"Leif, listen to me," Bjorn ordered, "I want you to reduce the weight of the projectiles. Stop using the solid, heavy iron balls. Do we have any of the smaller caliber shots? Or the hollow iron shells we use for the light field guns?"

"We have hundreds of the hollow shells in the lower armory," Leif frowned, scratching his beard. "But they don’t hit very hard against stone walls."

"We are not trying to shatter stone," Hakon suddenly laughed loudly, "We just need to smash dirt and kill the peasants building the ramp!"

"..." Bjorn nodded firmly. "Lighten the projectile weight entirely. Then, I want you to increase the black powder filling to the absolute maximum limit that the steel can withstand. Pack it tight.

And finally... hammer the wooden wedges under the carriages. Raise the angle of the barrels as high as they can safely go without tipping backward."

General Gurvand’s eyes went wide. "..less weight in the ball, maximum explosive pressure pushing it from behind, and a high upward angle from a fifty-foot stone wall."

"It will drastically extend our range," Bjorn declared, "We might not be able to destroy that bronze bombard with a light shell, but we can sabotage their earthen platform and prevent them from working."

However, Leif looked terrified. "The wooden carriages might crack. If the steel fails, the cannon will explode right here on our own walls."

"Then double-check your math, Leif," Bjorn said, "if we let them finish that ramp, we are all dead anyway. Get the hollow shells. Pack the powder. I want the eastern battery ready to fire in twenty minutes."

"Right away, my Lord." Leif shouted.

Wooden crates of hollow iron shells were rapidly dragged up the stone stairs from the lower vaults.

The engineers hammered wooden wedges underneath the front of the cannon carriages, angling the steel barrels up toward the starry night sky.

"Load the powder!" Leif roared, walking down the line of twenty cannons. "Pack it to the red line! Do not spill a single grain on the stone, or I will throw you off the wall myself!"

The men carefully poured the black powder down the muzzles, packing it down tightly with long wooden rams.

Then, they slid the hollow iron shells inside.

The cannons looked strange, pointed so high into the air, violating the standard rules of direct-fire artillery.

"They are ready, Lord Bjorn." Leif called out, holding a burning torch in his hand.

Bjorn raised his sword high into the air.

"Fire!"

Leif and the other engineers pressed their burning torches against the touchholes.

The twenty steel cannons erupted simultaneously in a blinding flash of fire.

The concussion was so powerful that it actually knocked several Breton soldiers off their feet.

The carriages shrieked in protest, slamming backward against the recoil ropes.

Choking black smoke instantly swallowed the top of the wall.

"Did the steel hold?!" Hakon coughed loudly, waving the acrid smoke away from his face.

"The barrels are fully intact!" Leif cheered wildly from the smoke, patting the smoking hot metal of his cannon. "The steel held, my Lord!"

Bjorn was focused on the dark sky...

Because the hollow iron shells were so light, and the gunpowder charge was so insanely high, the projectiles didn’t fly in a straight line.

Down in the Frankish camp, Count Boso was sitting in his command tent, sipping a cup of warm wine.

He heard a high-pitched whistling sound echoing from the clouds above.

Before the southern knights could even look up to see what was happening, the sky fell on them.

The hollow iron shells slammed into the soft earth of the Frankish camp.

They didn’t have the crushing mass to break stone, but they had more than enough energy to obliterate packed dirt and human flesh.

One shell struck the center of the earthen ramp they had spent the entire day building.

The impact threw tons of loose dirt, wooden support logs, and screaming peasants high into the air.

The carefully constructed firing platform collapsed into a ruined crater.

Another shell smashed into a wooden supply cart, sending splintered wood flying like deadly shrapnel through the tightly packed ranks of the vanguard infantry.

"Yes!!" Gurvand cheered loudly from the wall, slamming his fist against the stone.

Through his spyglass, Bjorn watched the glorious chaos unfold... the Frankish knights were desperately trying to control their terrified warhorses.

The peasant laborers had dropped their shovels and were fleeing into the fields, refusing to go anywhere near the bronze bombard.

"Keep firing," Bjorn ordered, "Leif, tell the men to reload. I want a volley of hollow shells sent into that camp every single hour until the sun comes up. Do not let them rest. Do not let them dig."

"With pleasure, Lord Bjorn." Leif grinned, already barking orders at the artillery crews to grab the gunpowder kegs.

Thus, the night turned into a living hell for the Frankish vanguard... every time they tried to rally the peasants and resume digging the ramp, the whistle of falling iron would shatter their progress.

The high-angle steel cannons of Calais were doing the impossible - they were winning an artillery duel against a weapon entirely out of their weight class.

However, as the hours dragged on and the false light of dawn began to creep over the horizon once again, the feeling of dread slowly returned to Bjorn’s chest.

He lowered his spyglass, rubbing his eyes.

"They have stopped trying to dig," Gurvand noted, leaning over the parapet. "The peasants have retreated out of our new firing range."

With that, Bjorn raised the spyglass to his eye, staring at the bronze cannon.

New figures were moving around the weapon, wearing leather robes and carrying strange, elaborate wooden measuring instruments.

They surrounded the cart, oblivious to the occasional shells landing a few hundred meters away.

"Hakon," Bjorn whispered suddenly.

"What is it?" Hakon frowned.

"It seems they’ve realized they can’t build the embankment under our constant fire," Bjorn said, lowering his glass.

"Then the cannon is useless," Gorvand said. "They can’t aim it."

Bjorn swallowed. "They’ve abandoned the embankment too. Those men over there are hammering wooden stakes under the front wheels of the gun carriage. Most likely they’ll point the bronze cannon’s muzzle skyward and fire that huge granite boulder straight down at the top of this wall."