Johnny and Richard had decided to split their teams to cover the siege towers. There were six siege towers. Johnny and his team took the three to the west while Richard and his team took the three to the east.
Johnny advanced to within 25 meters of the tower, using low-lying brush for cover. A close look at the towers revealed them to be gigantic structures, far more advanced than Johnny would have given the Horde credit for. Well over a hundred feet high, built of massive wood timbers reinforced with steel, the towers would be next to impossible to chop down or burn in any reasonable amount of time. We're going to have to fight for them, Johnny thought. Just what I didn't want to do!
Just then an object was flung out with great force from the top of a tower farther down the line. Johnny watched as it sailed through the air some 250 meters before dropping behind the city wall of Noran. Suddenly a huge orange and black fireball blossomed up from behind the wall!!! Less than a second later a low, rumbling barrrooom sounded.
Holy shit!!! They've got gunpowder now!!! Johnny thought as he fell back to where the other people in his team were hiding.
Corporal Salonnen a Horde herald, and two Marine privates were waiting for him about 50 meters back. "Please tell me that wasn't what I think it was," Salonnen told Johnny.
"It was. They've got black powder! And given the way they can turn out high-quality steel they'll probably have muskets once they figure out how to roll out or extrude a barrel. Their forge is next on our target priority list after these towers!!!" Johnny reported. Something's definitely wrong here, he thought to himself.
Just then the same siege tower which had fired upon Noran suddenly went up in a huge ball of fire! Johnny and Salonnen both hit the ground reflexively, dragging down the Borial herald Johnny had more or less pressed into service and brought with them. That's something else: the Borials are entirely unprepared for gunpowder. They just don't know how to react to it!!!
"Looks like they haven't learned how to store the stuff, at any rate. Okay, men, we're going to do to this tower what happened to the other one!!!"
The three arose and began a running charge at the siege tower. A Horde watchman on another siege tower began blowing a horn: they were on to the infiltration!!! Suddenly Johnny, Salonnen, and the Borial herald were surrounded by Horde warriors! An arrow shrieked down from the tower and caught Salonnen in the neck. Yet another ghost, Johnny thought to himself as he dropped and rolled out of the archer's line of fire. He came back up on his feet, nailing a Horde warrior in the crotch with his bat'leth, then spinning around to catch another in the gut. While Privates Nkrumah and Olivares butchered still more Horde warriors with their idej, the herald was running from the tower to some undetermined location. Well, he's a herald: he's supposed to deliver messages. Maybe Richard or Benton can lend some reinforcements! Johnny thought charitably as he swung to decapitate yet another Horde warrior.
Two more down, and Johnny was to the magazine on the siege tower. Johnny formed his cloak into a sack and gathered up five of the bombs, then made a run for it. Arrows struck the ground to the left and right of him, but Johnny managed to dodge them and get to his hiding place.
The fuse on the bomb was, from what Johnny could tell, about 30 seconds. Starting the bomb with just the flint and steel in his kit would be tricky but doable. Johnny struck the steel against the flint about three times, until a scintilla impressive enough to light the fuse was generated. A wisp of sulfurous gray-black smoke issued forth from the fuse. Johnny picked up the bomb and started running like hell!!!
Twenty meters...fifteen meters...ten meters...Johnny stopped and threw the bomb toward the siege tower as if it were a hand grenade. Johnny then made a mad dash for his hiding place!
He just managed to get down as the charge went off. The earth shook as the tower blew to splinters under the combined force of nearly a hundred of the gunpowder charges!!! Johnny thought he could hear the screams of at least half a dozen Horde. In its collapse, however, the tower had cut Johnny off from the two remaining members of his team.
Two more towers fired upon the city. More Horde warriors were surrounding the remaining towers. Well, it was good while it lasted, Johnny thought ruefully.
He still had four bombs left, and damned if he was going to keep them around for the rest of the battle! But alone he could do little, even with the bombs. Or could he?
Johnny moved to the corral where the Horde's glap'ta were kept. If these beasts are anything like horses or cattle, this should go over real well! he thought.
The corral was in the rear area of the Horde formation and had been stripped of guards in order to protect the siege towers. Bad move, Johnny thought as he set the four remaining charges near the herd. With another spark, Johnny lit a fuse and ran for it!
The four charges went off at once, but Johnny didn't stop to look: he just kept running! Which was what the glap'ta were doing. They were stampeding straight into the Horde encampment!!! Fortunately, Nkrumah and Olivares had caught on to what Johnny was doing and joined him, cutting a path through panicked Horde as they ran ahead of him.
Reasoning that the nearest friendlies were in close proximity to the first destroyed tower, Johnny continued running in that direction, slashing at Horde as he went. The assumption proved correct.
Sitto and Francesca were carrying Benton between them. He looked as though he'd just walked straight out of Dante's Inferno, his armor and face blackened by soot. Thudd moved ahead of them, providing a guard as they fled the scene of chaos.
"So good to see friendly faces!" Francesca exclaimed upon seeing the trio.
"How's Benton?" Johnny asked.
"He's got a pretty good knock to the head, and his eardrums may have been blown out, but he's going to live. Kelvans aren't exactly easy to kill, you know!"
Tell me about it! Johnny thought, remembering the Ilion as he exchanged knowing looks with Nkrumah and Olivares. But that was unfair; like Dweezle, Benton was steadfastly loyal to Starfleet and his fellow crewmembers. "Lieutenant Wallace's team is around here somewhere. If we can hook up with him, we just might make it out of here!!!"
For the moment, however, those concerns were laid aside as a dozen Horde footmen surrounded the combined party...