The Empty Fort Strategy (3)
"What the hell is going on!"
The 2nd Prince's army was in complete chaos. The main gate of Hartzfeld Castle had suddenly burst open, and immediately afterward the 1st Prince's forces launched their assault.
"Report! The left and right flanks facing Hartzfeld Castle are under attack by the 1st Prince's army!"
Count Wint-Hafen thought to himself. So this is what they were aiming for from the start?
"Maintain a defensive posture for now. Prevent losses from piling up. Time is on our side anyway."
How amusing. The count thought.
After all, their numerical advantage was still nearly two to one. He had already tasted the elite quality of the 1st Prince's troops during the previous sieges, but no matter how elite they were, they were still only human. With far more reserves to draw upon, his side would inevitably gain the upper hand as time passed.
To gamble everything by abandoning even the castle that was their only real advantage... it's absurd.
Then again, with no food left in the castle, they were going to die either way. They had no choice but to roll the dice.
Uwaaaaaah!
The distant war cries of the enemy soldiers echoed all the way to the rear lines. They couldn't have eaten properly for days, yet their morale was unnaturally high.
"Hah, the 1st Prince really must be quite the leader."
Even while admiring the enemy's spirit, Count Wint-Hafen began issuing orders to his own forces.
"Gather every knight currently available for sortie."
"What do you intend to do, my lord?"
The question came in response to the count's command. When he turned to look, a senior knight commanding the eastern knight order that had joined the 2nd Prince's camp stood there.
"The infantry will fight defensively, blocking the enemy's schemes while dragging them into a war of attrition. Meanwhile, the knights will strike their flanks and collapse their front lines one by one. Repeat this process, and eventually their vulnerabilities will be exposed like soft bare flesh. And when that happens!"
Thud!
The count made a sharp grasping motion in the air, as if snatching something invisible.
"We drive our entire army forward like a final, decisive blow. They've already split their small force in half. We'll crush them without giving them a single moment to resist."
Having finished his explanation and about to leave, he added one more order as if it had just occurred to him.
"And if you spot the 1st Prince or 3rd Prince on the battlefield, kill them immediately."
"...Not capture, but kill?"
"Haha, good grief. Have you really heard nothing from your master?"
Count Wint-Hafen's face instantly turned ice-cold as he pressed the senior knight. Even a veteran who had survived countless hardships felt a chill run down his spine at the sudden transformation.
"Or are you still clinging to some loyalty toward the royal family?"
"N-no, my lord!"
"Then carry out your orders."
With those words, Count Wint-Hafen left to focus on directing the army. The senior knight left behind could only think one thing.
A cold, cruel man.
It hadn't been long since Alvaro told Hans to inform Sir Grautal of the sortie order when the old knight came marching into the tent.
"Sir Sternfeld. Are we finally moving out?"
"Sir Grautal."
When Alvaro tried to stand and greet him, Grautal waved his hand dismissively.
Yeah, everyone keeps doing this. I'm starting to feel like a damn invalid. Thanks to the potion it's not that bad, though.
"That aside, we're finally deploying? So we just charge into the enemy's rear and sweep them away, right?"
...Huh? It seems like what I told Hans didn't get passed on properly.
Whoosh!
"Huff, huff, huff. Sir Grautal... I still have... huff, huff... more to report!"
Sure enough, Hans came stumbling into the tent moments later, completely out of breath. He must have been desperately chasing after Grautal, who had charged straight here without waiting.
Well, for a normal person to keep up with a knight running at full speed... it's basically a sprint. No wonder he's exhausted.
"...Since it's come to this, I'll explain it myself. We're not moving from here."
"What do you mean by that?"
Grautal stared at him with an expression that said the words were nonsense. He seemed to interpret it as Alvaro abandoning the 1st Prince's group, because his face quickly twisted into something fierce.
"Wasn't this operation your plan?! And now you're saying we'll just sit here and do nothing?!"
"Calm down, Sir Grautal. Not moving from here doesn't mean we're doing nothing."
"Don't play word games with me!"
"It's not a word game. The attack will be led primarily by the mage unit."
"...I let yesterday's mess slide because you seemed to have a plan, but if this is another one of those 'small elite force' ambush operations, then forget it! After all the sacrifices we made yesterday, to do something like that again—"
"It's not that."
Seeing that Grautal's misunderstanding wasn't going to end anytime soon, Alvaro had no choice but to cut him off. He continued before the old knight could interrupt again.
"The mage unit will conduct long-range bombardment. The infantry's role will be to maintain formation and act as shields, protecting us from any counterattacks while we fire."
He added more for Grautal, who still looked confused.
"In other words, we're not going to them. We're making the enemy come to us."
"Is that... even possible?"
Yeah, I figured. The concept of artillery probably doesn't exist here, so of course he wouldn't get it.
"It's possible. If we pour dozens of Fire Balls into the enemy lines every minute, and that continues for one hour, two hours—what do you think will happen?"
"You can fire that many? Hah, then... they'd obviously try to strike the firing position first, or run away."
"Exactly. But what if the attacks are coming from the rear?"
"To maintain formation while retreating, they'd have to advance forward... Ah. So that's why you used a strategy like the Empty Fort Strategy."
Grautal finally nodded as if he understood.
"You weren't planning to use His Highness the 1st Prince's army as a hammer. You were going to use them as an anvil from the beginning, weren't you?"
Alvaro nodded in confirmation and continued.
"In the end, the enemy won't have many choices left. Originally they would have slowly pressured the 1st Prince's forces, but now they'll be the ones racing against time."
When enemies are pressed for time, what will they choose among their remaining options? Obviously, they'd either try to buy time or find a way to reset the situation. And the most annoying threat to them would be the bombardment coming from the rear.
"They'll probably send their knights charging at us. If we can endure that and maintain the bombardment, we win."
"What if not just the knights, but the entire enemy infantry comes down? What then?"
"At that point, we become the anvil, and the 1st Prince's army becomes the hammer."
Grautal stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment before asking again.
"Then what should the Weistenfel knights do?"
Alvaro gave him the answer with an awkward smile.
"Well... could you go do some reconnaissance? Heh heh heh."
Yeah, sorry. I'm kind of busy directing the bombardment right now. I'll need you to run some errands, Sir Grautal.
Kwaaaaaaaa—Boom! Boom! Boom!
Fire Balls were pouring down from the sky like mad.
"Uwaaaaagh!"
"It's a rain of fire! Fire is raining from the sky!"
The 2nd Prince's army had completely lost their minds under the magical bombardment and fallen into panic.
Rather than trying to calm the infantry, Count Wint-Hafen first listened to reports about the attack's origin point.
"Have you confirmed where it's coming from?"
"Yes! It's flying in from below the mountain!"
The report overlapped in his mind with the one he'd received about last night's raid. At the time, the damage from the knights had been greater, and since he'd been told those knights had been wiped out, he'd dismissed it as insignificant.
But seeing the current scene, he instinctively realized he'd made a serious error in judgment.
The report from last night's raid mentioned magical attacks accompanying the knights. But that report didn't say this many flaming spheres were flying in. Did I misread something?
Boom! Boomboomboom—!
"Aaaaaagh!"
The screams of soldiers caught in the bombardment echoed horribly.
And as if refusing to give the count any time to think, the magical bombardment continued without pause.
No—it showed no signs of stopping at all.
Like dozens of shots falling simultaneously, it devastated entire sections of the battlefield with only the slightest gaps between impacts. Inevitably, the infantry's screams would follow, and afterward nothing remained but piles of blackened meat.
"Damn it, this is an attack from thousands of paces away?"
To Count Wint-Hafen, it was completely beyond common sense, yet it was happening right before his eyes. The mages he'd seen until now might have possessed powerful individual spells, but this kind of sustained barrage was something he'd never witnessed.
His image of mages had been limited to them preparing one powerful spell over a long time for use in sieges. He couldn't make sense of what he was seeing.
How can they aim so accurately? And how is this volume even possible? With only six mages at most, isn't this far too many projectiles?
His head was filled with questions, but there was no time to ponder them.
"Messenger! Recall the knights we sent against the 1st Prince's forces immediately! Right now!"
First, they had to do something about those damned mages.