plumnovel #570 - The advantage is mine!
#570 - The advantage is mine!
Several black swallows dove from the blue sky into the earth, heads down, carefully selecting in the grass before carrying mud mixed with weeds in their beaks towards their nests.
Their slender wings stirred the air, nearly colliding with the red and blue butterflies flitting around the flowers.
The warm, scorching sun covered everything, making it a perfect day to lie in one's yard and bask in the sunlight.
But at this moment, the helmeted and armored soldiers felt their heads unbearably hot.
Under the sun, more than seven thousand elite mercenary infantrymen marched, facing the midday sun.
Occasionally, they would look up and see groups of light cavalry skirmishing in the distant fields and at the edge of the woods.
The windmill-style high-topped boat-shaped helmets glittered, absorbing the sun's heat and turning the infantrymen's heads into pressure cookers.
Even just marching, the boat-shaped helmets caused these elite mercenaries from Windmill Land to sweat profusely, leaving clear marks on their sallow faces.
Unlike the round-brimmed helmets commonly used by Hoen and his men, these boat-shaped helmets curved upwards at both ends, somewhat resembling small paper boats.
To distinguish friend from foe, the mercenaries who had money would buy feathers of different colors to insert into their helmets.
Looking out from horseback, the earth-yellow and cyan-green landscape was dotted with a sea of colorful feathers rising and falling with the soldiers' footsteps.
The Empire collectively called these feathers 'plumes'.
However, the infantrymen's plumes were at most two or three, about a palm's length.
The long plumes and tassels on the knights' helmets, on the other hand, could sometimes drag down to their backs.
Prince Condé's plumes today were relatively simple, only about 30 centimeters long.
But the armor he wore was exquisitely crafted with gilding, including the neck guard, shoulder armor, arm armor, body armor, skirt armor… and even gloves on his hands.
This set of armor was already thick, and it was further decorated with gilding and brass.
Its weight could be felt from the lifeless, drooling face of the warhorse beneath him.
The white-hot fireball in the sky radiated immense heat, but the prince seemed not to feel it, calmly asking Ellard beside him, "Has the position of the 'short-hairs' been scouted clearly?"
"Five miles away, Your Highness. You were right, these farmers have actually come out of their wagon forts and are preparing to face us head-on," Ellard said with a solemn expression. "I saw they have about twelve to sixteen companies, over a thousand cavalry, including the wild men and wizards from Black Serpent Bay, roughly a little over ten thousand."
"Black Serpent Bay has been very active lately," a flicker of ferocity crossed Prince Condé's face.
Ellard nodded in agreement: "The Church can't spare the manpower right now. In a couple of years, they'll conduct a large-scale encirclement, and they'll be quiet."
Almost every few decades, the Empire would gather its forces to encircle and suppress Black Serpent Bay, preventing the Secret Society's power from growing too large.
But they wouldn't completely wipe out the Secret Society, nor could they, so they could only treat the symptoms but not the root cause.
Rapid hoofbeats, cloaked in dust, approached from a distance. Lacunio, who had personally scouted and returned, rode up. As soon as he saw Prince Condé, he frowned and said, "Charl, I think the terrain where the 'short-hairs' are arrayed is not good."
"Not good is not good. Can we just not fight? The ferry and bridge are burned. If we wait for Melia to arrive, it'll be even harder to fight than before," Prince Condé said, stroking the mane of his warhorse with his gauntleted hand.
Lacunio thought for a moment, but could only helplessly realize that Prince Condé was right.
After the enemy occupied Stillwater Dock, an important river transport hub, no matter how they fought, the enemy could transfer troops faster than they could.
If they tried to bypass the river instead of crossing it, continuing to delay would inevitably lead to Hoen and Melia joining forces.
The terrain in the Ham River area was basically like this, so it was better to fight sooner rather than later.
Therefore, even knowing that the terrain was unfavorable, they had to fight.
"You few, go scout the surrounding area again to see if there are any ambushes," Prince Condé shouted to his attendants. "Pass down the order that after reaching the village ahead, the infantry will rest, quickly taking care of their business and eating. After half an hour, we'll set off."
Hearing the news of being able to rest and the impending battle, the entire army became much more disciplined.
They accelerated their march to the village, and under the leadership of their respective commanders, they began to take care of their chores and prepare their weapons, ready for the upcoming battle.
Sitting in the shade of a tree, Prince Condé drank beer and ate his rations, carefully calculating his assets.
Two elite mercenary regiments of over six thousand men, guards and officers numbering about a little over a thousand, 4 decree companies with 1300 men, and more than 500 knights and mercenary knights who had joined him.
Unlike the attendant knights that Enrico brought, Prince Condé's subordinates were all elite transcendent knights with rank.
Even the work that attendant knights should do was given to higher-ranking squire knights.
In terms of troop strength alone, Prince Condé was weaker than the Salvation Army.
But if considering the individual combat power of the soldiers, excluding the influence of weapons and equipment, the demons were far inferior.
Although he had previously lost 5 decree companies, due to the abilities of the decree knights, more of those who escaped or recovered from serious injuries were decree knights than ordinary knights.
So, although there were only 4 decree companies, Prince Condé had 437 decree knights in his hands.
With so many decree knights, even on the Kush River front, they could take on ogre warlords, not to mention that he was a half-step grand knight.
In terms of arranging troops, he wasn't afraid of Hoen. In a one-on-one fight, he was even stronger than that demon.
In short, the advantage is on my side!
Ferociously shoving several chunks of half-cooked roasted demonic beast meat into his mouth, Prince Condé chewed vigorously, and streams of blood mixed with oil dripped from the corners of his mouth, but he didn't notice.
Several attendants beside him subconsciously moved away. The prince's eating habits had become worse and worse recently, and his scarlet teeth were like those of a beast.
After resting for half an hour, the entire army set off again.
Beside the empty houses were the farmlands that had been forced to lie fallow in the spring.
Rows of scattered boat helmets stirred, and cloth shoes and straw sandals trampled the weeds in the fields into fragments.
The rural fences were knocked down, the remaining pigs and sheep were taken away, and the berry bushes under the trees were trampled askew.
Hundreds of swallow-tailed banners snaked along like a long dragon, and the fully armored knights, armed from head to toe, swayed with the backs of their horses, and the sunlight could not reach an inch of their skin.
The fragrance of flowers and the stench of wolf smoke stimulated the noses of the monks. They sat on horse-drawn carts, carefully protecting the swaying jars of holy oil placed in the straw with their bodies.
At about one o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun was at its fiercest, Prince Condé finally arrived at the battlefield—a river beach called Cheese Bay—with an army of nearly ten thousand.
Prince Condé originally didn't understand why this place was called Cheese Bay. Was it possible that cheese was abundant here?
But after seeing it with his own eyes, he had to admit that the name was indeed apt.
Behind the bushes and sparse trees, streams and ditches crisscrossed from both sides of the river beach.
The entire river beach ran north-south, with the terrain gradually increasing in height from west to east. The westernmost river beach was covered with sand and gravel, and the easternmost highland was flat and open.
But the problem lay in the transition area from the river beach to the plain. It was not a gentle slope, but a dozen or so mounds, 10 meters high, from low to high.
The mounds were both connected and separated, undulating, like the dense, crisscrossing holes in cheese.
The flat mounds were covered with fluffy, fine green grass and irises, and combined with those hollow-shaped depressions and corridors, it really looked like a piece of moldy cheese.
"I told you the terrain wasn't good," Lacunio said, riding his horse beside Prince Condé, his eyes tightly furrowed, looking at the sea of helmets shimmering with the river in front of him.
Nearly a hundred black and red flags fluttered, and soldiers in black stood on the mounds in an extremely neat horizontal formation.
The Salvation Army's twelve legions were arranged in pairs, parallel to the Ham River, arranged in two rows, staggered and overlapping, occupying the high ground of the mounds in advance.
The front and rear rows were only thirty or forty meters apart, which was quite a close distance, because the distance they had to travel from the rear mound to the front mound was more than thirty or forty meters.
On one of the steepest mounds, one could also see trebuchets and fire ball crossbows being assembled, and in the depressions, one could also see the figures of Black Serpent Bay wild men with swords and shields.
"Are we still attacking?" Alfos, the company commander of the Third Decree Company, looked at the mound terrain in front of him and asked softly.
Prince Condé's eyelids twitched slightly: "Why not attack? Are you afraid?"
"Not afraid," Alfos replied immediately, "It's just that this terrain is troublesome, I don't know…"
The prince turned his horse and watched the battlefield for a while. He sneered, and drew the knight's sword from his waist:
"Alfos, take the knights to the high ground on the left flank to hold the line, don't charge yet."
"Yes, Your Highness!" After kissing the tip of his sword, Alfos immediately led the decree company towards the high ground on the left flank, where the Holy Cannon cavalry was arrayed.
"Priest Ageta, take the monks and follow Alfos."
"Yes, Your Highness." With holy water grenades and holy oil jars hanging from their waists with rope nets, dozens of monks jogged towards the high ground on the left flank.
Prince Condé turned his gaze to Griffin and Stenberg: "You two, listen carefully to what I'm about to say. Whoever fights well in this battle, I will enfeoff them with Stone Wall Town and the surrounding manors."
Griffin and Stenberg's breathing quickened.
"In this battle, you will be the vanguard, leading the Death Legion and the Eagle Legion, to detour to the side, forcing them to turn, and consuming their stamina and magic power.
Remember, you must shorten their battle line and reduce the wind force of their clockwork guns, so that the knights have a chance, understand?"
"Understood, Your Grace!"
The two infantry leaders immediately knelt on one knee and bowed their heads to receive the order.