Chapter 280 279 If our iron hoofs go onward
Chapter 280 279. if our iron hooves continue to move forward .
The terrain of Scarlet Fortress was plains.
There wasn’t much mountainous terrain nearby except for a few hills, and this endless flatness had once shaped the most prosperous part of Transylvania, yet successive disasters had made it more and more withered.
But on the other hand, there was an advantage to fighting in a land that had been repeatedly ravaged, meaning that the two sides didn’t have to think about it any more than they had to kill each other.
The Serenade Boundary of the Scarlet Fortress in the distance was recovering, and under the illumination of the Star Realm Tron that emitted a purple glow overhead, one could see that the scarlet boundary had already gathered to two-thirds of its size, shrouding most of the ruins of the entire city, making it impossible for the turbid stream of jackal vanguards to easily cross over to the land that was being guarded by the loyal and brave anymore.
However, the remaining third of the city, facing west, was still in a state of war, as the chaotic and violent tide of jackals was hitting their last hope of breaking the city.
Once the Serenade Boundary closes again, they will lose the possibility of ever setting foot here.
But it was like a tidal wave hitting a reef.
No matter how frantic they were, they were unable to advance any further, the width of the battlefield was just that big, and the Jackals’ numerical advantage could not be utilized at all with the Serenade Boundary gradually closing in.
“The vampires have won.”
Cthulhu Knight Valander put down the binoculars in his hand, this vulgar but tough and brave knight looked at that battlefield in the distance rather displeased, and he complained to his companions who were in full gear beside him:
“We’re still too late, I wanted to do a favor to that cunning Murphy, but now even without us, they can still hold their ruined city.”
“Look on the bright side, my lord.”
A winged cavalry captain beside Valander, as tall and stocky as he was, grinned:
“This proves that the Blood Wyvern Clan is still strong despite the heavy damage, and hasn’t the Earl already decided to ally with them? Who would seek an alliance with a bunch of cowards and weaklings?
With the Black Plague coming, the stronger they are the better for us, it’s like two weak wolves merging together to reign over the forest again.”
“With Transylvania in this hellish state, what’s there to celebrate about becoming the wolf king here?”
On the other side of Valander’s knight, his wife, half a head shorter than Valander, like a “giant”, Mrs. Sanni, put her hair in a braid, clasped her winged helmet on her head, and lifted the fierce long-handled sword used in horse combat in her hand.
She said disdainfully:
“Both they and we are now lone wolves licking their wounds, and the first step in rebuilding the pack is to fight again when both are weak so that a king can be chosen.
They are stronger than us and you still think that’s a good thing chit, stupid men.”
The disdain from the Winged Cavalry’s wiseguy made the surrounding knights very embarrassed.
Well, as the mixed descendants of mountain people and barbarians, the Sicor Winged Cavalry inherited bravery and strength from both sides, but the thing called wisdom never seemed to belong to them, and they didn’t feel like they needed those things either.
It’s the same as brains!
It’s not that they don’t have them, they’re just too lazy to use them, so they’re kept at a high quality of ninety percent new, unusually smooth enough to ensure that any knowledge can slide smoothly out of the surface of their brains without leaving a trace of wisdom.
“Mount your horses! Prepare to charge!”
The embarrassed Pale Rider couldn’t be mad at his wife, not just because she would still be carrying their first child at this point, but because he was a good man who respected his wife.
Well, of course it also had that little bit to do with the fact that if it really came down to it, the odds were that he couldn’t beat her.
Lady Sonnie was a genius among the Westcorp Winged Cavalry.
Her martial arts and riding skills were personally taught by the last Westco Count and Cavalry Commander, and as a Mountain Priestess of the Mountain Folk heritage, Lady Sanni was also able to use some of the ancient inherited natural psychic energy battle techniques, which made her the best among the only remaining Winged Cavalrymen nowadays.
However, a smart woman would always not embarrass her own man in front of outsiders, so Lady Sanni also quickly rolled onto her horse and pulled her battle helmet visor down to cover her face.
Knight Valander patted his horse, “Cold Wind”.
He stepped on the stirrups and rolled over to mount, and received his own riding lance from his apprentice knight, because his height reached an exaggerated level of 2.5 meters, resulting in Valander’s riding lance is three meters long, but it was still squeezed in his hand as if squeezing a wooden stick.
The standard Winged Cavalry does not only have a riding lance for charging, they keep a long war knife for slashing on their back, two armor-breaking hammers in their horse pockets, and after the last Winged Cavalry commander reformed it, the armor-breaking crossbow, which was originally used as a long-range weapon, was also exchanged for a more practical short-barreled bombardment rifle.
On special missions, such as tonight’s self-seeking and horrific tactic of storming 20,000 jackals with 500 knights, they would additionally place some alchemy bursts in their horse pockets for killing and retreat cover in the event of a reunion.
The fact that so many weapons had to be carried by the horses on their hips, and that the horses themselves were heavily armored, was enough to prove that these winged cavalry’s horses only looked like horses!
They were almost something else entirely on the inside.
In the old legends of the mountain people, the origin of these warhorses called “Shadow Mane” is said to come from the elves in the Castile Peninsula, and in those legends whose authenticity is doubtful, these warhorses were tamed by the elven druids in a special way to provide the elven rangers with special rides.
The fact that they fell into the hands of the mountain people was just a beautiful encounter.
But that didn’t stop the existence of the Shadow Mane War Horses, which had superior endurance and load-bearing properties, from giving rise to such a horrifying troop type as the Sicor Winged Cavalry hundreds of years later.
“Jog forward! Prepare to charge!”
The Valander Knight gave the order in a loud and clear voice.
He urged his majestic companion at his hip to let it saunter forward, and the other knights removed their nighttime camouflage and slowly accelerated forward in platoons following their commander.
The silver-gray plate armor of the winged cavalry reflected a strange light under the purple glow of the Starworld Tron, as if it had cloaked them in a cloak of obscurity.
They followed the advance of the large cluster very silently, the 500 heavily armored riders advancing at their own pace, led by the 20 captains who acted as guides in front of them.
They had to get into position before the wall charge was fully initiated, and their horses needed a little time to “warm up” for the three-stage acceleration from jog to sprint and then to full impact over the nearly 1,000 meters of road.
This is the only drawback of the Shadow Mane Horse.
Their own weight makes it difficult for them to start instantly like the witch hunter’s hunting ponies, and they need a little time to really get going, but believe me, once they’re up and running, there’s very little on this continent that can stop them.
For at least the past three hundred years, in the “collision tests” between the Xicor Winged Cavalry and countless enemies, the Winged Cavalry has proudly maintained an unblemished record of victories.
Of course, this is limited to face-to-face warrior charges and slugfests, and for the Pathfinder Legion to fear their onslaught and use a pathetic psychic plague like cowards to steal victory from these valiant heavy cavalrymen is another bad story that happened two years ago.
Even though two years have passed, whenever I think of the scene when the Winged Cavalry, who claimed that they would “never retreat” on the day of the fall of the city of Sikor, were routed, the Valander Knights, who were the sharpest vectors of the front line, still feel a surge of shame.
He knew that the memory of that shame would stay with him for the rest of his life, and he was sure that this shame would also be felt in the hearts of all the brothers and sisters who were following behind him.
It was the first time they had fled from the battlefield before the battle was over!
Even if it was out of the old count’s final order.
They chose duty over battle and duty, but at the same time they became the cowards they had most despised.
After they had lost their city and retreated into the mountains, they still fought the invaders for two years on the land that belonged to them, and I’m afraid that in addition to not being willing to give up their homeland, there was also that element of shame in effect.
Everyone kept their mouths shut about that day, as if it had become a taboo for this last winged cavalry.
That included Valander himself and his wise and powerful wife.
But there was no escaping those things!
Especially when faced again with the responsibility of war, a duty they had to shoulder, the torture from the past was undoubtedly a tormenting pressure.
If not properly adjusted, this pressure can turn into anxiety and eventually resistance and fear.
And the best way to face fear is
“Knights! Raise your heads!”
The Cthulhu Knight’s low voice rang out over the acceleration of the warhorses under the darkness of the night, accompanied by the vibration of iron hooves on the ground as he roared:
“Since the founding of the Winged Cavalry, there has never been a precedent of charging with our heads down, that’s not just so we can see the enemy in front of us, it’s so our enemy can see us.
The trembling of the ground announces our arrival, the sweep of the mounted lances heralds their departure.
This is our tradition!
Raise your heads, look at them, look at our enemies!”
It was not enough.
Valander knew that it wasn’t enough to have this as a pre-war declaration, nay he had only been a charging commander before, and such things as pre-war declarations were carried out by Count Sicor.
And their current count
Alas, perhaps doing this would be enough? He thought so.
But in the next instant, a voice that surprised Valander so much that he nearly fell off his chilly saddle rang out in the darkness of the night immediately after his words, in the second coalition at the rear of the left hand side of his body.
It was a woman’s voice.
No, it was a girl’s voice!
Clear, soft, even with a hint of childishness.
“Knights!
I know that you all dwell on your past defeats and regard them as a shame for running away without a fight, and I know that every one of you has tossed and turned in every living night because of that shame.
It was the first time the Winged Cavalry turned their backs on the enemy in battle, and it was the first time that the territory of Sicor, which was guarded by you, was left powerless to fight back against the enemy’s trampling.
That was our first defeat!
That bitter feeling is always fresh in one’s mind.”
The girl’s voice shouldn’t have been loud enough to be heard under the darkness of the night by all the cavalrymen who had already completed their formation change, but the psychic skill from Lady Sonnie allowed this child’s voice to even overpower the hoofbeats, which had gradually accelerated and become noisy, at this moment.
This scene was just like the war declaration of the old Count Sicco every time he led them to the battlefield, when the cavalry accelerated and gathered into an indestructible steel torrent, just like the addition of the gold-burning catalyst in the steam furnace, which made the originally flat steam also become violent.
The Knight of Valand twisted his head to look.
He saw the tiny figure in his wife’s arms in the saddle of her horse, Glacier, who was wearing the same armor as the winged cavalry.
Smaller ones, of course.
Her helmet was topped with a long black and white tassel that identified her.
The current Earl of Sicor.
The youngest daughter of the old Earl, the last heir of the Sicomair family.
She shouldn’t be here!
Much less to be part of this dangerous charge, which is not a great square of 5,000 knights in a fearless onslaught, now that there are only 500 of them, and 200 of them are handicapped.
There was no vanguard, no rear guard, no flanks!
They were performing a “case of error” that should never have occurred in a winged cavalry drill.
“Listen up! Knights! I am your Count and your Commander-in-Chief! Just as an outstanding cavalryman never abandons his horse, so the House of Sicomair has never had an Earl who was too cowardly to charge into battle.
I know I shouldn’t be here!
But I came anyway.
It will get me severely reprimanded by the Knights of Valand after the battle, and I might even shed a tear because of it, but I came anyway, because I know that it is my duty.
Just as you know that it is your duty to speed up the charge against the enemy that stands in front of you and help our allies win this battle!
Knights!
Our dignity and our honorable traditions have been shattered and trampled by our enemies, our past has been severed by that defeat and all that is left for us is to live with it.
We have failed.
We recognize that.
The half-breeds of mountain folk and barbarians are not even afraid to die, much less to admit that they have been humiliating failures.
But it is precisely because we have failed that we are here!
Like our ancient ancestors, we will face the enemies of civilization head on in yet another Black Plague, and as the old legends tell us, we will charge forward facing that terrible Black Tide.
We will fight and win!
We will pick up our lost dignity and traditions with our own hands, and recast the legend of the Winged Cavalry’s invincibility!
It starts tonight!
It begins now!”
The young Count of Sicco’s voice paused, and by now the wall charge of the Knights’ squares was fully formed.
Five hundred heavy cavalry led by the vulture knight Valander had already entered the kinetic energy accumulation of the second acceleration, and the terrifying vibrations formed by their cloaked horses stepping over the earth could no longer be hidden by the darkness of the night, and even the dumbest of the jackals had already felt the earth trembling under their feet.
The earth was groaning!
It was as if even it could not withstand the fury of the charging heavy cavalry with their raised weapons and the humiliation that had been ignited in their hearts.
Valander had seen the flanks of the jackal vanguard army that was storming the Scarlet Fortress in front of him, less than a thousand meters away.
And the cold wind was hissing.
It seemed as if even it couldn’t wait to experience the joy of trampling and destroying again, to take back what it had lost.
“Wings unfold!”
The Pale Vulture Knight could feel a fire burning in his heart, and he roared in anger as he gave his final command.
All the cavalry activated the psychic spells on their armor at the same time, and the wings that stood as decorations on the back of the armor unfolded and flattened like real wings.
With the activation of the psychic spells, the natural psychic energy was transformed into a gale-like propulsion that pushed the riders and their horses into a three times accelerated buildup in an instant.
Making them faster, making the kinetic energy they would exert when charging even more terrifying.
Like a war hammer already swung up in the air, it was incredibly eager to land on top of a damn brain.
“Knights!”
The somewhat broken-voiced cry of the young Countess of Sicco also rang out in these final moments, as she cried out in a growl:
“We will walk into history as our ancestors did, write it and glorify it, the old legends have fallen, but new ones are at hand.
As Count of the House of Sicomair, I command you!
Follow me and charge forward!
Crush them!”
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
The jackal savage captain who was facing the heavy cavalry square coming straight in front of him was already desperate.
The cubs behind him had long since turned around and ran, driven by fear and even slashing their weapons at their companions for the hope of escape.
They absolutely did not want to be impacted by such a cavalry.
It would surely hurt.
But it had nowhere else to go.
It saw the flattened mounted lance of the Valander rider who had been the sharp vector of the charge, and with a growl it used its last ounce of courage to swing the yoke up in an attempt to block the monster that was smashing in front of it.
It got what it wanted.
“Bang!”
The brave but foolish jackal rose up into the air with what could be called a “light” impact.
It died the moment it took off.
This was probably a good thing, because the next moment, its corpse flew into the air like it had wings, and flew and flew, until a hundred meters later when it managed to smash into the chaotic position behind it.
And the next instant, the piercing squares stepped over its corpse in a ground-shaking formation, easily parting their formation like hot dinner knives parting butter, constantly piercing and tearing it apart.
One by one the foolish jackals flew into the air, while more of the barbarians were reduced to mincemeat under the iron hooves.
The knights rushed forward in silence and clamor.
It was like an old story from the past, the stupid enemy tried to stop the winged cavalry, the winged cavalry began to charge, and . The battle was over.
Well, how hard could it be?
(End of chapter)