Chapter 93
Chapter 93
Iron Emperor — Chapter 93
Dududududu!
"I heard it."
The short answer came from Go Jin-cheon's lips as he rode at the head of the column.
"Sure was. Heard it clear as day."
A satisfied smile settled on Eulji Buru's face as he galloped alongside.
SHING!
Jin-cheon drew his Hwandudaedo.
"All troooooops!"
His voice, like the roar of an enraged tiger, was hurled across the battlefield.
"Full speeeeeed!"
Clang!
As if in acknowledgement, lances struck the breastplates of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry at the very front.
"Aye!"
And the short, ringing response.
The breath of the riders charging with the crimson banner, and of their horses, grew steadily rougher.
As the enemy formation gradually came into view, Buru raised the banner even higher and shouted.
"Charge! Forwaaaard!"
"Uwaaaaaah!"
"Hyah!"
"Hihihihing!"
"Hyaa!"
The black mass of cavalry surged forward, their war cries rising.
Toward the rear, Duke Camillien Perren Roselin, who had been left behind, flung a question at Count Seilr Muien, his voice thick with alarm.
"Wha—what is that!"
"I... that is... I've never seen it before!"
"What kind of banner is that!"
The command staff, still unable to grasp who the enemy was, could only pile one question onto the next in their confusion. Count Muen, too, could do nothing but panic at this moment. He strained his eyes, but the banner was utterly unfamiliar.
"Duke Perren! Is there any unit in South Roselin that uses a red field bearing a three-legged bird as its emblem!"
"How could there possibly be such a thing!"
Duke Perren snapped at Count Muen's question. Count Muen stared again at the onrushing army and muttered.
"Then what in the world...!"
But from the sheer momentum of the charge, he could feel that they were absolutely not allies.
"The knight order will stop the enemy! Archers and pikemen, form a Defensive Formation!"
"Yes!"
"Move!"
Since no warning whatsoever had come from the screening force in the rear, they had undoubtedly been annihilated. Count Muen felt his lips go dry.
"No way..."
Count Muen spoke in a trembling voice. The entire main force of North Roselin had already entered the fortress. Only Duke Perren's escort contingent had remained in the rear. The answer was obvious: they had been deliberately targeted.
Watching the two hundred knights of the knight order racing out to meet the Ghost Cavalry, Count Muen could not suppress a dark foreboding.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
The lead knight gradually increased speed and raised his lance.
"Lances!"
At the terse command, the two hundred knights spread into a long line and leveled their lances toward the Gauri troops.
"All units! Full speed!"
"Full speed!"
"Hyah!"
THUD-THUD-THUD!
The two hundred-odd knights of North Roselin, visors lowered, hoisted their lances and began to accelerate.
Seeing the North Roselin knight order charging with lances couched, Go Jin-cheon pointed the tip of his Hwandudaedo toward the sky, then straight ahead.
"Raise laaaaances!"
At the same moment, Eulji Buru drew the sak (槊, a cavalry lance; length 5.4 meters) hanging at his horse's flank, raised it to the heavens, and then, like the enemy knights, leveled it toward the foe as he relayed the command.
"Aye!"
With a short answering cry, Gauri's Black Armored Ghost Cavalry stretched into a long line and charged to meet them.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
"Hm."
Go Jin-cheon's Hwandudaedo rose again toward the sky, then swung to the right.
"Ready bows!"
"Aye!"
At Eulji Uru's voice, the two hundred-odd archers racing behind the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry dropped their reins and seized their maekgung bows. In a flash, they nocked arrows.
THUD-THUD-THUD!
The distance between the two sides was roughly two hundred mir. Uru's bowstring drew taut.
"To the front!"
Keeping their bows leveled forward, the two hundred mounted archers slipped into the gaps as the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry eased their speed.
Range to the enemy: one hundred mir.
"Each of you, pick a target and take him down!"
TWANG!
WHIZZ!
WHIZZ!
The bowstring loosed from Uru's hand hurled the arrow forward. At the same instant, over two hundred arrows tore through the air, streaking in flat, direct trajectories.
"Mounted archers, left and right!"
When Uru spread his arms from the center, as if by prior arrangement, the mounted archers split to both flanks.
"Left group, follow me!"
"Right group, full speed!"
About a hundred mounted archers to each side broke away to the flanks. By then, the arrows were already piercing the enemy knight order.
CLANG!
"Kuhuck!"
Amid the ring of steel, the lead knight's head snapped back and he was hurled off the rear of his horse. That metallic ring was the sound of an arrow punching through a helmet. Then the clatter of iron plate being hammered burst from every direction.
CLANG-CLANG-CLANG! THUNK! THUD!
"Kuk!"
"What in the—!"
In an instant, nearly a hundred knights dropped their lances and were flung from their saddles, tumbling to the ground.
Neeeigh!
CRASH!
"Aaaaagh!"
The shrieks of horses erupted, and the screams of knights tripping over their fallen comrades' mounts echoed. But before they had a moment to be shocked, the reapers of hell were upon them.
THUNK!
"Kuhuck!"
"Huaaagh!"
Impaled on the long cavalry lances of Gauri's Black Armored Ghost Cavalry, the knights let out hollow screams.
"Th-this is impossi..."
Thwack!
Just as a lance was about to reach a Gauri soldier's heart, the iron-armored soldier's body vanished. To be precise, he had merely leaned sideways across his horse, but it was still enough to inspire sheer horror. The North Roselin knight's shock could not last. Uru, charging right behind, split his upper body with his great axe.
"That torturous training paid off, I'd say."
A satisfied grin spread across Buru's face.
After arriving in this world and analyzing the enemy's mounted warfare, Buru had trained the troops to execute bareback equestrian feats even while wearing Chalgap armor, to whatever extent possible. This would have been impossible if their strength had not been relatively enhanced by the difference in gravity. And after that single exchange, not one North Roselin knight remained in the saddle.
"Deep penetration charge!"
As Go Jin-cheon's horse surged to the very front and he shouted, the two hundred-odd cavalry transformed into a single enormous spear.
Their advance grew only fiercer, without the slightest hesitation.
* * *
"Th-this can't be! It makes no sense!"
"Huk!"
The two hundred-odd knights they had counted on to hold back the enemy cavalry could not withstand even a single clash before being hurled to the ground, throwing the North Roselin formation into chaos.
"Summon the main force back out of the fortress!"
Terror spread across Duke Camillien Perren Roselin's face. The troops guarding him numbered five thousand... and yet, the knight order that was their core had been sent sprawling in an instant. Duke Perren was desperate now. Count Seilr Muien, too, could manage no expression beyond pure disbelief.
"Your Grace, even if we pull the army out, it will be too late once they break through! It is best that you enter the fortress at once while we form the Defensive Formation and resist!"
"Shut your mouth! I am the supreme commander! I was uneasy from the moment they entrusted me with a feeble knight order!"
Duke Perren, eyes bloodshot, roared in response to Count Muen's plea. Count Muen shook his head and gave an order to an escort knight.
"Quickly, pull the main force out of the fortress!"
"Run at once!"
Duke Perren shouted again over Count Muen's order. Cursing Perren inwardly, Count Muen turned his eyes toward the defensive line.
'You son of a bitch! If you're the supreme commander, if you'd gone into the fortress and commanded the main force from the start, we wouldn't be in this godforsaken mess!'
The defensive line reflected in Count Muen's eyes had not yet fully formed.
"Archers, forward!"
Desperate shouts from the escort commanders erupted on all sides. They too were cursing the knight order that had been cut down without buying them even a moment's delay.
"Pikemen, brace your pikes against the ground, quickly!"
Contrary to their frantic hearts, the Defensive Formation was only forming sluggishly. This was because the time had been too short to assemble a new formation on the opposite side from their original defensive front, and because no one had imagined an enemy capable of annihilating two hundred knights in an instant. Watching the enemy cavalry draw nearer, they wished only to seize hold of time itself.
Shunk!
Neeeigh!
CRASH!
"What the—!"
A dull sound rang out from the body of the knight directing the archers, and he toppled from his horse. Another knight cried out in shock, but before his eyes, a sky-filling flight of arrows appeared first.
WHIZZ!
THUD!
"Agh!"
"Sh-shieldbearers!"
As archers who had been arrayed on one flank crumpled with arrows studding their bodies, the hard-won defensive formation began to crumble. The screams of archers crying out for shieldbearers rang unceasingly from all over. But the shieldbearers were far too distant from the archers, who were supposed to withdraw to the rear after shooting.
"Where are those arrows coming from!"
"They seem to be loosed from the enemy cavalry on both flanks!"
"Are you joking! From more than two hundred mir—and from horseback—are you telling me that's possible!?"
Count Muen hurried forward and demanded an explanation, but all he got back was a nonsensical reply. Even amid this chaos, the archers fired back desperately, but they could not catch Eulji Uru's two hundred mounted archers, who circled around them and kept shooting.
"Shieldbearers, protect the pikemen!"
"Aaaaagh!"
"Shieldbearers!"
With the archers cut down or fleeing for cover, the pikemen massed to stop the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry became prime prey. Belatedly, Count Muen stepped in and fed the shieldbearers in to protect the pikemen, but heavy damage had already been done. And Jin-cheon's Black Armored Ghost Cavalry only pressed their charge harder.
"Heh."
A scornful snort came from Go Jin-cheon. The lifeblood of a pike unit formed to stop cavalry was its density. But the shieldbearers inserted between them to block the arrow-storm that Eulji Uru's mounted archers were pouring down had dissolved that very density.
"Break through!"
Jin-cheon himself leveled his cavalry lance and charged at the very front.
"Break throoooough!"
Eulji Buru's command echoed in the ears of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry. And the faces of the pikemen began to come into sharp focus.
"Uwaaaaagh!"
"How are we supposed to stop this!"
Terror-laced voices burst from the gap-toothed ranks of the pikemen. And the terror mingled with screams.
CRASH-CRASH!
"Ugh!"
"The height won't match!"
Crunch!
Gauri's warhorses loosed savage whinnies as they trampled through the pikemen. Those soldiers impaled by Gauri's long cavalry lances at least left relatively intact corpses. The pikes they had raised and aimed failed utterly and were collapsing in absurd fashion. It was not only their lack of density—even the height did not match.
The Gauri warhorses were a full head smaller than the horses of this world, lower than the height the pikemen had fixed through their usual training. By the time they tried to adjust in panic, the enemy was already upon them; the few pikes that did manage to jab simply glanced off the Chalgap armor.
"Hyaa!"
CHOP!
Go Jin-cheon's Hwandudaedo split the skull of a North Roselin soldier lunging from the side, in an instant. Once the formation had shattered, North Roselin troops were little more than rabbits before enraged tigers.
Several enemy officers came into Jin-cheon's sight.
"Heh!"
"Hiiik! Stop him! Stop that man!"
Neigh!
Crunch!
"Uwaaaaaa!"
When Gangsoe saw the man pointing at Jin-cheon and shouting, he seemed to take offense and kicked an enemy soldier charging from behind with his hind legs. The soldier went flying, his scream trailing long behind him.
"Come! As a knight of North Roselin, I will not flee!"
"P-please, Count!"
The man who had been pointing and bellowing scrambled backward, and a man in splendid armor stepped forward to block Jin-cheon's path. Jin-cheon's Hwandudaedo came flying in, as if answering the man's courage.