Chapter 331
Chapter 331
Iron Emperor — Chapter 331
"If you don't want to end up like them, run!"
They didn't need to be told twice. The remaining troops were men who, in their own way, had grown accustomed to blood and war. They let the knights' shouts go in one ear and repeated the motions they had drilled over and over these past few days.
The soldiers running at the front caught sight of Gaemun Mountain Fortress's outer wall, scorched and blackened in every direction.
"Prepare the torches!"
Dry branches and grass had already been laid beneath the fortress wall. The Holy Empire soldiers must have known that fire would ignite there. Still, they rushed in without slowing. Geom Muhyul's brow furrowed.
The enemy, too, knew that slowing down meant even greater losses, so they were charging headlong. Over the course of the fighting, they had no doubt grown accustomed to the Gauri soldiers' responses.
"Throw the torches!"
"Throw!"
At Muhyul's command, the officers and soldiers echoed it back and hurled the torches they held down the wall. The torches that landed among the dry branches rapidly began to catch and spread.
"Damn it, what a shit show."
A rough curse burst from Muhyul's lips.
The Holy Empire soldiers started throwing sand onto the places where the torches had ignited. It wasn't a large amount of sand, but each man scattered what he had brought onto the flashpoints where the flames were just spreading. Some soldiers even picked up torches and hurled them right back over the fortress wall.
"Cut the ropes!"
Another order followed. As the soldiers cut the taut-drawn ropes, logs and the boulders piled high atop them began to come crashing down. These could neither be extinguished with sand nor blocked with shields.
"Uwaaaaah!"
Nowhere but the battlefield does anyone cheer another man's death with such glee. As the Holy Empire soldiers scaling the wall were swept off by the tumbling boulders and logs, the Gauri soldiers atop the wall roared in triumph, cheering their deaths.
"Archers, loose without pause!"
The different weapons scattered around the soldiers raining down arrows without pause made it obvious that they were improvised archers. The trained archers had been the first exposed to the wizards' attacks and had died. But even clumsy archery like this was enough.
There were more than enough enemy targets for the arrows raining down.
In one sense that was a relief, but it was also despairing. It showed just how badly the enemy outnumbered them.
As the battle cries echoing above Gaemun Mountain Fortress reached him, Earl Pelloman furrowed his brow.
"It seems they made an abundance of preparations in that short a time."
"Hmm."
At Earl Pelloman's remark, Marquis Luchia nodded as if he, too, found it somewhat unexpected.
"Do we know who led the relief force that entered yesterday?"
"Well, that is...."
Information on Gauri was far too scarce. In truth, going to war without a proper grasp of the enemy's intelligence was an absurd situation, but the name of the Holy Empire carried enough power to disregard even such basic fundamentals.
"Judging from the splendor of the newly raised banner above the fortress, it appears a high-ranking commander has entered."
It was because the Three-legged Crow, the emblem of a Great General, had caught their eye. At Earl Pelloman's reply, a low scoff slipped from Marquis Luchia's lips.
"If the number a high-ranking commander led here isn't even two or three thousand, doesn't that say it all?"
"Indeed. The fortress's fall is now only a matter of time."
"Still, it truly is sturdy."
Marquis Luchia watched the Holy Empire soldiers swarm up the fortress wall like bees and murmured with a hint of admiration. Earl Pelloman chimed in as if agreeing with him.
"Indeed. On the first day, the wizards reported that Gaemun Mountain Fortress's grand anti-magic formation appeared even sturdier than our own Holy Empire's grand anti-magic formation."
"More than that, the fortress itself was built under ideal conditions for defense. And I don’t know how they constructed it, but the way the wall doesn’t collapse all at once is worth studying."
"Indeed."
A conversation unfolded that seemed almost detached from the war. Though considerable time had passed since the soldiers had begun shouting and charging, not a single soldier had managed to properly crest the wall.
"After another half-day of rest, they seem full of energy."
"What say you to committing the Magic Corps at this juncture?"
Marquis Luchia, scowling at the Gauri camp with displeasure on his face, had no sooner voiced his irritation than Earl Pelloman carefully urged the deployment of the Magic Corps.
"That would be best. I had intended to finish this without the Magic Corps, but at this rate we may only waste more time."
"Then I will order their deployment at once."
As Marquis Luchia agreed, Earl Pelloman smiled in relief and summoned an attendant knight to relay the order. While Pelloman passed it on, Marquis Luchia spoke again in a cold voice tinged with faint admiration.
"If we were to carry out this siege without magical combat power, I couldn't guarantee how much longer it might take with these forces. When we return, I'll have every last one of those so-called Imperial tactical analysts replaced."
"It is understandable why North Roselin's great army could not breach it."
"But that is all it is. In the end, it's simply a little more bother."
Into Marquis Luchia's line of sight came the wizards slowly rising into the air.
"Wizards!"
"Enemy Magic Corps sighted from their camp!"
The soldiers who had climbed atop the half-collapsed watchtowers all began shouting at once, one after another.
So tormented had they been that fear was embedded in their voices. They, most likely, had been forced to endure the wizards' offensives with their own bodies. That helplessness had transformed into terror.
"Stop with the damn hysterics! Just do what we prepared! Gandengi, bring my axes, ya hear!"
"Yes sir!"
The moment Eulji Buru's roaring rebuke came crashing down, the soldiers' agitation visibly subsided. Before now, there had been no way to answer the wizards' offensives—but hadn't they prepared something yesterday?
Ample preparation steadied the soldiers' hearts. Of course, the fact that Buru, a living symbol of force, stood at the center must have made it all the more effective.
Avilrun, who had answered with vigor and sprinted down, came back huffing and straining alongside another soldier, hauling up a dozen or so axes. Every one of them was a heavy, solid-looking axe, the sort used not for fighting enemy soldiers but for destroying siege engines.
Naturally, the great axe wielded by Buru was the exception.
"General, brought 'em!"
"Aye, good work. Muhyul, you ready?"
"Ready."
At Muhyul's answer, Buru flashed a satisfied grin and shouted to the soldiers fighting tooth and nail.
"Aye. Everybody listen up! Just once! We only gotta hold once, y'hear! I'll knock down every last one of them flying pests!"
"Uwaaaaah!"
An answering roar erupted in response to Buru's shout. Not a single soldier's voice had escaped being hoarse from the aftermath of battle, but they were shouting louder than ever.
"Heh, they must have gone mad after all."
A wizard drifting through the air clicked his tongue as he regarded the Gauri soldiers roaring in fury.
"Still, remember that our own losses were too great. Have you forgotten how many of our comrades fell to those strange arrows on the first day?"
"As if I could forget."
A flame seemed to kindle in the eyes of the wizard who answered. This was no grand magical duel; wizards were seldom killed in ordinary battle.
In other kingdoms, such things did happen on occasion, but the Holy Empire's Magic Corps had almost never experienced it. At most one or two. Never had so many been killed in a single battle.
"Shields up, and descend slowly!"
As the Deputy Corps Commander's magically amplified voice rang out, the wizards began a gradual descent in order to choke out the last breath of Gaemun Mountain Fortress.
The Holy Empire's Magic Corps, wrapped in a milky membrane as they came down like reapers descending from the heavens, was terror itself. Had magic's attack range been longer, the Gauri soldiers would not have managed to shoot even a single arrow up at them.
"Everyone take cover!"
"Be careful!"
"Keep both eyes open and stay ready to respond!"
From all across the wall, the shouts of officers clamored loudly, directing the soldiers' actions.
Some soldiers hid behind sections of intact parapet, while others readied themselves to throw their bodies onto piles of water-soaked grass and cloth below the wall. The Holy Empire soldiers were also pulling back from the wall in unison at the wizards' appearance.
"Here they come!"
A tense shout rang out.
"Be ready! Even under enemy magic attack, do not fire without orders! We'll only get one chance!"
At Muhyul's cry, the Yudonno gunners concealed inside the fortress watched the approaching swarm of wizards with tense faces.
"Great General! It's too dangerous!"
Avilrun, who had been hiding himself, cried out for Buru to take cover, seeing him standing motionless atop the fortress wall. But Buru did not so much as turn his head, waving a hand dismissively as if annoyed.
"Just keep hidin' and don't get singed. Like hell I'd die to these bastards."
He cracked his neck to both sides and swung his great axe in wide arcs left and right. As if daring them to shoot if they pleased.
Naturally, the soldiers' eyes were drawn to Buru.
"Fireball only—no Ice Magic beforehand!"
He ordered them to abandon the usual sequence of ice magic followed by fire magic to maximize destruction and instead use explosive fire magic alone. The wizards answered by beginning their incantations.
"Owen, I'd appreciate one right on that insolent dwarf's head."
The wizard maintaining his Shield at the vanguard pointed to one side and let out a nasty-sounding murmur. The wizard who had finished his incantation, both hands brimming with wavering energy, matched his comrade's request with a cruel smile curling at his lips.
"I didn't like the look of that hulking dwarf either."
"Heh heh."
"Fireball!"
Whatever could threaten them was now gone, and they were all but invincible on the battlefield. The fiery aura enveloping both hands coalesced into a blazing orb like a miniature sun, and in the next instant it was launched hurtling toward Gaemun Mountain Fortress.
"Keep pouring them on, up to five volleys, then we pull back!"
As the Deputy Corps Commander's amplification magic reverberated through the air, the wizards were already chanting successive spells before the first sphere of flame had even finished its blazing descent.
"Oum Shala Om... Wh—what is that!"
The moment the roaring mass of flame drove straight down toward Eulji Buru, soldiers screamed in horror from every direction.
"D—Dodge!"
"Great General!"
Even amid their desperate cries, Buru made no move to evade, only tightening his grip on the great axe with one hand. It was the instant the fire, like a small sun, came crashing down, its tongues of flame licking out to swallow Buru's torso.
"Hup!"
The short, sharply drawn breath rang out with abnormal loudness. Buru's shoulders gave what seemed a momentary flinch—then the great axe, which had been lowered to his hip, traced a diagonal slash upward and smashed into the plummeting mass of fire.
KA-KA-KABOOM!
The moment Buru's great axe split the fireball, a detonation unlike any other fireball erupted, wrapping the area in streams of flame.
"No!"
At the sight, Avilrun, who had been hiding farther back, came running out in shock.
"Ah!"
The blaze that had engulfed the spot where Buru stood scattered in all directions, drifting down like feathers.
"Tch, always makin’ such a fuss."