“Because you’re the one who cut them down, not me!”
The desert dweller also cursed, several times. Then, sheathing his sabers, he turned to the remains of the nearby pyramid of cannonballs, puffed out his cheeks in irritation, and lifted a cannonball with both hands. It was no bigger than a melon, but it was so heavy that it sometimes took two strong people to load just one into the cannon. But Hadjar had his own job to do.
He took the ramrod — it was something like a cleaning rod, but several times larger — from the stiffening hands of a disemboweled gunner and cleaned the barrel of the cannon, then loaded it with sacks of gunpowder. Only then did Shakh roll the cannonball inside, and together, they packed it in tightly all the way to the base.
“Now what?” Bellowed the desert dweller.
