Chapter 44: The Victory of Two

Regardless of the outcome, Crown Prince Louis had already made history on the battlefield beneath the walls of Rileyville. With six thousand soldiers fighting alone, he had faced the Delanmaya Army, which numbered as many as thirty thousand, head-on. With a miracle-like, unexpected wave of frenzied assault, he broke into the enemy formation, completely threw their ranks into disorder, and firmly stood in an undefeated position in this battle where the balance of power had originally been uneven.

But all of this was still not enough.

Just as Fred had said, what he wanted was a complete victory.

After completely disrupting the Delanmaya battle line and leaving the opponent with no threat of any counterattack, the Winston heavy knights began their mop-up. This was a true mop-up: the cavalry force, which had already been somewhat thin, actually split into three groups, crisscrossing and charging back and forth through the enemy ranks. They were like three venomous snakes dwelling in a rotting animal carcass, greedily devouring the huge and weak rotten flesh. From beginning to end, the galloping knights made no shouting sounds at all, leaving only the trembling hoofbeats and deathly silence to their opponents.

I think that, compared with a loud and arrogant enemy, a silent enemy is more dangerous and terrifying. You do not know what the enemy in front of you really wants to do, or how far they can take the war. When silence, that noble quality, appears on a battlefield, you know you are facing an army that has discipline and ruthlessness carved into its very life. This wordless shout represents a kind of true power. In my imagination, such great power almost should not be possessed by human beings.

At last, the Delanmaya Army collapsed. Completely collapsed.

In front of the powerful silent knights, they were as helpless as a group of children holding wooden swords. After discovering that they could not defeat the enemy, they chose to scatter and flee. I could hardly tell that they were soldiers who had received formal training. Unprecedented fear made them forget who they were.

At first, a few dozen people screamed and left the battlefield. Once that head was opened, more and more people joined the fleeing crowd. The soldiers chose their escape directions by the hundreds. Even after completely leaving the battlefield, they still felt danger and kept running blindly, without knowing where they were going. The sense of oppression caused by the Winston warriors’ invincible ferocity could never be erased by distance.

How many people have truly seen more than ten thousand people completely routed on a plain? They spread out like ants, covering the original green of the grass in great patches. Despair and fear were stripping away their will, driving them away from this deathly realm that did not belong to the human world.

When even the commander’s banner began to move toward the rear, this rout had already become impossible to stop. After all, only a small number of soldiers had enough sense to choose a direction and flee. The madness of battle numbed the soldiers’ minds, making more people know only to follow the banner and run in defeat. Behind that green Delanmaya military banner, which symbolized shame, nearly twenty thousand people fled madly with no order at all.

Behind them, an enemy force less than a third of their number chased at their heels, completely ignoring their weak resistance and slaughtering wildly at the rear of the main army. Their goal was very clear: to completely shatter the large main army and completely eliminate the threat of an organized counterattack. They ignored the routed soldiers fleeing to the sides even when those soldiers were right at their side, just as they had ignored our existence when they first launched their charge.

They naturally gave up Rileyville. If they could win this victory and survive, then judging by their combat ability, taking this weak little city again would cost them no effort at all. But if they had defended the city, their strongest cavalry advantage would have been completely useless, and they would probably have been wiped out by the large enemy army long ago.

However, no matter which general was given the choice, would he, while at an absolute numerical disadvantage, leave a wall unused and instead fight the enemy head-on?

What kind of army was this, and what kind of commander it had!

“It’s our turn.” The silent Fred finally spoke. He smiled bitterly and said, “They have routed so completely. I had hoped they would still have the strength to help us a little more.”

“Keep formation. Do not chase personal glory. You all know what kind of enemy we are facing. Listen to my command: charge!” With Fred’s order, our thousand Light Cavalry finally launched again. Compared with the enemy, our formation could hardly be called a formation. The soldiers were arranged unevenly and scattered, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, unable to control their horses as smoothly as they did—and of course, I was included in that. But no matter what, we were the only remaining organized Delanmaya Army on this battlefield, the only force that still possessed the will to fight and the strength to resist.

Ahead, the spearhead of the Winston cavalry charge had already pierced into the routed army, cruelly and skillfully cutting the whole army into small pieces again and again. Rather than killing the enemy, they were like jackals driving sheep, patiently and greedily devouring the weakest lambs, then looking for the next target.

This was the right strategy: to keep wiping out the enemy effectively while maintaining the enemy’s chaos, removing the threat of a counterattack, until exhaustion made both sides unable to continue, until the enemy was terrified to the bone. Even if they could gather enough scattered soldiers, they would no longer have the courage to launch a counterattack. If there were no surprises, this situation might have lasted a whole morning, or even longer—no one knew how long these powerful silent knights would continue this bloody slaughter.

I said: if there were no surprises.

Wherever Fred was, there were surprises!

We came, sweeping around the rear formation of the Winston iron cavalry and charging at them. Perhaps because the fully enclosed armor blocked their vision, perhaps because the reality of the great army’s weakness had numbed their minds, or perhaps for other reasons I could not guess—but the fact was that they had not noticed at all that there was still an army that could counterattack them. When the spears in our hands pierced their bodies and knocked the last row of heavy knights off their horses, I finally heard their voices.

The sound of their screams.

They finally let out shouts on the battlefield. That sound was strange and familiar, not very different from the screams of agony that their enemies had raised again and again before. No matter how brave a warrior was, when death was close and he faced despair alone, he was probably no different from an ordinary person.

When it came to thrusting from horseback, I was not as skilled as Red Flame, Carlson, or the soldiers they had trained. Because of the warhorse’s jolting, at the moment my spear thrust forward, my spear tip veered downward and stabbed into the armor of a warhorse. That horse screamed and jumped, raised its head and neighed, then suddenly rushed forward. The knight on the horse was caught off guard, thrown off, and landed in front of my horse.

I felt my mount beneath me move up and down abnormally, and then I seemed to hear the sound of bones breaking.

I knew what had happened, and I did not look back.

Carlson on my left, I do not know what he was thinking. After seeing my mistake, he actually stabbed the warhorse in front of him on the rump too. That horse also neighed and charged forward, plunging into the formation that had been arranged in the front ranks and causing chaos. The Winston cavalrymen affected became flustered, and only with difficulty did they calm the horse’s pain. Following his signal, more soldiers began to abuse the horses of the enemy ahead.

This seemed like a good idea. A maddened warhorse caused far more chaos than killing a knight. We only needed to lower our spear tips a little. Besides, for a poor rider like me, the target had become much bigger.

“I hate hurting horses,” Red Flame shouted in annoyance. The Elves’ love for horses was born into them.

But even so, he still drove the horses wearing soft armor mad, one after another.

“When I am with you people, I always have to do things I don’t like!”

“But you like it, don’t you?” Carlson shouted.

“That’s right, I like doing things I don’t like! Haha!” Red Flame suddenly laughed wildly, his hands showing no mercy at all. Another horse had terrible luck.

The Winston troops fell into even greater chaos—more warhorses, stung on their rumps, went mad and shoved forward. Behind them was a group of Light Cavalry whose spear tips were stained red, abusing the animals.

More and more enemies discovered our presence, but at the same time they found themselves in a dilemma: compared with a sneak attack by a thousand-man force, the counterattack of a ten-thousand-man army was clearly more threatening, so they could not stop this charge. But if they ignored us, they would inevitably face a very passive situation.

Moments later, we had already achieved results that the thirty-thousand-man army had not achieved in a whole morning: no fewer than three hundred heavy knights had fallen from their horses. Most of them had been thrown off by their own wounded mounts.

Our enemies finally realized how dangerous it was to let us attack like this. Soon their charging formation split apart at the two-thirds point, and the soldiers in the rear half charged out to the left front, forming an independent unit. The knights in front of us, who had almost been driven mad, were probably all glad to finally have the chance to speed up and get away from our harassment. After all, being knocked off a horse by such a dishonorable, base tactic was not a warrior’s ideal way to end.

That newly split unit did not stop—even heavy cavalry could not resist a charging mounted force while standing still. Instead, they sped up even more, circled around, and turned to charge at us.

Long ago, I had heard of the invincible name of the Winston iron cavalry. But when an entire army lined up in neat formation and charged with spears pointing straight at your face, your feeling was completely different. I did not know what faces were hidden inside those helmets that completely covered their faces, but their movements, their silence, and the proud, unstoppable posture with which they controlled their horses and charged all explained the meaning of “invincible” in their own way.

No army could withstand the charge of the Winston Heavy Cavalry. For me, this sentence had once been a legend, a warning, a depressing and hopeless piece of battlefield news. But at this moment, it had become a fact, galloping alive right before my eyes.

Only those who had faced their charge head-on could truly understand the meaning of this sentence: no army could withstand the charge of the Winston Heavy Cavalry.

We did not withstand it.

Fred turned his horse’s head, and Carlson immediately followed up with a command that felt extremely welcome: “Run!”

What happened next must have confused our opponents: an “elite force” that had caused them great losses gave up the chance to resist and shattered into powder in an instant, scattering like floating dust stirred up by a whirlwind. They scattered so completely that not even two people ran side by side. On the battlefield that had just been full of killing intent, a huge empty space suddenly appeared. And charging toward that empty space at full power like fools were precisely the Winston Heavy Cavalry, who had just created a great war myth by defeating a larger force with a smaller one.

When someone wants to secretly drink the ale from your cup, the best way to stop him is to drink all the ale yourself. When the enemy tries to break up your attack and scatter your formation, if you cannot hold against them, the best way is to scatter your own formation first. We made the Winston soldiers completely lose their target. After fruitlessly chasing a few lone warhorses, they finally gave up the idea of destroying us, a group of “battle-fearing sneak attackers,” and rejoined their own formation.

What made them furious was this: when they returned to their own ranks and continued chasing the routed Delanmaya army, we regrouped not far behind their formation, slipped up to their rear again, and caused chaos for them.

Once again, the Winston forces split off a unit to drive us away. But before they could launch their charge, we had already scattered and fled in all directions again, with results beyond expectations. Indeed, we were an army lacking battlefield experience, but under Carlson’s training, no second army’s running-away ability could compare with ours. They tried to catch up with the few people at the rear of our group so they could vent the anger in their hearts, but the speed advantage of the Light Cavalry forced them to give up that idea.

Our soldiers had completely gotten rid of their fear of this invincible iron army. Even while fleeing, they still had the energy to turn their heads, make faces, make insulting gestures, and even stand on their stirrups and show their buttocks to mock the enemy’s helplessness. The strong sense of oppression I had felt when facing them a moment ago had completely disappeared. While they were still far away from me, I made a gesture at the leading knight that meant “small.” This gesture was common in any tavern on the continent, expressing contempt by implying that the other person could only drink a tiny cup of wine. That was the most fitting gesture of contempt I could think of.

Unexpectedly, when that knight saw this gesture, he actually shouted out in anger, left his formation, and charged straight at me. Unfortunately, his horse stumbled and fell, and he broke his neck. I had not expected that this gesture would provoke such a strong reaction from him.

Probably he was a man with a good capacity for wine, I thought. Otherwise, he had misunderstood my meaning.

When I turned my head around and got ready to run, I saw Red Flame pushing up his nose with his index finger, making a one-eyed pig-head pose…

…

We used this shameless tactic of sneak attack plus scattered retreat three times, causing the Winston forces to lose about eight hundred knights. More importantly, we had successfully slowed them down, allowing the large routed army to keep their lives. When our enemies deliberately slowed down, planning to strike us head-on when we attacked again, Fred promptly reorganized his troops, left behind a group of iron cavalry warriors burning with rage over our despicable attacks, and led us away from the battlefield.

Before leaving, he looked at our fleeing army and sighed: “If they still had the courage to turn around and fight now, history would probably be changed…”

In the battle beneath the walls of Rileyville, His Highness the Crown Prince Louis had broken thirty thousand with six thousand. He combined the ferocity and finesse of heavy cavalry mass charge tactics to an unprecedented height, greatly adding luster to his already bright and dazzling path as a military star, and also won time for launching further offensives on the south bank of the Morning Light River. Without a doubt, even for His Highness the Crown Prince, who had made brilliant achievements, this was bound to be a great battle worthy of pride and remembrance for his whole life.

Sharing in this victory with him was Fred. He had successfully taken advantage of the moment when the Crown Prince was in a dilemma, using a thousand scattered soldiers to launch harassment attacks. He nearly wiped out a powerful cavalry force equal to our own numbers, while our losses were less than a hundred. He also successfully held back the Winston pursuit and preserved a large amount of Delanmaya resistance strength.

Before the magnificent battlefield performance displayed by these two young commanders, victory and defeat had already lost their meaning.