Chapter 89
Chapter 89
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 89
Bwooooooo!
The wail of horns pierced the dim dawn sky, jolting the soldiers from their sleep.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
A moment later, a deafening clamor of iron rang out inside and outside Vihanen Fortress. Those who had been leaning against the fortress walls, trying to catch what little rest they could, readjusted their grips on their weapons and climbed up onto the ramparts.
"Damn it! The North Roselin dogs are swarming in!"
"Everyone back to your positions!"
"Where are the wizards!"
The sleeping Vihanen Fortress awoke once more to the clamor of soldiers' warning cries, ready to drink blood again. Archers were already in position, staring outward with tense eyes, while shieldbearers took their places one by one to protect them. From the spears and swords occasionally seen strapped to the shieldbearers' backs, it was clear that the men originally assigned to those roles were already dead, their bodies plugging the gaps in the fortress's crumbling walls.
"Ready!"
A soldier watching the enemy lines from the fortress spire shouted down, and the men below hauled back the few remaining catapults. But the stones they were meant to hurl had long since run out. These were men who had run out of stone to repair the walls and resorted to packing the breaches with the bodies of their own comrades—yet they worked the catapult ropes without pause.
"Load faster!"
The soldier in the spire who was tracking the North Roselin advance screamed desperately. As if the enemy's approach felt impossibly swift, he shouted while whipping his gaze back and forth between the catapults and the North Roselin army.
"Heave!"
What they loaded onto the catapults were bundles of bloodstained cloth. It looked as if every scrap of fabric from the dead's clothing and everything inside the fortress, save what was needed to bandage wounds, had been gathered up and bound together.
"There's an arm sticking out! Shove it back in!"
"Yes, sir!"
It was obvious that cloth bundles alone would never fly far. At the center of each bundle lay the corpse of a North Roselin soldier killed on or near the walls.
"Damn it, this isn't something people should be doing!"
A soldier crammed an arm that had flopped out of a cloth bundle back inside, shouting as if possessed.
"Heh. War itself isn't something people should be doing in the first place," a huge man passing by snorted.
A soldier nearby yelled out as if to reassure himself.
"Right! We're already ramming our own dead into the broken walls—no point being choosy now!"
"Exactly. Right now, the only thing we should be thinking about is driving those bastards back."
The soldiers nodded, each shouting something, as if trying to shake off the unease in their hearts.
"Stand ready!"
The shout from the spire cut off their conversation. The soldier in the spire wore a cautious expression, as if gauging the distance. The catapult crews watched him with tense eyes.
"Enemy catapult attack! Take cover!"
"Fuck!"
But the order that reached them was not to fire—it was to take cover. A curse tore from the mouth of a soldier as he sprinted for shelter.
WHIIIIIZ!
"Incoming!"
Someone shouted as he threw himself headfirst to the ground at the sound of air being split. It was a sound so vivid he didn't even need to shout the warning.
KRA-KRA-BOOM!
KABOOM!
"Aaaagh!"
The boulders detonating against the fortress wall hurled the archers standing atop it to the ground. The shieldbearers waiting beside them were utterly useless. As if to prove it, the shredded flesh and blood of a shieldbearer who had taken a direct hit lay scattered in a grisly mess.
"Damn it!"
When the hail of boulders crashing across the fortress finally slackened somewhat, a catapult soldier raised his head and let out a hollow curse. The observer who had been gauging the distance and directing their fire was gone. More precisely, the top of the spire had been sheared clean off by the enemy catapults.
"What do we do now!"
"For now, you men gather up every rock that landed inside the fortress!"
"Yes, sir!"
Cloth bundles packed with corpses instead of stone inevitably had shorter range. The catapult bombardment, which had been absent from the enemy's assaults for days, had resumed. The catapult commander watched as unarmed soldiers sprinted to collect the stones that had landed inside the fortress, spat the sand from his mouth, and muttered.
"Bastards. If they were going to throw them, they could've done it yesterday..."
His own comrades, the ones plugging the fortress walls, had suddenly come to mind. But he understood the meaning of this bombardment.
"Fine. Let's see this through to the end. You Holy Empire lapdogs."
This was the final assault to bring the fortress down. And as he thought it, the sound of boulders splitting the sky rang out like a funeral dirge.
"Take cover!"
BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The flying boulders hammered the fortress interior here and there. But compared to the first barrage, the damage seemed lighter—perhaps thanks to the alertness it had instilled.
KABOOM!
"Aaaagh! That's where the wounded are!"
A boulder slammed directly into one of the buildings, and a soldier who had been keeping low screamed like a madman. Into their hollow despair, a great shout thundered in their ears.
"Heh! You idiots, how far are you planning to run? Fire!"
"Huh!"
"It's Leopard Head!"
The roar came from the spire whose top had been blown away. There stood a huge man called Leopard Head, shouting and waving his arms.
"I said fire! Fire!"
"Light them up!"
At the renewed command, the soldiers set fire to the cloth. The flames spread in an instant—likely soaked in oil. A stroke of luck that any oil remained at all.
"Release!"
Ting!
FWOOSH! FWOOSH!
WHIZZ-WHIZZ-WHIZZ! WHIZZ!
Even in the dawn twilight, the flames that shot skyward from the catapults blazed bright. Yet the faces of the soldiers watching those ascending fires were infinitely dark.
FWOOSH!
"What is that!"
Fear flickered across the faces of the North Roselin soldiers advancing in formation at the sight of flames soaring into the air from inside the fortress.
"It's nothing but the enemy's last desperate flailing! Do not break formation—advance! Advance!"
Despite the knights' urging, fear might spread across their faces, but their feet did not stop. They knew without looking that hesitating would earn them summary execution by a knight's blade. They could only pray the fireballs did not land on them.
Fwoosh-crack!
"Wh-what is that!"
Some of the fireballs arcing through the air abruptly burst apart. And then they began to rain down like a shower of fire.
"Aaaagh!"
"Someone put out the fire!"
"Hiiiiik!"
The effect was far greater than that of a single mass. The oil-soaked cloth bundles shattered into countless pieces, scattering in every direction and spreading flames onto the bodies of the North Roselin soldiers.
"What the hell is this!"
"They're throwing corpses at us!"
When a fire-seared corpse crashed down and splattered amid the falling cloth scraps, the soldiers' terror deepened.
"This can't be!"
Viscount Hyuen Belmaron, watching the soldiers' confusion, widened his eyes in disbelief. The damage was far worse than he had imagined.
Bwoo!
"Damn it, cowardly fools!"
As the charge horn blared, the knight commanding the soldiers on the front line scowled. Even if it meant more casualties, this was the moment to steady the formation and close the distance further. But the idiotic command staff was already ordering the charge.
"Nothing for it."
Viscount Belmaron shook his head, raised his longsword toward the sky, and bellowed.
"Charge! Forward!"
"All units, charge forward!"
The moment Viscount Belmaron's order fell, the signalman beside him repeated the command and raised his signal flag into the air. In response, reply flags rose from among the massed twenty thousand troops in the battle lines. Viscount Belmaron stared at the fireballs rolling on the ground and thought,
We'll have to dodge them, but once we break these bastards, there shouldn't be any more large-scale battles.
The troops had been momentarily rattled by the enemy's rain of fire, but just as the command staff had anticipated, the enemy no longer had supplies. Viscount Belmaron watched the vast army charging toward the fortress with war cries like a storm cloud and shouted boldly.
"This is the enemy's final desperation! Tonight, we raise our cups in victory at Vihanen Fortress!"
"Uwaaaaaaah!"
As he watched the soldiers' backs surging forward around him, Viscount Belmaron glimpsed the end of the tiresome siege.
"Well, that had an unexpected effect! Eheheh!"
WHIZZ-CRASH!
The huge man observing the enemy from the shattered spire clicked his tongue just as a boulder narrowly whistled past him.
"Heh, nearly got myself killed over someone else's war for nothing. Damn it, just wait till I make it back alive!"
"Sir Leopard Head, are you all right!"
At the worried shout from below, the giant called Leopard Head snorted roughly and bellowed downward.
"Hmph! Hey, Keun Namu! Just call me Dupyo. Forget the honorifics at a time like this!"
"Understood!"
Keun Namu shouted back, still composed enough for his voice to carry. It was the group of northern mercenaries led by Keun Namu—the same ones who had encountered Gye Ung-sam. But aside from Samdopyo, none of the other members were visible here.
Had they all fallen in battle?
"My ass!"
Dupyo's rough voice rumbled low.
"What? You said it'd be safe and comfortable and nice?"
Dupyo's face, chewing and spitting his words, was twisted with resentment. A memory of Ung-sam from before they parted ways suddenly flickered through his mind.
'Take the group and head to South Roselin for now. Nothing much should happen. We'll stay here and rescue Baron Gowin, so all you need to do is report everything so far to His Majesty. Oh! And while you're at it, look into the direction of the troops the baron raised. They're said to have headed for the Holy Empire, so they'll probably be deployed to South Roselin.'
'Why me, of all people!'
'You little shit, I'm sending you on purpose so you can take it easy!'
The image of Ung-sam driving his point home with a beating as he finished speaking.
"This is why I hate lies!" Dupyo declared with an expression that made it clear Ung-sam was, after all, not to be trusted.
His anguished cry rang out from the top of the spire, and above it, more fireballs soared into the sky.
"Archers, ready!"
Baron Bels raised his longsword into the air as he watched the North Roselin host swarm in like a cloud. Almost simultaneously, the swords of the knights commanding atop the fortress wall also pointed skyward.
Ti-tick.
The sound of bowstrings being drawn taut echoed from all directions as the archers aimed at the North Roselin soldiers charging forward in a disordered battle rush.
Gulp.
Through the screams and shouts, Baron Bels could hear someone swallow hard. Even as he watched the enemy draw closer, he did not lower his hand.
Drip!
Loud in his ear came the sound of sweat rolling down his cheek and striking his armor.
"A little more..."
The words slipped from his mouth—whether meant for the North Roselin army or for himself, he could not tell.
"More..."
Baron Bels could feel the gazes of the commanders waiting for his order without even looking at them. It was because he himself had done exactly the same thing while serving as aide to Marquis Helios Baikal.
At some point, the enemy catapult fire had ceased.
It had stopped right when the North Roselin charge began. To be precise, right after they dropped boulders onto the heads of their own charging troops and turned dozens of them into meat paste.
Two hundred...
Baron Bels felt the fireballs soaring from behind him toward the enemy lines and silently counted.
One hundred and eighty.
Was it intoxication with blood?
War was like a drug. The North Roselin soldiers, faltering as they burned, grew closer and closer to the fortress, their faces twisted with madness. As each expression became something he could read, the final number rang inside Baron Bels's mind.
One hundred and fifty!
At the same instant, the longsword held aloft leveled toward the enemy lines.
"Loose!"
TWANG! TWANG-TWANG-TWANG!
WHOOSH! WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH! WHOOSH-WHOOSH!
Radiating outward from Baron Bels, the twang of released bowstrings rippled like a wave. In an instant, arrows filled the sky and rained down upon the North Roselin soldiers.