XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (8)
XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (8)
Baron Gofrit watched the battle anxiously.
Using the Griffin Mercenary Company as bait had seemed an extraordinarily dangerous plan.
Hiring those thirty men alone must have cost dozens of Florin gold coins.
But Gofrit had not hired them.
From Count Rasau’s perspective, sacrificing them would be regrettable but worthwhile if the tactic succeeded.
The Griffin mercenaries had agreed readily, trusting their equipment and shields to blunt the knights’ charge.
"Situation... favorable."
A Rheesian rode over. Gofrit glanced at him.
"Gorka. Are you certain we have the advantage?"
Gorka, captain of the Rheesian mercenaries, explained in broken Imperial speech and broad gestures.
"They, soon lured. Then surround. Destroy."
The knights were distracted by the Griffin Company while the horse archers maneuvered into position, watching for the right moment to slip away.
Gofrit followed Gorka’s gestures and nodded.
'‘So the Rheesians truly are the finest mounted mercenaries.’'
The skill of Rheesian mercenaries was renowned.
They offered large numbers of capable fighters at a reasonable price. What more could a lord want?
Gofrit had hired neither the Griffin Company nor the Rheesians, but seeing so many cavalrymen made him want a contract of his own.
"Flee while shooting. Stay barely beyond reach. Then they follow."
"The knights follow? How can you be certain?"
"Because it happened to us."
Gofrit closed his mouth. Gorka’s eyes blazed as he continued.
"Kakkars... cunning. We fell for it too. Long ago..."
His eyes reflected the vast steppes of the east and south and the countless warriors racing across them.
Varangians armed with shields and axes roared while mounted Rheesians lowered their lances.
Their enemies were the exotic warriors of the east.
They were unlike the southern nomads. They shot bows from horseback with almost supernatural skill.
"The enemy has surrounded the horse archers!"
They surged like a single pack, striking and withdrawing. Even when surrounded, they found thread-thin openings and escaped.
The shield-bearing Rheesians fell into confusion, and the pursuing eastern army pinned them in place.
Then the Rheesians committed the heavy cavalry at the heart of their army.
"My lord, the enemy knights are pursuing."
They chased the horse archers without realizing they were riding toward ruin.
A feigned rout drew them forward in excitement. The chaos of battle narrowed their vision.
Once they had been drawn deep enough, the trap closed.
The undefeated warriors who had burned their way from the east appeared—demons from hell, incarnations of conquest who had subjugated even the southeastern Orient.
"Warriors of the Khan..."
Gorka murmured, and Gofrit swallowed.
Gorka’s eyes burned as though he could see a city consumed by flames.
One either submitted completely and survived, or resisted and became butchered meat.
The Khan of the East burned everything.
Gofrit had never heard such a story.
"My lord..."
The knight beside him turned toward Gofrit.
Gofrit saw something written across the man’s face.
"Th-the enemy knights... took the bait."
It was fear. A proud knight who valued honor openly trembled at the tactics of mere eastern barbarians.
Gofrit urged his horse forward, followed by his knights, Gorka, and several Rheesians.
"...That..."
Lothar’s army had been split apart: the infantry remained in its formation, while the command, knights, and heavy cavalry had surged away as a separate mounted force.
The latter group was unquestionably the heart of the army.
They had swallowed the bait cast by the Rheesian horse archers.
The battlefield-shattering knights were now far from their main force and difficult to rescue.
The chaos had fully ripened and swept across the white snowfield.
Those who had created it were close at hand. Gofrit looked aside with trembling eyes.
"Knights... isolated."
Gorka’s scarred mouth curled into a sinister grin.
A scar ran from the right corner of his mouth to his ear, making the smile even more menacing.
"The hunt begins."
Behind him waited dozens of Rheesian cavalrymen, ready to move.
Gorka shouted in Rheesian, and the cavalry poured out of camp. He joined their ranks and galloped to the front.
The detached horse archers had already surrounded the knights. Once the remaining cavalry joined them...
Gofrit became certain of victory—and felt fear.
The Rheesians were not nomads, yet the tactic differed completely from their traditional method of war.
It was unmistakably nomadic. The Rheesians must have suffered it repeatedly and been forced to learn in order to survive.
If their imperfect imitation was this effective, Gofrit could not imagine how vicious the true nomads must be.
'‘Warriors of the Khan...’'
Watching the Rheesians surge forward, Gofrit imagined the cruel eastern nomad sovereign called the Khan.
If those warriors ever reached the empire, could its knights defeat them?
There was no time to fear a distant future. Gofrit focused on the battle before him.
"We must help as well."
"Yes, my lord."
However complete the encirclement, only knights could reliably defeat other knights.
This time, Gofrit intended to be the dagger that struck the decisive blow.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
"Sir Keldric!"
Dizzying. That was Keldric’s first impression.
The horse archers formed a long revolving circle. The same riders seemed to pass again and again, deepening the confusion.
"Sir Keldric! Sir Keldriiiic!"
Keldric turned sharply. Henri was nearby, anxiously jerking his reins from side to side.
"Come this way! We have to break out!"
Could they? The question flashed through Keldric’s mind.
Fewer than forty horse archers remained, but the light and heavy cavalry joining them had suffered no losses.
Breaking through all of them seemed nearly impossible.
But they did not need predictions of impossibility. They needed the strength to make the impossible possible.
WHIIISH! WHIIISH!
Whistling arrows with pierced heads flew in without pause, shrieking even more sharply than an ordinary whistle.
The noise threw the knights into confusion, but the horses were the greater problem.
The knights’ warhorses were well trained and rarely panicked.
Warhorses were expensive, however, so not every heavy cavalryman following the knights rode one.
"Whoa!"
"Hey! Watch out!"
Rutger raised his sword and shouted himself hoarse, but several panicked horses had already escaped their riders’ control.
Several heavy cavalrymen were thrown from their saddles.
Rheesian riders darted from the encirclement and speared the fallen men.
"Ghk!"
A dismounted cavalryman faced almost certain death.
After spearing their prey, the Rheesians slipped back into formation before the knights could reach them.
Their skill was exceptional. Keldric frowned.
"Rally! Form a wedge!"
Rutger shouted desperately, but the whistling arrows repeatedly drowned him out.
Keldric drew a deep breath, then released a roar that thundered across the snowfield.
"Rally! Form up!"
The panicked knights and cavalrymen snapped back to their senses at the sound.
As they hurried to form ranks, Rutger rode to Keldric and shouted.
"Sir Keldric! Have you seen Sir Lothar?!"
"Sir Lothar...?"
Only then did Keldric search in every direction.
Lothar wore a bright red plume on his helmet and should have been easy to spot.
Yet Keldric could not see it anywhere. The only red on the white snowfield was blood.
"I don't see him!"
"Damn it! We have to find him!"
Rutger and several knights dispersed briefly to search.
If Lothar was missing, Keldric had to help.
The Rheesian cavalry circled in a wide ring, their hooves throwing up snow like a sandstorm.
Visibility became extremely limited. The situation was desperate, and Keldric breathed hard with fury and agitation.
Lothar had finally seemed to be gaining sense, only to vanish at the worst possible moment.
As Keldric drove Aveline through the chaos, a sudden chill warned him. He swung his sword.
CLANG—!
An arrow aimed at Aveline’s head ricocheted away. Rage threatened to split Keldric’s skull.
'‘These sons of bitches...!’'
The shock had passed, leaving fury. Their habit of shooting from a safe distance and slipping away enraged him.
Keldric’s eyes burned with murderous anger.
He would smash through their encirclement before their eyes, but he would not retreat.
Retreat never entered his mind. He would kill them all.
"Aagh!"
A scream cut through the chaos, and Keldric whipped toward it.
It was Lothar’s voice. Keldric drove Aveline toward the sound and soon found a warhorse felled by arrows.
"Urgh...! Is anyone there? Rutger!"
Lothar was pinned beneath the horse, snow clinging to the bright red plume on his helmet.
Keldric immediately drove Aveline at full speed. When he kicked the horse’s flanks, the wind and the hiss of arrows cut past his ears like blades.
Lothar spotted him as the distance closed.
"S-Sir Keldric! I’m here! Don’t run me over!"
"Your arm!"
"What?!"
"Your arm! Give me your arm—!!"
Keldric roared, and the bewildered Lothar thrust out an arm.
Without slowing Aveline, Keldric caught Lothar’s arm and hauled with all his strength.
"Hngh!"
"Wh-what...! Aaaagh!"
Lothar came free from beneath the warhorse like a radish pulled from the earth.
He screamed as he flew through the air, then managed to cling behind Keldric.
"How is this even possible...?"
"Sir Lothar! We have to break through!"
"What?!"
"Hold on tight!"
There was no time to explain. Keldric drove Aveline at full speed again.
Aveline was already exhausted. Keldric gripped the reins desperately.
'‘Please, Aveline. Just a little farther!’'
As though answering the desperate plea, Aveline sprayed foam and galloped toward Rutger at an unbelievable speed.
"Sir Keldric!"
"Sir Rutger! I found Sir Lothar!"
"Good! We’ll break through together!"
Two knights were missing, and they had already lost more than ten cavalrymen.
The situation was too urgent to scatter again and search for them.
"Form the—ghk?!"
As Rutger raised his sword to order the charge, an arrow struck the exposed gap at his side.
Keldric hurriedly caught Rutger as he clutched the wound.
The arrow had found the weakest point during a momentary exposure. Blood streamed down and dripped onto the snow.
"Sir Rutger! Sir Rutger!"
"I-I’m fine! Leave me!"
Rutger forced out the words, and Keldric hesitated.
Should he leave Rutger behind?
Rutger could buy them time, and every second mattered.
Even one man diverting the enemy’s attention might be enough.
"...No!"
But Keldric refused.
Keldric immediately entrusted Rutger to Henri. Caught off guard, Henri seated Rutger behind him on his horse.
Two knights were missing, and the most experienced among them could no longer fight.
Even then, Keldric had no intention of giving up.
"We'll break through as we are!"
The surviving knights and cavalry stared in shock for only a moment before gripping their reins and forming ranks.
They understood.
Whether they liked it or not, following Keldric was their only chance to survive.
"Charge! Charge!"
Keldric roared and led the surviving riders forward.
Knights excelled at breaking through a single point. Once they formed a wedge, few could stop them.
Now they had to prove it.
Keldric charged with his mace clenched in his right hand. Aveline’s breathing had become terrifyingly ragged.
As the wedge advanced, the Rheesian cavalry converged ahead of it.
A thick wall of riders blocked Keldric’s path.
Under ordinary circumstances, only a madman would charge into it.
"Break through!"
But in that moment, madness was necessary.
CRASH!!
The knights collided with the Rheesian cavalry the instant Keldric roared.
The knight at the point of a wedge carried the most important task: creating the breach for everyone behind him.
CRACK! CRUNCH!
"Ghk!"
"Kehk!"
Eyes bloodshot, Keldric swung his mace like a madman. His free hand seized anything within reach and hurled it aside.
Rheesians flew through the air in his grip, and riderless horses disrupted the encirclement.
Whenever an arrow came at them, Lothar struggled to block it with his shield from behind Keldric.
"Sir Keldric! We’ll all die at this rate!"
"Hold on tight!"
"Aaaaagh!"
He killed, killed, and killed again, every blow driven by fury.
His mace shattered skull after skull. Flesh, bone, eyes, and sticky brain matter sprayed across the snow.
Keldric did not fight alone. Henri and the other knights threw themselves into the slaughter behind him.
"Kill them all! These are the wretches who dared trample our honor!"
"For glory!"
A lance scraped across Keldric’s breastplate.
An arrow glanced off his helmet.
Another spear sought the joint of his gauntlet.
The point pierced him, but Keldric snapped the shaft and crushed its owner with his mace.
Arrows battered his mail until broken rings spilled loose.
One arrow buried itself in the exposed gap. Keldric hurled the broken spear shaft toward the archer.
Swords, spears, and arrows converged upon Keldric.
He fought without showing the pain.
Behind him, Lothar noticed blood spreading across his hands as he frantically guarded their rear.
'‘This...’'
It was not Lothar’s blood. It was Keldric’s.
Blood from the embedded arrow had soaked Lothar’s hands.
A knight forged victory from blood and sweat.
"We broke through!"
Henri shouted from behind them. Lothar stared ahead with trembling eyes.
The chaos of steel and blood gave way to an untouched white snowfield.
They had broken through the encirclement that had seemed impossible to breach.
Keldric had led the wedge and smashed through everything in their path.
"The infantry is coming!"
A knight shouted. In the distance, Lothar saw the retreating Griffin mercenaries and their own infantry rushing forward.
The Rheesian encirclement had collapsed, its movement obstructed by fallen horses and bodies.
Too many horse archers were dead for them to surround the infantry again.
With the knights free, the Rheesians had only two choices.
Continue fighting or retreat.
"Th-the enemy is retreating!"
BOOOOO—!
A long horn signaled retreat, and dozens of Rheesian riders wheeled away.
The knights had no intention of letting them escape unharmed. Neither did Keldric.
The infantry were not the only reinforcements. Attendants who had seen the knights’ peril came from camp leading spare mounts.
Helga brought Boreas. Keldric handed Aveline’s reins to her and mounted Boreas.
"Sir Keldric! You have to return to camp!"
Lothar was horrified. Keldric was wounded and bleeding, yet intended to fight again.
Keldric ignored him.
He formed ranks with the arriving troops, kicked Boreas forward, and charged again.
Lothar stared blankly at his receding back.
"...Sir Keldric."
Knights were said to know no fear and charge for honor.
But that was only a saying. Every human being felt fear. And yet...
'‘How can you...?’'
A shiver ran down Lothar’s spine.
Keldric’s broad back rose and fell in the distance, looking impossibly immense.
One thought filled Lothar’s mind.
'‘If that is not the bearing of a sovereign, then what is?’'
Heroes who commanded the world and left their mark on history always emerged from turbulent times.
They became lords, sovereigns, and kings.
Perhaps—just perhaps—Lothar was witnessing a hero whose name would endure through history.
His heart pounded, and his excited breathing escaped in white clouds.
Lothar understood.
Heroes appeared in troubled times, and he had just witnessed the qualities of one.