Chapter 90
Chapter 90
Iron Emperor — Chapter 90
Thwump! Thwump!
"Aaaagh!"
Thud! Thud!
As the arrows rained down, some raised their shields and kept running, while others collapsed mid-stride, four or five arrows sprouting from their bodies.
"Hii... hiiik!"
A few stopped running, raising their shields over their heads and freezing in place.
Slash!
"Urk!"
"Do not stop! Any man who stops will be immediately executed like this!"
Blades descended without mercy on the cowards.
The heads of several North Roselin soldiers who had halted their charge rolled across the ground like stones. And at the knight's chilling command, the frenzied charge resumed.
The North Roselin soldiers must have been driven by the belief that stopping meant death. Leaving the corpses of their comrades behind them, they charged forward again.
"Archers! Form ranks and return fire! Wizards, stand by!"
The voice of Viscount Hyuen Belmaron, who commanded the North Roselin vanguard, rang out as if dominating the entire battlefield. Having charged early, the scattered formations were slow to reorganize.
Ting! T-clang!
"Move faster!"
Viscount Belmaron's irritated yell was directed at the archers as he deflected an arrow flying toward him. However, under the hail of arrows, the scattered ranks did not form up easily. It was the fate of archers to endure a certain volume of enemy arrows, as they had to shoot upward from below.
"Fire at will, those who are ready!"
Viscount Belmaron chose to immediately respond, and as if seeking revenge, the archers launched their arrows toward the fortress.
Sh-sh-sh-shunk!
Was it a matter of numbers?
Even though their ranks were not tight and they were firing haphazardly, even more arrows flew toward the fortress than were raining down from it.
"Keep firing and form up your ranks!"
Thanks to Viscount Belmaron's timely orders, the number of incoming arrows visibly decreased. Now they just had to wait for the soldiers to reach the fortress. The remaining eighty or so mir felt like an eternity.
"Prepare the boiling oil!"
Baron Silen Bels' voice exploded.
The soldiers did not waver even as they watched the North Roselin soldiers reaching the foot of the fortress, moving swiftly under Baron Bels' orders.
It looked dangerous to anyone, but hadn't they already repelled eight attacks under Baron Bels' command?
It was a strange situation where confidence lay hidden beneath the anxiety.
Thwump!
"Gah!"
An arrow lodged into the side of a soldier carrying an iron cauldron of boiling oil. As air escaped the soldier's lungs, the strength drained from the hand gripping the cauldron.
Crash! Clang! Clatter!
Splaaaash!
"Uuaaaagh!"
The cauldron tipped over, drenching a soldier who had been nocking an arrow on his bowstring. Instantly, his screams filled the air as the scalding oil melted his face.
"Get back!"
"Aaaagh!"
A young soldier, seeing this, screamed involuntarily and stumbled backward, and the North Roselin arrows did not miss their mark.
"You moron, get your head down!"
Thwack!
Despite the warning shout from another soldier, the arrow pierced through the young soldier's head. His body, pushed by the force, tumbled helplessly down inside the fortress wall.
"Uwaaaah!"
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
Boom! Crash!
The gate of Vihanen Fortress screamed in agony under the shouts of the North Roselin soldiers pushing the wheeled battering ram. Miraculously still standing, it was now in tatters.
Ting! Thwing!
"Once more!"
Piercing through the sound of arrows embedding into the ram's roof, someone shouted an order, and as if on cue, the soldiers pushing the ram pulled it back. Once a certain distance was secured, a shout erupted again.
"Push it!"
"Uwaaaah!"
"Heave!"
Rumble, rumble, rumble!
With a rough grinding of wheels, the ram hurtled toward the gate once more. The moment it struck, the already ragged gate began to crack as if it could hold out no longer.
Boom! Craaash!
Crrrack!
"The gate is splitting! Come on! Once more...!"
But the joyful voice urging the ramming crew on was cut short. The ram's roof might shield them from arrows, but it could not protect them from the boiling oil cascading from above.
"Aagh! Ho— Hot!"
"Grah! My eyes!"
"It's oil! Everyone get away from the ram!"
Oil dripped through the gaps in the roof and into the eyes of a soldier who rubbed them on instinct, screaming in agony unaware that his eyeballs were sliding out of their sockets. Before the shout to abandon the ram had even finished, torches were dropped down.
Whoooosh!
"Gyaaaaaaagh!"
Accompanied by the shrieks, the smell of burning human flesh instantly wafted across the battlefield. The ram, meant to breach the gate, instead became a barricade blocking the North Roselin army's entry, blazing furiously.
The war that had begun in the early predawn hours showed no signs of stopping, even as the sun hung directly overhead.
"Why in the world hasn't it been breached yet!"
Duke Camillien Perren Roselin's angry rebuke exploded at the nobles. The assembled nobles each bowed their heads, offering their own excuses.
"Our precautions against the enemy's catapults were insufficient. We never imagined they would tie cloth to our own dead soldiers' bodies, set them alight, and hurl them over."
"Even so, isn't this too much!"
"It is also due to their tenacity in filling the breaches in the fortress wall with the corpses of their own fallen comrades."
The words sounded like they were rationalizing their own failures, but Duke Perren did not rebuke them further. To his eyes, it was indeed a gruesome sight.
"Gruesome...."
Duke Perren spoke in an ominous tone. His cold gaze settled on the soldiers tumbling off the scaling ladders, and a cynical smile crossed his face.
"Fine. We will accept some casualties."
"What do you mean?"
Since Duke Perren usually favored a cautious approach, the unexpected statement drew curious looks from the nobles. Perren's expression soured at their reaction, and he shouted out.
"Summon the wizards."
As if to prove the ferocity of the siege unfolding at Vihanen Fortress, the scent of blood and burning flesh spread far into the distance. Screams and battle cries erupted endlessly, scattering the aura of death over the earth.
"Ruthless."
Even from a distance, it was palpable. Hailon murmured, a brief shudder running through him at the sheer brutality of it all.
"Yeah."
"You bastard! Speaking casually to me?"
A man standing beside Hailon who had been watching chimed in, seemingly having overheard his mutter. But Hailon shook a playful fist and barked at him. The man immediately made a show of shielding himself with both arms and bowed obsequiously.
"Oh! Lord Seonin, my apologies!"
"Heh heh heh!"
"Just follow my lead. You can rise through the ranks too."
A dozen or so men chuckled among themselves in low voices. But their laughter did not last long.
"Huh? Those lunatics!"
"What is it?"
Hailon shifted his gaze to follow the pointing finger of the man whose eyes had widened in shock.
Hailon's pupils dilated.
* * *
Whooosh!
Whooosh!
Crick-crack-crunch!
A freezing cold instantaneously enveloped one side of the fortress. From the soldiers climbing over ladders to those thrusting their spears to fend off the attackers, everything froze solid in the icy blast.
"It's magic!"
"Crazy bastards! They're freezing their own soldiers too!"
A 4th circle Ice Storm had blasted into the area without distinguishing between friend and foe. Watching the fortress wall freeze over in an instant, Baron Silen Bels felt a wave of despair. He had not anticipated they would intentionally sacrifice their own men.
The three remaining wizards inside the fortress were occupied elsewhere, and caught off guard, the South Roselin troops froze solid along with the wall. Baron Bels' urgent voice rang out.
"Everyone get clear!"
Whoooosh!
Amid Baron Bels' scream-like shout, Fire Balls hurtled into the frozen section, triggering a catastrophe.
Boooom!
Rumble-crash!
"Aaaagh!"
"It's collapsing, get back!"
Searing hot Fire Balls had slammed into the flash-frozen stone wall. The fortress wall, which had seemed so steadfast until now, crumbled as if its strength had been nothing but an illusion.
Because of the Ice Storm's short range, the deadly combination of ice and fire, purchased at the cost of their own soldiers' lives, had been deployed despite its risks.
"Sons of bitches."
Beneath the collapsed rubble, soldiers wailed in agony, dying slowly amidst their suffering, envying their comrades who had been crushed instantly into piles of meat.
Tears of blood streamed from Baron Bels' eyes.
"H-How can this be!"
"It's collapsed! Charge forward!"
The sight of their comrades, who had been desperately scrambling up the wall, suddenly transformed into frozen statues and then exploded into chunks of flesh by the ensuing fireballs was a profound shock to the soldiers. The thought that they would have suffered the same fate had they been just a little quicker froze their feet in place.
In war, what death is more meaningless than being killed by your own side?
Such tactics were exceedingly rare for that very reason. Yet, the commanders' exultant orders to charge echoed everywhere, an absolute command to the soldiers who had paused, paralyzed by fear and disbelief.
"Uwaaaah!"
"Chaaarge!"
The faces of the soldiers pushing through the collapsed debris held nothing but terror and desperate madness.
Flash!
From where Hailon and his party stood, word came that the fortress had been breached. A sword blade caught the sunlight, flashing three short signals and one long. Eulji Uru glanced behind him.
"Good. You've got the right fire in your eyes."
The men behind Uru, with that fire in their eyes, were the most dependable—the best archers and marksmen.
Uru's hand quietly rose toward the sky, then swung forward.
Uru and the hundred and fifty soldiers under him began to sprint like the wind.
"Think it'll end today?"
"Guess so. Heard a massive noise a bit ago."
The North Roselin sentries, positioned in hilly terrain where the battlefield was out of sight, chatted idly amongst themselves.
"Tch, I really hope it's over today."
"You said it."
It was clear that if the fortress did not fall today, they would be the ones thrown into the siege next. Even as conscripts on a battlefield, a soldier's top priority was survival. The best way to survive was to avoid combat as much as possible.
"From what I hear, they say it'll end today."
One soldier grinned at his worried comrade. The consoled soldier let out a chuckle and replied.
"Well, that'd be a blessing."
Shunk!
"Gah...!"
Thwunk! Thwunk!
"Hurgh!"
And then, they had no more need to worry.
"What the! Where are they—!"
Thwack!
"Grrrk...."
Invisible arrows had halted their thoughts forever. All fifty soldiers guarding the forward observation post were massacred, two or three short arrows each embedded in their torsos.
Eulji Uru and his hundred and fifty archers approached the fallen sentries, methodically plunged blades into each of their throats to be sure, and then pressed on without rest. It was a race against time to reach the next position and wipe out its defenders before the enemy's scheduled check-in.
With Uru and his archers clearing the path, Go Jin-cheon and his soldiers passed through, carefully leading their horses and carts so as not to raise even a speck of dust.
"How..."
Unlike the majority of the South Roselin nobles, who had chosen to remain behind, the young knight Hekate was a South Roselin native who had volunteered to follow Jin-cheon's unit to the end. He gazed at the North Roselin corpses in disbelief as he led the five hundred South Roselin soldiers under his command.
All of them lay dead without a sign of resistance, short arrows embedded in their torsos, and not a single arrow stuck in the ground. Even while running, Hekate glanced back. The distance from the closest viable concealed shooting position was at least four hundred mir. As he ran, a feeling of hope, mixed with awe, began to take root in Hekate's heart.