Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters-Chapter 412 - 50: Breaking the Defense

Chapter 412: Chapter 50: Breaking the Defense

Chiliarch Alaric sat on the ground, silently staring at the nearby Bridgehead Fortress.

One after another, Herder warriors climbed over the camp walls and disappeared from view.

No one knew what was happening on the other side of the low earthen wall, they could only see puffs of gunsmoke rising and the only sounds reaching their ears were the piercing screams and wails.

A few blood-covered Herders crawled out from within the walls, and others by the trench began to run back, a defeated Tulu among them.

Alaric waved his hand, and another Tulu ran towards The Styx, yelling as he went.

Behind Haug Koda, more than a hundred heavily armored Herder warriors likewise sat on the ground.

They were gathering their energy, waiting to strike the final blow.

…

The desperation of the Paratu People inside the West Camp grew.

The savage Herd Barbarians piled corpses to climb the walls, eight centurions took turns in the fight, not giving the defenders any chance to breathe.

The southwest side of the camp wall had been dug out by the Herders, creating a breach over ten meters wide, only temporarily held by Bard with a barricade of wagons and the support of Montaigne’s troops.

Paratu soldiers, clutching their weapons, slumped against the walls; as Winters walked past them, those still alive nodded silently to the lieutenant in respect.

As Winters’s gaze swept over the faces of the young men he had brought from Wolf Town, a thought suddenly took hold: they couldn’t hold out here.

The fall of a city begins when hope is shattered.

A mood of despair spread throughout the camp, and the fighting spirit of the Paratu People was rapidly disintegrating.

But Winters could not blame anyone; to him, the fact that this militia had held out thus far was a miracle.

A month ago, they were but a group of conscripted farmers, doing grunt work like laborers, earning less than half the laborers’ wages.

Now, they were trapped in the Bridgehead Fortress, fighting off thousands of ferocious Herd Barbarians in turn.

Winters clenched his teeth hard, a thought echoing in his mind, “This won’t do.”

The death knell rang out once more.

“Barbarians!” The soldier atop the watchtower yelled hoarsely, “They’re coming to the breach!”

Winters climbed onto the earthen rampart to look out over the wall.

At last, the Herders, too, had lost patience, and Alaric’s own unit finally mobilized.

There were only a few hundred cavalrymen, but their charge was like a towering tidal wave. The horse hooves kicked up dust that obscured the sky, and even the ground seemed to tremble.

Colonel Jeska’s cavalry and Lieutenant Colin’s remnants hastened toward the breach in the camp wall.

However, the breach at the wall became too much for the militiamen to bear; one man threw down his weapon and turned to run, and the rest broke and fled en masse.

Winters shouted, trying to stop them, but he couldn’t halt the collapse of their will.

The approaching Colonel Jeska was furious, and Winters heard his roar from afar, “Montaigne! Purge the deserters!”

Winters made no move.

“Purge the deserters!”

Winters drew his cavalry saber and caught up to the deserter who was running in the lead.

He recognized the deserter; he knew the man’s father, had seen his mother, his sister. He had sat at the deserter’s family table, warmed himself by a campfire alongside the deserter.

When the deserter looked back at him, Winters saw Vashka’s face, terror-stricken.

The moment the cavalry saber swung down, Winters trembled. He twisted the blade, and the flat of the sword struck the back of Vashka’s head.

Vashka fell to the ground, life or death unknown.

The harsh action momentarily stunned the fleeing masses.

“If you run now, everyone dies!” Winters reined in his horse, bellowing out, “Return to the line!”

Colonel Jeska arrived with the Dusacks, and the Cavalry mercilessly drove the deserters back to the breach in the camp wall.

…

…

The attack from the Herd cavalry was eventually repelled, leaving dozens of bodies between the wagon barricade and the camp wall.

The battle lasted from dawn until dusk. Having witnessed the defeat of their elite Tulu, the Herders slowly withdrew.

But everyone knew that the Herd Barbarians were only retreating temporarily, licking their wounds, regrouping.

When tomorrow came, nothing could stop them from overtaking the West Camp.

After the Herders retreated, the merchants with the supply convoy requested to move their carts to the other side of the river; Colonel Jeska refused.

“It’s not entirely hopeless!” Lieutenant Colin murmured to himself during the meeting, his head in his hands, “The Herd Barbarians are just one Chiliarch unit. We have over six hundred people; if we defend the camp and fight two to one, how can we not win?”

Winters, unable to bear it any longer, interrupted angrily, “That’s not six hundred Standing Army men, that’s farmers! Cart drivers! Merchants! Face reality, Lieutenant! If we can’t hold it, we can’t hold it!”

“What do you mean?” Jeska looked at his subordinate.

Winters stood up, after a great struggle with himself, he said, “I want to take my men across the river.”

Colin looked up in surprise; he heard the lieutenant’s tone firm and calm, yet he saw the shadow on the wall flaring like a wild beast in a dance.

Jeska pursed his lips, leaned back in his chair, and squinted his eyes at the other two lieutenants, “What about you two?”

Winters spoke first, “They have nothing to do with this.”

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“They have mouths,” Jeska said coldly.

Bard rested his sword on his lap, speaking at an even pace, “What Lieutenant Montaigne says is what I say.”

“Me too,” Andre replied in a muffled voice.

Colin got up in a daze, the poor honest man wanted to say something, but he couldn’t open his mouth.

“Thinking of mutiny? Go ahead,” Colonel Jeska scoffed, resting his boots on the table, “Kill me.”

The temperature in the room suddenly dropped to freezing.