Contrary to what would occur during a siege, the citizens of Terra who lived Patagonia went about their normal activities like nothing was happening with few soldiers patrolling to provide security and keep the peace.
For five days , they watched as the Blackthorns prepared their siege weapons and camped without movement.
On the night of the fifth day , Ceaser had waited enough, he gathered four teams of Shadowcorp agents, twenty men armed with their signature SMG.
Their uniforms were similar to the combat uniform of the army only that it was black. Their objective was to plant explosives in strategic locations in the enemy camp.
By midnight, they set off with carts carrying explosives and with a walking speed of four miles per hour, they were able to reach the enemy camp within an hour.
Slowly, they avoided the sleepy patrols as they slipped into the camp. They then divided into two groups, one to go plant the explosives and the others to go steal horses for their escape.
It took about ten minutes for the explosive charge to be set , then without any further issues they lit up the fuses and bolted out of the way as soon as possible.
But there was a slight issue, one of the expensive barrels was connected to a quick burning fuse instead of a slow burning one that was supposed to ignite the charge when they were outside the camps vicinity. But that was not the case as one of the gunpowder packed barrel exploded prematurely. The only bright side was that it destroyed their siege engines but ultimately, the noise roused up the sleeping soldiers who immediately rushed out to see what the noise was about.
The agents were now trapped, twenty men in a camp filled with two hundred and fifty thousand enemy combatants . Their mission was now complete all that remained was to escape from the camp before they were lynched.
A second explosion distracted the enemy soldiers and gave the agents enough time to mount their horses and proceed to the escape route.
The agents rode like mad men through the camp narrowly dodging spears and firing shots and throwing grenades into crowds of men who made attempts to restrain them.
The remaining explosives as if on track exploded at the various positions where they were placed . You see, the explosion apart from destroying some of the enemy siege weapons was to cause confusion in the enemy camp and disorganize them .
During the course of their escape, the agents had killed and injured at least fifty enemy combatants while the explosives caused a casualty of about sixty , destroying tents, siege weapons, carriages and horses.
Some of the Calvary gave chase pursuing the agents as they rode out of camp. Because of the horse movement the bullets that were being fired from the agents often missed their targets, but still succeeded in creating a gap that enabled them to get to the town gate , escaping the pursuing Calvary just in time .
The calvary after seeing them enter the town promptly retreated back to their camp.
The reaction from the soldiers on guard were of awe, they watched the agents dressed in the black uniforms, helmet and face coverings. They had actually seen the men dressed in black. Up till now, the men dressed in black had been something but of a myth or an urban legend but right now they were seeing them in the flesh.
" Mission completed my Lord." One of the agents said to Ceaser as he dismounted his horse.
Back at the Blackthorn camp, soldiers hustled around to put out fires and treat the wounded.
Prince Marcellus walked around the camp without his armor carrying an unsheathed sword inspection the damage done to the camp and the seige equipment.
" Should we attack in the morning?" The Duke of Winchester asked.
" No." The prince replied," they would be expecting us . We must rebuild the seige engines before attacking, that would be the most effective way of achieving victory without sacrificing any more of our numbers."
" We should triple the guards patrolling the camp , I believe they would try to attack us again in the same manner."
They were partially true as to the fact that Terra would attack them again, but were wrong as to their method of attack because the next morning, Ceaser ordered that the the breach loading cannons be fired one by one in succession and at different angles, each cannon firing one shot every three minutes.
The effects was chaos, not an overly amount of carnage from from the artillery, but psychological distress and injuries lie ruptured eardrums or massive internal bleeding which eventually led to death.
Every three minutes, shells streaked in from above causing havoc, the horses has broken free and had started running rampart around the camp, some even trampling people.
Within an hour, seven thousand people had perished . The Duke rushed towards the Prince who had miraculously survived the first round of shelling.
" Your highness what do we do now , the camp is in dissary. At this moment,the men might rout."
" Gather the men, tell them to abandon their horses, they should only carry their weapons and ladders, tell them that it is important to maintain a great distance from each other as it would increase their chances of surviving." Marcellus replied.
Immediately the commanders sprung into action shouting out commands as the army started falling into cohesion and responding to orders.
They started marching for the town, maintaining distance from each other . But surprisingly immediately they left their camping grounds, the bombardment stopped at least till they reached the 900 meter mark then the smoothbore muzzleloader cannons started firing .
Within ten minutes, eighteen thousand shells had been fired wiping out the army before they could even reach 400 meters, they didn't even have the opportunity to use the new weapons in their possession as the artillery crushed the entire army. Few soldiers were then sent into the battle field to capture soldiers who were still alive and uninjured, injured soldiers were executed on the spot but mainly they were looking for high value targets like the commanders, people who would most likely have intelligence to trade for their lives