Chapter 181
Both armies moved according to the planned tactics upon hearing the signal. The imperial army and the alliance army were both like arrows already released from their bows. Commanders could only pray that their predictions were correct and that their forces were sufficiently capable.
“Huff, huff.”
Warriors gripped their weapons behind the barricades with their shoulders heaving like beasts baring their teeth, trying to shake off fear with their cries.
"Those bastards are coming."
"The demons from beyond the mountains have come to devour us."
"They're not demons. They’re just humans. Kill them all."
"...I am a bear. A bear. I’m becoming a bear."
The warriors prepared for battle in their own ways. Some were even hypnotizing themselves by wearing animal skins.
"Hmmmmmmmm."
The tribal shamans cast spells of courage on the warriors from behind, splashing them with goat's blood violently.
"Death is not the end, warrior."
"What lies beyond?"
"...The immortality of the soul. Your brothers and ancestors who went before you await."
"Hah, if I could meet my father, I'd take his head off him myself. He wasn't really a good father."
A warrior laughed loudly, readying himself to fight bravely with his weapon in his hand.
Thwuck!
The laughing warrior was struck down by a stray arrow that hit him directly in the head. The warrior, full of fervor just moments ago, met a futile death.
"Oh my."
A shaman closed the eyelids of the fallen warrior amidst the arrow-stormed battlefield, murmuring a spell.
"Do not be afraid. I am watching over your soul."
The shaman, as if he was unafraid of death, spread his arms and looked up to the sky.
Thump! Thump!
The wooden fence shook. Even the logs deeply embedded in the ground were of little use.
Craaaaack!
The wood split and the fence collapsed one log after another.
Warriors and soldiers faced each other and confirmed the faces of their enemies for the first time. They were close enough to see the wrinkles on their faces filled with a mix of fear and triumph.
"Kill them!"
The soldiers and warriors charging at each other needed no further order. Metal clashed, and blood sprayed everywhere.
"Reinforce the broken parts of the fence first! Don't rush out! Stand shoulder-to-shoulder and raise your shields!"
Samikan emerged among the warriors, pushing them out of his way, wielding a shield and spear.
"Samikan is here!"
"The Great Chief stands with us!"
The morale of the warriors soared sky-high. Samikan, the leader of the alliance, was standing with them at the very front of the battlefield.
Slash!
Samikan thrust his spear forward along with other warriors, piercing the head of an imperial soldier with its tip.
"Oooooh!"
Warriors roared as they thrust their spears. The tribal warriors, who often used spears and axes, favored spears among their weapons.
"We are one! If we stand back-to-back, shoulder to shoulder, we will live. But if we rush out by ourselves intoxicated by blood, we will fall!"
Samikan shouted. However, some warriors, already drunk in frenzy, charged forward, roaring.
"Kaaaaah!"
Warriors wearing animal skins howled and rampaged like beasts, fighting as if they were invincible even after straying their formation.
Schluck!
But there wasn’t a single warrior in the world who was immune to death. Everyone died when their heart was pierced.
The sensation of being invincible coming from wearing bear or wolf skins was merely an illusion. The warriors who thrived on this feeling fell to the ground dead without even getting to close their eyes.
While warriors and soldiers fought a life-and-death battle at the fortress's boundaries, the empire's nobles merely observed the battle from a hill above.
"These barbarians are actually holding up quite well."
"Still, it's only a matter of time."
The nobles spoke loosely, mounted on their horses, awaiting victory as if it were a given.
"Send in the sixth to the tenth infantry units."
Legion Commander Odinst commanded more troops to be added to the face of the fortress.
‘The barbarians are holding out longer than expected. Their morale is quite high.’
Odinst briefly tilted his head, but the overwhelming advantage was with the empire's forces in both number and quality.
He arranged for the legion's forces to advance in order to end the battle quickly. Their flanks and rear were left empty by his strategy.
Odinst was a legion commander who was also a military scholar. He would not have left the flanks and rear unprotected if he was facing a civilized military force. Usually, some forces were kept on both wings until the end of the battle.
However, Odinst was certain of victory in this battle. He even placed the forces from the wings in the front line to end the battle with minimal casualties.
“Hoooo.”
Samikan felt the density of the empire's forces increasing. To assess the situation, he climbed a watchtower that hadn’t fallen yet.
‘They’ve moved their forces on the wings to the front! If we hold the center, we have a chance!’
Samikan narrowed his eyes to observe the flow of the battle. His shoulders and chest heaved with each breath. Though his body was tired and his mouth drying up, Samikan's eyes glinted as he gazed into the distant glory.
Thwip!
An arrow struck Samikan's chest. His body wobbled dramatically and fell from the watchtower.
"Great Chief!"
"Protect Samikan!"
Warriors rushed to Samikan who fell to the ground and covered him with their shields.
Beeeeep.
Samikan blinked. His ears rang, and the back of his neck felt numb. Even though he was lying still, the sky seemed to spin around.
‘The battle isn't over yet.’
Samikan clenched his teeth. A faint chance of victory was finally starting to show. If Samikan fell here, the alliance would lose even a battle that was almost won.
‘The arrow didn't dig in too deep thanks to the fur coat. Breathing doesn't fill my lungs with blood.’
Samikan checked his condition by touching his chest. The arrow wound wasn’t going to kill him immediately. He checked for any broken bones and got himself back up on his feet. Though his bones weren't broken, his body was far from being in good shape.
"Stand back, Great Chief."
Warriors supported Samikan, but he pushed their hands away and stood on his own two legs.
‘My body is aching all over.’
Samikan shook his head. His obsession with glory erased the pain. His mind was clear as if waves of golden light were flowing through.
"As long as the will of the heavens is with me, I will not fall. Bring me my spear and shield!"
Samikan shouted loudly, snapping off the arrow lodged in his chest. Seeing Samikan stand despite being shot, the warriors roared. It was a hoarse roar, loud enough to make their throats bleed.
"Samiiii-kan!"
Samikan moved forward, wielding his spear despite his severe injury.
"Our brothers are coming! Let us go!"
Samikan stepped over the broken fence and blew the horn. Blood seeped from his chest, but he still inflated his chest as much as he could.
Buuuuuuup!
Hearing the sound of Samikan's horn, the alliance warriors stood up as they bled profusely. Even those who were practically already dead with their throats and stomachs torn up fought until the very end.
"Woaaaaaah!"
Shouts echoed from afar. The imperial army who was fighting near the tribal fortress was flustered.
"Barbarians have appeared on the enemy's left and right flanks!"
The nobles were in disarray. The legion's command was thrown into chaos by the unexpected reinforcements.
"There are at least thousands of them!"
"I can see that! Now quiet down and focus on keeping that dignified expression of yours on your face!"
Odinst frowned. These inexperienced noble fools were scared before the fight even started, mudding up the military discipline.
'Were they hiding their forces? Barbarians, of all people? How dare they! They were conserving their strength against the imperial army?'
Odinst felt like he had been smacked up the back of his head. If the large forces appearing from the left and right were pre-deployed troops, then the western barbarians were not to be underestimated.
‘More importantly, where did they gather such a large army? Did they have their forces already united?’
All sorts of thoughts crossed his mind. The barbarian army was a completely different entity than what Odinst had imagined.
An enemy completely different from his expectations.
It was a fatal mistake in judgment during war.
'Can I pull back the forces that are stretched forward in time?'
If the infantry captains were competent and quick-witted, they would pull their troops back on their own at their own discretion. However, Legion Commander Odinst and the field officers had not built enough rapport and experience with each other to move seamlessly together.
Instead, the field officers hesitated to make independent decisions out of fear of being reprimanded. Having become a legion commander at a young age, Odinst had managed the legion oppressively in order to maintain discipline.
The lack of communication between field officers and the legion commander made the legion's movements rigid. As the pre-planned strategy fell apart, the massive beast called the imperial army was losing its direction.
"Raise the flags!"
Odinst sent messengers in a hurry and raised the banners corresponding to each infantry unit. The imperial army wasn't just a name; even amidst chaos, the forward units that spotted the commands from the main force moved to protect the flanks of their core force.
'Dammit, as I expected, our movements are all over the place. Some units caught on quickly and moved, but others haven’t grasped the situation yet.'
The imperial infantry unit's formation consisted of a hundred men. Although it was rare to fill exactly a hundred, they generally managed to gather about eighty men.
The small infantry units moved separately, breaking away.
"Woooooo!"
The charge speed of the barbarians attacking from both flanks was fast beyond imagination. It was by no means the usual pace of the average infantry. As light infantry and given the westerners' barefoot mobility, the barbarians were exceptionally fast even among other barbarians.
'So fast! Infantry shouldn't be this quick!'
The barbarian army charged in much faster than the infantry officers expected. About three thousand barbarians from each flank charged simultaneously. The small, scattered infantry units were surrounded by approximately three thousand barbarians and were quickly annihilated.
'This was a mistake. The barbarians are faster than I expected. Instead of retreating, we should have moved the main force further forward to join the forward units, even at the cost of sacrifice.'
Odinst acutely felt his own mistake. His error in judgment led to the rapid destruction of four of their hundred-man imperial infantry units.
"Legion commander!"
The nobles urged Odinst, rushing his decision. The swarming barbarians targeted the sides of the main force and the rear of the forward units.
The imperial camp was virtually split in two at its waist. The alliance's strategy was successful.
"Sir Doleman!"
Odinst called out to a knight. Doleman was the commander of one of the heavy cavalry units.
"Leave it to me. We'll open the way."
Doleman joined with his cavalry unit. Although the intention was to conserve the heavy cavalry as much as possible, they no longer had the luxury to hold back.
"Set, spears!"
Among the five hundred heavy cavalry, about a hundred knights wore full plate armor and took the lead. The knights, holding their lances, advanced slowly but gradually. Rushing from the start would only exhaust the horses, depriving them of the necessary thrust when it mattered most.
Several of the lances had flamboyant banners attached. Other heavy cavalry followed the movement of the standard-bearer's lance.
The alliance's strategy was undoubtedly successful. The morale of the faltering warriors also soared. However, the imperial army had a military branch capable of demolishing even the strategic and tactical superiority of their enemies.
"Lower the spears!"
Doleman shouted.
The lancers lowered their lances first, and the heavy cavalry followed in unison at their signal.
The heavy cavalry hooked their lances in the lance rests under their arms and fixed their posture in place.
Click, click.
The sound of visors being lowered resonated from all directions. They had put blinders on the less trained warhorses. The heavy cavalry, now ready, looked only at the standard-bearer and Captain Doleman through their narrowed field of vision.
"Do not be afraid."
"The Sun is with us."
"Long live the Empire!"
Doleman lightly kicked his horse's side and pulled on the reins. With him at the charge, the heavy cavalry surged forward, trampling the grassland under a cloud of dust.
For the first time, the western warriors experienced the might of the heavy cavalry. As the iron-clad riders charged, no martial skill possessed by the warriors proved effective.
Crrrrruuunch!
A collision ensued. In the midst of the thousands of warriors, five hundred heavy cavalrymen charged. Some lances impaled up to three warriors at a time. Warriors trampled under hooves vomited their innards as they died out. Merely being brushed aside fractured and shattered the bones of the warriors.
"Chaaaarge!"
Seeing the blood of the barbarians, Doleman lifted his visor and shouted. Even after the charge, they did not regather their lances. After discarding their lances, they drew their secondary weapons and pressed on. Their role was to reconnect the severed ranks at the core of the empire's forces.
As soon as the collision ended, the light cavalry followed up, supporting the heavy cavalry. No one could stop the charge of the heavy cavalry. A road paved with the corpses of barbarians was formed. The empire's forces, previously severed, were now reconnected.
"Huff, huff.”
Samikan climbed the watchtower again. As he gasped for breath and bent over, he watched the heavy cavalry. The warriors who stood against them were shredded away powerlessly. It was less a battle and more a slaughter.
"Blow the retreat horn before it's too late. This is enough."
Samikan squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them to speak.
But the alliance was not the only one to suffer heavy losses. The Western Legion also suffered far more damage than they had anticipated.
The barbarians of the west are not to be underestimated. One of the objectives of this first battle was to imprint that lesson.
‘It was a sacrifice we had anticipated, but... it still leaves a bitter taste.’
The sound of the horn blasted three times in long bursts. The tribe's warriors, setting their makeshift fortress ablaze, fled backward.
Amidst flames and smoke, the imperial army hurled insults and curses at the fleeing barbarians.
"Legion commander! Continue the pursuit!"
The nobles who were outraged by the unexpected casualties demanded. They too had lost many of their own private soldiers. The private forces of nobles who were positioned on the outskirts of the forces suffered losses that were close to annihilation.
"Do not rush me, I was going to do it anyway!”
Although victorious in battle, Odinst felt just as bitter. He rallied the light cavalry, chasing after the alliance's tail.
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