Chapter 335
Chapter 335
Iron Emperor — Chapter 335
Marquis Luchia's words were laced with praise, but a note of mockery seeped through his tone.
"However."
"......."
Marquis Luchia spoke slowly, then turned his gaze back to Earl Pelloman.
"The more a man stakes everything, the more swiftly he collapses into despair. I have watched many meet an empty death in the end."
"That is true."
More often than not, those who had fought ferociously lost their lives for nothing once their battle lines crumbled. But Earl Pelloman shook his head.
"I have an ominous feeling, however, that they will not be the same as those men."
"Is that so."
At Earl Pelloman's dissent, Marquis Luchia neither agreed nor disagreed, merely turning his gaze back toward the Gauri formation.
"If they see this battle through to the end, like the ones who have been constantly tying down our advance up to now... No, if such men do not cease to appear even after we push past those Gauri soldiers and advance on the capital..."
As Marquis Luchia's words trailed on, Earl Pelloman unconsciously swallowed.
"This campaign may well end in failure."
Earl Pelloman clearly heard him mutter a few more words. No—he could almost feel them.
Because they mirrored his own sentiments.
Those words were: 'This war was a flawed script from the start....'
Seated on the rooftop, staring vacantly at the enemy camp, Buru turned his head toward Avilrun.
"Hand out the rest of the rice balls."
"Sir?"
At best, the remainder amounted to two per man. There was nothing else to eat. That they even had that much in this ruin was remarkable. But at the order to hand out all of it, Avilrun tilted his head. Especially when the night had not even fully passed.
"We'll be fighting again soon."
"......."
Avilrun's normally placid face darkened. The exhaustion he hadn't noticed while fighting had swept over him during the rest, and his body still felt heavy. The other soldiers would be the same.
"Eat one right now, and tell them to eat the other on their own during the fighting."
"Yes. I will pass that along."
Having answered, Avilrun hopped down from the rooftop and trudged away. As he walked, he twisted his body this way and that, as if trying to loosen up his muscles even a little in advance.
"Tch, Gandengi’s improved a lot."
Satisfaction lingered at the corner of Buru's mouth as he watched Avilrun's retreating figure.
A short while later, men carrying food dippers moved among the soldiers.
The soldiers who received the modestly sized rice balls grinned and brought them to their mouths. They must know that the time to fight was drawing near. Yet they smiled like that over a single lump of rice.
Clop clop clop.
"Hm?"
The sound of weary hoofbeats reached Buru's ears. The sound was unmistakably coming from the rear, not the front. And it was only a single horse.
"Why the hell are there so many bastards with a death wish?"
Having roughly guessed the rider's identity, Buru let out a hearty laugh as he rose and walked toward the source of the hoofbeats.
"General, I have returned!"
The soldier threw himself to the ground the instant his horse arrived.
"You were ordered to report the situation here and remain there. What is the meaning of this!"
Geom Muhyul snapped angrily. But despite panting for breath, Nel answered without the slightest sign of being cowed.
"I apologize. I did not hear that order!"
"What?"
"Furthermore, my unit is here at Gaemun Mountain Fortress. Is it not only natural for me to return to my assigned unit!"
At the sight of Nel raising his head and looking Muhyul straight in the face, the surrounding soldiers could say nothing.
Not even Muhyul himself...
"The brat sure talks slick as a born liar, huh."
"I pay my respects to the Great General!"
"Yeah."
Buru pushed through the soldiers and acknowledged Nel’s salute.
"It took me exactly one day to reach here. The reinforcements will arrive soon!"
"Ooh!"
Here and there, the soldiers' faces began to brighten at the word reinforcements. Granted, a day was still a day, but Nel did not mention that he had not dismounted for a single moment, nor that he had changed horses four times and ridden at a full gallop the entire way.
In truth, such details were unnecessary.
What Nel had brought was not a mere report. It was hope.
"And the Daedaero has commanded me. He said to hold them off no matter what, and that he is racing here at once!"
At Nel's report, a deep smile spread across Buru's face. It was as though Nel were coaxing him to keep his strength up.
"Yeah. Heh. Tch, the old man’s gotten nothing but more worried with age. Eat a rice ball and rest up. We’ve got a grand fight ahead of us, don’t we?"
"Understood!"
Leaving Nel answering vigorously behind him, Buru gazed up at the sky.
In the distant sky... the darkness was receding, and a piercingly blue light was pushing its way in.
The blue light that heralded dawn was seeping into one corner of the dark sky. Marquis Luchia, who had been watching that chill light, mounted his horse. Then he slowly drew his sword.
Shrring.
At the cold ring of steel shivering through the dawn air, several nearby soldiers flinched. Toward the soldiers who were already arrayed and awaiting orders, Marquis Luchia spoke in an icy voice.
"Make this dawn their last."
"Attack!"
"Waaaaah!"
Taking up Marquis Luchia's words, Earl Pelloman ordered the attack, and the soldiers roared their battle cries as they began advancing toward Gaemun Mountain Fortress once more.
No matter what kind of world unfolds, dawn always comes.
Chapter 114 — Desperate Struggle
Bwuuuuu! Bwuuuu!
The horn blasts might have sounded different to the Holy Empire soldiers charging into Gaemun Mountain Fortress, but to the Gauri soldiers they were gratingly familiar. They’d heard them for days—often enough to know exactly what the enemy was about to do from the sound alone.
Then came the ear-splitting battle cries....
Waaaah!
"The whoresons are slow."
Standing atop the barricade with a great axe resting across his shoulder, Eulji Buru's brow was deeply furrowed. A fight was inevitable anyway, but he was grumbling as though even that brief wait was tedious. In the meantime, the Holy Empire's soldiers entered the archers' range. The one advantage they held at this moment was precisely the archers' range.
"Loose!"
Geom Muhyul's voice rang out, and then a rain of arrows loosed in answer covered the sky. One might think the arrows would be running out by now, given how incessantly they'd been launched, but—was it fortunate?—the arrows of the dead still remained in the rear.
The archers were loosing the dead men's share as well.
"Shieldbearers, Pikemen, brace yourselves tight! Axemen, prepare to throw hand axes!"
"Understood!"
Buru kept his gaze fixed on the Holy Empire soldiers charging through the rain of arrows and shouted to his men. Their usual confident answer came booming back.
Waaaah!
The flinching they'd shown at the start, every time a comrade fell dead, was no longer anywhere to be seen. The sight of them charging forward, using their comrades' corpses as stepping stones, was admirable, enemy though they were.
"Heh."
A short laugh of admiration escaped Buru's lips.
That was because the Gauri soldiers, burning with fighting spirit against them, were every bit their equal, if not more. Buru turned his head and looked at Muhyul.
Muhyul's lips were moving as he prepared to give the order for the Axemen to throw on one side, and his thoughts were written plainly enough to read. A ceaseless muttering of 'Just a little more, just a little more,' flowed from him.
"Axemen, you bastards, if you don't each smash one skull with one axe, you'd best know that after the war ends, you won't get a wink of sleep all the way back—just training."
"Heh-heh."
"Hnngh, good grief."
Buru tossed out the remark to loosen any remaining tension. The confident men snickered, while a few carefully judged the distance and grumbled uneasily.
They looked more afraid of the training waiting for them afterward than of surviving the battle in front of them.
"Throw!"
Muhyul's order cut through the soldiers’ laughter. The hand axes flew in beautiful arcs.
At the end of those trajectories, death waited.
"Block it!"
Thwack!
"Gaaak, my shoulder!"
The screams of the enemy soldiers, which had only reached them as muffled noise before, were now at a distance where they could be understood fairly well. Humming as though their screams were a song, Buru lowered his gaze for a moment. The translation ring caught his eye.
"Tch, without this thing it’d be damned hard to tell what those bastards are yappin’ about."
He'd been wearing the translation ring for a long time, but it always felt mysterious.
"Damn it all, to be smiling and looking at a ring in a situation like this."
Not far from Eulji Buru, Avilrun, who had just flung a hand axe on the throwing order, was pouting and grumbling.
"What's Gandengi staring blankly with a sour face for! Your axe must've missed!"
"It didn't completely miss, damn it! I hit his shoulder, I said!"
At Buru's teasing, Avilrun shot back, his face twisted.
'How in the world did I end up here...'
Hurling another hand axe, Avilrun didn't stop his muttering.
In truth, when he had thought a slip of the tongue would get him killed, he had instead been dragged to the training ground used by the nobles he despised—the upper ranks.
Until he saw His Majesty the Yeolje and the Great Generals training so brutally, drenched in blood, that it wouldn’t have been strange for them to collapse dead on the spot, he’d been moved to tears and thrilled.
That was before the rampaging Buru over there branded him Gandengi.
"The enemy is breaking through! Ready yourselves!"
"Understood!"
Still, if Avilrun had gained one thing, it was the ability to handle one or two Imperial soldiers charging at him with ease, thanks to having followed Buru and survived countless brushes with death.
"Damn it, die!"
Avilrun's axe blow shattered the enemy's shield and cleanly split his skull. That single stroke was worthy of applause no matter where it was displayed.
"Then you oughta manage at least that much. Even a pack of monkeys could do it if you beat the lessons into ’em, couldn’t they?"
Clang!
"Guh, that's absurd..."
Avilrun tried to retort but wound up busy deflecting an incoming enemy blade. The Gauri army and the Imperial army had begun a fierce melee across the barricade.
Whoosh!
"Whoa!"
While Eulji Buru was looking away, a blue spearhead shot toward him. He merely tilted his head, letting it glance past, and saw the panicked face of the enemy soldier stumbling forward under his own momentum.
Crunch!
"Don't get cute."
Buru lifted his foot and kicked the man in the face with his hobnailed sole. The soldier flew backward faster than he’d come without even managing a scream. Where his facial features should have been, only a blood-soaked footprint remained.