212 They have cannon! (1/2)
12th July 1574
When four more rifles joined the fray from the main ship, the attackers clearly lost their wits to continue rushing forward like idiots. Yet just a single look at their moves betrayed that while they had some kind of power backing them, they were clearly not real soldiers!
At least, not all of them. Maybe it was their survival instinct or just a bit of luck, but some of the aggressors found out the one simple problem that separated our two situations right now.
With the engine of the ship stalled, it would take a while for it to start running again. Yet to set it up, someone had to go to the lower deck of the ship! And in the heat of the current battle, especially when the enemies learned that they could inflict far more damage by hiding behind the treeline and only showing up whenever someone was trying to move on the deck, there was no way I would even attempt forcing my people to risk their lives pointlessly like that!
”Sir, what do we do?!”
As the situation stalled down, there wasn't really that much that could be done in this moment, yet that didn't free me from the duty of commanding over my men. With how little of the actual experience even those soldiers of mine had, there was no way I could rely on them to manage on their own!
”For now, wait. Don't waste ammunition, shoot only when someone approach!”
With how this journey was nothing but a diplomatic mission at most, I didn't bother stocking up a huge amount of bullets or the preloaded magazine belts. Even though we could still fight for quite a while, the longer the fight stalled the worse the situation would be.
”Mike…”
With the gunshots slowly dying off with both sides realising what kind of impasse situation we found ourselves in, Elia crawled on the floor of the shed and peeked through the small crevice between the door of the shed and its frame.
”Stay down. It's not over yet.”
While seeing the worry on her cute face pained me to no end, I couldn't get distracted right now. If I were a normal noble, I would never stomach the dishonor of being attacked by the bandits, forcing me to look for the way to decisively deal with them. But seeing how set they were on attacking us, despite how little of effect it brough, it was fairly obvious that sending my men away from the safety of their current cover would be no different from forcing them to suicide!
After all, even if I found the way to prevent them from being killed by the numerous bandits that were hiding and waiting for such opportunity, there was a huge chance that even more people was hiding behind the treeline!