Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 503 88: Fortune and Misfortune Go Hand in Hand

The silver-gray warhorse charged into the camp, and the alarm bell was rung as if for dear life.

"Emergency assembly!" a shout shattered the night, "Emergency assembly!"

The Paratu People woke from their slumber, scrambling out of their tents.

Torches were lit one after another, and the soldiers, in disarray, gathered in units of a hundred before rushing to the training field.

The Standing Army managed to maintain order, while auxiliary troops were in complete disarray.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert arrived beside the alarm bell without even his boots on, barefoot, holding his helmet, wrapped in his sleeping robe.

"What's going on?" he yelled at Winters.

"Fire!" Winters dropped the clapper, "The Herders are setting fires!"

Lieutenant Colonel Robert instantly felt a chill down his spine, "Where?"

"I don't know! I smell smoke!"

Lieutenant Colonel Robert tore off his sleeping robe and threw it to the ground with force, "Savages... such a vicious tactic!"

Losing control for only a moment, Robert quickly pulled himself together and urged Winters, "No matter what tricks they have, we'll just have to deal with them! Go back quickly, get dressed, are you not afraid of catching cold?"

The blanket that Winters had wrapped around himself when he left the camp was now lost who knows where; at this moment, he stood bare-chested next to the bell post.

He had been in such a rush to come back and warn everyone that he had hardly felt anything. But upon hearing the lieutenant colonel's words, he suddenly felt cold.

Winters saluted and ran towards his tent.

...

Lieutenant Colonel Robert's comment of "vicious" was something the White Lion couldn't hear. Even if he could, he would have taken it as a compliment.

As the alarm bell sounded at the Guidao Camp, the riverside camp as well as the camps on the Southern Highlands and Northern Highlands were simultaneously under attack.

Calls for help, warnings, various pieces of intelligence came one after another.

"What madness has possessed Yasin?" Alpad was furious, kicking over a stool, "What's the point of these petty tricks?"

The older one gets, the more precious their sleep. Being woken up abruptly in the middle of the night, Alpad was also in a foul mood.

Seleuc pressed his forehead, his brow furrowed tightly, "These are all feints to distract our attention. The real moves of the Herders must be somewhere else."

A messenger barged into the command center, bringing in a gust of cold air.

"How reckless! Where's your decorum?" Alpad bellowed furiously, "Get out and re-enter properly!"

The messenger, touching his helmet, backed out and then walked back in.

"Speak!"

"The Northern Camp reports, there are fires in the northwest direction of Guidao!"

Sekler smashed his fist onto the table, "Not good!"

...

The smoke was almost imperceptible at first, detectable only by the livestock.

The horses were restless, and their neighing was incessant.

But in the wintertime, the air is dry, and the westerly winds encouraged the fast spread of the fire.

As the troops from the Guidao Camp set out, they could already see the red glow through the gaps in the tree trunks.

This fire was like pulling the rug out from underneath them; the Paratu People wanted to build a bridge, so the White Lion was burning all the trees.

Winters had never seen a forest fire before, a sight drastically different from the fire in Guidao City.

It was not the trees that caught fire first but the underbrush and the dry grass.

The flames surged up to the sky, climbing up to the canopy. Once the canopy was alight, the trunks were still intact.

The flames spread among the treetops, like a red cloud floating above the ground.

The smoke became visibly thicker before the eyes and increasingly suffocated.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert, accompanied by several officers including Winters, went to scout the fire situation.

Even when the firelight was still faint and indistinct, they could see black ash floating in the air.

At least two miles from the fire, the officers could no longer proceed.

The scalding heatwave hit them head-on. The horses were neighing, refusing to move no matter how much they were whipped.

Snakes, rabbits, deer... wildlife that was usually hard to find were now running frantically towards the human direction.

The sound of the fire was like ghosts shrieking, or like thousands of people tearing fabric at once.

And there was the "bang, bang" of explosions—that was the fire causing wood and stone to burst from the heat.

"It's not just a single ignition point." Lieutenant Colonel Robert pulled on the reins, struggling to control his warhorse on the brink of panic, shouting to others, "The savages must have set multiple fires at once, otherwise it wouldn't burn this fast."

Tess remained relatively composed, pacing slightly anxiously, saving Winters a lot of worry.

He covered his mouth and nose, shouting back to the lieutenant colonel, because it wouldn't carry otherwise, "This fire can't be extinguished! We need to start digging fire breaks immediately!"

"Retreat first!" Lieutenant Colonel Robert spurred his horse and galloped off.

The other officers followed suit.

Retreating to a safe place, the officers dismounted for a meeting.

Winters pulled out a map—the map had been drawn by Colonel Jeska.

When he took the map tube out from his bosom, the other officers' eyes widened.

In dire times, there was no time to worry about rank and propriety.

Winters activated the Luminosity Spell, pointed at the map, and explained, "The lumber teams have already cleared quite a bit of open space and roads in the forest. If we connect and widen the clearings near the camp, we might be able to save some of the forest."

Lieutenant Colonel Robert didn't waste words, slapping his thigh, "That's what we'll do!"

The colonel then immediately added orders, "Every centurion must make ad-hoc decisions—if it's not manageable, then retreat! We can still use trees after a fire, but no use to risk people's lives!"

With the onsite commander's decision, the troops from Guidao Camp immediately sprang into action.

The efficiency of the Paratu army was beyond question, as the hundred-man units, carrying tools, entered the lumber fields.

Following the cascading orders, people pulled out wet towels and scarves to cover their mouths and noses, and started digging firebreaks.

The technique of setting firebreaks was something Winters had learned from the fire in Guidao City.

Whether it would work, he had no idea, but even if there was only a glimmer of hope, they could not stand idly by and watch the White Lion burn the forest to the ground.

The warhorses were led to safety, and Winters moved on foot through the forest.

His voice, amplified by magic, even overshadowed the forest's tumult, "Take away all the dry grass, branches, pine cones on the ground! Leave nothing that can catch fire!"

Scouting the fire, Winters had a clear sight: it wasn't the trees that caught first, but the dried twigs and fallen leaves on the ground.

More than three thousand soldiers and militia spread throughout the forest, already nearly beyond unified command.

At this moment, the only things to rely on were the will and ability of each Centurion.

The Paratu People should be grateful for two things: first, they had an extremely robust cadre of junior officers; second, the vegetation in this forest was sparse.

Fate is such a trickster.

The trees on the wasteland don't grow big; only by heading south or north into the foothills can you find dense primeval forests.

The sparse vegetation and lack of mature timber in Bridge Forest had caused the Paratu People no end of headaches.

Yet it was precisely this "disadvantage" that had now turned into an "advantage."

It wasn't long before the reinforcements sent from the main camp arrived on site.

Upon noticing the fire in Bridge Forest, Sekler immediately dispatched all engineers and auxiliary troops, led by Colonel Bod to provide support.

Colonel Bod also brought with him General Sekler's order: "If they can be saved, save them."

"Bullshit!" Lieutenant Colonel Robert was also infuriated by urgency, "What do you mean 'if they can be saved'? Isn't it a must to save them no matter what?!"

The reinforcements, together with the original troops at Bridge Camp, all worked frantically.

Trees, regardless of their size, were cut down and dragged away; even the grass on the ground was shoveled off.

Not just the grass, but the soil had to be turned as well.

The fire had already formed a line, getting closer every second.

Winters' face was scorched by the heatwave, and the scarf covering his mouth and nose would be dried out in a matter of minutes.

He sent people time and again to the river to fetch water, yet the water was quickly exhausted and simply couldn't be supplied fast enough.

Two militiamen ran to find the Centurion.

Their faces blackened by smoke, Winters couldn't make out who they were.

It wasn't until one of them spoke that he recognized it was Ish from Ganshui Town.

"Sir, this is Old Lalo!" Ish pulled the militiaman beside him and said, "He's from Good Springs Valley, he has a way!"

Winters felt a bitter taste in his mouth and had no energy for pleasantries, "Speak!"

The "Old Lalo" mentioned by Ish spoke up, sounding like a middle-aged man, "Sir, how about fighting fire with fire?"

"How do you fight?"

"Don't wait for the fire to come to us! Let's start a fire ourselves and burn towards it! That's fighting fire with fire! But we have to wait until the firebreak is dug."

"The wind is blowing east!" Winters pointed to the sky, "Start a fire, and it'll burn us first! How do you fight fire with fire?"

"It's not like that, sir," Old Lalo explained anxiously, "The wind in the burn area is chaotic! It can even form whirls! Fire attracts wind!"

Winters suddenly remembered the fire tornado in Guidao City, realizing that a blaze of a certain magnitude indeed could draw air away and disrupt wind directions.

"Are you confident?" Winters stared at Old Lalo.

Old Lalo lowered his head, murmuring, "No, I... I'm not sure."

"Sir, when he was telling us, he made it sound so convincing," Ish clamored, grabbing Old Lalo, "You have the Centurion here! What are you afraid of?!"

Winters gritted his teeth, grabbed Old Lalo's shoulder, and said, "Any mishaps, and I'll take responsibility. Any ideas you have, spit them out! I'm going to find Lieutenant Colonel Robert."

As he spoke, Winters started to search his pockets, but even after patting down his entire body, he couldn't find anything of value.

Having no other choice, he made a promise, "I don't carry gold or silver on me. If your method works, I will have Anglu pick out the best horse for you to take home."

...

A twenty-meter-wide firebreak extending from south to north was already taking shape.

Lieutenant Colonel Robert agreed to a small-scale experiment with Winters' "fighting fire with fire."

It was a complete gamble, no one knew if it would work, and everyone's palms were sweaty with anxiety.

Outside the firebreak under the responsibility of Montaigne's centuria, Winters personally lit another big fire.

Gasoline, resin, plus anything the militiamen could find that would burn. Flames soared into the air and began spreading eastward.

Everyone stood at the ready as the tongues of flame reached the bare firebreak.

The people watched with trepidation as red embers flew toward their side from the air, fearing that the treetops would be ignited by these fiery ashes.

The advance to the east was halted, the new blaze began spreading to the west side, and it was getting faster.

Seeing that fighting fire with fire was effective, everyone cheered ecstatically, tears streaming from their parched eyes.

In the thickest smoke, where people couldn't see, two lines of fire collided thunderously, turning everything they touched to ashes—including themselves.

...

...

The fire burned all night.

The next morning, the chiefs of the Herder tribes came to observe the enemy.

The land was still shrouded in dust and smoke, the trees were burnt to a crisp, and the ground that had been passed over by the fire still showed some dark red embers.

The White Lion pondered silently without speaking.

"White Lion, it looks like you've burnt them all to death," the chieftain of the Blackwater tribe said with a sycophantic undertone.

The numbers of the Blackwater tribe had suffered greatly, and now its chieftain was a staunch supporter of the White Lion.

"I'll take that as a good omen, Short Bow. I hope that's the case," the White Lion responded to the Blackwater chieftain with his usual respect, "But I'm afraid it won't be that easy."

Paratu cavalry scouts spotted this group of enemies on a nearby hillside and raced back to report.

"Let's go, time to head back," the White Lion gently flicked his warhorse, "Just taking a look, no need for the Paratu People to send us off."

Before long, a Paratu scout led a black-armored cavalryman out of the smoke-covered forest.

The chieftains' bodyguards raised their spears to meet the challenge but were both cut down from their horses by the black-armored cavalryman.

The black-armored cavalryman ran to a neighbouring hill and shouted a few words at the tribal chieftains.

Before other guards could surround him, the black-armored cavalryman left, laughing heartily.

"What did he say, Little Lion?" the Fire Tender asked.

"Want to burn us alive?" Little Lion said, watching the retreating figure of the armored horseman, translating without emotion, "Go fuck yourself."

...

Bad news: Two-thirds of Bridge Forest burned down.

Good news: One-third of Bridge Forest remained.

And another piece of good news: Some of the wood that had been through the fire still had useable value, especially those with larger diameters; the White Lion had inadvertently helped the Paratu People sort their timber.

"Calamity is the cradle of good fortune; fortune, the hiding place for calamity," Brother Reed twirled his beard with a smile, "The ancients did not deceive me."