From Mercenary to King

Chapter 7: Battle of the Rakiten Plains (4)

“Waaaaah!”

“Kill them! Press them! They are exhausted.”

The sun had set and darkness had fallen, yet the Holy Empire’s imperial army did not seem to stop, as if they had received some evil mystery.

They kept attacking in a steady, howling surge like the fiends from hero tales.

“This damned lot!”

Because of that, the expression on Commander Garten’s face, who led the mercenary company, twisted into something vicious.

Even at night they did not pull back.

What did that mean?

It meant they intended to go to the end.

When night fell, the custom was to withdraw both armies, check casualties, and then let the advantageous side demand surrender the next day.

There was not a trace of honorable custom in the Holy Empire’s conduct.

If they had had any, they would not have launched two units from both flanks in the first place.

“I should have taken the hint when they said that the mad emperor is out for blood!”

A sigh slipped out by itself.

But that has changed nothing now.

This was a time for decisions and correct judgment, not lamentation.

Once darkness fell, command over units weakened, and after repeated charges there was a great chance of the line collapsing.

The Garten Mercenary Corps had already taken heavy losses from the ambush in the first engagement, so they had little strength left.

“Lieutenant! Lieutenant! What are you doing! The front is about to break. Attach more reserves quickly.”

“B-But we have no reser… gugh!”

The lieutenant clutched his throat and fell mid sentence.

It was a crossbowman’s shot, the sort the Holy Empire often used.

The attack did not stop there and sped straight toward Commander Garten.

Pssshh!

Tak-tak, tatatak!

Garten ducked and raised his shield in a hurry.

With a loud clatter, a heavy impact carried through the shield into his shoulder.

“What are you doing! Focus! The lieutenant died because you could not hold your shield straight!”

Having barely blocked the attack, Commander Garten shouted, furious.

He knew the front was gradually collapsing, but for the enemy to push so close that the command post was under fire.

The situation was bad.

Defeat grew more certain by the moment.

“At this rate we get wiped out, Commander!”

“Shut your mouth, won’t you? Why state the obvious!”

Garten felt ready to explode.

The officers chirped like nestlings waiting for their mother bird, doing nothing until he gave an order.

To make matters worse, a Holy Empire officer who had pushed close to the command post pointed at Commander Garten and shouted.

“To whoever takes the head of that treacherous cur, I grant two gold coins!”

“T-Two coins?”

“Your dream of reversing your life is right there!”

“Uoooooh! Let’s go!”

At the fiery promise of reward, the imperial soldiers’ morale surged and they charged.

“These lunatics…!”

Did they really think the emperor’s dogs would keep their word?

Garten was dumbfounded at the soldiers’ foolishness.

Yet his present situation was deadly regardless of his thoughts.

“H-Hold them!”

“Close up! If we give ground, the square shatters! Shoulder to shoulder!”

“Uh, uh? Uuuh?!”

They swarmed like bees, and part of the command post’s square broke.

The imperial soldiers charged for one thing only, Garten’s head.

Commander Garten’s sword tasted blood for the first time in a while.

Clang.

Kang! Kagakang.

Crunch!

After a few exchanges, he split the skull of the soldier who had rushed him.

But the attack did not end there.

One imperial soldier, ruthless enough to use his comrade as bait, thrust his spear straight in.

Thunk!

By sheer luck, the strike bounced off his sturdy armor.

Garten carved down across the man’s shoulder at once and grimaced.

‘Fools like moths to a flame.’

The imperial troops deployed this time were not even wearing decent armor.

Likely conscripted serfs from the emperor’s demesne.

If he had thought of next season’s harvest he would never have done it, but the Holy Empire’s emperor was vicious in every way.

Ptui!

Spitting on the fallen corpse, Commander Garten shouted up to a subordinate surveying from the hill.

“What about reinforcements! Do you see any sign of them?”

“Nothing, Commander!”

In despair, the subordinate cried back.

They had barely broken through the encirclement to send a runner for help, but it seemed he had met misfortune on the way.

“Ha… damn it.”

Garten’s heart sank.

“Gyaaaah!”

“Sp-Spare me…!”

“Commander! Commander!! Please give us orders…!”

All around him, allies howled.

The tide kept breaking, and mercenaries who had held on turned one by one into cold corpses littering the ground.

Garten swept his gaze over the field and felt his heart shake.

‘My… my army…’

The mercenary group he had built on his own name.

A company full of blood, sweat, and devotion was meeting a meaningless death on land without glory.

“If I… if I hand over my head, will they spare the rest?”

He knew they would not, but he could not help the thought.

Surrender now and save the men who remained, that seemed right.

Thinking so, Garten loosened his grip on his sword.

Clatter.

The blade clanged away across the ground.

Garten stared at it for a moment, then raised both hands and shouted.

Or tried to.

Bwooooooo!

At that moment, a grand horn blast cut across the battlefield.

“Waaaaaah!”

“Drive back the Holy Empire’s imperial army!”

“Charge!”

Unbelievable as it seemed, reinforcements finally broke the dark and arrived.

* * *

“Huff, huff…”

They were not late.

Cutting through the night, Captain Mordo’s Black Raven Mercenaries managed to find their objective and arrive in time.

The heavy darkness and the high heads of ripened wheat confused their sight, yet the clamor of steel, men’s furious shouts, and the burning torches served as a single set of beacons.

Thanks to that, though all of them panted hard, not one fell behind.

“Army-! Form up.”

Shuffle.

At Captain Mordo’s cry, the loosened ranks snapped back into order.

Shatien also squared his stance and looked forward.

Far off, the Garten Mercenary Corps had formed a square around a hill, and to break them the Holy Empire was attacking from both sides.

Kakang kang!

“Gyaaaah!”

“Spare me…!”

The line had wavered, and front and rear no longer meant anything.

Everyone tangled in a single desperate struggle to live.

Watching from afar, Shatien slowly released the tension in his sword hand.

Excess excitement and tension were poison.

He would press the enemy steadily, as always.

Neigh!

While he thought so, Centurion Jacri rode forward on his horse.

“Our hundred-man unit takes the vanguard.”

He dismounted, then walked calmly to the very front of the line.

It meant he would share life and death in the foremost rank. Wearing full armor like a knight, he looked reassuring.

“You may fall behind. But do not run. Your comrades are on this field. You may feel like rushing out alone. Do not break formation. Unified movement. Only when the men to your left, right, and rear support you can you survive this field. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Centurion!”

Shatien felt like the man had glanced at him as he spoke, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

He really must have rubbed the man the wrong way in many respects.

Whatever.

Doom, doom, doom, doom.

The drumbeat swelled and pounded at their hearts.

“Uooooooh!”

It raised the spirits of allies who had formed up and set their ranks.

Soon after,

Bwoo! Bwoo! Bwoooo!

Short, clipped horn calls followed.

It was the signal to charge the enemy.

Ching!

At the very front, Centurion Jacri drew his sword and shouted.

“Shields of the hundred to the front! Follow me! Advance straight to the imperial line!”

“Uoooaah!”

“Hah! Hah! Hah!”

With a roar they stamped forward in unison.

Just as drilled and agreed upon, their synchronized stride shook the ground.

It was not a lancer charge of heavy cavalry, but the crushing pressure was nothing to scoff at.

It fell upon the imperial troops in an instant.

“W-What is this?”

“?!”

They had just broken the center of Garten’s formation, and the rear ranks were all in disorder.

If they collided now, the damage would be dire.

“Do not waver! Move as trained.”

Even so, the Holy Empire was still the Holy Empire.

In that brief window they seized control of the confusion and sent a brutal gift to the mercenaries.

“Shields!”

“Hold them right! Close the gaps tighter!”

Centurion Jacri and the senior mercenaries shouted together at what they saw.

Pshshshshk

Tatang, tang-tang-tadak!

Papak, pajik!

A volley of deadly crossbow bolts.

Dozens of projectiles hammered the shields.

“Guhraaagh!”

Unlucky bolts punched through shields with enough force left to wound.

Casualties sprouted across the ranks.

“Urgh…”

“Aaaaah!”

Some new mercenaries fell into panic at the sight, but Shatien did not.

‘That’s it? Nothing special. Nice.’

Crossbows possessed fearsome power, but their reload speed was abysmal.

If the damage from a close-range volley was only this much, the worst had already passed.

Jacri seemed to think the same. He dropped his shield and bellowed at once.

“Charge! Charge at full speed! We have to smash them right now.”

“Uoooaa!”

At the order, the hundred-man unit sprinted.

Shatien and Miles stuck close and charged with them.

“Kill them! Kill them all. Show no mercy.”

In the dark, chaotic field, the hundred dashed only forward, cutting across the plain like a gale.

“H-Hurry!”

The enemy commander, cowed by the ferocity, could be seen flailing.

“Reload faster! Those ready, fi—”

He broke off mid shout, suddenly sensing killing intent, and ducked his head.

Crunch!

An axe whistled past his skull and split open an unlucky crossbowman’s head. It was the first devastating throw from Miles, famed for his axe throwing.

“Th-This lunatic!”

“He threw from that distance?”

The enemy commander and the crossbowmen recoiled in shock.

Those few seconds of hesitation returned as a heavy price.

“Here! Form on me!”

Miles roared, whirled his axe, and charged the crossbowmen scrambling to hide behind their pavises.

Bang!

The thick pavise split clean in half.

At the same time,

Crack. Thud!

Krkrkrk!

The hundred-man unit driving behind him poured through the breach.

“Guhk!”

“Save me!”

“Gak.”

Screams burst everywhere at once, all of them were from the imperial side.

With their paltry gear, the crossbow corps stood no chance in close quarters.

“The rear is collapsing!”

“Damn it! Hold!”

“Get over here, fast!”

Late to react, the imperial soldiers assaulting the Garten mercenaries tried to wheel and form a square here, but it was useless.

This time it was not Miles’s axe splitting everything by force.

Swish!

Kang. Kang! Crunch!

It was Shatien, whose sharp swordplay made their defense meaningless.

Each time Shatien’s blade flashed, imperial soldiers rushing him dropped like wheat.

“H-Huh?”

The imperial soldiers flinched and shuffled backward, but it was a poor choice.

This was a battlefield.

Once you lost the initiative, everything ended.

“Hya-!”

With their morale falling, their attacks turned timid instead, creating the perfect ground for Shatien to run wild.

Changkang!

A clean diagonal deflection and slash.

The shoulder of a soldier who had tried a clumsy guard split with a crack.

“Guhraaagh!”

At the same time, shields were pierced.

Armor failed to do its job. They did not even dare cross blades.

Thud.

Soon the ground was covered with imperial bodies.

“We cannot hold this!”

“Damn it!”

By this point, keeping formation bordered on miraculous.

Once a few began to withdraw, others turned their backs, and a pillar of the imperial line started to collapse.

“Ahahaha! Rookie! Well done. We cut through there! We choke off the imperial army’s windpipe!”

A few steps away, Miles laughed boldly and rallied the allies.

If they pushed and broke through here, they could deliver a mortal wound.

Or so he thought.

Thud!

“Gugh!”

An ally who had broken ranks and sprinted ahead coughed blood and dropped backward.

“What?”

“??!?”

Beyond him, a unit of heavy infantry appeared, the elites of the Holy Empire’s army.

No wonder it had all gone so smoothly. Of all times, they had to run into that lot.

“Oh, huh… Now it’s not going to be so fun anymore, huh?”

Shatien felt that things were starting to tangle.