XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (7)
XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (7)
Chaos spread like wildfire.
Snow flew in every direction, and frozen clods of earth burst from the ground beneath it.
The horse archers circling the formation maneuvered without a moment’s rest.
Neither did they stop drawing their bows.
"They’re withdrawing."
After loosing enough arrows, the horse archers wheeled away as if driven off by return fire from the archers inside the formation.
Rutger watched them go with a troubled expression.
Keldric and the knights had planned to charge and cut them off the moment an opening appeared.
But the horse archers left no opening. They battered the formation with arrows, then withdrew.
They had turned back that soon only because of the archers’ fierce return fire. Otherwise, they might have continued until every arrow was spent.
Keldric found their withdrawal suspicious.
The return fire had been intense, but the horse archers had suffered no serious losses.
Keldric tilted his head.
"Why are they pulling back?"
"That was probably their objective—to deepen our soldiers’ fear."
One did not need to attack a circular formation to understand how solid it was.
A reckless charge would only bog the riders down.
The soldiers would drag them from their mounts and kill them.
The Rheesian horse archers therefore focused first on terrifying the infantry.
"...They’re vicious."
"They are. That’s how the Kakkars of the eastern plateau fight. The Rheesians learned it from them."
Keldric clicked his tongue at their cruelty. The Rheesian method of battle resembled a hunt.
Hunting was not simply a matter of finding an animal and shooting it.
A hunter tracked its spoor, found its lair, and learned where it drank or grazed before ever nocking an arrow.
The engagement, too one-sided to be called a battle, briefly subsided.
Groans rose constantly from the circular formation. Rutger raised his voice.
"Find everyone who can no longer fight and pull them out! Sir Lothar has established an aid station!"
A horseman galloped away with Rutger’s order. Soon several wounded soldiers emerged from the formation.
The great circle contracted slightly.
"It may be best to fall back now..."
Lothar spoke around a grim groan.
Keldric agreed. At Schaffendorf, they had withdrawn for a time after the first violent clash.
"If we withdraw now, we’ll give them exactly the opportunity they want."
Rutger shook his head. His intention was simple.
"Unless it is a trained warhorse, a horse tires much faster than most people think."
The horse archers depended on mounts, and those mounts would tire.
After a single sortie, horses often returned snorting frothy saliva.
The enemy could change mounts, of course, but not indefinitely.
"They’ll return. When they do, we’ll cut off their retreat."
The Rheesian horse archers were swift, and the open plain gave them many routes of escape even if their rear was threatened.
Even on a plain, however, their room to maneuver was not unlimited.
If they fled too far, Lothar could send his main force forward and annihilate the tiny supply detachment.
The horse archers therefore could not retreat indefinitely. The knights and heavy cavalry would exploit that limit and seal their rear.
"If they avoid battle, we’ll force them into one."
Caught between the knights and the infantry formation, the horse archers would have no choice but to fight and would come under tremendous pressure.
Keldric understood and nodded.
'‘Did this kind of insight come from experience?’'
The idea had never occurred to him.
He might have reached it with enough time to think, but a battlefield offered no such leisure.
Keldric listened closely as Rutger adjusted the plan on the spot.
Every word was valuable experience and an asset for the future.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
BOOOOO—!
A horn sounded from the enemy side.
Keldric tightened his grip on the reins as the horse archers returned.
Dark figures tore toward them through the distant snow.
A band of horse archers rushed in to resume the hunt.
"...!!"
The Rheesians shouted incomprehensible words to one another.
As they approached, the horse archers split cleanly into two groups.
One group immediately surrounded the formation and poured in arrows before the soldiers could brace.
They meant to renew the fear they had created before it could fade.
The second group broke away and maneuvered lightly in the distance. Keldric could not determine their purpose.
"Now!"
One thing was certain: with their firepower divided, this was an opportunity.
Keldric quickly checked his helmet and weapons.
His hand tightened around his lance. A strange heat radiated from the knights lined up beside him.
"Savages who know neither honor nor the laws of war...!"
"Kill every last one of them!"
It was dense killing intent. The knights, men who made a profession of killing, finally unleashed their fighting spirit.
They had suppressed that bloodlust for a long time.
It had been building ever since Baron Gofrit escaped them at Schaffendorf.
The murderous pressure spread through their bodies, tempered by tension. Their longtime warhorses sensed the subtle change and prepared to charge.
BOOOOO—! BOOO—!
Lothar waved from slightly behind them, and the camp horn sounded one long note and one short.
It was the order for the knights to charge.
Their battle cries thundered across the snowy plain.
"Charge! Charge!"
"For Baron Yaven!"
"In God's name!"
The knights moved. Their heels struck their warhorses almost as one.
The wind screamed past sharper than an arrow as the knights honed their savage killing intent into a blade.
The cavalry thundered after them, banners snapping in the wind.
Keldric opened his eyes wide inside his helmet. Wind stabbed through the eye slits, but he ignored the pain.
The churned snow made for rough riding. Aveline jolted violently beneath him.
Keldric’s arm tightened on the reins, and the muscles clamped around the saddle strained with every impact.
The horse archers panicked when the waiting knights charged toward them and broke off their encirclement.
The archers immediately shot at their exposed backs.
"Loose!"
A roar came from the infantry. The soldiers opened their circle into a semicircle and charged across the already churned ground.
After enduring the arrows for so long, they were furious. Every one of them understood.
"Faster! Faster!"
"They’re right there!"
If they missed this moment, they would never complete the encirclement.
Impatience seized Keldric. The other knights felt it too, urging their mounts on with repeated cries.
The fleeing horse archers stretched into a long line. They were undeniably fast.
But they had to weave from side to side to avoid arrows, and that slowed them.
Keldric’s view changed completely when the knights overtook them.
The Griffin mercenaries waited ahead with crossbows behind pavises planted in the ground. Their eyes widened when the knights suddenly thundered toward them.
Most Griffin mercenaries fired at the charging infantry, but several aimed at the knights.
Keldric and the knights did not stop.
"If you have a clear shot, fire!"
The command rang out in Latium, and Rutger abruptly veered away at the head of the charge.
The other knights followed. Aveline snorted violently and sprayed foam.
"Urgh...!"
Keldric heard Lothar strain beside him. Such a sudden maneuver could not be easy for someone unused to battle.
"Sir Lothar!"
Keldric grabbed Lothar and hauled him upright just before he fell from the saddle.
"Th-thank you!"
There was no time to answer.
A dozen or so bolts struck the ground where the knights had been moments earlier.
The wasted volley created a disaster for the Griffin mercenaries.
Even with a spanning device, a crossbow could not be reloaded quickly.
The crossbowmen behind the pavises could no longer stop the charging knights.
"U-uh...!"
An instant before impact, Keldric saw a Griffin mercenary’s eyes widen.
He drove his lance forward without hesitation and punched it through the man’s throat.
"Drive them back!"
"You lowborn scum!"
"Kill them all! For Baron Yaven!"
CRUNCH! CRACK!
Once the warhorses crashed into them, it was over.
Crossbows might be deadly at close range, but so were knights.
The knights discarded their lances, drew their other weapons, and began cutting down mercenaries.
"No prisoners!"
Lothar roared the order. It meant exactly what it sounded like.
Mercenaries had little ransom value. They were merely contracted soldiers.
"N-no!"
"Reload! Reload!"
"Fall back slowly! Abandon the pavises!"
The scattered crossbowmen conducting a delaying action began to fall one by one.
Their desperation became a constant barrage of shouts and screams.
Some forty soldiers rushed in to shield them, but the knights’ charge swept the entire defense aside.
Yet the knights had not charged merely to destroy the Griffin Company.
Once the knights ignored everything else and began slaughtering the crossbowmen, the desperate horse archers wheeled back and loosed whistling arrows.
WHIIISH! WHIIISH!
Their shrieks compounded the chaos as white snow disappeared beneath blood and earth.
"Now! Overwhelm them!"
Rutger shouted while calmly cutting down enemies. The knights wheeled away from the mercenaries and reformed.
The horse archers who had lingered indecisively instead of fleeing realized their mistake too late.
"Aaargh!"
"Pull back slowly! Slowly!"
"Cover the cavalry!"
The battlefield had already become utter chaos.
The Griffin Company, which should have supported them from the rear, was being destroyed piecemeal by the knights.
The troops assigned to protect the crossbowmen had already broken and begun to lose the will to fight.
It was the perfect opportunity to corner the horse archers.
The knights would turn the battle into chaos, mix into the enemy, and force close combat.
Even that would not be easy. Every achievement demanded a price.
"The soldiers...!"
This time, the price was paid by the infantry charging forward after opening the circular formation.
Lothar rode beside Keldric and spoke through clenched teeth. Several soldiers lay fallen with arrows in their bodies.
Even so, Lothar’s infantry had barely maintained formation and served admirably as the anvil.
"Charge! Chaaaarge!"
The hastily reformed knights charged again, this time in the opposite direction.
The semicircle of infantry and the knights charging with murderous intent closed from opposite sides.
The horse archers trapped between them panicked, their confusion obvious even from Keldric’s saddle.
"You goddamned bastards!"
"Sweep them all away!"
The knights crashed into them while they desperately loosed arrows.
It was too late to escape cleanly. The knights swung with a savage determination to spill Rheesian blood.
The Rheesians drew their swords, but lightly armored horse archers could not defeat heavily armored knights in close combat.
FWOOOSH—!
"Aaaagh!"
"Fire! Pull back from the flames!"
Alisa’s magic struck at the perfect moment. Several horse archers fell from their mounts, burned black.
"Encircle them! Don't let them escape!"
Rutger’s swift command proved effective as the knights and cavalry surrounded the horse archers.
But there were too few friendly riders. They needed at least ten more to contain twenty horse archers.
"The bastards are breaking through!"
The horse archers being cut down found gaps in the encirclement and forced their way out.
The situation changed with terrifying speed. Keldric’s bloodshot eyes tracked the fleeing riders.
"Sir Rutger! Pursue them!"
Lothar shouted breathlessly, overcome with excitement. Rutger hesitated.
Keldric could not understand why. They had seized the advantage.
"Sir Rutger!"
"If we don’t go now, we’ll lose them! Hurry!"
The other knights were just as impatient.
Before Rutger could decide, they formed ranks while watching the horse archers scramble away.
"Pursue! We pursue!"
"Do not let the bastards return alive!"
Rutger finally joined the formation. He galloped beside Keldric and shouted urgently even as he gave the order to pursue.
"Sir Keldric! I have a bad feeling!"
Keldric was baffled. The battle seemed won. What was Rutger afraid of?
But he could not dismiss Rutger’s experience. Keldric forced down his excitement and asked.
"What’s wrong?"
"Their losses are too light! And there were too few horse archers!"
"That is..."
Keldric suddenly remembered what he had overlooked.
During the second attack, the horse archers had split into two groups.
Keldric, the knights, and the infantry behind them were pursuing only one.
Where was the other group?
"Their other cavalry is missing too! Something is wrong!"
The Rheesians possessed more than horse archers.
If forty of their hundred-plus riders were horse archers, the remaining sixty were heavy and light cavalry.
Yet none of them had appeared during the fighting.
The fleeing horse archers had suffered only light losses.
The other horse archers had vanished after splitting away, along with the rest of the cavalry.
Nearly half the enemy force was missing. That meant...
'‘No...!’'
A murderous chill raced down Keldric’s spine.
His instincts screamed a warning.
Something was terribly wrong.
One thought flashed through his mind as gooseflesh covered his body.
'‘They were luring us in!’'
The fleeing horse archers continued to shoot back from time to time.
They occasionally slowed just enough to remain barely out of reach.
It was as if they were daring the knights not to abandon the pursuit.
"Sir Lothaaaar!"
Keldric roared, but Lothar was galloping in a frenzy and did not look back.
Keldric turned to Rutger instead.
"Sir Rutger! We have to stop the pursuit—!"
A massive war cry swallowed his warning and shook the plain.
WAAAAAH—!!
WHIIISH! WHIIISH!
Whistling arrows flew in. Keldric snapped his head toward them.
A second group of horse archers charged in and began surrounding the pursuers.
At the same time, dozens of cavalry emerged from the enemy camp and thundered toward them.
Keldric desperately assessed the battlefield, but it was too late.
The pursuing knights and cavalry had been drawn deep into the enemy position.
Their infantry remained far behind, delayed by the surviving Griffin mercenaries.
The knights were isolated and surrounded by more than a hundred riders.
"Damn...!"
Keldric ground his teeth.
Rheesian cries rained down from every direction. Keldric’s dark blue eyes swept the battlefield in alarm.
"Arrows!"
"Arrows! Incoming!"
"Stop! End the pursuit! Stop—!"
The horse archers who had seemed to flee moments earlier closed around them once more.
The bear trap had been set.