Chapter 66
Chapter 66
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 66
Chapter Title: Pig Hunt (6)
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After using the pikes to block the wall and prevent the knights from responding recklessly, the halberdiers began slipping through the gaps in the pike formation.
The halberdiers advanced cautiously, one step, two steps, but the knights—distracted by the pikes right in front of them—seemed not to notice some of them approaching at all.
Of course, even if they did notice, their judgment was clouded from the panic and shock, leaving most unable to respond properly.
And soon enough, all the halberdiers closed in on the knights and raised their two-handed halberds high into the sky before smashing them down.
A resounding clang echoed across the field like a bell toll.
Caught off guard by the unexpected impact, some knights panicked wildly; a few even collapsed despite not a single dent in their helmets.
The ones who stayed on their feet were still dazed from the heavy halberd blows.
"Even knights can't keep their heads straight after taking a halberd to the helmet!"
"I've wanted to bash knights like this ever since my mercenary days, and now that dream's come true!!"
"Aigoo, what good does that do? Hurry up and capture the knights alive."
Following battlefield convention, the fallen knights were stripped of all weapons and horses.
You might think they'd try to flee, but knights honor those conventions, so once disarmed and unhorsed, they submit without resistance.
That's why the soldiers bind them and treat them with the courtesy they'd show allied knights.
Of course, it's because the families cough up hefty ransoms loaded with extras for food, drink, and more...
Plus, selling off the horse and gear nets the capturing soldier—give or take a bit—nearly fifty gold coins.
With that kind of money, you could build a fine house in Kroitel Castle and buy up fields to boot...
But this was the battlefield, so our soldiers—bound by training and iron discipline—had only a few courteously escorting the knights.
The soldiers showed no disruption despite capturing knights worth their weight in gold.
The knights of Nant, accustomed to elite mercenaries paid as much as lowly knights, found this discipline more shocking than the failed charge itself; some began crying out in terror.
As a result, the enemy knights—plagued by crumbling morale—began showing signs of fracture.
"How the hell are we supposed to fight these lunatics? There was never any justification for this war to begin with! And our lord has already cast aside his honor. Better to end up as prisoners than die fighting here."
"What kind of dogshit is that? Have you thrown away your honor too?"
"There are five thousand such soldiers in Kroitel! And we've already been smashed by those damned wagons!!"
The knight brazenly sowing discord was silenced when another halberdier smashed his helmet.
Looking around, the halberdiers had swung so wildly that the pike square restricting the knights' movements was half-unraveled, positioning the enemy knights at range for a second charge.
Sure, they'd botched the first charge badly—no more disposable wrecking tools like lances, and both knights and horses were spent...
But even if they lumbered in at just four kilometers per hour, us infantry would get trampled under hooves or melted by their weapons.
So while the enemy reformed, I ordered preparations for the most basic anti-charge formation.
"Pikemen and halberdiers, fall back fifty paces! Form a hollow square—no telling where they'll hit. Signal the troops!!"
At my words, a few soldiers to my left blew long blasts on their horns, and the red flag whipped through the air.
The soldiers out in the distance, hearing the horns, snapped into action per their drills—bodies moving faster than thoughts—as they rushed back to the main body.
Spotting the waving red flag, they all retreated in my wake to form up the square.
Next, the pikemen jammed the butts of their pike shafts deep into the ground and leveled their weapons at neck height for knights.
The second rank aimed for the horses' necks, the third for the gaps.
And soon enough, the enemy knights came thundering toward us, shaking the earth with ferocious cries.
They lacked their sharpest fangs and horns—the lances—but their bastard swords, flails, maces, and warhammers gleamed blindingly in the sunlight.
Like a tiger charging prey, fangs or no: You lot leaning against no wall? I'll chew you up anyway.
As they closed in to sink those teeth into our throats, a volley of crossbow bolts whistled over our heads.
So many arrows darkened the sky overhead, blotting out the sun like we stood in the shade of trees.
The arrows slammed into the enemy knights and their horses; some buried deep in flesh.
Pierced knights and mounts screamed in agony, while the lucky survivors who dodged death realized: If this doesn't pierce me, I'm dead.
"Arrrgh, hurts like dying... Ack, you mad bastards!! I'm on your side!!"
"Dodge! Sir Lancelot!!"
"Does that make sense? Spouting horse shit just 'cause you're on a horse!!"
Some unscathed knights pressed the charge anyway, trampling allies if they had to.
The battlefield bloomed with death flowers: crushed helmets, armor, and weapons mangled beyond shape, entrails bursting from knights' bodies like bombs.
They'd abandoned reason by now.
Those reasonless figures—killing allies for victory—were terrifying as hell's gatekeepers.
To keep from breaking before them and fulfill my role as the pillar bolstering the hearts of soldiers risking their lives for me, I bellowed.
"Hold the line! Our allies are coming! Die if you must until they arrive! If they break through here, Kroitel gets looted, and your lives turn more miserable than before! Better die as free men, honorable soldiers, than live as enslaved wretches!!"
The soldiers roared back, laced with grim resolve and fervor beyond it.
"Long live Baron Kroitel! Long live Kroitel! Long live Deus!! Better die here than slave to an army led by trash worse than pigs!"
"Victory to Kroitel!!"
"Maria!! When I get back, I'll pin on ensign bars! No more dirty hands—you'll live clean! Ack!!"
Once more, a hail of friendly crossbow bolts streaked over our heads.
Once more, the enemy—lost to war's madness—trampled their own in the charge. We endured in grim silence, steeling ourselves for the weight of impaled knights soon to sag on our pike tips.
As even their breathing boomed like war drums, the enemy knights struck our pikeheads.
As expected, many knights barreled through unscathed by the pike blades, but over twenty percent were flung airborne, front-rank pikes skewering arms, legs, necks, faces; another twenty percent halted dead as their horses were stabbed.
The remaining sixty percent had bled off so much speed they couldn't sustain the charge...
We can't miss this moment. There might never be another.
Even if there were, piling on more sacrifices would betray my duty to those loyal men who followed me—and the families awaiting their return.
So for the most efficient, effective countercharge at this perfect timing, I snatched a halberd from a soldier's grip and commanded.
"Sergeant Randal, grab the banner and stick right behind me! Frost's platoon halberdiers too! Everyone—charge!!"
I slammed down my visor, hefted the halberd, and burst through the open gap in the pike square to the forefront of the enemy knights' clustered charge formation.
Seeing me charge out, the halberdiers followed with baffled expressions, shouting all the while.
"The Baron's fighting with us! Glory under our invincible commander!!"
"I'll die before letting harm come to him! Why? No future without the Baron! Charge!!"
The enemy knights—faces obscured by visors—couldn't see clearly, but they must have despaired utterly.
Before long, mad knights committed the ultimate taboo: fleeing before the enemy.
"That's an army of evil from hell! We can't beat those monsters!!"
"How dare mere infantry halt our charge—Nant's honorable charge? It's a miracle... And we're the heretics defying it..."
"Fleeing here's the only way to salvage honor. Count Nant is forsaken by Deus.."
Abandoning honor to survive, they stripped off helmets, gauntlets from limbs, weapons—everything—and bolted for dear life.
For those poor souls shackled by honor, I chose to grant mercy.
I hooked the armor of the knight ahead with my halberd's axe-head and yanked him from his horse, then tossed the halberd aside and plunged my side dagger into his throat.
Squish, squish—blood sprayed, splattering my helmet and armor, seeping through the visor slits onto my face.
His blood was surely thirty-six-point-five degrees, yet it hit me like fifty-degree scalding water, burning fierce.
I dragged down the next knight the same way, only to see his crotch... soaked.
Will broken, I mounted atop him and said,
"Surrender, and I'll uphold your knightly honor."
Hearing that, the knight waddled off unsteadily in his armor toward our lines—even with no soldiers watching—like he was surrendering voluntarily.
He could've bolted to his own side, ransom-free and alive... What an idiot.
And so my halberdiers and I quelled at least a hundred knights in unison.
A hundred knights equated to two thousand peasant soldiers in raw power...
The war was effectively over...
And just as the surviving knights tried fleeing their failed charge...
Disaster struck them.
From across the field, our knights charged in a thin, broad formation, kicking up clouds of dust.
After we'd stripped their souls bare, this? That's why war is so brutally cruel.