Baron Gottfried surveyed the battlefield with anxious eyes.
Indeed, the strategy of using the Griffin Mercenary Corps as bait seemed like a highly dangerous idea.
Just hiring those thirty men must have cost dozens of Floren gold coins.
But it wasn’t Baron Gottfried who had hired them.
From Count Lassau’s perspective, while it might be a bit wasteful, if the strategy was effective, there was no reason to hesitate.
The Griffin Mercenary Corps, too, readily accepted, trusting in their shields and armaments. The shields would somewhat soften the knights’ charge.
“The situation is favorable.”
A Lysian rode up on horseback. Baron Gottfried glanced sideways at him.
“Gorka, is it really favorable?”
The mercenary captain of the Lysians, Gorka. He began explaining the situation, supplementing his clumsy Imperial tongue with gestures.
“We lure them soon. Then surround, annihilate.”
The knights, currently fixated on the Griffin Mercenaries. And the mounted archers, biding their time to slip away unnoticed.
Following Gorka’s gestures with his eyes, Baron Gottfried nodded slowly.
‘Indeed… A proper cavalry mercenary unit is Lysian something like that.’
The reputation of Lysian mercenaries was well-established.
To be able to hire high-quality soldiers in large numbers for a reasonable price nothing could be more satisfying.
Just like the Griffin Mercenaries, the Lysians weren’t hired by Baron Gottfried, either.
Still, seeing so many cavalry units in action stirred a desire to strike his own contracts with them.
“Just barely escape, shooting arrows. Then they follow.”
“The knights will follow? How can you be sure?”
“Because we did.”
Baron Gottfried fell silent. Gorka’s eyes gleamed as he spoke.
“The Kakarin. They were cunning. We fell for it. Long ago.”
In his eyes lay the image of the steppe.
The vast plains that stretched across the east and south. Countless soldiers racing across it.
The Baparu, armed with shields and axes, let out war cries. Lysians on horseback, wielding lances, spurred their horses on.
And their opponents were exotic warriors from the East.
Quite different from the nomads of the South. Mounted archers, firing their bows with almost supernatural skill.
“The enemy has surrounded the mounted archers!”
They surged like a single wave. Striking and retreating.
They seemed surrounded but found the slightest of openings and slipped out with astonishing agility.
The Lysian warriors with shields fell into confusion.
The foreign army trailing behind blocked their retreat.
Then, the Lysians sent in their heavy cavalry, the backbone of their force.
“Milord, the knights are in pursuit.”
They chased after the mounted archers unaware that it was the path to ruin.
Feigning a retreat only made the enemy charge with glee. The chaos of battle narrowed their vision.
And once they had been lured in deep enough they appeared.
Warriors of the Khan, advancing from the East, burning everything in their path.
Demons risen from hell.
The avatars of conquest who had subjugated even the Orient in the southeast.
“The warriors of the ‘Khan.’”
Gorka muttered in a low voice. Baron Gottfried swallowed dryly.
Gorka’s eyes burned with intensity. A city engulfed in flames flashed vividly in his mind.
To submit completely and survive barely.
Or resist and be reduced to chunks of meat.
The Khan of the East burns everything.
That was a tale Baron Gottfried had never once heard before.
“Dismissal…”
A knight standing nearby turned his head toward Baron Gottfried.
Baron Gottfried saw something etched into that face.
“T-the enemy knights… they’ve taken the bait.”
That was fear. A knight who held honor above all else, proud and dignified, now clearly revealed his fear after witnessing nothing more than the tactics of eastern barbarians.
Baron Gottfried drove his horse forward. A few knights, along with Gorka and several Lysians, followed close behind.
“…That.”
Sir Lothar’s forces had been completely torn apart. The circular formation of soldiers was in shambles, and among the chaos was a cluster of cavalry enemy command, knights, and heavy cavalry alike all bunched together.
The key, of course, lay with the latter: the knights and heavy cavalry.
They had taken the bait. Bait thrown out by the Lysian mounted archers.
The knights, destroyers of battlefields, had swallowed it whole. Now they were far removed from their main force, making rescue near impossible.
The chaos of the battlefield had ripened to its peak. Fully matured disorder swept across the pristine white snowfield.
And the ones who had summoned that chaos were not far. Baron Gottfried turned his trembling gaze to the side.
“The knights… are isolated.”
Gorka curled his lips into a wicked grin.
The long scar stretching from the corner of his mouth to the edge of his ear added menace to his smile.
“A hunt.”
And behind them without his notice stood dozens of Lysian cavalry, already fully prepared.
Gorka shouted something in the Lysian tongue, and the cavalry thundered forward, surging out of the camp. Gorka joined the charge, galloping ahead.
The scattered mounted archers had already surrounded the knights. With the cavalry joining in…
At this point, Baron Gottfried was certain of victory. And yet, he also felt fear.
The Lysians were not nomads.
But the tactics they employed clearly deviated from their traditional ways of war.
These were undoubtedly nomadic methods. The Lysians had likely suffered under them time and again, and had been forced to learn them clumsily, through sheer necessity.
And if tactics mimicked by the Lysians could be this effective…
Then what horrors must the real nomads be capable of?
‘The warriors of the Khan…’
Watching the Lysians surge forward, Baron Gottfried imagined the ‘Khan’ the cruel warlord of the Eastern steppes.
If they were ever to arrive here, could the knights stand against them?
But there was no room to worry about what had not yet come. Baron Gottfried focused on the battle unfolding before him.
“We must help as well.”
“Yes, my lord.”
No matter how surrounded they may be, only knights can truly face other knights.
This time, Baron Gottfried intended to become a sharpened dagger.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
“Sir Keldric!”
It was dizzying. That was Keldric’s first impression.
The enemy cavalry, riding in circles around them, were stretched long into a loop, and the repeated shapes made it seem like multiple enemies had passed through the same spot adding to the confusion.
“Sir Keldric! Sir Kel….dric!”
Keldric sharply turned his head. There was Sir Henri, visibly panicked, yanking his reins and shaking wildly.
“Come this way, quickly! We must break through the encirclement!”
Was that even possible? Doubt sprang up in Keldric’s mind.
There were just under forty enemy cavalrymen. Their numbers had been trimmed down, but the light and heavy cavalry supporting them remained intact.
Breaking through all of them seemed nearly impossible.
But what they needed now wasn’t a pessimistic prediction like “impossible.”
What they needed was the strength to make the impossible possible.
Whooosh! Whoosh!
Arrows with holes in their tips whistling arrows kept flying in.
The sound was like a whistle, but shriller and more piercing, echoing again and again.
It rattled the knights. And more than the knights, it was the horses that were the bigger problem.
The warhorses the knights rode were well-trained. Normally, they didn’t scare easily.
But fundamentally, warhorses were expensive and valuable, which meant that even the heavy cavalry who followed the knights didn’t have access to them.
“Whoa there!”
“Hey! Watch it!”
Sir Rutger raised his sword and shouted repeatedly, but some of the panicked horses had already slipped out of control and were going wild.
A few heavy cavalrymen fell from their mounts.
And then, a few of the Lys cavalry, who had been circling the group, suddenly darted in and thrust their spears.
“Guhh—!”
For a dismounted cavalryman, the only future was death.
The Lys riders, spearing them as if on a hunt, would laugh and rejoin their formation before the knights could even react.
Their skill level was high. Keldric frowned.
“Regroup! Regroup! Form a wedge formation!”
Sir Rutger shouted desperately, but even that was buried under the constant shrieking of the whistling arrows.
Keldric took a deep breath. His chest swelled then it burst into a roar that echoed across the snowy plain.
“Regroup!! Regroup now!!”
The knights and cavalry, dazed and panicked, snapped back to their senses at the sound of that great shout.
As they scrambled to reform ranks, Sir Rutger rushed to Keldric and shouted,
“Sir Keldric! Have you seen Sir Lothar?!”
“Sir Lothar…?”
Only then did Keldric quickly scan the surroundings.
Sir Lothar had a red plume on his helmet. It made him instantly recognizable.
But now, no matter how hard he looked, he couldn’t see him.
There was no red plume to be seen only red on this white field was the blood.
“I don’t see him!”
“Damn it! We must find Sir Lothar!”
Shouting that, Sir Rutger split off with the knights to search.
If Sir Lothar had gone missing, Keldric had to join the search too.
The Lys cavalry were riding wide circles around them. The snow kicked up by their horses stirred a blizzard like a sandstorm.
Visibility was severely limited. The situation was dire. Keldric’s breathing grew heavy with tension and rage.