Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 796 796 71 Space

?Chapter 796: Chapter 71 Space Chapter 796: Chapter 71 Space “No need for me to say more,” Ronald’s voice echoed in the quiet forest, “You’ve come here because on that small river beach lie your daughters! Wives! Mothers!”

Standing before Ronald were hundreds, perhaps thousands of fathers, husbands, and sons filled with rage, old ones in their forties or fifties, young ones but fifteen or sixteen.

Among them, only a small fraction had knives, spears, bows, and arrows; most clutched clubs with the bark not yet scraped off.

But without exception, each man gripped his weapon tightly, so tightly his knuckles turned white.

“The Herd tribes are like clumsy thieves,” Monk Saul had once asserted, “setting out full of confidence and insatiable greed. But once they actually seize some valuable goods, they become terrified and skittish, ready to flee at the slightest rustle in the grass. When Terdon people are on their return journey, that is when they are at their most vulnerable.”

Just as Monk Saul said, the elated Terdon chieftains could hardly wait to transport the looted women, livestock, and treasures away.

Ronald watched the Terdon people select the ford, divide the camp, and gather the sheepskin rafts…

At the same time, men from the Iron Peak County Military, still willing to fight, continuously flocked to this location from various secret camps.

Monk Saul urgently advised Ronald to hold back until half of the Terdon people had crossed the river.

But for Ronald, half of the Terdon crossing meant hundreds of Paratu People were being taken away.

He couldn’t wait for that moment; he had to strike now.

“Just beyond that river,” Ronald said, his cheekbones marked with two stripes of blood, “your daughters, wives, mothers will be driven into the wilderness like livestock, to become slaves of heretics! Forever, forever, unable to return!”

Red stripes on the face were a custom of the Paratu clan, signifying that the person bearing them carried a great shame. Yet at that moment, men in the forest of all bloodlines, religions, and origins, bore the blood marks.

After leaving the Land Academy, Ronald had spent years in civil service, and making speeches in front of troops was not his forte.

He took the lance from Adam’s hand, and ended his mobilization with a short address, “Those who wish to give their wives and daughters to the Herd barbarians, stay here. Those who wish to kill the Herd barbarians, follow me!”

…

As the men of Iron Peak County bellowed and charged the crossing, a hundred kilometers to the northeast, the Terdon Tribe vanguard, the great Nayen, uncle of the Fire-Starter [Tie Chi], was also fiercely attacking the Fort Via Panto.

Time and space, how ordinary yet how magical they are.

They do not shift for anyone’s will, but both sides of the war desperately vie for them.

Ronald was racing against time; he had to defeat the barbarians at the ford before the enemy reinforcements arrived, otherwise it would be his own annihilation.

The same was true for Tie Chi; every moment of delay meant a diminution of the great encircling power of the Terdon Tribe; he had to take Fort Via Panto before the Iron Peak County Military could react.

And seizing time was inherently about gaining space, such was the marvel of war.

After the first two attacks, Tie Chi had confirmed that the garrison at Fort Via Panto was not elite – four to five hundred men, no armored soldiers, not even a single musket to be found.

As more troops arrived, Tie Chi’s forces gained an overwhelming advantage.

Storming fortresses was not a strength of the Herd tribes, but Tie Chi, who had seen much, had also accumulated some experience.

Facing barricades, fences, and ditches, the horses, which the tribe’s men treated as extensions of their limbs, were not only useless but a hindrance.

Therefore, Tie Chi concentrated his armored men to dismount and fight on foot, attacking the enemy’s barricades on the left and right flanks, covered by powerful archers.

At the same time, Tie Chi selected three hundred-man cavalry units to cross upstream through the woods and over the river.

One part to cut off the retreat from Fort Via Panto, another to feign an attack on the upstream town, distracting the forces of Iron Peak County.

Tie Chi was determined on his third assault.

Just as Tie Chi had predicted, the defenders at Fort Via Panto fought valiantly but were simply too few and could not cover all sides.

Even before the encircling surprise troops arrived, the defenders at Fort Via Panto were already on the verge of collapse.

But [Bard of Gerard] probably would not agree with the term “collapse.”

As the Terdon people charged fiercely, Bard followed the pre-set plan and organized his men to retreat in an orderly fashion.

The wounded from the previous day had already been evacuated before dawn, and Bard personally led most of the militia and the newly injured towards the wilderness to the northeast.

The remaining militia were led by Anglu, covering the rear.

After the Terdon people broke into the camp, Anglu set fire to both the fortifications and the coastal woods, leading his cavalry laden with non-riding militia along the road toward the direction of Shizhen.

And what was Winters doing at this moment, having arrived at the battlefield the night before?

He was killing.

“Lance!” Winters reached out his hand behind him.

Xial, who was originally holding a short javelin, promptly unhooked the lance and passed it to Winters with understanding.

Winters raised the lance high and swept it downward fiercely, the swallowtail flag on its head fluttering loudly, “Push them into the river!”

His roar echoed through the mountains and across the river.

The bugler sounded the charge, and the small drums of the infantry platoons followed in rhythm.

The soldiers held their spears level, stepping quickly to the urgent beat, and pressed in large strides against the enemy.

The road linking Fort Via Panto and Shizhen was a narrow path squeezed between a mud cliff and the Panto River, aptly described by “mountain and river, inside and out.”

On this narrow path, at its widest less than thirty meters and at its narrowest under ten meters, the three Terdon one-hundred-man cavalry units intent on a flanking maneuver met their doom.