Chapter 191
Chapter 191
Iron Emperor — Chapter 191
KWA-BOOM!
Boulders the size of a grown man's torso pounded Gaemun Mountain Fortress.
"You want to die? Keep your damn heads down! Trust the wall—press yourselves flat against it!"
When rocks flew into the Gauri camp, which had been on the offensive, the raw recruits wavered for a moment—and everywhere, veteran soldiers let curses fly. Fortunately, because the enemy catapults had tried sniping only after firing, the follow-up bombardment was sparse compared to the initial salvo.
"As expected, the range is simply too great!"
"Hmm."
At Geom Mudal's words, Hailon let out a disappointed grunt. But he soon shook his head and spoke.
"Still, it's practically as though the barriers on a third of the remaining enemy catapults have been stripped away. That's something."
"That is also true."
Mudal answered Hailon and wiped the regretful expression from his face.
"The enemy has entered our range!"
"Stand by!"
While they were talking, the charging Roselin troops had come within range of the Gauri archers. But the Roselin soldiers, unaware of the Gauri bows' capabilities, simply kept running forward with battle cries, brave as ever.
"All archers to the ready line!"
At the command, the soldiers holding bows formed up in two ranks atop the wall.
The archers stood watching the enemy troops surging toward them in a black mass, bows in hand, nervously wetting their parched lips with their tongues.
"Nock arrows!"
The instant the order came down, the archers nocked their arrows as if they had been waiting for it.
BOOM!
"Aaaagh!"
"Don't move!"
A boulder that came flying in while they were on standby crushed three or four archers and crashed down inside the fortress. The archers flinched for a moment, but under the fierce shouts of the officers, they steadied themselves at once.
"You useless bastards, you all want to die?! When a rock falls, only the men right around it duck! What the hell did you train for!"
Even amid the curses flying among the archers, the Roselin army kept charging forward, howling war cries.
"Draw!"
At the roar of that fiery voice, more than a thousand bowstrings stretched taut in unison along the wall. A soldier who had confirmed the draw raised a red flag toward the sky. As red flags rose at every position, the attack order at last fell from the officers' lips.
"Loooooose!"
With the long, drawn-out shout, the red flags simultaneously swung down, pointing at the enemy—and arrows soared into the sky. The arrows, which blackened the heavens, began plummeting onto the heads of the Roselin troops charging like a swarm of ants.
THWOCK!
"Gurk!"
THWOCK-THWOCK-THWOCK!
"Aaaagh!"
"Arrows! Watch out!"
When arrows came flying out of nowhere, the soldiers who had been sprinting for their lives scattered in every direction and collapsed. In some places, soldiers gasped for breath in relief at having dodged the arrows. But the advance came to a halt in an instant as, without a moment's rest, men hurriedly raised shields over their heads and crouched as small as they could under the rain of falling arrows.
"Don't panic! Shields to the sky and close ranks!"
Though startled by the unexpectedly long range, at the urging of the knights, the soldiers began pressing their shields together one by one to form a defensive wall. Unlike at the start, the number of men falling began to drop.
"Damn it. Even a crossbow would struggle to reach this far..."
Watching his men toppling in the distance, Baron Aliman could not shake the thought settling deeper and deeper into his head: this battle was growing harder by the moment.
"There's nothing we can do. What's more, just as the people from Haian who visited Gauri reported, that semi-circular outer wall protecting the gate makes it difficult to bring up a battering ram. We should not have exhausted the wizards beforehand after all."
"Silence! Send the second and third waves forward immediately! Even if it takes longer, the best course is to get our own crossbowmen and archers into a position where they can respond!"
"Understood!"
At Baron Aliman's command, the knight issued orders to the messengers. Amid the chaos, the long note of a horn rang out. Moments later, as all the troops held in reserve began charging forward, Baron Aliman himself started riding slowly toward the front.
"Keep firing!"
The Gauri archers lined up on the wall simply repeated the same motions without pause—nocking an arrow, drawing, releasing. In addition, the fewer than fifty soldiers using the Pyeonjeon short arrows also began their sniping in five-man teams, targeting enemy knights as ordered. Though the Pyeonjeon itself was a difficult weapon to handle, the invisible short arrows began knocking knights from their saddles one after another.
"Prepare the catapults!"
"As commanded!"
The Yudonno were also firing away, mostly launching canisters packed with arrows. In addition, smaller catapults with shorter ranges were being dragged out one after another.
Unlike the Roselin army's catapults, the Gauri catapults—pulled and released by thirty men at once—came into view. Soldiers brought out prepared baskets filled with stones ranging from fist-sized to head-sized. In the meantime, the enemy troops had been slowly advancing.
"Hurry up and get ready!"
The moment the commander's urging rang out, a scream came from the wall as a soldier clutched his chest and tumbled off.
"Aaaagh!"
Thud.
"Eek!"
Though he had fallen from a high wall, thanks to the layer of wet branches and grass laid out below, no skull-splitting sights were visible. Even so, the soldiers who were experiencing war for the first time startled and screamed at each other.
"The longer you take, the more of our comrades die, you sons of bitches!"
When an officer kicked the backside of a soldier who stood frozen as if rooted to the spot and yelled at him, the soldiers scrambled to run again.
"Fire the catapults!"
"Pull!"
As orders came down from above, dozens of soldiers hauled the ropes in unison, and hundreds of stones flew over the wall toward the enemy lines.
"Uwaaah!"
When the stones covering the sky appeared black through the gaps in the shields, one soldier screamed in terror. By the time his scream ended, the rain of falling stones had begun hammering the Roselin soldiers' shields.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
The stones were not terribly large, so they were barely managing to block them—but that only held for one or two stones, one or two times. Here and there, a head-sized boulder mixed in shattered a shield and crushed a soldier's body.
"Guk!"
"Blorgh!"
When his comrade's head burst open under a stone, the fresh-faced young soldier next to him dropped his shield and began vomiting. Through the gaps that opened in the stone rain, arrows flew in, hammering against armor or piercing through to burrow into flesh.
"Ladder crews, charge forward! Shieldbearers and archers, advance together until they're in range!"
"Uwaaaah!"
The troops currently attacking the mountain fortress were soldiers armed with crossbows. For a true assault, the archer units had to push forward, so Baron Aliman gambled.
With battle cries, Roselin soldiers ran through the pouring rain of arrows and stones at full speed, shrieking with an unearthly sound—whether drunk on blood or drunk on terror, no one could tell.
Because the number of charging soldiers was overwhelmingly larger relative to the hail of arrows, a considerable force managed to reach the foot of the wall. Under the protection of shieldbearers, archers began firing nonstop, ducking and shooting without rest.
As Gauri archers began toppling from the wall to the outside one by one, the Roselin troops screamed even louder and hurled themselves at the wall. The harder the Roselin soldiers struggled to fix ladders and grappling hooks against the wall, the more desperate the defensive counterattacks from the Gauri lines became.
"Archers continue neutralizing the enemy archers! Remaining personnel, commence stone-throwing!"
No sooner had Hailon's order left his mouth than a blue flag was hoisted skyward. The soldiers waiting behind the archers immediately began picking up rocks from the piles heaped at intervals along the wall and hurling them down.
CRACK!
"Aagh!"
Along with the violent noise, a Roselin soldier who had slung himself onto a ladder screamed and fell. Unlike the stones launched by catapults, these deliberately aimed throws were on a completely different level of accuracy. On top of that, for soldiers who had frequently engaged in stone-slinging through the somewhat perilous stone-throwing competition even in peacetime, enemy troops climbing ladders were ideal prey.
With over three thousand men raining arrows and throwing rocks from the wall alone, the Roselin assault could only falter. As time went on, the number of soldiers falling from the wall grew larger than the number clinging to it.
"There, that one!"
"Nice!"
Was it because the distance had shortened?
Struck by the fifty or so archers sniping enemy commanders with Pyeonjeon arrows, Roselin knights and officers began toppling dead at an accelerating pace.
If someone merely wore a slightly flashy or distinctive outfit, they became prey. Because of this, the Roselin army's command structure began, little by little, to come apart.
"I said set the ladders and climb—gurk!"
"Baronet Alon!"
While giving his order, the short arrows that flew in buried themselves all over Baronet Alon's body. The same arrows unerringly lodged in the torso of the knight who rushed over in horror.
"Uh, ugh... I can't!"
"Uwaaah! We can't climb!"
An absent commander injured not only the soldiers' morale but also their situational judgment. That there was no officer to stop them even if they took a backward step was perfect fuel for the soldiers' desire to live.
Hesitation crept into their running steps. When a comrade next to them collapsed in a bloody heap, they stepped back. When one man turned his back, two or three followed. Once three or four began to run, dozens and then hundreds of soldiers began fleeing with them. That is how terror spreads.
Shing!
"Kraaah!"
If any commander existed to stand by and watch, he must likewise have been in the act of fleeing. A knight who had cut down a fleeing soldier, slashing through his exposed back, fixed his bloodshot eyes on the men trying to run and let out a roar.
"You worthless trash! Who told you to run?! I'll sever the neck of every last deserter!"
"Eek!"
At the knight's furious voice, the soldiers who had been about to flee all stopped in their tracks. But only for a moment. In the next instant, the faltering soldiers—every last one of them—began running toward the rear, toward life. It started the instant a short arrow buried itself in the chest of the knight who had been swinging his sword at them.
"How can there be such a preposterous situation!"
Baron Aliman's face went from red to a flat, livid blue. And how could it not? Anyone could guess a commander's state of mind upon watching his men driven back like ants, seized with terror.
Utter devastation.
Their offensive had already lost all momentum, and in the eyes of the fleeing soldiers, not a trace of fighting spirit could be found. Baron Aliman's head dropped weakly toward the ground.
"Order... a retreat."
When a feeble voice escaped Baron Aliman's lips, the knight, his face stricken, relayed the words to the soldiers behind. Unlike before, the note of the horn that resounded through the air sounded mournful. As if that were the signal, the troops who had still been hesitating turned their backs and began to run all at once.
"Now! All troops, loose arrows in unison! The cavalry waiting in front of the gate, kill as many fleeing enemies as possible!"
The moment the sight of enemy soldiers turning their backs entered his eyes, Hailon's order fell. In war, the greatest casualties occur in the very moment of retreat. That is why even a retreat must be conducted while keeping formation—never by blindly turning and running.
"Cavalry, forward!"
"As commanded!"
"I-hihihihing!"
At the head of the cavalry that had rounded the barbican and formed up, Geom Mudal raised his Hwandudaedo and gave the command. In that same moment, five hundred horses surged toward the Roselin army as it fled with its backs exposed.
A fiercer rain of arrows poured down on the backs of the Roselin soldiers running for their lives, and by the time they broke free of it, the spear-tips and blades of the light cavalry that clung relentlessly to them were already falling.
"The enemy is falling back!"
"We've won!"
"Uwaaaah!"
A roar burst from Gaemun Mountain Fortress—impossible to tell whether it was a cheer of victory or an exultation at the simple fact of having survived the battle. One thing was certain: they were the victors. And so, the bloodbath of the first day of the Battle of Gaemun Mountain Fortress came to an end.