanked oneself for the original choice.
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Everything is written in the defense plan, all Denys has to do now is to faithfully execute: Shadow Tower needs to prioritize Gorge East 1/4/2022 Duan's defenders were in charge—immediately when the beacon fire within the valley was lit, the gate of the fortress opened immediately: under the soldiers' maintenance of order, the eastern half of the passage was for the land-givers living outside the fortress wall to enter the wall for refuge, The western half is used for the reserve team who want to be within the wall to bring supplies and horses to the front line of the canyon to support.
The reserve team of more than 400 people started from Shadow Tower and headed towards the canyon until they met the reserve team who also started from the canyon. Since the Gorge line of defense was attacked across the board, they had to support all the defense segments they were responsible for rather than a specific point - every time they reached an engaged defense segment along the way, the reserves left half a team of soldiers, a box of Wildfire and several arrows, this kind of support is not big, but its tactical significance and psychological comfort to the defenders are amazing.
The defenders in the eastern section of the canyon are neither more, nor braver or more trained than those in the western section...but it is precisely because they know that there are people behind oneself and that oneself will not be attacked. Abandoned, so they lasted longer overall, costing the ghoul army more on average.
It was not until the news that the western sector had been lost came that the frontline commanders agreed with each other that it was meaningless to continue defending, and the reserve team began to withdraw from the line from the midpoint to the two ends in an orderly manner. , and after several near-miss skirmishes, he finally succeeded in pulling most of the defenders safely into the wall.
Only one tower, West Bridge View, was directly abandoned, and Shadow Tower, which had completed all preparations, closed the gate after the last civilian also escaped, waiting for the enemy's next move.
The defenders who retreated into the canyon were not able to escape the disaster. Provided the final warning and valuable preparation time, Wall has completed the sheltering and final preparations for the entire line. Denys ran gasping for breath on the walls of the fortress, which oneself had held for decades, checking preparations, reassuring recruits and instructing defense tips... but the Sentinels looked west for hours, watching what had been ablaze. The entire line of the canyon gradually darkened and there was no shadow of half a ghoul. Until midnight, the defenders even had a steaming supper, and everyone began to doubt whether the enemy bypassed Shadow Tower to directly attack others. They finally appeared in the field of vision when the fortress even went directly south.
……
Without the terrain barrier and forest cover, the arrival of the corpse tide is particularly conspicuous, and even the sound-absorbing effect of the thick snow cannot suppress the tens of thousands of undead puppets stepping on it The shaking caused by the ground, first came the sound of thunderous footsteps, the sea of corpses quickly poured out from the mountains in the west against the backdrop of the snow-covered wilderness, like ink that was overturned on the table and stained with white paper. Head over to Shadow Tower.
How many ghouls are in that dark mass? Ten thousand, fifty thousand, or more? No one can say for sure. In the crowd of corpses, it is impossible to see that a single individual becomes impossible. When the number reaches a certain level, the human brain will completely lose its judgment on the number. In the dark, the defenders could not even estimate the number of enemies, they could only describe what oneself saw: the sea of corpses stretched from the visible edge to the dark background of mountains and forests in the distance, with no end in sight.
The "ink" did not directly impact the Shadow Tower from the west, but continued to infiltrate the south side slightly away from the Wall, until the three sides of the Shadow Tower visible except for the Wall were covered. After black, completely surrounded by an island, they started to attack.
If the canyon defenders are like a dam against the tide when they face the ghoul army, then Shadow Tower is like a rock on the beach - although everyone faces the same number of enemies, But the canyon defenders only need to face the enemies that are slapping from one direction, but the Night's Watch in Shadow Tower needs to face the dead people coming from every direction in more than 270°!
No need to rest, eat, read the war declaration, let alone send someone to loudly order surrender, Night King has done a more thorough job than James in the "can do it and never beep" , tens of thousands of ghouls under the command and control of more than a dozen Others did not waste a second. At the moment when the encirclement was formed, they launched an all-out attack from all directions synchronously.
The continuous horn sounded one after another, and the attack and help signals passed through the sound, the beacon, Raven and Wall's horse-riding messenger soldiers and other channels, like electrical signals in the nerves. Seventeen other forts against the ice wall and Queenscrown passed.
The nearby fortresses such as the Sentinel Building, Stone Gate Village, and Nightfort have long been prepared, and redundant weapon resources and reserve troops have been sent to the top of the wall for standby in advance - no one can guarantee that the enemy will not bypass Shadow The Tower directly attacked other fortresses, and the operation of "concentrating manpower and material resources on one point" was impossible to predict in advance. Therefore, until this moment, the news of the massive attack on Shadow Tower was confirmed, and the wall was blown by the cold wind on the top of the wall for several hours. The top mobile troops began to march on the flat and wide transportation Great Way on the top of the Wall to advance to the fighting fortress.
...
"Fire!"
"Fire!"
"Burn them!"
A fortress that has been in operation for many years is much more complete than a canyon defense line that has been hastily built in a few months - a defensive belt with little snow has been cleared outside the tall and solid stone wall, densely arranged with Dragonglass thorns. Wooden pickets and fences, and even a trench forcibly dug in the permafrost ahead, filled with non-volatile asphalt.
Denys Mallister, who is over seventy years old, is far more stable and calm than any other commander of Night's Watch Legion... He strictly prohibits any soldier from entering the "clearing area" in the corpse tide - that is, approaching the city wall Even a little bit of combat readiness was wasted 30 meters ago. But the moment the ghoul stepped into this area, following the old man's order, countless rockets and Wildfire cans were accurately shot and smashed into the clearing area. The high temperature of the green flame quickly ignited the less flammable wood and asphalt. In just ten seconds, a huge fire field several meters wide formed outside Shadow Tower.
Anyone who wants to get close to Shadow Tower must first suffer the baptism of the flames!
But this fire field only delayed the tide of corpses for a moment. This storm on the plain is no better than climbing a canyon cliff. The short ten-twenty meter distance rushed over in a few seconds. No matter how fragile the corpse was, The ghost was impossible to be burned to death in an instant. The Others didn't bother to control the puppets with magic power one after another to reduce casualties. Instead, relying on the advantage of quantity, a wave of A went up and chose to take a strong fire sea. !
The living dead rushed through the fire sea one after another, using one body after another to push down and level the pickets, fill in and crush the burning trench, and countless ghouls fell into it, their bodies turned into fuel and turned into the fire sea. Some, but more ghouls rushed across the fire sea with flames on them, and came under the wall!
The ghouls are indeed afraid of fire, but the reason for their fear of fire is that "the corpse oil, which is the carrier of cold magic power, will lose contact with the Others after being burned out". They are not afraid of scalding or pain, and the flammability of corpse oil itself is only comparable to that of asphalt, which is completely incomparable to gasoline or even Wildfire. Night's Watch has been hoarding Wildfire for several years, and it is from Alchemist of King's Landing. The guild has obtained the complete inventory of the previous Mad King, which is indeed quite a lot, but it is by no means enough to build an isolation belt around the fortress... In order to quickly ignite the fire sea, the defenders used a small amount of Wildfire as a guide. However, the main combustion materials in the fire isolation zone are still wood and asphalt. It is easy to maintain the fire, but the temperature is not very high, and it is impossible to kill ghouls in seconds.
The ghouls are not afraid of death, they just want to rush under the wall and complete the offensive mission!
With muffled noises, the ghouls hit the wall of Shadow Tower, roaring against the wall and climbing up... Of course, the stone wall is impossible to climb like the slope of the canyon, even more how The defenders also poured frozen ice on it in advance to make it smoother. The ghouls can't do complex and delicate operations such as stepping on knees and shoulders, building ladders and stacking Arhats, and they don't need to - all they really do is to use each other as stepping stones to be shot or disabled or crushed underneath. The way to build a mountain of people, climb up desperately!
One by one, group by group... The ghouls that crossed the fire sea quickly crowded into piles under the fence, and the height quickly changed from one meter or two meters to three meters and four meters. The top of the wall quickly approached, and the soldiers on the top of the wall fired arrows frantically, but soon found that it was just drinking poison to quench their thirst: the ghouls shot by the Dragonglass arrows fell and soon became a stepping stone for other ghouls, and the more they killed, "Mountain of the Dead." "The more stable the base...everyone knows what to do without Denys Mallister's orders.
The large batch of hardened Wildfires shipped by King's Landing finally came in handy.
These Wildfires, passivated to a gelatinous state for long-distance transport, are incomparable with wood-fired pitch: they have high stability when passivated in the hands of a Night's Watch industry technician, but are After the ground, there is no way to reverse the transformation and "sharpen" it into a liquid Wildfire. Due to the high ignition point and non-explosiveness, it is not suitable for making weapons such as incendiary bombs. Therefore, they need to be stocked within the wall for a long time... But they are The essence of it has not changed, as long as it is lit, the heat emitted by the cured Wildfire is exactly similar or even higher than that of the fresh Wildfire.
Cans of old Wildfire from the age of Elis Targaryen were smashed on the heads of climbing ghouls, one after another thick, viscous green The liquid splashed on the ghouls who were attacking the city, a torch went down, and the green flames soared into the sky instantly, burning like a volcanic eruption!
There is no thick snow at the foot of the wall to affect the Wildfire formidable power, and there are piles of ghouls as ready-made firewood and burning racks. When the Wildfire is burned, it is called a vibrant and exuberant, and it instantly turns the besieged city around. All the ghouls are engulfed in it. The corpse mountain that was four or five meters high was already piled up, like a soft monster trying to climb up the wall.
Wildfire ignited the corpse oil, and the corpse oil ignited the flesh skeleton. All the combustible organic matter that made up the ghoul turned into a part of the flame. In the smoke billowing fire sea, in addition to the ghoul's roar, there were also occasional ghouls. There were a few strange cracking sounds, and it should be that the body cavities and organs of the relatively complete ghouls were burst by the high temperature.
The smell is disgusting, but the situation is good and everyone is cheering - look at this, just hold on until the Wildfire of the other strongholds are transported here from the top of the Wall, and the dead will be till dawn Not even one step over the wall.
Now the new problem is: the fire is too big, and the flames soaring to the sky will burn the people on the edge of the fence so that they dare not approach, and it is difficult to observe the situation below.
……
"Move all flammable and explosive things to the inside, don't get burned, be careful of scalding, and ask the kitchen to send some water to the wall Go up!"
Denys yelled as he ran around, he couldn't accuse the soldiers of making their own decisions, after all, it was a standard response in the defense plan. Even if Wildfire burned the fort, it was better than letting the ghouls come in, but now he had to consider the threat Wildfire could pose to the wall burning - not of course the flames cracking the stone and causing the wall to collapse, but ...The gate of God damn it is made of wood! Although thick and sturdy, it is absolutely impossible to withstand the long roasting time of the Wildfire!
"Move all the horse-rejecting stakes to the direction opposite the door, and go to the open space beside the school grounds to move some useless stones. If not enough, demolish the house! Start from the dormitory, anyway, tonight None of us will need to sleep anymore!”
Despite his old age and frailty, Denys, the Shadow Tower commander, is still full of energy. It was still so big that people on the fence could hear it. The perfect execution of the plan successfully provided refuge for nearby residents, and covered the blessing of hundreds of canyon defenders withdrawing from the fortress. Now there are nearly 3,000 people in Shadow Tower, even if the mobile troops on top of Wall have not arrived, and the old and weak are removed. , excluding the wildling Spearwife, there are still more than a thousand male defenders... Such a number of guards in the Gorge is naturally stretched for a dozen or more li long, but if it is replaced by the three walls of Shadow Tower , that is enough to arrange the top of each section of the wall to the fullest, and there are still many people left to act as logistics and reserve teams on the ground inside the wall.
Denys let the teenagers who were too young and did not have much strength be responsible for carrying water and tending the fire, the women used trolleys to carry combat preparations and sundries, and those with treatment experience were responsible for dealing with the wounded... a lot of non-combustible miscellaneous materials. Things were dumped and piled behind the door to serve as a follow-up bunker after the wooden door was burned through by fire. When the whole building was about to be within the wall, everyone except the baby was busy doing their own work. The guards on the top of the walls on both sides of the door The soldiers suddenly exclaimed in unison.
"My God, Mammoth!"
"Damn, there's Giant!"
"What are you doing standing there, shoot the arrows!"
"Why is it useless to shoot it?"
"The skin is too thick...Use a bomb, use a bomb!"
"Don't use a bomb, That's for the Others!" Denys Mallister roared angrily, annoyed by the cries of the fools, but his voice was completely drowned out by the successive screams and shouts, calling for a soldier to let him run up The wall went to order not to waste the precious great killing tool, and there was a loud crash from the gate a few meters away, as if it had been hit by a Gods hammer. The whole fortress trembled, and even the ground seemed to be shaking.
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[There are still more than 100 monthly passes before the 90,000-word update in August←, by the way, please recommend on Monday]
(end of this chapter)