Chapter 134
Chapter 134
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 134
The lips of Marquis Malain Ferguson, supreme commander of North Roselin, had gone beyond dry and were beginning to crack.
Boom!
"Damn it, what in the world is happening! Which front is the main thrust?"
Marquis Ferguson, who had returned to his tent to catch his breath for a moment, smashed his fist into an innocent table.
Having sustained losses when he personally went to deal with the rear first, he had concluded that Marquis Baikal had seen through him. The rear forces he had dismissed as weak had proven far too strong, so he had deduced that Baikal had read his intentions and placed the main thrust in the rear.
After coming to his own conclusion on the way back, he dodged enemy forces and arrived only to find the rear forces merely firing arrows from a distance and moving slowly, while the real ferocious assault was crashing in from the front.
"Baikaaaal!"
Boom!
In his fury, the table that had been rolling at his feet was obliterated, losing even its shape.
Because of the offensive on the front, he had determined that only the knight division he had personally engaged was elite and the rest was a feint. Just as he was moving his troops to push the front again, a report came in that the forces that had done nothing but shoot arrows from the rear were suddenly attacking like madmen.
"Your Excellency, the position will collapse at this rate!"
A knight's voice erupted, urging his commander to decide.
The camp, which had been fortifying itself to the level of a proper fortress while pressuring the Eastern Army and preparing for raids and counterattacks, was now on the verge of being shaken. No one divides a large army into a vanguard and a rearguard as if gambling. Yet the enemy had done what no one else would do.
"Who in the world devised such a terrifying stratagem!"
A voice exploded from him, as if he could not accept that Marquis Baikal, as far as he knew, was behind it.
* * *
As he rode, Go Jin-cheon pulled an arrow from a quiver tied to one side and suddenly began digging at his ear with the fletching at the back of the arrow.
"Is your ear itching?"
"Mm."
At Eulji Buru's question, Jin-cheon tilted his head for a moment before urging his horse on again. Jin-cheon, who had unintentionally devised the stratagem(?), rode on toward his objective.
* * *
The Gauri forces were driving forward as if carving a road through the enemy. In response, North Roselin could only bear the concentrated power of the Gauri army, unable to withstand it.
But as the Gauri army's path gradually turned toward the location of the supplies, Viscount Skeller, charged with defending North Roselin's supply unit, grew increasingly desperate.
"The enemy is targeting the supplies. Be on guard!"
The commanders, thinking it couldn't be true until now, watched the Gauri army's path and shouted at their soldiers in alarm.
"Inform His Excellency of the situation here at once!"
"U-understood!"
Normally they would use a communication wizard, but since nearly all of the main camp's wizards had been wiped out, even the communication-specialist wizards had been transferred en masse to the magical front lines.
The only method left was to run.
"What damned luck...."
Viscount Skeller shook his head as he watched the approaching wave of Gauri soldiers. With the supreme commanders of both armies and all remaining troops clashing, it was hard to fathom the intent behind racing toward the supplies.
"What in the world is the enemy commander thinking?"
Destroying supplies is an important act in war. Without food, starvation is inevitable. But that depends on the situation.
Imagine half of a total fighting force charging at the supplies in the middle of an all-out battle.
Does that make sense?
"Curious what kind of madman is devising these operations. Damn it."
Whatever the situation, it was a fact that the unit under his command was now in danger.
* * *
"Hm...."
"Is your ear still itching?"
Eulji Buru tilted his head and asked while Go Jin-cheon was picking at his ear.
"Is someone... speaking ill of me...."
The voice came from Jin-cheon, who had been branded a madman(?). After cleaning his ear, Jin-cheon merely furrowed his brow as if displeased and cracked his whip toward his target.
* * *
"Aaaagh!"
"Hold the line!"
Viscount Skeller's voice, meant to defend the supplies, was buried beneath the soldiers' screams.
To Viscount Skeller's eyes, as he swung his sword and rallied his men, the swarming Gauri army looked like a pack of jackals.
"Do not fall back!"
He shouted the order once more, but the battlefield was sliding toward despair. The reply brought back by the soldier he had sent to the main camp was just as despairing.
'Defend to the death!'
It was a brief reply, but Viscount Skeller had expected as much. Though he had anticipated such an answer, actually carrying out the order was driving him mad.
"How am I supposed to hold this position, exactly!"
Words that should only have circled inside his mouth burst out.
Reflected in his pupils was the sight of roughly forty thousand enemy soldiers charging with the supplies as their sole objective. Viscount Skeller's mind was in turmoil over how to file his report.
"You, run to His Excellency and tell him it's impossible to hold the supplies! And inform the other units at once that the rear camp must reposition and launch an encirclement attack on the enemy rearguard that has entered here. Run, now!"
"Yes!"
At Viscount Skeller's order, the soldier started in surprise and sprinted off. After the soldier ran out, Viscount Skeller bit his lip as he looked toward the piled-up supplies.
"Can't be helped. Move the supplies!"
At Viscount Skeller's cry, soldiers waiting on one side threw themselves into hauling the supplies with desperate effort. They had to salvage whatever they could.
"I won't leave them to be destroyed."
Viscount Skeller's tightly shut lips showed his resolve.
* * *
A voice of approval leaked from Eulji Buru as he commanded at the vanguard.
"Oh-ho!"
"Mm."
At the same time, one corner of Go Jin-cheon's mouth crept upward. Buru's face brightened, and he spoke to Jin-cheon.
"They've even packed the supplies up so they're easy for us to carry away!"
"Heh heh heh."
Buru's delighted voice burst out.
"Buru, take the Demon Cavalry and block their escape route. No need to worry about the other side. Is the rear guard following?"
"They are. You can see them coming over there."
When Buru pointed behind them with his finger, Jin-cheon glanced back and nodded.
There, hundreds of empty wagons were thundering forward, racing along in a cloud of dust with a deafening clamor.
Behind the charging Gauri army, an enormous noise arose along with a rising cloud of dust. The identity of that swirling dust began to register in Viscount Skeller's eyes.
"Chariots?"
If there was one branch of troops whose utility had declined with the development of cavalry, it was the chariot. Yet dozens of chariots appeared to have suddenly materialized. No matter how diminished their effectiveness, chariots were terrifying weapons for infantry to face.
"But somehow it looks a little strange."
The knight standing beside Viscount Skeller tilted his head and spoke.
Just then, a mass of riders burst out from one side and began tearing through the soldiers.
"Gah!"
"Aaaagh!"
As the screams drew closer, Viscount Skeller cast a regretful look at the supplies his men were struggling to secure.
"It can't be helped. Preserve the troops. Leave the supplies and all forces retreat!"
Even if the supplies were lost at once, the stockpiles already distributed to each sub-unit would let them hold out for another day or two. And resupply was possible within that time. This was, after all, a war that favored North Roselin and a war in which their supply lines were still alive.
"Understood!"
Seeing his soldiers sprint off to relay the order, Viscount Skeller and his party also began to pull out swiftly. He did so with the resolve that even if they handed over the supplies, they would not let the enemy leave alive.
Boom-boom-boom!
"Gyaaagh!"
"We have to get out of here!"
"Damn it."
Before he knew it, the screams had drawn near, and more and more soldiers were abandoning the supplies and fleeing. Watching the scene, Viscount Skeller gritted his teeth and spurred his horse to escape. The supplies were already as good as in enemy hands.
Marquis Ferguson, who was commanding outside his tent and trying to stop the fiercely pressing Eastern Army of South Roselin, frowned as he saw Viscount Skeller racing toward him.
Seeing him gallop like that, it was obvious the supplies had been lost.
Clop-clop, clop-clop!
"Y-your Excellency!"
Viscount Skeller's voice was laced with urgency as he spurred closer.
"What of the supplies?"
Marquis Ferguson, frowning, asked Viscount Skeller as if to confirm. The viscount hesitated as if words failed him, stealing glances back toward the direction he had come from.
"Out with it!"
Marquis Ferguson burst out in a shout, yet against his will he, too, looked toward the section Viscount Skeller had been responsible for.
"There's no smoke...."
Not a single plume of smoke from burning supplies was rising. Just as Marquis Ferguson frowned in confusion, a trembling voice leaked from Viscount Skeller.
"The supplies...."
"Speak!"
Only then did the marquis shift his gaze back to Viscount Skeller and snap at him. The viscount's expression crumpled in disbelief as he gave a short reply.
"They were cleaned out. All of them."
"......"
Marquis Ferguson nearly drew his sword then and there.
A commander who speaks nonsense in the middle of battle would not be looked on kindly. But another rider came charging up.
"Marquiiis!"
Baron Clonicle was riding over, drenched in blood from head to toe. Marquis Ferguson began to feel a sense of dread. Baron Clonicle had been in charge of the secondary supply depot.
"The supplies have been cleaned out! All of them!"
"Hah...."
The voice that escaped Marquis Ferguson sounded like that of a decrepit old man. For an instant, in his stunned disbelief, he had the illusion that his army had been a supply convoy whose purpose was to transport provisions.
"What is this nonsense you're spouting!"
At Marquis Ferguson's roar, Viscount Skeller, who had somewhat regained his wits, spoke with a somber face.
"I still cannot believe it myself. The moment I realized the supply depot was being hit, a mass of empty wagons—what I had taken for chariots—charged in. Then they packed everything up and simply retreated."
"......"
"I have never seen such warfare in any doctrine. I could understand it if this battle were a losing one, an already finished one, or if we were nothing more than a supply unit. But who would ever imagine throwing every rearguard asset into looting the supplies while a pitched battle is underway!"
"Hah...."
A bell began tolling in the back of Marquis Ferguson's head.
'Ding!'
Judging by the mobilized forces and the intensity of the ongoing battle, the only possible conclusion was that the current situation was a decisive battle upon which the kingdom's fate hung. Yet the fact that half of the enemy combatants had looted the supplies and were now pulling out—to anyone ignorant of their command relationships, that was nothing but sheer chaos.
From the start of the battle, not a single thing had proceeded properly.
"Kyaaaagh!"
Crash!
Marquis Ferguson flew into a rage, smashing a piled-up palisade to pieces as he roared.
"Who ever heard of a war like this!"
For the first time in his life, Marquis Ferguson cursed war itself.