2.41.2-Cat

The Thief agreed, apparently. She stopped sixty feet away from the gate, on the open field but still out of crossbow range. A ballista stone flew over her head, hitting the wall without making a kill but keeping the archers crouched behind the fortifications. She flipped a finger in our general direction then took up a leather pouch from her side, turning it upside down as if to empty the contents on the ground. A heartbeat later, twenty-odd river barges fell in a crash of wood and floodwater. I blinked just to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

...

“They’re blocking access to the gate,” Hakram said.

I cursed. True, the boats had fallen all over the place: some forward, yes, but some backwards also. The ones in the back probably forbade entrance to the same gate we’d just knocked open. The heroes had replied to our forcing a way in by dropping a mountain of wood in front of that path. I might have picked up on that faster, had I not been befuddled by the absurdity and overkill of the answer.

...

There’d be no need to be any more precise than that, not with the Hellhound. I closed my eyes and reached for my Name, opening pupils on a corpse far to my left. The ox rose to its feet. I’d been meaning this particular surprise for Willy, a way to make swordsmanship irrelevant to our coming fight. I’d had several of our labour oxen slaughtered and stuffed with goblin munition loadouts, including one full of goblinfire. He’ll be expecting them after this. The ox I’d reached for was one heavy on demolition charges, the flesh carved deep and filled to the brim. It would have been enough to casually level a city block, Robber assured me, so it should be enough for the barges. If not, I had another six oxen to finish the job.

...

With Pickler’s engines keeping the enemy archers busy, Robber and his mount covered the ground with only a handful of pot-shots taken at them. One arrow hit the ox right in the brains, but the corpse wasn’t exactly using those at the moment. A few moments before impact Robber leaned forward and struck a match, setting off a fuse before rolling off. Landing on his feet, the goblin spread out his arms at the soldiers on the rampart and yelled out something. I was too far away to hear, and anyhow I was busy cutting the strands connecting me to the ox before it exploded. The corpse hit the side of the closest barge, horns getting stuck in the wood, and a moment later Creation lit up.

I’d again underestimated how much munitions were amplified by Name power, it seemed. The hand of an angry god swatted aside the centre of the boat pile, smouldering planks of wood catapulted in every direction. One large piece hit the first rank of Hune’s heavies, slapping down an orc nearly as large as Nauk like he was a child. I winced. Broken bones for sure, even if he’d caught it on the shield. When the mess settled down I saw that something resembling a path had been cleared. Half a barge was still in the way and would make passing under the bastion much trickier, but it would also be usable as cover.

- Book 2, Chapter 41: Retrieve