Barbarian Raid (1)
The key to fighting the barbarian tribes was the castle walls. Warriors who charged without fear or pain. Madmen who casually wielded spells that shortened human lifespans, convinced that paradise awaited them after death in battle.
The ecstatic cheers they let out as they charged were proof enough that they had lost their minds. It was no coincidence they were called barbarians.
That was why the lords of the western frontier towns, Edwin among them, focused their efforts on raising strong walls.
Once a true wave began, they had no choice but to endure inside the castle until the enemy grew exhausted and withdrew on their own. Sacrifices were inevitable in the process.
Not everyone living outside the walls could be brought inside. The west was not a wealthy region, and the central citadel was not large enough to shelter every soul in the territory.
So they had to watch their lands burn before their eyes while holding out until reinforcements from the capital arrived. That was the common wisdom Edwin had lived by.
The walls were indeed precarious against warriors who charged mindlessly without feeling pain, but meeting them in open battle was even more insane.
That was why he had come in person to meet the commander of the southern reinforcements.
“I am Edwin, Lord of Eirene.”
“Ah, the baron himself. A pleasure to meet you. I’m Captain James, commander of the 17th Company.”
Construction was in full swing around the two men. Infantry digging the earth with shovels and tools looked as though they were excavating a castle moat. Yet there was a clear difference.
Unlike a moat—a vast artificial waterway meant to be filled with water—the pits the soldiers were digging were just large enough for a single man to crouch inside.
“Are you attempting to build a moat? If so, you’ll need to dig far deeper and wider. The barbarians’ physical abilities are nothing to scoff at.”
“No need, my lord. These are trenches, dug so our soldiers can take cover.”
“Trenches?”
The concept was entirely foreign to Edwin. Trenches were a product of the age when firearms had truly come into their own on the battlefield.
To defend all of Eirene they would have to fight outside the walls, and nothing was better than trenches for rapidly establishing positions on open ground.
“Won’t that prevent your men from retreating if the enemy closes in?”
“That won’t be necessary. The enemy will neither reach this position nor have any chance to retreat.”
The moment James finished speaking, soldiers carried over machine guns and began mounting them atop the trenches. To Edwin, who had only ever seen primitive matchlocks or muskets, the weapons were fascinating in every respect.
“They’re called machine guns. We’ve pushed the performance of existing firearms to their absolute limit.”
Even so, Edwin could not fully dispel his doubts. He had fired guns before. He had used the muskets they had obtained with great difficulty against the barbarians on many occasions. Yet muskets possessed no real stopping power.
The ability to punch holes in a man from a distance was impressive, but that was all. After watching enemies continue their charge even with gaping wounds, he had quickly abandoned the idea.
“There’s no need for concern. These are in a completely different league from early firearms like muskets.”
James studied Baron Edwin’s expression carefully. Even after such an explanation, the baron’s face remained skeptical, as though he could not bring himself to believe it completely. James understood. He had worn the same expression once.
“...Very well. If the situation demands it, I will bring our territorial defense force forward as well.”
Edwin spoke with half-hearted conviction for a simple reason. The west had grown dependent on the South’s 2nd Company. For the past fifty years, the South had propped up the west’s shattered economy and broken bureaucracy.
Borrowing the South’s backbone meant that His Excellency Kyle’s influence carried corresponding weight. Baron Edwin would find it burdensome to let the western army fight alone.
In preparation for exactly this kind of situation, the Grand Duke had given instructions just before departure: Do not drag the western forces, who have no desire to fight, onto the front lines.
The South had to be a trustworthy friend and steadfast family to the west. Forcing family into war did not suit that image. So James smiled as if the matter were of no concern and replied.
“That won’t be necessary. I understand your intentions, Baron Edwin, but Eirene needs to focus on rebuilding its foundations right now.”
In a war led by machine guns, infantry armed with spears and swords had almost no role to play. James and his 17th Company spent the rest of the day digging trenches and clearing the battlefield.
“Clear everything within two kilometers! Anyone who can use aura breathing, move the stones. Bring saws and cut down every tree!”
When the hundred soldiers finished, the land between Eirene and the western border had become a perfectly flat plain. A flawless kill zone with nowhere to hide and no cover to be found. Three 76mm field guns were then emplaced. They had been specially attached to the company to destroy enemy shamans the instant they were spotted.
To the soldiers of the barony, however, the preparations made no sense.
“The southern army sure does things strangely.”
“Isn’t that just making it easier for the barbarians to advance?”
“They must have a plan. They said they brought new weapons, didn’t they?”
“Still, aren’t they underestimating the savages? Those crazy bastards keep moving for minutes even with a spear through the skull.”
The barony soldiers knew almost nothing about the southern army’s new weapons. Since their lord had returned without complaint, they assumed he must have his reasons and simply watched.
Half worry, half disbelief. The first night after the southern army’s arrival passed in that uneasy atmosphere.
Then the next day dawned.
“Barbarians! It’s a barbarian raid!!!”
At the first light of dawn, the plains beyond were covered like a swarm of ants—shirtless savages armed with axes and blades. Red halos floated above their heads, the mark of body-strengthening sorcery.
“My God, there are so many of them…?”
The soldiers atop Eirene’s walls swallowed hard in unison. Rough estimates put the enemy between nine hundred and a thousand. It was the largest invasion they had ever seen. The rejection of the “proposal” had clearly enraged them.
“Those insane Temelican bastards are fully committed.”
Eirene was a minor provincial city. Its territorial defense force barely exceeded five hundred men. Adding the southern reinforcements brought the total to roughly six hundred. Which meant…
“Fuck. Two for one, then.”
They would have to trade two of their own for every barbarian warrior who feared neither death nor proper dying.
“I just hope the southern boys take care of two hundred—no more, no less.”
The soldiers gripped their weapons, muttering. The signal that began the battle was the whistling arrows fired by the barbarians.
Piiiiii—!
The arrows’ screams tore through the quiet dawn sky, and the battle commenced.
“Waaaaaaaah!!!”
A thousand barbarians charged as one, rushing across the plains the southern troops had meticulously flattened only the day before.
Captain James of the 17th Company watched them come and gave the order.
“Teach them exactly whose land they have dared to trespass on. All units, open fire!”
A half-beat later, twenty 7.62mm machine guns and five 20mm autocannons unleashed a storm of crossfire. The barbarians had walked straight into the kill zone of their own free will.
“I’ll show you what happens when you refuse the proposal.”
The chieftain of the Temelican tribe had led half the tribe’s fighting strength into the field. He would utterly crush Eirene for rejecting the offer, terrifying the other territories into acceptance. Three times the usual number of warriors had gathered on the plain.
Until that moment, not a single Temelican warrior doubted victory. On open ground, they were invincible.
Piiii—!
The signal arrow rang out, and a thousand Temelican warriors charged in unison. Every fighter rushed the defensive line at once—and—
“All units, open fire!”
Brrrrrrrrrt—!
With a sound like rolling thunder, streaks of light poured in from every direction.
“...What?”
The bodies of the warriors in the first rank disintegrated. A bullet to the arm tore the forearm away. A hit to the waist severed the torso. Those struck in the head collapsed in shapes too horrific to describe. Blood sprayed in every direction. Bodies jerked like marionettes with their strings cut. Warriors riddled with holes died without even time to scream.
Before such carnage, spells that deadened pain were meaningless. Nearly a hundred men simply vanished where they stood. Fewer than half of those left corpses that could even be recognized as human.
“Wh-what the…”
It was a sight so shocking that even sorcery could not blunt its impact. No god from the natives’ own myths killed men with such cruelty.
Only then did a fragment of reason return to the second-rank warriors.
“We have to retre—”
Thud.
But the second rank was given no time to hesitate. The machine-gun streams that had swept the first line and fanned outward were already swinging back toward the center.