Colour throne

The Battle of Ground Lake

The soldiers were ready to fight. The cannons were loaded and there were over a hundred soldiers ready to repel the attack. Yet, as the enemy fleet sailed closer and closer, I felt my confidence start to slip away. Although we had a huge advantage over them, knowing the terrain and all that, they had much more troops and better equipment than us.

     Everything was well planned and organized, but the Red Kingdom fleet was just too strong. Just looking at it was horrifying enough. Conex and Antitso stood at the prow of the lead ship with Ivor, but Antitso looked tired, like he would much rather stay home, than slaughter more soldiers.

     " Ready?" Shouted Nos, "Fire!"

       Around 50 arrows went sailing towards the enemy fleet. It barley even fazed them. A couple soldiers staggered off the side of their boats with an arrow inbeaded in their chest, but the enemy soldiers seemed unlimited.

      The cannons started firing soon too. They seemed to have more success than the archers, as some Red Kingdom ships started to sink. A couple of the big Red Kingdom warships stopped, as they realized that they were within firing range.

      "Get down!" Shouted Pethor, as the Red Kingdom warships opened fire.

      A dozen cannonballs shot towards the beach. Luckily, we were concealed inside the bushes, so many of the cannonballs just hit the beach and did no damage. A couple unlucky soldier's forts got hit directly with a cannonball. I watched in horror as a soldier went sailing through the air and landed inside the river.

      Our archers shot another volley, but the Red Kingdom ships weren't tempted to stop. Many of our soldiers tried to take advantage of the huge number of Red Kingdom ships by hitting the ones in the middle, so the ships behind them will either have to crash into the other ship, or be forced to stop. Either way, it gave us some time to reload.

      Nos shot 3 arrows towards Antitso, Conex and Ivor, but Ivor simply vanished, while Antitso and Conex blocked the shot with a shield. Alexia was doing her best, shooting fireballs here and there, sinking ships with every shot.

      A couple of the rally boats docked at the shore, but some got stuck on the rocks and became an easy target for our cannons. A couple more made way for the river, connecting the ocean to Ground Lake.

      "We need to defend the river!" I shouted to Pethor, "If they take the river, we'll be cut off from the archers and half of our troops!"

      Pethor nodded and drew his sword. Together, we ran between the forts, trying not to get hit by the cannonballs. Our troops were under heavy fire now, as most of the Warships reached firing range.

      A tiny group of soldiers, lead by Hal had the same idea and arrived at the river the same time as I did. They brought along the chariot, but I doubt that would be any use to us. Red Kingdom soldiers jumped out of the first boat and ran to battle us. They all fell under our archers arrows, but much more rally boats were sailing down the river now.

      Nos and the archers main attention was on the troops sailing down the river now. Luckily for us, the river was quit narrow, so only a couple of ships could sail down at the same time. Many ships were forced to stop to avoid crashing into each other.

      Richard and Alexia ran down the beach together, with a group of about 100 soldiers to intercept the Red Kingdom soldiers that had docked. They formed a brief shield wall around our cannons, but I doubt that the wall would hold.

     Just as one of the small rally ships reached the stone bridge with all the archers on it, one of the warships scored a lucky shot at the bridge. All the archers either fell off the bridge, and into Ground lake, or were forced to run for their lives as the bridge crumbled.