Chapter 214: (Self Edited) Flame
At an altitude of 600 meters, the landscape below became a complete panorama. The scene below, resembling a detailed model, was filled with beautiful natural scenery. There were natural coastlines, vast forests, rivers cutting through them, and lakes. Although there were human cities and villages, compared to nature, they were insignificant in size and built in harmony with the natural surroundings.
It was a tranquil scene, making it hard to believe that a bloody struggle for survival was taking place here. In this era, in this world, humans were merely a small element of the environment and did not dominate the earth. Humans still fought with muzzle-loaded guns and swords and spears; there were no weapons that could scorch the earth. For trees, fish, insects, and animals other than humans, war was likely irrelevant.
However, I was human, and as such, a participant in this struggle for survival. Even within the scenery abundant with nature, if you paid attention, you could see traces of war. What floated here and there on the sea were precisely that. Off a certain coastline, several ships with furled sails were anchored. On the coastline was a small fishing village named Gjallarhorn. As expected, the Crusaders were using it.
It was a truly small fishing village, with only a few piers jutting slightly into the sandy beach. Even so, it was better than having nothing, as there was a road, and the houses could be used as temporary storage. The piers in the village were apparently too short, so the Crusaders seemed to have extended several floating piers. A floating pier was made by floating empty barrels on the sea and placing planks over them to extend the pier. This allowed small and medium-sized ships to dock directly.
Large ships couldn’t dock directly and seemed to be using boats to transport goods from offshore. Naturally, unloading directly onto the pier without using boats was more efficient. All these ships were moving supplies for the Crusaders. From what I could see, there were about 30 ships. Approaching today’s target while keeping the position of the sun in mind, I noted that the sky was clear. It was a perfect day for bombing.
I lowered the altitude to around 400 meters and positioned myself for the attack. I took a long pole tied to my saddle and untied the string at the end. The long, thin red flag wrapped around it unfurled. I twirled it above my head and pointed it towards the fleet. With the signal given, the first wave descended all at once. There were 40 squads, each consisting of four riders. The descent involved twenty squads.
One after another, they dive-bombed and dropped firebombs onto the ships. Three pre-assigned squads headed towards the fishing village, hurling firebombs at the docked ships and the houses storing supplies. Flames erupted on the decks of several ships and spread through the village. From my position atop the Eagle, I rolled up the red flag and untied the string of the blue flag on the opposite side. Pointing towards the fleet again, I signaled the second wave to descend.
The ships in the fleet were scattered, making communication in the air impossible. Thus, I had instructed the first wave, squads one through seventeen, to target the ships positioned more to the north in sequence. The second wave would similarly target any ships that weren’t yet burning.
Unlike fixed buildings, it was difficult to pre-assign targets for moving ships. To avoid overlapping dive-bomb targets, the second wave was to mop up any ships missed by the first wave. It appeared to have worked almost perfectly, as most of the fleet was ablaze. A few medium-sized ships remained, but that couldn’t be helped. I signaled the returning eagles to head towards Kotlaha.