Chapter 3 – Story 66: The Humiliation of Sunomuta 6

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Hiakis’s face darkened faintly when he received Alexius’s order to advance.

“Even though it’d have taken only a bit longer to make them fall apart…”

At this point, it’s already clear that our side is superior in the archer battle. If we keep at it a bit longer, the enemy archer unit will likely collapse. However, it’d likewise be silly to underestimate the losses this sort of mutual destruction brings to our unit. Alexius’s call here is not necessarily bad.

“Alright, let’s meet His Highness’s expectations then.”

Having made up his mind, Hiakis summoned several messengers.

“Instruct the First Division to fall back and circle into the rear of the Second Division. The Second Division will advance. The Third and Fourth Division are to pulverize the dwarves in front of them while protecting the Second Division’s flanks!”

After repeating the orders, the messengers ran off to their respective army divisions.

“Drummer! Hit the drums! Signal advance for the whole army!”

The drummer of the big drum poured all his strength into his arm and began to hit the drum after hearing Hiakis’s order. With a slight delay, the other drummers spread out across various places followed his rhythm and started to repeat the same signal as well.

With his ears being filled with such loud noise that he felt like his eardrums would burst if he got any closer, Hiakis firmly tied the string of his helmet.

“Your Excellency, please watch my performance. As your helmet carrier I shall work hard to restore your name and honor.”

◆◇◆◇◆

As soon as the air started to be filled with a loud drumming from the enemy’s rear, the downpour of arrows, which had been quite intense up until then, stopped all of a sudden. Immediately following, you could observe ripplet-like movements among the soldiers of Holmea’s First Division, which had been mostly stationary so far while relying on the protection of their big shield that had been thrust into the ground.

In front of Eladia the First Division abruptly separated to the sides, opening a path in the middle, as she gazed at the enemy unit, wondering what was going on. Expecting this to possibly be a new enemy move, the elves were wrapped up by nervousness and vigilance.

But, after splitting the First Division started to go around to the flanks of the Second Division behind them.

“Elder Sister! Does this mean the enemy archers are pulling back?”

Eladia thought the same as her sister.

This is undoubtedly a sign of the enemy archer unit’s retreat.

And although they had achieved their initial objective, Eladia had no room to feel relieved. After all, the archers were replaced by nothing less than the enemy’s main force finally coming to the front. And the elves could hear loud singing which matched the rhythm of the drums from all over the place, still signaling the whole army to advance.

“”March on, march on, Heroes of Holmea! To the front is where you go! To the front is where you go, right next to your comrades! Clear a path for the comrades behind you! Hurry, Comrades! March onwards together with me!!””

It was the song Holmea’s heavy spear infantry had sung while in a dense formation during the battle close to Bolnis five years ago. That enemy appeared in the space opened up by the First Division parting to the side, just like Moses and his people when they traversed the split sea.

The heavy spear infantrymen were holding very long spears and big shields that were reinforced with metal. They were marching so tightly that each soldier was touching the shoulders of his neighbors with every soldier in a line almost touching the back of their frontman. Their shields seemed impeccable.

So much so that they looked just like massive walls. Coupled with their light brown leather-reinforced shields and padded leather armor, they’d remind anyone of a long, red clay wall.

This was the dense formation of the heavy spear infantry as it was feared by Holmea’s neighbors.

For this encounter, Hiakis had divided the formation into front row, mid-row, and rear row.

First off, the front row was forming a long, horizontal line. Its foundation was made up of thirty companies, each consisting of a hundred heavy spear infantrymen which were arranged in a 10 x 10 men square.

Behind them, while leaving a small opening, stood the mid-row. In the mid-row, two companies (standing in a 10 x 20 formation) formed one unit. Those units were lined up next to each other while leaving the room of one full unit between each other.

Moreover, even further in the back stood the rear row. It had the same deployment configuration as the mid-row, but it was offset in the spacing by one unit in comparison to the mid-row.

The goal of a dense formation was the concentration of offensive capability by amassing the soldiers in one place, as its name already suggested. The offensive power of a unit would increase in proportion to the density of troops, but at the same time, the unit would lose all flexibility, if the soldiers were too close together and thus hindering each other.

The reason why the mid and rear rows were deployed in a grid pattern instead of a continuous, horizontal formation like the front row was an attempt to supplement this flexibility. Because there was a big space between the two-company-units, those units could freely maneuver around in accordance to the battle situation.

Also, in case the front row soldiers became exhausted or overwhelmed, they’d be able to flee through the gaps between the two-company-units. If they had to slowly circumvent their allies in the back instead, they’d immediately fall prey to enemy pursuit when they tried to retreat after having been worn down.

However, the gaps in the mid-row allowed for the front row soldiers to fall back to the rear of their allies on the smallest possible route. On top of that, the mid-row soldiers would be able to hold back the pursuing enemy soldiers. In addition, this would also expose the enemy to a dire threat as they would run into fresh, perfectly prepared troops during their pursuit while being fairly exhausted themselves after all the fighting against the front row.

This was the certain-victory formation which was assessed to be General Darius’s masterpiece. However, although it was easy to explain in theory, implementing it during the extreme and chaotic situation of battle required a harsh, daily training. The only ones capable of using this dense formation were the 「Black Wall」 and a few of the royal army’s elites.

At first, the archer cavalry led by Eladia and the regular archers on foot launched their attacks on the Second Division which had begun to advance while pushing their shield walls forward.

“Ready your bows!” Eladia ordered while stopping her horse.

In response, the elven archers all nocked their arrows at once.

“――Draw!”

The archer cavalry in front would use their Elfin Bows to fire the arrows straight ahead while the archers on foot behind them would aim at the Second Division by firing their arrows in a high-angle curve.

“――Release!”

The arrows poured down on the heavy spear infantry like rain. However, all of them were blocked by the shield walls.

She had experienced the same five years ago as well, but in the end Eladia could only grind her teeth in vexation as the heavy spear infantry’s defense against ranged weaponry was just too tough a nut to crack for her unit. No matter how superbly skilled elves might be at archery, it was exceedingly difficult to aim at the gaps between the shields from a distance. Of course, they could target those spots, if they closed the distance some, but if they got too close, the risk of being dragged into melee combat with the enemy would become fairly high. And close combat with heavy spear infantry could only be described as Armageddon for archers.

But, just as Eladia was hesitating how she should proceed, the sounds of a drum reached her ears from the troop headquarters in the back.

“Lady Eladia, we have been ordered to retreat.” A female zoan warrior had been following the archer cavalry instead of a regular messenger, just like the harpyian, and now informed Eladia of the signal.

Eladia curtly nodded at that and hurled an order at her unit, “Archer cavalry, recover the remaining arrows from the archers on foot!”

In accordance with her instructions, the ground-based archers scraped up their remaining arrows and passed them to their mounted sisters. Eladia also filled up her quiver with the arrows she received from her sisters.

“Those of you who passed on your remaining arrows, retreat to headquarters! Archer cavalry! We fall back behind the zoan!”

The elves split up into regular archers and archer cavalry, before starting to withdraw. And the zoan warriors stepped forward in their stead.

It all had started with 「Battle of Hoghnareah Hill」, Souma’s first battle, but now, unlike during the 「Decisive Battle of Bolnis」, the zoan had gathered a huge force by taking the time to prepare for this day and recruiting warriors from all across the plains. At this point they had reached a number of a little more than 4,000.

This figure didn’t reach the number of warriors they had fielded in the Zoan Allied Forces more than thirty years ago, but the fact of the majority of zoan warriors participating in this battle clearly passed on their will to bet everything on this war.

But, probably because they were a bit too enthusiastic there, the zoan were running way too fast. Before they even realized, they had already left the dwarven units, which were supposed to protect their flanks, in the lurch, resulting in only the zoan unit being far ahead of the rest.

And because the zoan had run ahead so far, Holmea’s Second Division could stop without even needing to advance all that far.

“Foolish, filthy beasts! It’s plain as day that you haven’t the slightest clue of what the word tactic means!”

The one roaring so in scorn was General Numitos, the commanding officer leading the Second Division’s front row this time around – a member of the royal army.

“If you wish to die so badly, we will gladly humor you! Come one! We will gently stroke you with our spears once again!”

General Numitos had participated in the past battle on the Solbian Plains. Back then, the 「Black Wall」 led by General Darius had routed the zoan army, which had excelled them in numbers by far. General Numitos was one of those allowed to witness General Darius’s heroic appearance as he managed to obtain an overwhelming victory. And although the numerical advantage had been flipped around this time, the confrontation between a big army of zoan and a dense formation of heavy spear infantry closely resembled the battle of that time.

That alone was already enough to get General Numitos’s blood pumping.

I’ll obtain the same achievement as General Darius who has been lauded as Holmea’s best general.

Overlaying himself with General Darius’s gallant figure back when he routed the zoan, General Numitos smiled broadly, completely full of himself.

However.

Although the zoan were supposed to recklessly charge towards the dense formation waiting for them with their shields and spears ready, they stopped just outside the reach of the spears.

“What? Are those filthy beasts chickening out after coming all the way?” The general muttered.

At this range, the zoan’s attacks wouldn’t reach unless they used archery. But, it was a famous story how zoan slighted archery, and the general couldn’t fathom that they had amended this hate towards archery in the last five years. Besides, as far as visible, the zoan weren’t carrying anything that would be usable as a bow.

While General Numitos watched the situation in bewilderment, 《Ferocious Fang》 Fagul Garguss Garam, the Great Clan Chief of the zoan in the Solbiant Plains and the present commander-in-chief, laughed daringly.

“Don’t think that we’re the same as our parents,” he exclaimed, before calling out to Shishul――the orange-colored zoan girl next to him――telling her, “Tell everyone to get ready! It’s time to pay back our long-standing grudge in full!”

While listening to Shishul hitting the drum fastened to her waist, Garam retrieved a leather belt, which had a broader central part, from his waist girdle.

＊＊＊＊＊＊ Explanatory Drawings of the Dense Formation ＊＊＊＊＊＊＊＊

Front row companies can withdraw their soldiers past mid-row once exhausted, falling back to the rear.

Former mid-row two-company-units split up, forming new front row.

Once the soldiers of the former mid-row, now front row, are exhausted, they can fall back, making the former rear row the new front row.

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