Chapter 3 – Story 62: The Humiliation of Sunomuta 2 – Archers

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The drumming of big drums thundered across the area which would become known as Sunomuta in later years, tolling the start of the battle. Amidst all the noise, a messenger spurred his horse. His pure-white mantle was fluttering in the wind and his helmet with the richly-colored, bright and flashy bird feathers stood in stark contrast to the battlefield’s bleakness. He was coming from Alexius’s Fifth Division.

“Message, message!”

The common foot soldiers hurriedly opened a path for the runner and his horse. After all, they would be put to the sword in the worst case, if they were deemed to block the way.

“A message from His Highness Alexius to General Rakius! You are to advance your soldiers!”

“Thank you for bringing the message! Tell His Highness that I, Rakius, shall comply.”

General Rakius, an officer of the royal army, was in command of the First Division. Combined with the soldiers of some nobles who had joined the expedition together with the regular army, the number of troops under him amounted to roughly 2,000. Slightly more than 1,000 of those soldiers were archers.

The equipment of those archers was commonplace for this era. They wore a bowl-shaped, bronze helmet with a thick cloth hanging down on the sides to protect their cheeks, a scale torso armor, and leather sandals reaching up to their shins. As weapons, they possessed a rather short, straight sword, sheathed at their hips, and logically, their bows.

The remaining half of the soldiers wore light armor. Their helmet’s face protector wasn’t made out of leather but metal, since they didn’t need a wide field of view, but otherwise those soldiers mostly used the same armor as the archers. The biggest difference was to be found in their armament. They held a shield in their hands. Those shields were taller than themselves and were basically wooden boards with leather covers, reinforced with metal pieces. Once the ranged battle against the enemy archers would start, they would pair up with an archer and protect him from enemy fire. Moreover, three to five short throwing spears were tied with leather straps to the inner side of their shields. These spears would allow them to fight in case the enemy came close.

With his violet crista――a clear sign of him being a general――swaying, Rakius shouted, “Listen closely, men! We are going to fight elven archers from now on!”

That caused a stir amongst his soldiers.

One outstanding elven archer equals ten human archers, was a commonly known, wise saying among the humans of Seldeas, signifying the elven might when it came to archery. Of course, it had some exaggeration to it, but it showed just how much archery skill the elves possessed. And naturally Holmea’s soldiers, who used the same tool for their trade, had heard of this saying, too.

However, General Rakius laughed this away in front of his shaken soldiers.

“But, fear not! No matter how excellent they might be, the enemy archers number few! Less than half our numbers! And on top of it all, all of them are women! It is a shame that they won’t be able to experience getting stabbed by our lower spears, but how about we give them a full treat of our arrows instead!” After alleviating some of his soldiers’ tension by adding a vulgar joke, he motivated them even further by baiting, “Also, shooting an elven archer is the highest military achievement for an archer! If you wish to brag to the barmaids about your own exploits, take down those pesky elves!”

Those words cheered up the archers as visible from them vigorously thrusting their bows in the air while roaring. Seeing that he managed to bolster his men’s morale, General Rakius widely swung his right hand.

“Advance!”

Accompanying his order, a drum sounded the signal of march. The soldiers of the First Division began to advance, their footsteps adding up into a loud stampede.

◆◇◆◇◆

“Elder Sister, the enemy army has begun to move,” one of the elven archers informed Eladia.

“So they’re starting without even sending a truce bearer to announce the beginning of hostilities.”

Eladia wasn’t wearing her usual attire as Chief Court Lady, but plain pants and a short robe that lacked any seductiveness. A bow and quiver could be seen on her back as she told her archers with a bewitching smile, “It is good manners for a lady to slap rude gentlemen, who try to touch them without permission. You’re aware of that custom, aren’t you?”

Eladia made a light joke.

“Oh my, Elder Sister, I was certain that it was good manners to kick them between their legs, and not just slap them.”

“Oh, and here I thought you were supposed to crush it underfoot.”

For a while, a light, pleasant laughter could be heard from the elven court ladies. Hearing their words, the human men cringed in fear. They, who stood among the elven archers, were all young men of marriageable age. They held shields, which were taller than them, and wore uniform light armor. Many of them had applied as volunteer soldiers after being deeply impressed by Souma’s speech in Bolnis before the army’s departure.

“Would you be willing to assign the young men to my unit, seeing how it is no problem for fresh volunteers to be of use for us right away,” Eladia had asked Souma for an increase in personnel for her archer unit a short time after his speech.

Souma had looked very puzzled when he heard her appeal. The elven women belonging to Eladia’s archer unit were known for their hate of looking at men――and especially human ones――let alone allowing them to get close. And although Eladia’s court ladies were smiling at men in public, they’d never allow one of them to get close. Yet, that was only natural, if you considered their background.

Despite that, Eladia had expressly asked to place young, human men in her unit.

Once Souma asked whether this followed some sort of logic, Eladia answered, “Very likely, the battle will begin with a rally between archer units. At such a time, we will need people to protect us from the enemy arrows by holding big shields.”

Just as she said, it was common for battles to begin with an exchange of ranged attacks in this world. And if it came to a straight-laced archery contest, the elves would be at disadvantage with their low numbers, no matter how superb their archery skills might be. Souma assumed that she wanted to even the playing field to some degree by having big shields protecting them from enemy arrows. Having said that, it would be like putting the horse before the cart, if they decreased the already small number of archers even further by assigning some of them to shield duty. Souma could understand the notion of her asking for shield bearers, even if it had to have been a hard call for her and her women.

But, Souma couldn’t agree to this readily. After all, Eladia was asking for volunteer soldiers who had joined their army just a little while ago. Given the freshness of those men, they hadn’t received anything you could call military training, so they would be utterly useless in combat. At present, they were still indulging in the feverish delirium triggered by Souma’s speech, but once they got thrown into the cold water of actual battle, all that passion would surely evaporate.

It was unthinkable that Eladia hadn’t noticed as much herself. Souma guessed that she couldn’t directly ask for trained soldiers as she kindly took into account his own hardships due to the lack of troops.

After surmising all of that, Souma suggested to Eladia, “If that’s the case, I will check back with Marchronis whether he could share some of his soldiers with you.”

The one controlling all human soldiers was Marchronis, who had been appointed as Human General. Human soldiers with plenty of combat training had been assigned to him. Of course, it wasn’t as though Marchronis was living in an abundance of soldiers either. However, not making the enemy archer unit retreat――even if he didn’t require them to be routed――at the start of the battle would become an obstacle for the plans Souma had prepared. For this reason as well, Souma began to ponder how to bring up this topic with Marchronis, but was quickly interrupted by Eladia shaking her head.

“It will be fine, Lord Soma,” she assured him with a smile. “If my sisters ask the men, 『Let us work together』 or 『I am counting on you』, while smiling sweetly, even amateurs will likely stand so firm for us that they would not lose out to a veteran’s performance.”

In short, she was saying the elves would work the young men hard by luring them with their beauty. And now Souma could also understand why Eladia would be asking for men who would be young and innocent enough to be swayed by his speech. However, her ability to say all this with a completely calm demeanor caused Souma to be scared of her.

Overwhelmed by Eladia, Souma could only nod at her words.

As soon as Eladia had left after getting permission, Souma said to Shyemul from the bottom of his heart, “Women are truly scary…”

“I’m a woman as well, but that person is definitely terrifying,” Shyemul answered, while also looking very grave.

The woman labeled by those two as terrifying covered her mouth with a black cloth after laughing with her sisters for a short while.

“I leave it to you how you handle things. No need to hold back. ――Well then, let us train those savage brutes!”

The elven women, now also wearing black masks, answered, “Yes!”, in a chorus.

“When it comes to an exchange of arrows in a dense formation, we are at a disadvantage due to our lacking numbers! Captains of each squad, have your squad members advance while keeping distance between your allies as you see fit!”

Following that order, all elven women started to walk forward at once. Yet, among them, Eladia and around a hundred elves remained standing still. Eladia grinned at her comrades.

“Okay, let us get moving as well. ――Are your partners in a good mood?”

While saying so, Eladia lightly tapped the neck of the partner who was standing next to her.

◆◇◆◇◆

General Rakius clicked his tongue when he saw the elven archers approaching his unit while keeping distance between them. Usually, the rally of ranged attacks at the beginning of a battle would be carried out from a location barely within the shooting range. Because of that, precise aiming wasn’t possible. As such, it’d significantly lower the damage if they didn’t shoot their arrows all at once in a group.

Yet, the elves were approaching their position in a loose formation without bunching up.

With the enemy density remaining so thin, the majority of our arrows will be in vain. And in contrast to that, the elves probably scheme to compensate for their inferior numbers by capitalizing on their high archery skills.

General Rakius felt somewhat uneasy about the ranks of the elven archers, which seemed to tell him that the elves were confident that they’d be able to pull this off. Although he had earlier boasted that there was nothing to be afraid of in front of his men, this was General Rakius’s first time fighting elven archers.

But, that only made sense. After all, the number of elves in the West was quite limited. The West was a region with many plains, but few deep forests, which the elves usually inhabited. Moreover, the elves, who were few in numbers to begin with, mostly preferred the exclusive environment of forests and only very eccentric elves would voluntarily leave those forests. Not to mention that the number of elves participating in battles as mercenaries was next to zero.

For this reason, almost no one in the West――not even seasoned generals――had experienced fighting elven archer units on the battlefield. Even so, a veteran like General Rakius at least knew that it’d be the height of folly to enter an archery contest with elven archers.

According to the book of the great, famous Imperial General Inkdias, who had lived in the continent’s center around a hundred years ago, an archery rally with elven archers from the front was one of the big taboos you shouldn’t make, ranging at the same level as going into naval battle with marmen or seeking close combat with dinosaurians. Seeing how that book was a must-read for any military person on Seldeas, General Rakius had naturally read it as well.

What made elves such force to be reckoned with wasn’t just their excellency as archers who could read the wind flow thanks to their long ears, but also their elven arm guards which allowed the elves to keep nocking their arrows and drawing the bowstring back to the limit without having to fear any instability, and above all, their Elven Bow.

And the general had heard that some of the elves among the revolting slave army surprisingly knew how to manufacture those bows, on top of having already produced some of them.

But, General Rakius thought, unlike a wooden bow that can be made out of one tree, an Elven Bow uses all sorts of materials, so it requires several months, and in the worst case, more than a year to make just one of those bows. And although it’d have been a smart move for the slave leader to force the production method out of the elves to have Elven Bows produced en masse by the dwarves, he apparently didn’t choose that option.

Because of that, it seems like they only finished around a hundred of those bows. And in that case, they are nothing to be scared of.

General Rakius straightened his back while roughly breathing through his nose.

After all, we also prepared a trump card.

General Rakius directed his eyes towards the center of his unit. Abnormally dressed men were standing there. They didn’t wear any helmets, but instead, they were covered from head to toe in pelts of wild beasts like bears or wild cats. Furthermore, they used a fur vest instead of a torso armor. And, on top of that, they were shouldering bows that were longer than they were tall.

Those men were kind of slumping to the side as they walked. But that was reasonable since they were hunters of the Gau Clan, a tribe that lived east of Romania.

The Gau Clan was a minor ethnic group fated to vanish within the ravages of time two hundred years from now on. 「A Report of Hearsay by Philosopher Senes」 wrote the following about them: “The Gau Clan was a savage tribe with its members wearing pelts and eating raw animal meat. As they didn’t know how to cultivate the land, they tried to make a living by hunting with their bows. Some among them became mercenaries, and all of them, without a single exception, were outstanding archers.”

And the biggest characteristic trait of the Gau could also be found in those bows. The same 「A Report of Hearsay by Philosopher Senes」 mentioned the following about those bows: “The bows of the Gau hunters were taller than themselves. They allowed the Gau to shoot ordinary arrows twice as far. It was difficult to master these bows, requiring many years of continuous practice. The male Gau, who would use these bows from early age, had their muscles bulge like mounds from the left chest to the shoulders. Because of that, their bodies appeared to be tilting to the side even when they stood upright. In addition, they couldn’t stretch out the fingers of their right hand since they remained bent like a falcon’s talon. This also made it easy to identify a Gau hunter.”

The Gau hunters described here were doubtlessly the best archers in the West of ancient Seldeas. The one who had brought these superb archers into this battle was Deputy Corps Commander Hiakis of the 「Black Wall」. Hiakis explained that they had been 「recommended to me by a friend」, and generously yielded command over them to General Rakius.

Not only do we excel in numbers, but we also have Gau hunters with us. Even if they might be elven archers, there’s nothing to fear from them.

General Rakius stared at the approaching elves while persuading himself like that, but then he squinted his eyes.

“What…those are…!?” He raised his voice full of doubt.

At the end of General Rakius’s line of sight something had rushed out from in-between the elven archers while raising a cloud of dust.

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