Chapter 882 [0879] Enemy at the Gate

Fokarodna, Freljord means "the narrow place of water flow".

The Dragon Spine Mountains and the Ice Claw Mountains, which have been running north and south since the Neuskara Pass, are close to each other again. Although they have not formed a narrow pass like Neuskara Pass, the distance between them has come to less than 100 miles. Therefore, the seasonal rivers flowing from the east to the west converge again, and the narrow area between the two mountains is extremely turbulent.

Just as Neuskara Pass separates the Central Freljord and the Western Freljord subcontinent, Fokarodna can also be regarded as the dividing point between the Central Freljord and the Eastern Freljord.

The vast and warm Rakstak Plain ends here. Going east, the direction of the Ice Claw Mountains gradually changes to northeast-southwest, unable to completely isolate the Breath of Anivia on the Great Glacier, so from Fokarodna to the east, the climate conditions will become visibly worse all the way.

From a geographical point of view, Fokarodna can undoubtedly be regarded as one of the most important cities in Freljord.

As a city with a pass attribute, the city of Fokarodna built in the Fokarodna area also has very important military and political significance.

It is the eastern gate of the Rakstak Plain and a must-pass place for communication between the central and eastern Freljord. Although the underdeveloped commodity economy of Freljord has prevented it from becoming a tax center, the controllers of the city of Rakstak in all generations have firmly grasped the city without exception.

Ashe is no exception.

As the war mother of Avarosa and the builder of Frost Harbor, Ashe is one of the few "constructionists" in Freljord. In the eyes of traditional Freljord people, it is a cowardly thing to overhaul the city walls like the warm-blooded people, but Ashe never hesitates.

Therefore, since she has established a foothold in Rakstak, the walls of Fokarodna have been reinforced.

Although due to the limitation of productivity, Fokarodna could not build tall walls like the three northern towns of Demacia that ordinary people could not cross, but under the leadership of Ashe, it still relied on the mountain to carry out a series of expansion and reinforcement.

It is no exaggeration to say that if Fokarodna before Ashe came could only be regarded as a "city in the definition of Freljord", then now this city has become a real strong city fortress.

This change made the Noxians who came from afar a little dumbfounded, because from the commander Draven to the ordinary soldiers of the war group, no one had thought in advance that there would be such a fortress city with amazing specifications and a complete defense system in Freljord.

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“Unbelievable.” After personally arriving at the front line of Folkarodna City and carefully observing the city’s defense system, Tamara, who was born as a war stonemason, couldn’t help but sigh in amazement, “These Freljord barbarians can build a city of this standard?”

“Think of it in a positive way.” Draven shrugged and made a cold joke, “Maybe they were able to build this city by relying on the captives captured from the Demacians?”

Although Noxus still regards Demacia as its nemesis, Draven’s joke is so cold that other commanders of the headquarters and the commanders of the warband just twitched their mouths silently.

No one responded.

Draven’s nose wings twitched a few times when he failed to get the response he wanted. He couldn’t help but want to criticize these commanders for their lack of humor, but his identity as the commander-in-chief and his brother’s entrustment still made him calm down and didn’t say these impolite things.

"So, facing such a city, what should we do?" Draven simply knocked on the long table that had just been set up, and his eyes swept around the faces of several warband leaders. "All at once?"

"We can try it first." The warband leaders did not speak, and Tamara could only speak to smooth things over, "Send a small group of warriors first, see the quality of those barbarians on the city wall before making a decision, the blood of the Noxians will not be shed for foreigners!"

There is no doubt that Tamara's suggestion is the safest.

Facing such a big city, how to deal with it specifically should still be cautious. The identity of the Noxians is reinforcements, and they don't need to fight for the internal war of the Freljord people.

This safe decision was quickly supported by all the warband leaders.

Although Swain and Darius took turns to clear the old nobles of Noxus, due to the lack of military system reform, the current Noxian military system is still based on the warband system, and each warband is still relatively independent, but the leaders of the warbands have changed.

Therefore, any warband leader must carefully estimate the gains and losses when facing a battle - and in Freljord, any gains will be greatly discounted, and the scale of any sacrifices will increase. Combined with the two, although the warband leaders participating in this operation are loyal to Noxus and the commander-in-chief, if possible, they still hope to avoid a frontal assault.

That would be a loss.

As Tamara's suggestion was widely recognized, the next content of this military meeting became the adjustment of the tentative offensive plan - although this army had undergone special training before leaving the Immortal Fortress, the main content of the training was not siege.

So, if you want this exploratory attack to be fruitful, the vanguard responsible for the exploratory attack should be drawn from veterans who are good at siege from different warbands.

Draven was obviously not good at this kind of internal personnel transfer and resource allocation, so he simply sat aside and gave the stage to Tamara to draw people to prepare for a exploratory attack.

Tamara, who used to be a war mason, was familiar with the personnel allocation of each warband.

With her coordination, each warband quickly drew some people to the headquarters as a direct team responsible for the exploratory attack.

Things seemed to be normal so far.

Then, when the manpower was ready, Draven, who had been in an idle state before, suddenly became excited.

"Leave it to me next." He stood up excitedly, his hand already reaching for his battle axe, but it was empty. "As long as we fight hard and charge hard, these Freljord barbarians are far less troublesome than they look!"

In this way, after the team was assembled, the Noxians, under the personal command of Draven, launched a tentative but still large-scale attack on Folkarodna.

Three giant earth dragons were driven to rush towards the city walls and gates, and various temporary and modified siege equipment were used. Amid the shouts and loud calls, Draven rushed to the first one waving two battle axes.

Thanks to Tamara's sharp eyes, she grabbed Draven who was eager to try and almost rushed into the team, which prevented the possibility of such a funny thing happening that the commander of the army participated in a specific siege combat mission on the first day.

At this moment, Tamara felt so tired - Draven was still unreliable even though he was over 40 years old!

Apart from the fact that the commander almost went to the front line to attack, the effect of the exploratory attack was better than everyone expected.

Although the first landing troops failed to occupy the city wall, they had never faced the earth dragon lizards that became irritable and angry due to the intimidation of black gunpowder.

When these behemoths appeared on the battlefield, many Freljord people could not even come up with any reliable countermeasures for a while.

Except for a few archers who could use magic weapons, most Freljord people had no way to deal with these thick-skinned big guys. They could only watch it crash into the city wall again and again, shaking the city wall.

Half a day later, some people realized that the stone throwing in the city seemed to have a good effect on these big guys.

Although Draven was not on the front line, he was the first to notice the problems that the Freljords would face with his rich battlefield experience.

They probably did not have professional defense training. Once the pressure of the siege increased, they would soon be in a state of panic. In other words, as long as the Noxian army could maintain its suppression ability, these Freljords would likely make mistakes and expose their own flaws!

With this idea in mind, Draven decisively ordered the various war groups to take turns and attack in stages, not to give these Freljords any breathing room, and to make sure they collapsed in the continuous battles.

From a God's perspective, Draven's order can be said to have hit the soft spot of the city of Falkalodna at this time.

Originally, there were garrisons in the city specifically responsible for maintaining the city's security. Although they had not really participated in the city defense battle in the past, Ashe at least gave them simple city defense learning and arrangements. These people's combat effectiveness was quite good. Let them rely on the city walls to defend, and it was indeed difficult for the Noxians to take it quickly.

However, due to the activities of the previous raider tribes, according to Ashe's order, a large number of tribes along the shore of Lake Maurer were withdrawn to the city of Fokarodna.

Although the surge in the population in the city brought a large number of fresh troops to the city, these fresh troops were untrained, especially without any professional city defense training. When facing the Noxian raid, they would inevitably be in a mess.

Yes, compared with field battles, the difficulty of city defense is indeed very low.

But low difficulty does not mean that there is no need to learn - if Fokarodna is given five to ten days of preparation time, those tribal members who withdrew from the shore of Lake Maurer to the city will be the defenders of the city wall; but without special training, they can only do more harm than good.

In this case, I am afraid that only those professionally trained Freljord people can really play a role in the task of guarding the city wall.

Therefore, if they are to be attacked repeatedly, due to the lack of manpower, they will soon lose their combat effectiveness due to fatigue and casualties, thus revealing a fatal flaw!

Draven couldn't figure out the cause and effect of this at the first time, but due to his rich combat experience, he had a vague judgment on this, so he immediately asked the various war groups to take turns to act, and must maintain the pressure of the siege, and prepare for the subsequent Noxians' continued actions and support.

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The continuous siege began.

According to Draven's request, each war group quickly counted the number of people and supplies again, and took out all the earth dragon lizards that were domesticated for demolition due to injuries and other reasons.

Then, these earth dragons will be used as siege weapons, and will follow different batches of siege soldiers to go out, so that the Freljord defenders on the city wall will not have any room to relax from beginning to end, and they will always maintain a high level of mental tension.

And according to Draven's requirements, once these siege troops encounter strong resistance or the casualties tend to increase, they will retreat decisively and then replace the next batch of people.

This batch rotation attack keeps the Freljord people on the city wall in a state of mental tension. After a whole day, although no section of the city wall has been taken by Noxus, the Freljord people responsible for defending the city are still in a state of physical and mental exhaustion.

Due to the impact of the earth dragons, the city walls in many places have become loose, and the city gates also need to be reinforced. When night falls, other Freljord warriors in the city decisively start to repair the city walls and strengthen the buildings to cope with tomorrow's offensive.

Such attacks lasted for three days.

After three days, although the Noxians were consciously controlling casualties, the cumulative number of casualties still exceeded two thousand.

In addition, almost all the injured and elderly earth dragons in the army died under the city wall.

As a price, the warriors in Fokarodna who were good at defending the city were already quite exhausted. They withstood the enemy's continuous attacks, but the mental and physical fatigue was difficult to resist. After the siege ended at night, these tired warriors would go down to the city to rest as soon as possible and rest up for tomorrow.

However, what they never expected was that in the night of the third night, the energetic Draven led the elite main forces of each regiment to the north, bypassed the main body of Fokarodna City, and came to the west of the city.

After the previous continuous attacks, Draven had almost figured out the ratio of the city's defense personnel, and realized that it seemed that the enemy had placed the main defense force on the front battlefield. Although there were defenders on other city walls, those people were not really good at defending the city.

So, tonight, he planned to go all out and personally lead the elite troops to launch a night attack on the Freljordians.

The Freljordians in the city were used to judging the attack direction of the Noxians based on the footsteps of the earth dragons, and this was exactly what Draven wanted them to know.

Tonight, the elite Noxian siege night attack did not bring any earth dragons.

Instead, each person had a can of black gunpowder.

The temperature dropped sharply, so keep warm.