Chapter 296
Chapter 296
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 296
"Think we'll get a share of that?"
"Well, they say the garrison's twenty thousand strong. They've got to be dishing out hot meat soup at least."
"Even that'd be heaven."
While the soldiers' imaginations ran endlessly wild, the sun climbed directly overhead. Noon had come.
But still no word came from Pharus Castle. In the end, Count Turbes led his knights and troops out toward the fortress.
"What is the meaning of this!"
The moment he reached the castle, Count Turbes roared.
"The rebellion succeeded! We have put the traitor Hailon to death!"
"Ha!"
At the voice that rang out from within, Count Turbes let out a sound of sheer disbelief. But only for a moment. His face flushed crimson with fury as he bellowed.
"And you expect me to believe that now! Show me proof!"
"I have not the slightest reason to show you proof."
"You bastards...."
Through his rage, Count Turbes caught sight of Roselin soldiers smirking along a section of the wall. Unmistakable mockery.
"Hailon, that rat of a man, he was stalling for time!"
Count Turbes shouted for Hailon and poured out a stream of curses. Only after a long while did Hailon appear on the watchtower.
"I can't keep this up much longer."
"You bastard! You sent a letter with your own signature mark on it and still have the gall to stand there brazen-faced!"
At Count Turbes's shout, Hailon cocked his head and called back.
"I never signed it, sir!"
"A pack of blatant lies...."
As Count Turbes raged, the veins in his neck bulging, atop the wall, several soldiers waved blackened palms and cackled.
"If you mean the signature mark, I made that one!"
"I made one too!"
"Me too!"
"Wahahaha!"
Realizing with absolute certainty that the whole thing had been a delaying tactic from start to finish, Count Turbes glared up as if he meant to devour Hailon and shouted.
"So the name Iron Wall Hailon was nothing but a hollow title! You contemptible wretch — is stretching out time with lies truly the way of a knight!"
At Count Turbes's denunciation, a bitter expression flickered across Hailon's face. Did he not wish to stand with honor?
The only voices pushing back against the flood of condemnation and taking his side were those of the common soldiers. Every Roselin knight who had once shown him respect had turned their heads away, refusing to meet his eyes.
With a bitter smile, Hailon shouted at the top of his lungs.
"You're right — I am no knight, and the name Iron Wall is nothing but an empty boast! But still...."
Hailon admitted every one of Count Turbes's accusations at the top of his voice.
He let his words trail off, glanced sidelong at the soldiers looking up at him from the wall with such pity, and spoke again.
"I bought time. And you lot — you wasted yours!"
"Grr!"
Grinding his teeth, Count Turbes turned away. Hailon watched his retreating back in lonely silence and murmured quietly.
"So what if I become a low-down son of a bitch. If I can keep innocent soldiers alive, I'd gulp down liquid shit without a second thought."
"......."
"Lord Hailon."
His voice was low, but it was enough to make the knights who had turned their backs — and Baron Paul — turn their heads back around.
Hailon looked at them and gave a faint, weary smile.
"Baron Paul, from now on it's in your hands. I did hold them for a day and a half, after all."
"I...."
Baron Paul could not bring himself to stop him.
Shunned by his own command and ridiculed by the enemy, the man had literally bought time — and in doing so had made the enemy waste just as much time and precious food.
Baron Paul and the knights silently watched Hailon's back and raised their hands in salute. He was a true noble — a giant of a man who had chosen his soldiers' future over personal honor.
"All forces."
Baron Paul spoke, his lips trembling.
"Lord Hailon, our castellan, cast aside brilliant honor and stood alone to shield us all for a day and a half."
Shring.
Baron Paul drew his sword and raised it high, shouting to every soldier.
"Now we defend ourselves!"
"Waaaaah!"
"Let's hold them!"
Baron Paul listened to the soldiers' roar and shouted again with all his might — a promise he was making to himself.
"We will reclaim the honor of the Iron Wall!"
"Come on, you empire bastards, come and get it!"
Pharus Castle blazed with a fiercer fighting spirit than ever before.
Chapter 98 — The Song of the Crimson Citadel
Boo-woo~!
The sound of war horns, silent for two days, rolled out toward Pharus Castle.
Public Marquis, who had been made an object of ridicule, proclaimed that he would erase Pharus Castle from the face of the earth.
Starving soldiers.
Every last grievance among them turned toward Pharus Castle. The fortress that at noon had set their hearts fluttering with savory cooking smells was now the target of pure hatred.
From Palaka Fortress all the way to Pharus Castle, the Roselin army had wielded food as a weapon. The soldiers of the Holy Empire — to a man — gave voice to their fury.
Without a word from command, the soldiers now seized their spears and swords of their own accord.
It was past noon, the hour when the blazing sun bore down with its full force.
By any measure, it was an hour an attacking force should avoid. But the Holy Empire moved its troops without further delay.
Fury aside, the greatest reason for such a reckless push lay elsewhere. Hailon had gone to such lengths to stall for time. That meant there had to be a reason beyond simply draining food supplies.
That said, the actual food situation had indeed worsened over the day and a half. Only by crossing Pharus Castle could the army begin looting the villages around the capital.
Devastating the entire countryside was, frankly, a difficult undertaking.
So Roselin had been forced to settle for thoroughly scorching only the regions that would become the main theaters of war.
That final line was precisely Pharus Castle. And the allied forces, too, had chosen this place as their last battlefield and were even now moving with desperate haste.
Cross or be stopped. The success or failure of the entire war hung on this.
* * *
The shieldbearers began their advance to a steady rhythm. Behind them, catapults and ballistae followed.
Like two hands slowly tightening around a throat, over a hundred thousand troops drew a half-circle and constricted around Pharus Castle, which sat with its back to the cliffs.
The magic corps, too, stood at full readiness.
In scale, Pharus Castle was roughly one and a half times the size of Palaka Fortress, which had been annihilated not long before. But the defending force numbered twenty thousand elite soldiers.
Twenty thousand against a hundred thousand — was that not a fight well worth waging?
The Holy Empire army advanced inch by inch toward the point of contact with death.
Hailon stood on the watchtower, watching the approaching enemy.
"Baron Paul."
"Speak, General."
"Can you truly entrust everything to an honorless old man like me?"
Hailon posed the question without taking his eyes off the enemy soldiers. He would be testing the baron's resolve.
"We have learned a great deal."
"What have you learned?"
At Hailon's question, Baron Paul looked around at the nearby knights and voiced the answer he had arrived at.
"That what we must now protect is not our honor, but our lives and our nation."
"Good."
Hailon began to hum softly.
As if the hundred thousand troops closing in held no terror for him at all, he folded his arms and smiled into the occasional breeze.
"If you mean to entrust everything to me...."
For the first time, Hailon turned and looked back, meeting the eyes of Baron Paul and each knight in turn.
"Unconditional obedience."
"You shall have it!"
Baron Paul shouted. The knights followed with raised salutes. Letting out a hearty laugh at the sight of them, Hailon spoke.
"Acting unilaterally is something to avoid in war. But sometimes—just sometimes—it is necessary."
His eyes were shining.
* * *
Watching the army slowly constrict around the fortress, Public Marquis raised one hand.
"Let's see then — just how much substance that name Iron Wall truly has."
The instant his raised hand swept toward Pharus Castle, war horns blared and the knights shouted their orders.
Step by step, faster and faster.
The advancing ranks shifted to quick-time.
As if the hundred-thousand-strong host had become a single living serpent, the half-circle surged swiftly forward. Behind them, soldiers heaved and shoved catapults and ballistae with all their strength.
THWUMP! THWUMP-THWUMP-THWUMP!
The report of bursting air echoed from distant Pharus Castle. The Roselin army's catapults had fired first.
They had leveraged the slight advantage of higher ground to open the engagement. But against the Holy Empire, that advantage meant little.
"Disappointing."
Public Marquis shook his head and spoke regretfully. The enemy even began to seem pitiful, repeating the same attacks despite knowing they were futile.
Before his eyes, the magic corps began to rise slowly into the sky.
"Now!"
Hailon's shout shook the wall, and at the same instant a fierce burst of cracking reports erupted.
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
"We have to hunt as many as we can before they get their Shields up!"
At intervals along the wall, men stood fitting shafts into tonga and drawing. The secret weapon of Gauri — the Pyeonjeon archers.
For ordinary arrows it was nearly impossible to reach. But the Pyeonjeon was different. The aim of this operation was to drop as many enemy wizards as possible by shooting Pyeonjeon before they could rise to a stable altitude.
In an instant, as if dissolving into the air, the Baby Arrows vanished into the sky.
Those who should have soared upward plummeted down.
"What in the world is happening!"
The pride of the Holy Empire — the wizards of the magic corps — were falling before they could even take flight. The falling wizards threw the advancing ranks into disarray.
Death without cause or explanation.
Terror clouded the wizards' eyes; shock clouded the eyes of Public Marquis.
"Sh-Shields!"
This was no time to be protecting common soldiers.
Only after nearly half their number had been knocked out of the sky did the wizards begin to raise Shields and defend themselves.
But at that very moment, what descended from the heavens was a rain of fist-sized stones — a stone shower. A few glanced off the Shields here and there, but the great majority poured straight down onto the soldiers' heads.
Crunch! Crack!
"Raise — raise your shields overhead and block!"
In the blink of an eye, the Holy Empire's formation became a scene of utter chaos.
As the soldiers raised their shields to block, the fist-sized stones began to ricochet away. But what flew in after them were boulders the size of a man's head. It was an attack tailored precisely to the behavioral patterns of the empire's shieldbearers.
"The catapults have entered range!"
"The ballistae are nearly all in range as well!"