Chapter 326
Chapter 326
Iron Emperor — Chapter 326
Chapter 110: A Feast of Their Own
Prrr.
Behind the exhausted whinnies of the horses, Eulji Buru's troops slowly entered the ruined Gaemun Mountain Fortress.
The blood covering them had still not cooled; hot steam rose steadily from their armor.
"Great General..."
Geom Muhyul, calling out to the blood-soaked Eulji Buru, looked no different himself. No—while Buru's armor was at least still in recognizable shape, Muhyul's was shattered nearly to rags. The wounds gouged across his body in the gaps told the tale of how fierce the fighting had been.
"Don't just stand there. Get the ranks in order."
All around, Holy Empire soldiers who had been too badly wounded to retreat were screaming and begging for their lives, their cries echoing like shrieks.
"Damn noisy."
"We'll deal with them quickly."
"Send them out. Keep 'em around and they'll just eat up our supplies, won't they?"
"As you command."
Buru spoke curtly as he dismounted, and Muhyul saluted and summoned his subordinate officers to relay the orders.
It wasn’t as if they were in any position to take prisoners anyway. If enemy soldiers were too badly wounded to retreat on their own, sending them back would burden the enemy. Every wounded man would tie up enemy hands caring for him, leaving fewer soldiers available to attack Gauri. That was the calculation.
"You should eat, sir."
Muhyul returned after issuing the orders and bowed his head, taking his place beside Buru. He bore wounds severe enough that he could have collapsed at any moment, yet before Buru he showed not the slightest waver.
"I'll see to the rear. Go and rest."
"I'm fine."
"That's an order. How're you gonna swing a blade proper in that state?"
"Under... stood."
At Buru's concern, edged with pressure, Muhyul bowed his head in answer and withdrew. Buru slowly turned around and looked behind him. The soldiers who had followed him were dismounting in silence.
Every face was hard-set.
But not rigid from fear.
They could not smile, because they knew the reason they had been able to reach this place. The final battle in which Cheon Yuhwa and the wounded had thrown their bodies into the fight—that was what had led them here. Without them, no one knew how many of these men would have arrived alive.
"Don't go making death-faces. Move lively now. Gandengi!"
"Yes, Great General!"
At Buru's call, Avilrun dashed over and stood at attention. He was soaked in blood just as heavily as Buru. He must have fought with equal ferocity.
"Relieve the fortress troops of sentry duty and post a watch."
"Understood."
After one careless remark got him singled out and turned into the dedicated sparring partner of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry and Eulji, Avilrun had endured hellish hardship and somehow transformed into a dependable warrior.
Buru's unit had ridden without rest and fought fierce battles, leaving them exhausted. But no one complained. They simply gripped their weapons and kept moving.
"Damn."
A low curse slipped from Avilrun's lips as he moved to carry out Buru's orders. Among the Gauri army corpses strewn everywhere, some had not even been properly equipped with armor—an old man clutching nothing but a single spear, eyes wide open; a woman who had been killed by an arrow while carrying stones. Why had they fought to this extent...?
"Goddamn."
His voice grew louder with rage.
Why in the world had Cheon Yuhwa and the wounded soldiers rejected the path of survival and chosen death...?
"Goddammit!"
Fury he could no longer contain burst out, louder still.
Under the gaze of Marquis Bello von Luchia, Holy Empire soldiers were busily piling the Gauri dead to one side.
"It seems they were all wounded soldiers."
A heavy voice came from Count Chiera Pelloman. He could tell even without Count Pelloman's report. Though the corpses had been hacked at by enraged soldiers, every one of them had bandages or splints wrapped or fastened around arms or legs.
Even the man who had cut down Marquis Luchia's escort knights as if possessed, right up until the marquis himself killed him—hadn't he said so with his own mouth?
That he was left-handed.
And as if to prove it, white bandages had been wound tightly around his left arm.
"Terrible bastards. To drive even the wounded into a death trap like this."
One of the escort knights standing nearby followed up on Count Pelloman's words with a remark of disgust, but Marquis Luchia remained silent.
"In your eyes, did they look like soldiers who'd been driven?"
"Sir?"
Instead of Marquis Luchia, still wrapped in silence, Count Pelloman directed the question at the escort knight. Seeing the knight's uncomprehending expression, Count Pelloman kept his gaze fixed on the pile of Gauri dead, his face still hard, and continued.
"They absolutely did not look like they'd been driven."
At Count Pelloman's decisive words, the knight's face swiftly stiffened.
"Then..."
When the horrified knight could not finish his sentence, Count Pelloman merely nodded. Those bustling about nearby, having overheard the exchange with Count Pelloman, wore heavy expressions as well.
Considering the battles up to now, Count Pelloman's words could not be dismissed. No—they were, if anything, persuasive.
"As I thought. They're a pack that cannot be left alive."
Marquis Luchia's voice, breaking the silence, was thick with killing intent. His gaze as he spoke was fixed on Cheon Yuhwa's corpse, its lips still carrying a faint sneer.
"Your Grace!"
"What is it?"
It was Count Pelloman who answered the shout from the vanguard seeking Marquis Luchia. A breathless messenger approached, saluted, and made his report quickly.
"The enemy has hauled several dozen carts into the middle of the battlefield at Gaemun Mountain Fortress and withdrawn."
"What?"
At Count Pelloman's counter-question, the messenger continued.
"Upon confirmation, it was our own wounded soldiers who had been left behind at Gaemun Mountain Fortress. We are now dispatching troops to bring them back to the main camp..."
"Burn them."
"Your Grace?"
At Marquis Luchia's chilling words, the reporting messenger, Count Pelloman who was receiving the report, and all the knights standing nearby stared at him in shock.
"Did you not hear me? There is no need to haul them back. Burn them in the middle of the field."
"Your Grace!"
"And in return, load these corpses onto carts and send them back."
With that final order, Marquis Luchia turned his back and headed toward the command tent. The knights looked at Count Pelloman in bewilderment.
Count Pelloman, who had been unable to speak for a moment, smiled bitterly.
"Is it not laughable? Some, even wounded, throw their bodies into the fight to kill just one more enemy, and others owe their lives to the enemy's kindness and are carted back."
"But..."
A knight stepped forward to speak at Count Pelloman's self-mocking tone, but Pelloman was not finished.
"Of course, it was beyond your control, so there was nothing you could do, but the timing was bad. Follow His Grace's orders."
"My lord."
Letting the knight's voice go in one ear and out the other, Count Pelloman turned to look at the corpses of the Gauri soldiers.
"They are the enemy, but handle them with respect and send them back."
With those words, even Count Pelloman made his way to the command tent.
Along with tearing screams, cries rang out from the center of the battlefield. The wounded men, who had seemed barely able to move, somehow found the strength to leap from the carts with their entire bodies ablaze. Yet even that astonishing struggle soon faded as the flames consumed them one by one.
"Vicious bastards. To do that to their own..."
Avilrun, standing atop a collapsed section of the wall, watched with furrowed brow. They were enemy soldiers he wanted to kill, but no one would find the sight gratifying.
"O-over there!"
A soldier pointed toward more than ten carts approaching Gaemun Mountain Fortress, passing the place where the others were burning. Avilrun's eyes widened sharply when he saw the carts drawing near under a white flag.
The lead cart was draped with a blood-soaked Samjoko Flag, but on the carts following behind it, the bodies of Gauri soldiers could be seen, laid out in orderly rows.
"Notify the Great General—just in case. You, come with me to meet them!"
Avilrun quickly issued orders to the nearby soldiers and practically leaped down the wall alongside one soldier, mounting a horse. Soon two riders were galloping out of Gaemun Mountain Fortress.
The two horsemen who raced out met the Holy Empire soldiers leading the dozen or so carts.
"Stand back."
As Avilrun arrived, a Holy Empire knight pulled his soldiers back as if he had been waiting. When the soldiers dismounted from the carts and withdrew, Avilrun cautiously urged his horse forward.
"His Grace Marquis Luchia, supreme commander of the Great Holy Empire Expeditionary Force, returns your nation's fallen soldiers as a token of gratitude for your army's kindness."
Without so much as a perfunctory self-introduction, the Holy Empire knight spoke flatly. Half listening, Avilrun dismounted, approached the carts, and lifted the Samjoko Flag. Beneath it lay Cheon Yuhwa, a faint smile on his face.
"Damn..."
He had expected they were all dead, but seeing it with his own eyes tightened his chest even more. After gazing at the bodies for a moment, Avilrun walked over to the knight, inclined his head slightly, and answered.
"We are... grateful for your kindness."
They were enemies he had to kill, enemies he wanted to kill, but in this moment, he could not help thanking the Holy Empire knight. Barely acknowledging Avilrun's thanks, the knight turned his horse and ordered his soldiers to return. Then he suddenly halted his mount, turned his head slightly, and posed a question to Avilrun.
"There is one thing I am curious about."
"What is it?"
The knight, his head only half-turned, moved his lips as if finding the words difficult, and only after a long pause asked his question.
"Were they all wounded soldiers?"
"They were."
Avilrun answered calmly.
"Did they attack our rear on orders?"
"......."
At the knight's question, Avilrun silently looked over Yuhwa and the bodies lying quietly around him. With his gaze fixed there, he slowly answered.
"Our Great General ordered them to return alive."
"......."
"They will probably be punished in the afterlife for violating military law."
"Thank you... for your answer."
At Avilrun's reply, the knight's face hardened further. He turned his head back and spurred his horse. And without looking back, he did not forget to leave one last difficult remark.
"They were the enemy... but they were warriors worthy of respect."
"......."
With those final words, the Holy Empire knight and soldiers who had brought the carts slowly returned to their main camp. Avilrun watched their retreating backs and murmured quietly.
"Of course they were. They are warriors of Great Gauri..."
The faces of the soldiers watching the procession of carts slowly entering the fortress were suffused with solemnity and grim resolve.
Some wept at the sight of their comrades' bodies packed densely onto the few carts. Others reproached them, asking why they had done it. But those who were the objects of their tears and resentment all, without exception, wore smiles.