Chapter 354
Chapter 354
Iron Emperor — Chapter 354
Waaaaahhh!
The roar of a vast army, a hundred thousand strong, began to roll across the Palancia Plains.
Like a swelling wave, the soldiers of the Holy Empire surged closer. Count Hail Selmier, commanding the Empire Coalition, allowed a flicker of alarm to cross his features—but it quickly melted into a smile.
"This war is our victory!"
His arm shot up as though the battle were already won. The knights and soldiers answered with shouts of their own.
"Archers, ready!"
At Count Selmier's call, signal flags rose in unison all along the line. Through the gaps between the infantry, bowmen streamed forward and spread out across the front of the soldiers.
"Knight orders and cavalry—ready against enemy assault!"
At the next command, the cavalry waiting at both ends of the infantry line dressed their ranks, ready to charge at any moment.
Two masses that had been crawling toward each other abruptly burst into speed. The faces of the charging Holy Empire soldiers were visibly flushed, burning with heat.
Count Selmier absorbed the sight, then, with a sweeping motion, drew his cherished sword and bellowed.
"All forces, charge!"
"Charge!"
The cry rang out, and the deep bellowing of horns shook the air in every direction. In the same instant, a rain of arrows soared over the heads of the advancing Empire Coalition ranks.
The rain of arrows that had flown over the Empire Coalition soldiers soon plunged toward the oncoming Holy Empire troops like the scythe of death.
"Front rank, keep running! Next rank, brace for arrows!"
"Raise shields!"
Desperate shouts burst from knights across the charging Holy Empire line.
Yet against the knights' shouts, against the rain of arrows screaming down at them, the soldiers' movements were sluggish. They had begun their run too early, exhausting themselves too quickly.
Still, their lives were on the line, and the soldiers threw themselves into motion with every ounce of will they had. Men carrying crude planks—too rough to call shields, yet wide—slid to a halt as they ran.
Beside the first man to stop, as if they had planned the move ahead of time, other shieldbearers crowded in—five or six together—pressing their planks tightly against one another to form improvised barriers.
In scattered places, rough but effective shelters from the arrows bloomed. But men who had to run holding shields bigger than their own bodies had limited endurance; for the soldiers farther forward, simply running was the best they could manage.
And now the rain of arrows fell, and death arrived.
Thwack-thwack-thwack!
"Gurk!"
Three or four shafts drove into the bodies of soldiers racing for the cover of the shields.
Under the eyes of comrades staring down at them in pity from the protective shadow of the planks, soldier after soldier met a hollow death.
"On the move!"
Relatively safe from arrows, the knights shrugged the shafts off their armor and gave orders.
After each volley, another flight of arrows came arcing toward the attackers, but the soldiers lunged desperately past the shield-shadows already formed, sprinting for the next pockets of cover ahead.
It was a crude tactic that elite Imperial troops would never need—a desperate measure forced upon them by an army of hastily conscripted levies.
Count Hail Selmier's expression hardened.
Not because the situation was turning against the Empire Coalition, and not because the Holy Empire's response was too effective.
As he had anticipated, the Holy Empire soldiers had started running too early and were already tiring by the time the arrows struck. What stiffened his face was not the results—it was the way the enemy was responding.
Those shield-umbrellas thrown up in the midst of the charging ranks when the first volley fell—improvised shelters from the rain.
Every time he spotted another cluster of those raw wooden planks, wider than a grown man's torso, they transformed into priceless cover for soldiers who had no other defense. And now, in the gaps between the second and third volleys, the soldiers were darting from one shield's shadow to the next, advancing steadily.
None of this was especially novel or frightening. In small-scale unit operations it might be worth applause—but this was a battle where more than a hundred thousand men were crashing together.
What, after all, was the purpose of drawing up formations in the first place?
A clash of great armies on open plains is a battle of raw strength, a fight of formation against formation. Victory or defeat turns on whose formation collapses first. And in that context, the Holy Empire's behavior was beyond common sense.
"Just what are they doing?"
"Exactly, sir. From our side, it's an entirely welcome development, but..."
At Count Selmier's baffled tone, his adjutant, Viscount Ray Philious, offered an awkward laugh in reply.
Viewed purely as a means of pushing through arrow fire, the enemy's efficiency was passable.
When the first volley fell, the men in the front ranks—who had been running closest to the arrows—never reached the cover of the shields and tumbled, their bodies bristling like hedgehogs. But after that, casualties had clearly dropped.
After all, the soldiers were moving with obvious preparedness, timing their dashes between the volleys, slipping from shadow to shadow, drawing closer with every step.
The problem was that the arrow attack was only the beginning. To Count Selmier's eye, what remained of the Holy Empire's formation could barely be called a formation at all.
Scattered across the field, running this way and that, the cohesion of a formed body had long since vanished.
Even if they arrived intact enough to fight, they would crash harmlessly against the solid, compact ranks of the Empire Coalition.
And yet they were running as if simply reaching the enemy was the whole objective of the battle.
These were tactics fit for mercenaries—tricky, brawling methods suited to small engagements and the chaos of close-quarters fighting. As if arriving at the same thought as Count Selmier, Viscount Philious let out a bewildered murmur.
"It's not as though they're a gang of mercenaries..."
"Mercenaries?"
Count Selmier had nodded along with Viscount Philious's muttering, but a slight change came over his eyes. No—he began studying the approaching enemy line more closely. Catching the shift, Viscount Philious followed his gaze.
"Mercenaries?"
"Mm."
At the certainty in Count Selmier's voice, Viscount Philious gave an affirmative murmur.
Unlike the soldiers in front, men in mismatched gear were rushing toward them in a mass.
And their numbers were not small.
"We knew they had mercenaries mixed in all along, but the rear of the force breaking through the arrows right now also looks irregular."
Having mercenaries in a war was expected. Aside from mercenaries belonging to the major companies, even rootless sellswords could hardly avoid an empire's conscription, though unlike ordinary soldiers, they drew decent pay. Both sides, after all, had their share of mercenaries.
The issue, as Viscount Philious put it, was the behavior of the ordinary soldiers pushing through the arrows ahead of the mercenary column. The very front rank were clearly conscripts, visibly scrambling this way and that to escape the arrows. But from about two-thirds of the way back through the formation to the mercenary block, the troops moved differently.
There was composure in their movements.
"I see it."
From the middle ranks onward, the men could only be mercenaries disguised in conscript gear.
At last, a smile stole over Count Selmier's hardened face.
What was unknown caused unease. Once you knew, there was nothing to fear.
"Trying to hide how many mercenaries they've got—now their little scheme's plain to see."
Viscount Philious, too, had read the enemy's move just as Count Selmier had.
"So the endgame is to force a chaotic melee."
Count Selmier folded his arms atop his horse and let out a short laugh. Viscount Philious burst into a guffaw.
"Puhahaha! That's it, then. Still, from their position, it's not such a terrible idea, is it?"
"I suppose it might be."
Count Selmier, noticeably more relaxed now, answered the viscount.
The intent was clear. Forces made up of raw conscripts were doomed to defeat, so they meant to use mercenaries to drag the battle into a chaotic melee. Even that way, they likely hoped to inflict at least some damage on the Empire Coalition.
But now that scheme wouldn't work either.
"Prepare for a melee."
"Understood."
Anything was manageable if you braced for it in advance.
The most critical element of maneuvering a great army was coordinating the soldiers as a body. To that end, knights and nobles were assigned groups of soldiers to control, and those knights and lesser lords in turn received direction from higher-ranking knights or nobles.
That was the heart of commanding vast armies.
The one thing that wrecked it was an unexpected, chaotic melee.
But once they had recognized the plan to force a melee, even that would no longer work; higher-ranking commanders and knights could be committed en masse to control the chaos.
Not long after Viscount Philious relayed Count Selmier's command, scores of knights and lesser nobles who had been waiting at the command post rushed out into the soldiers' formations.
They would lead the men through the chaos.
"Well, they'll have to show at least this much cunning if this is going to be fun."
Count Selmier stroked the sword at his belt, steadying the eager thrill rising inside him.
He could already see victory.
Chapter 124 — Mercenary King Blamir
"Heh—they caught on quick."
Mercenary King Koyo Blamir's lips curled upward as he kept pace within the mercenary column. Across the field, in the solid ranks of the Empire Coalition, mounted knights and lower-ranking nobles were already scrambling into motion.
From the command position, what looked like hundreds of horsemen burst out and filtered through the soldiers' lines. Anyone watching could tell: they were preparing for a melee.
"Well, of course—if they've read our strategy, that's exactly what they should do. Very impressive."
He looked almost ready to praise the enemy commander for doing well.
Their movements practically broadcast the fact that their strategy had been discovered.
And yet, that was the correct response.
Just because their strategy had been discovered didn't mean they could pull the army back. With enough men to populate a city spread across the plain at a run, were they supposed to reverse direction mid-charge? Not even village goblins would try something like that. The moment they did, a massacre would begin.
On the contrary, openly displaying a countermeasure could rattle the attackers. Perhaps the Empire Coalition command staff understood that too, because their movements became even more conspicuous.
"Charles, send the signal."
At Blamir's command, the wizard Charles, who followed at his heels, answered quietly and launched a small tongue of flame into the air.
At the signal, the Imperial Magic Corps began lifting skyward from the rear of the mercenary column.
"Move fast!"
In that moment—while the Empire Coalition's senior commanders were distracted by the dazzling ascent of the Empire's proud Magic Corps—the running mercenaries subtly changed their movement. Mid-stride, they formed groups of five as if the pattern had been rehearsed.
"The Magic Corps!"
Count Selmier spoke in the tone of a man who had finally seen what he expected. The black mass of Holy Empire soldiers flooding toward him did not frighten him, but the handful of wizards now rising into the air was different.
"Wizards—prepare to respond!"
At Count Selmier's command, the wizards of the Maritime Empire and the Federal Empire began lifting into the air themselves. Rising above the rain of arrows that filled the sky, they advanced steadily to meet the Magic Corps of the Holy Empire.
Moments later, the staggering force granted to humanity—Magic—began to embroider the canopy over the Palancia Plains.