Their War (2)
「Kuwaaaaah!」
With just two strikes, the fortress gate shattered and flew off its hinges.
"What in the world is happening!"
"The gate's been breached!"
"Defend the gate, quickly!"
Chaos erupted in Vladimir. The gate was supposed to hold out for days at the very least, killing droves of enemies along the way—and it had already been blown to pieces.
And now the armored warriors were advancing on the gate again. This time, they hurled something through the broken opening, deep into the interior beyond.
「Grrrrrumble」
"Huh? What's this?"
Something round was rolling in, something that felt like metal. One of the soldiers picked it up. In this age, iron was money, plain and simple—an expensive find, more than he'd expected.
「Fssssssss」
"What's that sound?"
He was still grinning over his windfall when the ominous hiss came from inside it. Just as he was about to set the thing down—
「KABOOOOOM!」
"..."
"Gyaaaaagh!"
"Ugh!"
"What the—!"
"My hand! My hand!"
The soldier was torn apart before he could even scream, and the dozens of men around him were rendered combat-incapable in a single instant.
「Dududududu」
And then came the charging cavalry.
It was a mistake to assume the nomads fielded nothing but horse archers who rode circles around their foes and peppered them with arrows. Their true elite, above all else, were heavy cavalry.
"C-Cavalry! It's cavalry!"
"Raise your spears!"
They scrambled to level their spears—but where, exactly, was one supposed to strike a warrior clad head to toe in silver armor?
「KRAK-BOOM」
"Gyaaagh!"
"Kughk!"
The horsemen smashed through the walls before the defenses could thicken, and surged into the city proper.
The heavy cavalry punched through first, the light cavalry crashing in close behind, and in the blink of an eye the city had become an inferno of slaughter.
Far away, Daehan watched the warriors shatter the gate in a single stroke and pour into the city.
"That was simple enough. Still, capture their siege engineers alive."
"Yes, sir!"
"If it reduces our losses, do whatever it takes."
No matter how many of the enemy died, it meant nothing—as long as fewer of their own warriors had to fall.
It was, after all, the capital of an entire principality, and yet Temüjin took Moscow in a single day. He installed a local as the city's lord, left a portion of his forces behind, and set out once more.
They had replenished a fair amount of supplies locally, but they'd paid for it in good silver, so there was nothing to worry about. Merchants would be flowing through these cities again soon enough.
And so the Gazar army swept from Suzdal to Moscow and beyond, swallowing cities one after another.
It hardly mattered that their explosives were merely black powder—the moment anyone fielded gunpowder weapons, sieges became meaningless.
"How stands the situation?"
"Word of what happened here will spread soon enough. I expect the surrounding princes will band together against us."
"A rabble of small fry. We stabilize this region quickly and press on."
Stabilization proved no great challenge. Half the Gazar people, after all, had originally come from the west.
They had never restricted local cultures, so the conquered still kept their own ways, and more often than not conversation flowed without misunderstanding.
Many were deeply moved by the promise that this was not a mere conquest but a mission to carry the word of their god—and that they would be left in peace so long as they paid their taxes. And the taxes were astonishingly cheap compared to what their own lords had been squeezing from them.
Following the Christian model, the Gazar took only a tenth of their income.
Over the winter of the year 3669, the Vladimir Principality and the Ryazan Principality fell in succession.
While they rested and consolidated their gains, Europe was in an uproar of its own.
News from the east reached the Holy See while the lords of Western Europe were still gathering opinions on a crusading expedition.
"The audacity! They dare call themselves the army of God!"
"The heathens must be crushed!"
Not a single word was spoken of what the crusaders of old had themselves done.
"We must raise a crusade to defend Christendom!"
For once, the assembly spoke with a single voice—the very same men who normally couldn't lift a finger to do anything without objecting that this wouldn't do and that wouldn't do either.
France, Germany, England, Hungary, Poland—the powers styled the strongmen of Western Europe began to mass together as one.
Not one of them wished to see the eastern trade routes and farmlands—the money veins that had only just begun to grow—trampled into the dirt.
And besides, did anyone truly believe an army like that would stop where they wanted it to stop?
So the army was assembled, and in 3671 the crusade began its march.
In 3670, the principalities of Chernigov and Pereyaslavl fell as well, and the Cumans pledged themselves as vassals.
All the while, the crusaders gathered their host and in the autumn of 3671 began to march.
And that same year, before the crusade arrived, came the winter of Kiev.
"It seems we were fortunate to arrive in winter."
Kiev—the heart of a land ruled by nobles too many to properly call it a single nation.
Gazing out over the vast, frozen expanse of the Dnieper River, Temüjin knew that in any other season they could never have crossed it.
"Gather the warriors and send an envoy."
"The message will be the same as always."
Their envoys always carried the same terms: surrender, and the practice of Christian worship is forbidden—for the time being. Not forever. Only for now.
Because they had to meet this god of theirs and hear what it had to say.
While they waited for the envoy to return, news arrived.
"What did you say?"
"The envoy, he..."
The envoy came back as a head alone. No body to speak of.
"Dear God..."
Was there any act more dishonorable? To behead an envoy? And where was the body—what manner of savages send back only the head?
Not even a blood-sworn enemy would stoop to this.
"So this is a city of true barbarians."
The army encamped here already outnumbered that city's entire population—was this courage, or sheer stupidity? Did they truly feel confident behind a wall of stacked timber?
"Then let us honor the will of our warriors."
"Yes, sir!"
They had smashed through iron-reinforced fortress gates in a handful of strikes; a wooden palisade wall fell with almost laughable ease.
What followed was a great massacre. Kiev was burned until nothing remained but its stone, and not a single living soul was left within it.
After the battle, the army formed ranks as the warriors gathered to decide the line of march.
「Dug-dak, dug-dak」
"A messenger!"
Rarely did a courier ride all the way here in person—this one must be carrying something urgent indeed.
"Daehan!"
"Yes—report."
"The enemy host approaches."
A crusading army built around five great powers—fifty thousand knights and three hundred thousand soldiers—was marching on Kiev.
"Let them come. Do not trouble yourselves."
"They outnumbered us by so much on the reports. Will it truly be all right?"
The steppe warriors gathered here numbered about a hundred thousand. They could field more if they wished, but Temüjin held that too large a force was inefficient, so they marched at this strength alone.
"As it happens, this works out well, doesn't it? Crush them here, and no one will be left to resist us."
Confidence radiated from Temüjin. Whoever came against him, he believed, could never stand as his equal.
"The enemy is said to be many. We'll set an ambush and lure them in."
"Is there truly a need for that?"
"Never forget: it matters more that a single one of our warriors comes home alive than that a thousand of the enemy die."
In truth, not a soul in that war tent believed they could lose. This was an army brimming with faith.
Bearing the mission of carrying their god's will to the god dwelling away there in the west, these warriors would never stop.
They crossed the river once more, formed up on the far bank, and as the Gazar army rested, the enemy came into view. Considering that the far side of the river stood higher than the ground they occupied, the enemy was still a considerable distance off.
"That's a great many men on horseback, isn't it?"
"If we take out the riders alone, this will be an easy battle."
"All the same, no one grows careless."
Most of the hundred-thousand-strong army had vanished somewhere into the landscape, leaving behind barely twenty thousand men.
"Did you leave the supplies behind?"
"Yes. It does feel like a waste."
"Nothing worth fretting over."
Temüjin still thought his comrade had a long way to go. Receiving Daehan's aid and then worrying about supplies? He'd sooner worry about thirsting in the middle of a river.
Across the field, riders coursed back and forth through the crusader formations, while the Gazar army watched them.
"What are they playing at, riding about like that instead of dismounting?"
"Scouting the area, it would seem. Keeping themselves busy."
"There's nothing out here to find. A waste of effort. Haha."
The ambush force really was far away, all but invisible. Every one of them was mounted—why on earth would they hide in a spot this conspicuous?
Still, with so much forest about, the enemy was being appropriately cautious.
"Our riders are harassing them in small bands, yes?"
"They are. The enemy is dying of frustration."
Ten to twenty small groups were cycling through, loosing volley after volley of arrows to bedevil the crusaders. Heavy cavalry would ride in, hang back, and shoot from a distance—the enemy's arrows simply ricocheted off their plate, while ours sank in, time and again.
Some knightly orders were so provoked they began acting on their own initiative.
"It won't be long now."
"No. The warriors can feel it coming too—they're practically bristling."
For hundreds of years these people had roamed the steppes and deserts, waging constant war against the warlords of the Islamic lands. Their instincts had been honed to the point of preternatural sense.
Then it came. In the middle of pounding the enemy lines with arrows, the warriors suddenly began tearing off their armor and turning back toward their own side.
Gaps were opening in the infantry ranks, and horses were pouring through.
"Here they come!"
"To horse, quickly!"
「Puuuuum」
The warriors, who had rested while watching the enemy the whole time, scrambled into their saddles and readied their bows.
Curved bows slung at their waists, easily mistaken for belts at a glance—Daehan's horn bows.
"Move, move!"
"Aim your arrows loosely! Keep them in the air, nothing more!"
"Yes, sir!"
The twenty thousand would retreat while deliberately firing their arrows into empty sky. Only then would the enemy take them for weak and give chase.
Those twenty thousand were a suicide detachment of sorts, tasked with drawing the enemy in—until they reached the ground of their choosing.
As the crusaders charged, only God knew what had become of their caution. The steppe warriors they'd heard so many rumors of looked, up close, like hardly anything at all.
"The enemy is running! Chase them down!"
「Fwoooosh, twang」
"Hahaha! What are they even aiming at?"
"Hardly worth the rumors, are they?"
"Look at that—wrapped up in leather coats, the lot of them!"
The steppe warriors' leather armor looked pitiful from a distance. Vital points were covered with iron plates, the rest layered in hides—no wonder the crusaders found it laughable.
But did they truly need sturdy armor?
For men who had spent their lives sweeping across the open steppe, closing face-to-face to hack at each other with blades was a rare thing indeed.
"Look at them run! Hah!"
"Whoa! They're abandoning all those supplies?"
"Pwahaha! Drive them out and grab the spoils!"
Watching an army abandon its baggage and bolt on horseback, the knights decided the battle was already won and drove their mounts ever harder.
Daehan's horses were large, certainly—but smaller than the horses of the West. Their top speed was lower, their strength somewhat lacking. Yet they possessed an advantage that outweighed all of it.
Less jarring under the saddle, and they could run for hours upon hours. Not that the crusaders knew any of this. They dug in their spurs all the harder.
"We're gaining! Ride faster!"
"Forward!"
"God's hammer upon the heathens!"
The twenty thousand Gazar horsemen galloped along the forest road they had cut during their advance. Of course, they were nearly overtaken at times; they stumbled over unexpected obstacles.
But the steppe warriors told themselves it was fate, and never once looked back as they ran.
And then, past the forest, another wide open plain unrolled before them.
「Clang. Clang. Clang-clang.」
The rearmost ranks had been caught, and close combat flared between them and the enemy knights. Even so, the steppe warriors kept running—only ever forward.
A long while later, the enemy infantry too emerged from the forest and streamed onto the plain. Three hundred and fifty thousand crusaders in all crowded onto the open ground—and before them stood fewer than twenty thousand horsemen.
"We've won!"
"Charge!"
"Bwahahaha!"
"Hm? What's going on here?"
Horses tire faster than any man expects—the faster they run, the sooner they break. The handful of light cavalry, dwindling away into the distance, grew ever smaller.
Daehan's ponies were still going strong. The gap widened and widened.
"Halt! I said halt!"
"Sound the horns, now!"
A knight or two at the head of the column sensed something wrong and tried to stop—but a knightly order's charge is not so easily brought to a standstill.
To halt in place was to block the path of the comrades thundering up from behind, to tangle with them, to be trampled and killed. Nothing more.
Robbed of even the ability to stop, the knightly orders kept galloping on like a runaway colt.
If only the outermost ranks would wheel aside—but the order had yet to reach them, and still they ran only forward.
"Something about this feels terribly wrong."
"What is there to worry about!"
"Right! Worst case we lose them—what's to worry? Hahaha."
Surrounded by his neighbors' easy confidence, his unease only deepened.