The air raid sirehe signal everyone had been anticipating for the past few weeks. We had aire year to practid prepare our defenses, and the eerie sound of the sirens ing from the mountain now are indig that sootle will be upon us. At three evenly spaced locations on the mountain, a few hundred feet below the cloud yer, we had built watch posts, each equipped with a simple telescope. Every fifteen minutes for the past few weeks, someone has sed the horizon fns of ships. Now, on the fourth day of the twelfth month, our enemy approaches.
It's far too early for those of us closer to the shorelio spot any ships. It will probably be at least half of a day before we're able to spot the ships from down here. This was expected though. The sirens are there to ensure everyone is ready wheime es to actually repel the invasion. I'm currently on the beach where the merts and dwarves would normally nd for trade, as it is the closest location to the mainnd, and also the easiest location for a nding on our isnd.
We mao find sulfur a short distanderground at a location on this isnd, but we were still limited by how much saltpeter we could make, leaving us with a slightly limited supply of gunpowder. To pensate, we've got oime-use steam ons statio various locations, specially desigo be usable even without magibsp; Along this beach alohere are twenty steam ons.
The air raid siren signals a start point for various tdowns until it is time to light fires uhose steam on boilers. The main use for the steam ons is area trol. Some are loaded with a signifit amount of grapeshot, a few others are loaded with particurly rge shells made of darkstoo use for sinkiher nding vessels or targeting a particurly hardy individual. These are all stationed behind pitfalls and barricades along the beaake attempts to invade further on the beach difficult at best.
To protect our valuable gunpowder, bunkers have been dug out of the rock faces that face out over the sea. Ihose bunkers are one of our best bets for actual defense of the isnd, long distaillery pieces. Five of them, to be precise. Oationed in a bunker in a cliff the left side of this beach, another in a cliff on the right, a third stationed in the cliff separating the two valleys he city, the fourth in the craggy terrain opposite the side of the isnd with the road, and the fifth in the craggy terrain with the road.
The process of actually making these five pieces took almost half of a year of work from myself along with two military bcksmiths that were part of Kao's troops. The cat's out of the bag on this one, and I'm sure in the few years rifled artillery is going to take off. Perhaps fortunately, without industrial scale tools, the ability to mass produce them is ent. I spent five months developing them and w on fiuning until we actually had a w model. Eadividual on after that took those two bcksmiths a month to make with extra assistanevermind the testing that had to be doo ehey'd each work as expected.
However, in our particur situation they should prove vital. After the first artillery piece was made, I began training crews oing, aiming, and maintaining these ons. Each bunker is manned by a individual team, although you could operate it minimally with four. The artillery are breach loaded with pre-measured shells, armed and operated with a fuse. Since we don't have, and couldn't find, any lead we're using our de material, copper, for the shells. Each shell weighs in at twenty pounds, and each bunker has forty shells. They're accurate enough to hit a ship at about a mile away sistently and with enough accuracy to hit it close to the water lih a high enough ahat the exiting shell will be uer.
The entire goal of those artillery pieces is not only to sink ships, but also to keep the ships from ing in closer and potentially providing a ptform that either mages or their own ons could use for taking over the beace they decide to properly invade. In a perfect world we'd have more shells, but even having this many should provide us with a det advantage before the battle even starts. Even if the men successfully bail from the ship, their supplies will sink with it, leaving the army heavily undersupplied.
The actual entrao these bunkers are hundreds of feet away from the buhemselves, tuhrough rod hidden away. Climbing up into any of the bunkers would also prove incredibly difficult, as they've all be strategically modified to make climbing up to them nearly impossible. The opening for the artillery would also prove small enough that squeezing through would likely leave an invader so vulnerable that the individuals inside would easily kill any would-be intruder.
On this beach, we've also fortified ourselves further. The old fort that the dwarves built prior has been rebuilt and improved. It's now a stone fort with ten ballista fag the beach, then four on each of the other walls. I'm here setting up the final parts of the fort's hidden use. To make the absolute most of this defensive position, fifty individuals have beeed or volunteered to defend this fort until the bitter end. Before I leave, I'll be sealing one of the two entrances with stone, and the other entrance will be reinforced behind me as I leave. Ideally, we pletely hold them off, and those fifty live, but I'm not leaving that up to ce.
Outside the fort, we have another fifty individuals here on this beach, meaning we have a little less than 10% of our forces here. The reason for this is that we didn't want to leave other parts of the isnd vulnerable. The artificial tide pool area and the neighb valley's area meeting the o each have sixty individuals. Outside of those locations, we identified three other locations where a nding could potentially happen with a sizable force, and we've stationed fifty individuals at each of those as well.
Behind all these locations is a sedary line of defense a few hundred yards back manned by thirty individuals each, desigo allow our own forces to retreat if overwhelmed, allowing us to escape with minimal losses to live on and fight in phase two of the defense. Phase two involves repeated fallback points and hit and run tactics desigo whittle down their armies. Smaller smooth bore ons, taken from one of the dwarven ships, are hidden in small ambush locations throughout the isnd in small pillboxes hidden in their surroundings. The goal here is trapeshot once or twito groups of soldiers, thereat. The area surrounding each pillbox is also littered with pitfall traps and small holes desigo injure and maim anyone who attempts to recklessly charge towards the on. A rge portion of these ambush locations are trated overlooking the road, as that is the most likely pce their army will try to move across the isnd.
Navigating the isnd with an army that size and not using the road would take more than a week, which pys to our advantage. If they decide to not follow the road, then hopefully we've sunk enough of their ships that their supplies are running dangerously low for the remainder of the army. Especially if my surprise for stage one works out. This puts our oppo on a clock, weakening them the lohey fight. Each successive defensive fallback that we use deying their victory and sapping their strength until the scales tilt in our favor.
Stage three of our defense is defending our double walled city, and it's new citadel in the ter. If the defenses fall until it's just the citadel remaining, the emergency escape tunnel will be used to evacuate as many personnel as possible to move on to stage four. There, we've got two options, her of which is particurly good for us long term, but must be doo survive. For now, I won't say what those options are, as the idea of exeg them worries me.
Finally, if we still must fight from here, stage five involves a slightly different variation on stage two, utilizing a work of underground tuo hit and run atta any small parties separated from their main army. From this, we have only oio. We'll separate our force, twenty of the remaining individuals including Zaka and myself will retreat deep underground into a hidden bunker. There we have stored enough food and water to st two months. While we wait those two months, the rest of the individuals on the isnd will tiempting gueril warfare. oal will be to wait out some of the remaining forces leaving, and attempt a final attack to recim the isnd. If we recim it, then robably rebuild aablish ourselves over the year to attempt a sed defeh a few hundred individuals the following year, albeit weaker than we were the first time.
For now though, we're waiting on the beginning of stage one. Ohe ships bee visible, the fighting is going to start, and it probably won't stop for quite some time.