XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (9)
XII. The Battle of Ramders Plain (9)
Everything that began had to end eventually.
"Boreas! Faster, faster!"
Keldric meant to sever this damnable, ill-fated bond once and for all.
It had begun as the joint handiwork of that idiot Fritz and the cunning Joseph.
But behind them stood the head of the Mormont Merchant Guild, and at the root of it all was Baron Gofrit.
Yakov, who had been like a father to him, was dead. The man who had set that death in motion had to pay a fitting price.
That was what Keldric considered a fitting end.
RAAAAH—!
The soldiers let out a war cry and charged. The Rheesian cavalry, retreating in haste, were thrown into utter confusion and disarray.
Only moments before, Keldric had been neatly lured in by the fleeing horse archers. But this time, he was certain it was no trap.
This time, the rout was real. There were no additional troops lying in wait for them.
A fair number of Rheesian cavalry still remained, but what in the world could that handful of horsemen possibly do?
Would they crash headlong into over two hundred infantrymen as things stood? They would not, unless they had gone mad.
And so, this time he would catch him. He had to.
Keldric raised his arm to signal, and Sir Henri and the other knights likewise signaled in turn.
When he did, the standard-bearer among the cavalry behind him waved his flag vigorously. The banner snapping in the wind served as their signal.
"Do not let the bastards escape!"
Unlike when they had charged in, the Rheesian cavalry fleeing headlong did not retreat as a single mass.
And that brought an even greater catastrophe down upon them.
"Get them!"
"You fucking whoreson! Drag him down!"
"Stab them! Go for the legs!"
Soldiers clustered in groups of five or six and began hunting the scattered cavalrymen one by one.
No matter how strong cavalry were against infantry, they only possessed that destructive force in sufficient numbers.
Their numbers had already been reduced by Keldric and the knights, and now, on top of that, scattered in every direction as they were, they would be better off begging for their lives.
Moreover, Sir Lothar's force still had over two hundred men intact.
Even if a rider shook off two or three infantrymen, escaping all the soldiers spread across the broad plain was another matter entirely.
"Sir Keldric! Over there! The cavalry are regrouping!"
A knight riding alongside Keldric shouted.
Keldric flicked his gaze that way, and indeed, a dozen or so cavalrymen who had recovered from their panic were slowly assembling.
"I'll handle them!"
Sir Henri shouted confidently.
Before Keldric could so much as reply, he had already dashed off in that direction with another knight.
'Sir Henri can handle it.'
In the end, someone had to sort out this battlefield that had become a crucible of chaos.
Inwardly, Keldric thanked Sir Henri for readily stepping up. Then he fixed his gaze forward once more.
He wanted to help Sir Henri, but a more important task remained at hand.
"Out of my way—!!"
Keldric bellowed. His shout rang across the battlefield, and the arrow wound in his back throbbed in answer.
A few agitated Rheesian cavalrymen charged at him, spitting out unintelligible words, but Keldric dispatched them easily with his mace.
Coming at him one by one was no fight at all. If anything, it was ideal for defeating them in detail.
Every time the clueless Rheesian cavalry threw themselves at him, skulls shattered, blood scattered, and bodies collapsed onto the snowy field at Keldric's hand.
How long had he ridden like that?
"Sir Keldric! Over there!"
At last, the figure he had been so doggedly pursuing began to flicker at the edge of Keldric's vision.
Near the edge of Baron Gofrit's encampment, a man was desperately trying to rally what troops remained. Keldric quickly swept his gaze over him from a distance.
His armor was as fine as that of the knights around him. He carried his helmet like an ornament even on the battlefield, and brandished a drawn sword as he issued orders in every direction.
Then there were the brazenly displayed banner and the arms on his armor. They unmistakably belonged to House Gofrit.
'Baron Gofrit!'
Sparks flew in Keldric's eyes. Unconsciously, his hand clenched tight around the reins.
"Pick up speed!"
When Keldric shouted, the two or three knights and cavalrymen following him understood as well.
That this was truly a golden opportunity, and that if they let it slip, the consequences would be dire.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
"Damn it all!"
Baron Gofrit, who had been seated comfortably in a chair observing the state of the battle, hastily mounted his horse as the course of the fighting began to take a strange turn.
No, the course of the battle had gone beyond strange and become grotesque.
The Rheesians had clearly trapped the knights and cavalry; he'd plainly seen them deal with two knights and over ten cavalrymen.
"They're breaking out of that, out of that!!"
It had started with one large-framed knight.
He had abruptly snatched the mace from his waist, rallied the three or four remaining knights and the cavalry, and forced a breakthrough then and there.
Up to that moment, Baron Gofrit had been utterly convinced that their breakthrough attempt—mere moths throwing themselves into a flame—would fizzle out in short order.
He had seen the imposing knight leading the charge from afar during the Battle of Schaffendorf, but then and now were entirely different situations.
Yet the course of the battle grew ever more peculiar.
At first, it had seemed the Rheesian cavalry would swarm over and try to encircle them again, but shaking off the knights who were already right on top of them was a distant hope.
In the end, the encirclement broke. Amid flying steel and blood, Baron Gofrit glared at the massive knight who had fought almost alone and led everyone out.
His gaze then searched the shattered encirclement for someone.
'Gorka, you stupid Rheesian bastard!'
The Rheesian mercenary captain, Gorka. His practical experience and veteran skill were certainly formidable.
But Gorka had made one mistake: he had treated middling Rheesian heavy cavalry and knights as though they were equals.
The Rheesian heavy cavalry annihilated by the nomads might well have been caught by such tactics and wiped out.
Knights were different. Even when driven into a corner, they created opportunities.
Of course, that didn't change the sheer absurdity of it. Baron Gofrit let out a dumbfounded, hollow laugh.
Even for a knight, to actually break through that? And while turning aside nearly every attack aimed at him?
Another knight might have found a way to break through, but in the process, no one could guarantee the safety of the knight at the front.
And yet...
"My lord! The Rheesians are requesting permission to retreat!"
A knight approached urgently and spoke. Baron Gofrit glanced at him irritably.
"...Send the retreat signal."
"Yes! Retreat! Sound the retreat! Trumpeter!"
BOOOOO—!
The horn rang out across the battlefield.
The Rhamdus Plain, already shaken by the knights breaking through the encirclement, now trembled under the hoofbeats of Rheesian cavalry scrambling to retreat.
Baron Gofrit watched the Rheesian cavalry hurrying back, and thought:
'Had trying to counter their breakthrough been a mistake from the start?'
In truth, the choice made by Gorka and Baron Gofrit hadn't been wholly wrong.
Almost anyone sitting in that position would likely have made the same choice.
They had failed to foresee one variable: a brave knight who would break through the encirclement almost single-handedly.
Had he known it would turn out this way, he should have opened the distance from the very moment they attempted their breakthrough.
What if, while the knights charged forward, they had simultaneously drawn back and circled around to employ horse archery?
But now, belatedly replaying past events changed nothing.
A variable was called a variable precisely because it could not be foreseen. Baron Gofrit clenched his trembling hand into a tight fist.
"My lord! The Rheesian cavalry are scattering in every direction!"
"What now...!"
Jolted from his reverie, Baron Gofrit started in alarm. His wide, startled eyes darted toward the battlefield once more.
"Ah...!"
A groan escaped him before he could answer the knight.
The gaps between the Rheesian cavalrymen, who had been trying to retreat in a group, gradually began to widen.
The reason was the knights and the enemy host fiercely pursuing them from behind.
The farther apart the fleeing Rheesian riders became, the faster the battle collapsed.
Baron Gofrit knew this. Yet the moment when he could have done something about it had long, long since passed.
They were Rheesians who barely listened to him in the first place. Even if Baron Gofrit had tried to act in time, whether it would have actually worked was an open question.
They would listen to Gorka, to be sure, but they did not necessarily follow Baron Gofrit's orders faithfully.
If nothing else, Baron Gofrit was not even their direct employer.
Nothing extraordinary was needed for a desperate situation like this to become a complete disaster.
That the Rheesian cavalry, gradually scattering apart, had begun to be hunted down?
That the Griffin Mercenary Company, strung out in scattered knots fighting a delaying action, was now fleeing in rout?
To be blunt, that was none of Baron Gofrit's concern.
More precisely, Baron Gofrit, with defeat already a certainty, had no room to care.
"They're coming this way!"
Baron Gofrit's wavering eyes fixed forward.
As scattered Rheesian riders fell one after another, a group of cavalry came charging through everything in its path.
Among them, the form of the knight at their head was somehow familiar. It was the same large knight Baron Gofrit had been eyeing just moments before.
"Hrk!"
Baron Gofrit, horrified, hastily turned his horse's head. No—he tried to turn it.
One thought slammed violently into Baron Gofrit's mind.
It was the memory of days past, of the grueling pursuit through the snowfields that had lasted for days, the chase between the hunter and the hunted.
'If I flee from here...'
Where in God's name could he possibly flee to?
When he escaped from Schaffendorf, at least there had been a way out. Count Rasau had personally sent reinforcements.
Baron Gofrit had no such escape now. All that awaited him was a future stripped bare.
Only two choices remained for Baron Gofrit.
He could surrender to the ruin awaiting him and give up everything, or survive somehow and fight with all he had.
"Knights, hear me! We retreat to the fortress at once!"
What Baron Gofrit chose was, naturally, the latter.
Baron Gofrit knew all too well what losing a territorial war meant. It couldn't be summed up as merely going broke.
If it could be settled by mutually agreeing to cede a few mines, hunting grounds, or taxation rights here and there, Baron Gofrit would have gladly admitted defeat and raised a white flag.
But now, that was impossible.
Worse, his opponent was Baron Yaven, and the territorial war had become a proxy conflict between two powerful counts.
In the end, even surrendering wouldn't be true surrender.
At the very least, it wouldn't end with a routine settlement that stripped away a large share of the family fortune.
In a severe case, his title might be stripped, or his house might fall. Baron Gofrit feared that beyond endurance.
Near the Rhamdus Plain, there was an old fortress owned by Baron Gofrit. He only needed to flee that far.
"My lord! It's impossible to shake them off!"
But the world was not so accommodating, and Sir Lothar's knights had no intention of letting another opportunity slip away.
Baron Gofrit, who had hurriedly pulled on his helm, looked back.
Sir Lothar's knights had entered the palisade-protected camp and begun smashing everything in their path.
Among them, a particularly hot, blazing murderous intent and fury burned in the gaze of the large knight.
Seeing that, the terrified Baron Gofrit shouted.
"Their horses must be tired too! If we flee, how could they possibly catch up!"
"They've already switched to fresh horses! It would be better to settle this here...!"
If things went as he thought—yes. He only had to flee as far as the fortress.
But that wasn't possible. The knights, who had closed the distance before he knew it, were shouting battle cries and swinging their weapons.
"Fight back! Fight!"
"Knights, meet them in honorable combat!"
The knights under Baron Gofrit spurred their horses and charged out.
No matter how foolishly and disgracefully they had suffered consecutive defeats, they could not betray their liege.
Crash! Bang!
"Ghk!"
"Damn it!"
With a tremendous crash, the massive knight sent two of Baron Gofrit's knights flying. Links from the chain mail struck by his mace scattered everywhere.
The large knight rampaged just like a bear.
Every time the mace in his hand swung out in a wide arc, a vicious whoosh filled the air and a man flew through it.
Crunch!
The skull of a mercenary who had desperately lunged with a spear was crushed. Blood dripped from beneath the caved-in helm.
There were also soldiers who tried to drag the knight down with hooks shaped like axes or sickles.
Each of them met their end with a single stroke of the mace. Blood splattered everywhere, and agonized groans and shouts began to blanket the camp.
The knights were charging in, destroying everything. At the end of that charge was Baron Gofrit.
"N-no...!"
If they caught him, they'd certainly beat him half to death.
By custom, they should capture him and demand ransom, but the eyes of that large knight were the eyes of a madman who would charge in, telling all such customs to go to hell.
"Damn it all!"
And so, Baron Gofrit hastily turned his horse's head.
His own knights were still fighting, but that was none of his concern.
He had to live. That thought filled Baron Gofrit's mind completely.
In a territorial war he had thought he could never lose, he felt the threat of death for the first time.
'I'm dying! I'm dying!'
When he looked back, the large knight, drenched in blood, was already chasing close behind him.
"Aaaagh!"
A hand as broad as a pot lid swept out to seize Baron Gofrit.
Baron Gofrit let out a girlish shriek and twisted desperately.
But even if Baron Gofrit dodged, there was one being who could not evade the mace that came crashing down like lightning.
NEEEIGH—!
Struck in the flank, Baron Gofrit's warhorse let out a dying scream and collapsed.
Baron Gofrit tumbled head over heels across the snow and was thrown from his horse.
"My lord!!"
A knight of Baron Gofrit, belatedly catching up, hurriedly approached and swung his weapon at the large knight.
Crash!
But it was a futile act. The knight, knocked flying by a single blow of the mace, shuddered briefly and then went limp in the snow.
Baron Gofrit, having witnessed that sight with his own eyes, looked around in all directions.
He was a baron—a lord! Was there truly no one to help him?
"I-Is there no one?! I, Ansen Schultheis, Baron of Gofrit, command you! Someone bring this man down—!!"
Baron Gofrit shouted from the middle of the camp. A few soldiers came running in haste.
But they were not enough. A deep look of dismay spread across Baron Gofrit's face.
"Lord Gofrit!"
And then, the only lifeline that could save Baron Gofrit descended.
"Sir Gerhard! Help me! Deal with this man!"
Sir Gerhard of the Olenmayer family.
Because of injuries sustained at the Battle of Schaffendorf, he had been resting inside a tent, unable to personally join the fight.
That unexpectedly worked in Baron Gofrit's favor. It seemed heaven had not abandoned him yet.
"...Sir Keldric?"
But Sir Gerhard's reaction upon seeing the large knight who had followed was decidedly reluctant.
Sir Gerhard kept looking back and forth between the large knight who had stopped before him and Baron Gofrit, who was hiding behind him.
"Wh-what are you doing! Engage that man! Now!"
It was madness. To tell him to face a knight when he wasn't even properly armed.
Sir Gerhard looked at the large knight with trembling eyes. A low voice echoed from within the helm, which was like a tin can.
"Sir Gerhard. I trust you remember that we have an agreement."
"...That we do."
"Stand aside. For the sake of your honor, I won't ask you to hold him."
"..."
Baron Gofrit's face turned the color of dirt.
He'd told him to face that huge knight, and what was this nonsense he was spouting?
"Or will you fight me once more? I'll wait until you arm yourself."
"...It was a promise staked on my honor; how could I refuse?"
But Sir Gerhard still stepped aside.
Thanks to that, between the large knight and Baron Gofrit, there were only a few thoroughly terrified soldiers.
"Get lost!"
When even they were bellowed at by the large knight, they all threw down their weapons and fled.
Baron Gofrit stared at Sir Gerhard with eyes full of disbelief.
"S-Sir Gerhard! How could you!"
"I have made a promise to Sir Keldric over there, staked on my honor and conviction."
"What...!"
"That agreement deferred my ransom. Please do not resent me too much, my lord."
"What nonsense is this! Protect me! I beg you!"
Even while he was thrashing in desperation, the knight called Keldric, having dismounted, was rapidly closing the distance.
Baron Gofrit, who had ended up sprawled on the ground before he knew it, trembled all over.
He floundered, pressing his hands against the ground and trying to get away, but the hand like a pot lid was faster as it seized the back of Baron Gofrit's armor.
"Ghk...!"
Grabbed solidly, Baron Gofrit looked up at Keldric with terrified eyes. His body, hoisted into the air, flailed helplessly.
"I-I am Ansen Schultheis, Baron of Gofrit...! I demand honorable conduct from you, sir, and the treatment due a prisoner of war!"
Keldric was silent. Hearing Baron Gofrit's desperate plea, he let the mace fall from his hand, then clenched his fist tightly.
"W-wait! Money! I'll give you money! I'll give you whatever you want, so...!"
"...What I want is something you cannot give."
Keldric muttered lowly. His eyes blazed with fury inside his helm.
BAM!
The huge fist violently struck Baron Gofrit in the center of his chest.
The breastplate caved inward. Chain links scattered in every direction.
"Ghk... Hrk...!"
Baron Gofrit could not breathe. His vision turned yellow.
Keldric stepped up to him again, clenching his fist once more as he spoke.
"Because you took it."
Immediately after, a fist bore down right before his eyes.
BAM!
That was the last thing Baron Gofrit saw.