Chapter 310
Chapter 310
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 310
Chapter Title: War of the Puppets (7)
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"Hold your positions! Hold your positions!!"
As the trumpet blared twice, the centurions shouted at the soldiers while dashing through the camp.
Fernandez gazed at the sand dust shimmering beyond the plains and thought, They've arrived.
"Don't fall back!!"
The troops' morale was sky-high. In truth, it seemed they weren't even considering the possibility of defeat.
The only civilized nation capable of standing against Kirzart was Levanter, and with Levanter's recent ups and downs, Kirzart could rightfully claim to be the strongest power on the continent.
And now, mere bandits? No wonder the soldiers were brimming with confidence.
From atop a high hill, Fernandez looked down at the army and thought, Foolish.
The magical forces had essentially been rendered useless, and the battlefield was open field combat—the kind the enemy preferred above all.
The enemy's numbers rivaled the full Kirzart army assembled on these plains, and nearly all of them were cavalry.
On open plains, without proper magical support, cavalry were gods of the battlefield.
The massive encampment wouldn't be breached in a single charge, but they would suffer considerable losses.
-Bwoooooh!!
The trumpet wailed long and low. Soon, the ground began to rumble. According to intelligence, the force heading for these plains was fifty thousand cavalry led by one of Karadskar's top generals.
An absurd number. Assembling fifty thousand troops wasn't impossible.
But all fifty thousand being cavalry? It sounded like a joke. It defied most modern tactical doctrines and demanded enormous resource expenditure.
Yet they were nomads. Horses were everyday livestock to them, and while individual skill levels varied, their riders were at least a match for civilized cavalry.
And a horse was a beast that could tear a man apart even if the greenest rider thrust a spear wildly while charging.
-Yeke Tetai Ulus!!
-Yeke—Tetaiii! Ulus!!
The Great Tetai Empire, huh. From the high ridge, Fernandez watched the cavalry horde charging in, a sneer curling his lips.
It was laughable, seeing nomads who had never once formed a proper nation calling themselves an empire as they charged.
At the root of their psyche lay a deep-seated inferiority complex.
They pretended to despise civilized nations, yet no one coveted refined architecture and wealth more than they did.
They were greedy, tormented by inferiority, and always raging wildly.
Thus—precisely thus—they were all the more terrifying. That primal hunger terrified him. Their blind ferocity, their savagery. The wildness long lost in civilized soldiers.
Kirzart's troops should fear them. Those who didn't would all die here today.
-Yeke Tetai Ulus!! (Great Tetai Empire!)
-Uluya!! (Advance!)
-Uluya! Uluya! Ruyweingarya!!! (Advance, eagles!)
-Bwoooooh!!
The sight of tens of thousands shouting the same word in unison was overwhelming.
The cavalry's charge formation was loose, and fifty thousand maintaining that lax line made their numbers look double from afar.
In fact, dazed voices rose frequently among the Kirzart ranks.
"Fifty thousand, right...?"
"Fifty thousand...? That's...?"
This was the first blunder. Sticking to dense formations to counter cavalry led soldiers to underestimate their own numbers and overestimate the enemy's.
The effect was even more pronounced at the front lines. Allied presence felt faint from behind, comrades beside them reeked of fear-sweat and excitement, and ahead, enemies kicked up dust from horizon to horizon in their charge.
"Archers!! Loose!!"
"Archers! Loose!!!"
Shouts erupted along the front. The enemy was close enough. A sound judgment—if not every last one of them were mounted.
Typically, longbows without magical enhancement had a range under 300 meters. Cavalry charges began from 300 meters out. These bare numbers translated to tragedy on the real battlefield.
-Dudududududu!!!
Arrow barrages began raining down. Kirzart's longbowmen were veterans, loosing volleys that blackened the sky in seconds.
Karadskar's cavalry raised shields. About thirty percent of the first wave crumbled under the arrow storm.
Well-armored riders might survive, but horses presented too large a target.
But 300 meters? At full gallop, a horse covered it in 20 seconds.
In other words, Kirzart had just 20 seconds for their preemptive strike. Fewer than five hundred cavalry fell in that time.
Now it was simple math. They needed to drop a hundred times that number to win.
-Dudududududu!!!
Impacts rippled through the formations. The front lines began collapsing under the first cavalry charge.
Everywhere except where they'd planted stakes and braced pikes upright.
"Hold!! Hold the lineeee!!!"
One centurion bellowed while running, then collapsed. A forearm-thick javelin was lodged in his skull.
Nearby soldiers watching the scene plunged into panic.
Dust clouds rose everywhere; whenever a horse burst from the haze, the men there were pulped.
Raising pike shafts, shoving with shields, hiding behind stakes—it was all just stopgaps.
"You underestimated them too much."
-It's collapsing faster than expected.
"Well, we had to accept some losses."
Kirzart had opted for dense square formations. Ideal against ordinary cavalry.
Widen gaps between squares, let the protruding archer lines fire first, then advance infantry to blunt the charge.
Not sophisticated, but textbook field tactics.
The miscalculation: the cavalry's speed exceeded expectations, and plains riders wielded near-acrobatic horsemanship to exploit the thinnest gaps in infantry squares.
In truth, Karadskar's forces splintered like tree roots in the charge. Their fluid movements and smooth turns were astonishingly polished.
They bypassed stakes and pikemen, shredding gaps. A horse's charge momentum alone was lethal; soldiers struck by chests or hooves became paste.
And crucially, what they'd overlooked—
"Shieeeelds!! Raise themmm!!"
"Bows—they've got bows!!!"
They were composite cavalry. Probably dismissed the light armor. Nomads and hunters at core, mounted archery was their folk martial art.
-Piiing!!
Firing arrows at close range, skirting pikes to rack up kills. Swarm tactics.
-Dudududududu!!!
Targeting disorganized spots with levelled lances for shock charges. Charging.
"Fight! Don't retreat!!"
"The Sultan is watchingggg!!!"
After a few charges, shattered fronts dissolved into melee. Wild horses paired with warriors in perfect control were infantry nightmares.
"Abandoning cavalry was smart, but too many archers. Aimed to minimize losses and win out. It'd worked until now."
-The entire cavalry has blessings on them.
"Minor tricks."
-That's plenty effective.
Nodding at Feizashi's words, Fernandez agreed. No way they'd cast potent blessings or spells on fifty thousand mounts.
No mage capable, and magic was unusable here anyway.
So the spells on the horses were simplistic. They'd made the beasts forget fear.
Basic hypnosis via special drugs and rudimentary sorcery.
Fearless horses harmonizing with skilled riders composed a dirge on the battlefield.
Pikes, fire, stakes held no terror for those mounts, nor did their riders falter in evasive maneuvers that sowed chaos without disrupting their own lines.
Kirzart hadn't planned for cavalry clashes from the start. Heavy cavalry couldn't match their speed; light cavalry entering those gaps would just get chopped up.
Thus, their anti-cavalry strategy relied on solid infantry squares to spread the damage. Human-built fortresses, essentially.
"They'll be annihilated."
-Too fast.
"Exactly. Time we showed them something."
-Squeeee!!
A hawk screeched, wheeling overhead. Fernandez looked up at the sky.
A tiny dot against the clear blue. His eyes made out even the small flower clutched in its talons.
The hawk hovering above held a blue flower.
And on battlefields, blue always symbolized friendlies.
Even in the distant north. And here, on this continent.
"Come on, Kirhas."
* * *
"Damidin is dead...?"
Ammar widened his eyes as he listened to the messenger. The man bowed deeply, trembling, and continued.
"It was... a victory. Their blood formed rivers, their corpses..."
"Answer what the Kagan asks."
A thick hand rested on the messenger's neck. A man nearly ogre-sized growled softly at his nape. The messenger nearly sobbed out his reply.
"Y-yes, Kagan! Great Hawk of the Steppes! Lord Damidin has fallen!"
"Why? He was a decent commander."
Ammar stroked his chin, frowning. Victory was expected.
Reports indicated the fielded enemy force was just vanguard from nearby cities; their main strength was gathering at Rahot Fortress.
Meaning Damidin had faced mere time-buying cannon fodder. Buying time for the Sultan's forces to assemble at Rahot.
And a commander died in such a skirmish? Sure, he might've charged in hot-blooded. They'd even encouraged it.
No matter how disposable, every element lifting or crushing legion morale hinged on process.
How overwhelmingly, how brutally they crushed foes—that keyed morale.
Thus, Damidin likely drew his blade only after the field stabilized.
But that didn't explain his death.
Damidin—and his generals—had deeply embraced "that" blessing. Unrivalled warriors on this soil.
Sloppy spear thrusts couldn't even scratch their hides.
"Explain. Messenger. The Kagan awaits your answer."
"Y-yes!! Enemy troops appeared from the west!!"
"...Enemy troops?"
"Yes, Kagan! A band of cavalry suddenly charged in, went straight for Lord Damidin and his aides, took heads, then fled!"
The ger's atmosphere turned foul at the messenger's words. No stratagem or enemy ace—just lost a commander to cavalry defeat?
How? They'd clashed with Kirzart cavalry multiple times.
Kirzart's real pains were mages and stubborn infantry; their horse wasn't anything special.
"Lost from horseback, you say? Damidin?"
"Yes...!!"
"Who pulled it off?"
"We didn't catch it clearly..."
-Thunk.
The messenger flinched at the massive hand lightly kneading his neck and blurted on.
"Beastkin! Beastkin bastards! It was beastfolk!!"
"Bayar, who's out toward the wasteland?"
"Chulun's deployed, Kagan."
"And Jenbalbat?"
"On standby for deployment."
"Tell him to support Chulun. Trample the great wasteland, open the path to the Empire. We'll hit the Empire once Kirzart's sorted."
"Yes, Kagan!"
Bayar bowed deeply and dragged the still-prostrated messenger out of the ger by the nape.
Soon, screams echoed from not far off.
* * *
-Clop, clop, clop.
In a forest not far from the battlefield, Fernandez sat astride his horse and turned toward the approaching hoofbeats.
The plains battle had ended in crushing defeat. But a meaningful one. Without it, Kirzart forces couldn't have delayed Karadskar at all.
With command shattered, Karadskar's army had to pause on the plains.
Soon, a single horse emerged from the dense brush.
"Good work."
"What're you saying! I even brought a gift!"
"Why the heads...? Planning to deliver to the Sultan?"
"No way! For baiting them out!"
Kirhas grinned fiercely. Not her usual bubbly, playful self.
This was the smile of the great wasteland's guardian, herald of the hunt god.
She shook the bloodied bundle of severed heads wrapped in cloth and grinned at Fernandez.