Chapter 6: Thunder in the Valley
The sun rose over Blackcrag, painting the snow in hues of blood-orange.
Inside the ruins of the Keep, there was absolute silence.
Ten peasants stood behind a waist-high barricade made of rubble and frozen mud. In their hands, they clutched the heavy, ugly iron tubes Dante had christened 'Arquebuses.' Their hands were shaking.
"Steady," Dante's voice drifted down the line. He walked behind them, checking their firing mechanisms. The slow-burning hemp cords were lit, smoldering with a dull red glow at the end of the serpentine levers. "If you lower the cord into the pan before I give the order, you will blow your own hand off. Keep it raised."
Elara stood at the center of the line. She was sweating despite the freezing cold.
"My Lord," she whispered. "The ground is shaking."
Dante looked south.
A dark stain was spreading across the white snow of the valley. It wasn't ink. It was cavalry.
Baron Voss had come.
And he hadn't come to talk.
Fifty heavy cavalrymen rode in a wedge formation. Their armor glinted in the sunlight—polished steel, far superior to Ser Garret's scrap metal. At the front rode Baron Voss, a massive man in gold-trimmed plate armor, his helmet adorned with stag antlers.
Beside him rode a figure in blue robes, holding a wooden staff topped with a glowing red gem.
The Siege Mage.
Dante's eyes narrowed. [Scan Initiated.]
[Target: Baron Voss (Level 15 Knight)][Target: Mage Adept Silas (Level 12 Pyromancer)][Enemy Strength: Overwhelming for melee combat.]
The cavalry stopped about two hundred meters from the gate.
"Dante Von Valtoria!" Voss's voice boomed, magically amplified by the mage beside him. "You broke Garret's sword. You stole my taxes. And you occupy my land!"
Dante stepped up onto the rubble barricade. He wore no armor, only his black noble coat. He looked tiny against the wall of steel facing him.
"This is Valtoria land," Dante replied, his voice calm but carrying clearly in the cold air. "Turn around, Voss. Or I will bury you here."
Voss laughed. It was a wet, ugly sound. The knights behind him chuckled, eager for blood.
"Bury me?" Voss sneered. "With what? Those starving rats behind you? Look at them! They are holding... what are those? Iron clubs?"
The Mage, Silas, squinted at the wall. "No mana signatures, Baron. Just scrap metal. They are desperate."
"Desperate indeed," Voss drew his sword. "Kill the men. Burn the Keep. Keep the women for the barracks!"
"CHARGE!"
The earth groaned.
Fifty warhorses kicked into a gallop. The sound was like a rockslide. Snow flew into the air as the wedge formation accelerated.
200 meters. 150 meters.
"They're too fast!" a peasant screamed, dropping his gun.
"Pick it up!" Dante roared, grabbing the man by the collar and shaking him violently. "If you don't pick it up and do exactly what I say, I will kill you myself! Eyes forward!"
100 meters.
Dante could see the breath of the horses. He could see the hungry grins of the knights. They lowered their lances.
"Level barrels!" Dante ordered.
Ten iron tubes were lowered, resting on the top of the barricade. The peasants squeezed their eyes shut, terrified.
"Open your eyes!" Dante commanded. "Aim for the chest! Just like the breastplate!"
50 meters.
The ground shook so hard the rubble wall vibrated. The knights were screaming a war cry.
"FIRE!"
Ten hands squeezed the triggers. Ten burning cords snapped down into the flash pans.
Hiss—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
It wasn't a volley. It was a ragged, deafening thunderclap that ripped through the valley.
White smoke erupted from the barricade, blinding the shooters instantly. The smell of sulfur—rotten eggs and hellfire—washed over them.
But the sound... the sound was unlike anything this world had ever heard. It wasn't the twang of a bow or the whoosh of a fireball. It was the violent roar of combustion.
Down range, the charge shattered.
The lead horses panicked instantly at the noise, rearing up and throwing their riders. But the physics of the lead balls did the real work.
The knight beside Voss was hit in the chest. The soft lead ball, traveling at supersonic speed, flattened against his steel plate, transferring all its kinetic energy in a microsecond.
His breastplate didn't just dent; it caved in like tin foil. Ribs shattered. Organs liquefied. He was thrown backward off his horse as if hit by a giant's hammer.
Three other knights fell instantly, their armor punched through, red mist spraying onto the snow.
"Hold!" Voss screamed, fighting to control his terrified horse. "What is this?! Sorcery?!"
The charge had stalled. The knights were in chaos, their horses refusing to advance into the thunder.
On the wall, the smoke cleared.
Dante walked down the line. "Reload! Clean the barrels! Pour, Ram, Prime! Move!"
The peasants were stunned. They looked at the carnage in the snow—four knights dead, ten more thrown from horses. They looked at their smoking guns.
"I... I killed a Knight," one peasant whispered, looking at his hands. "I killed a Knight!"
"Celebration later," Dante snapped. "Reload!"
Down in the snow, the Mage, Silas, recovered his wits. His face was red with fury.
"Alchemy bombs!" Silas shouted. "They are using alchemy dust! Baron, cover me!"
Silas raised his staff. The red gem began to glow with blinding intensity. He began to chant, weaving a complex geometric pattern of mana in the air.
[Warning: High Energy Spike Detected.][Spell Type: Fireball Volley.][Radius: 20 Meters. Lethality: 100%.]
"He's casting!" Elara screamed, fumbling with her powder horn. "We can't reload in time!"
Dante looked at the Mage. The spell was huge. If Silas finished that chant, he would incinerate the entire barricade and everyone behind it.
"Reloading is too slow," Dante muttered.
He reached into his heavy coat pocket.
He pulled out a heavy, fist-sized iron sphere. It was crude, cast from the same mold as a cannonball, but hollowed out and filled with the rest of the black powder. A short fuse stuck out the top.
[Item: Fragmentation Grenade (Prototype)]
"Elara!" Dante shouted. "Light me!"
Elara didn't question him. She thrust her smoldering cord forward.
The fuse hissed.
Dante stepped up onto the top of the barricade, fully exposed.
"Hey, Wizard!" Dante shouted.
Silas looked up, his chant almost complete. A massive ball of fire hovered above his staff, ready to launch.
"Catch," Dante said.
[Ballistics Computer: Online.][Target Distance: 32 Meters. Wind: 15 km/h South.][Calculating Trajectory...]
A glowing crimson arc appeared in Dante's vision, tracing a perfect parabola from his hand to the hooves of the Mage's horse. A pulsing red circle highlighted the blast radius on the snow.
[Release Point: MARKED.]
He threw the iron ball.
Dante didn't have super strength, but he had the System. He aligned his arm with the holographic guide and released at the exact millisecond the reticle turned green.
The grenade sailed through the air, spinning end over end.
It didn't hit the Mage. It landed in the snow at the feet of the Mage's horse.
Silas looked down, confused. "A rock?"
Boom.
The explosion was smaller than the volley, but sharper.
The iron casing shattered into fifty jagged shards of shrapnel.
The Mage didn't even scream. The horse collapsed, and Silas was thrown into the snow, his concentration broken.
The massive fireball hovering above his staff destabilized. Without the mage's will to guide it, the mana collapsed in on itself.
WHOOSH.
The spell backfired. The fireball exploded right in the center of the Baron's formation.
Knights screamed as they were engulfed in their own mage's flames.
Dante watched the chaos from the wall, the cold wind blowing his coat.
"Target eliminated," he whispered.