Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters

Chapter 800 800 72 Interlude_3

?Chapter 800: Chapter 72 Interlude_3 Chapter 800: Chapter 72 Interlude_3 Adam had already led the farmers in a charge, leaving the barbarians no time to think.

Half of them wielded Stinger Hammers, and the other half long poles with lassos.

If one person caught a barbarian cavalryman with a lasso, two or three others would come to collaboratively drag the rider off the warhorse. Once a barbarian was unhorsed, he would immediately be clubbed to death.

The so-called Terdun light cavalry were not full-time fighting warriors; most of them were slaves and ordinary herders.

Relying on their warhorses to shoot arrows from a distance was something many could do.

But face-to-face, blade against blade, exchanging blows up close, that was a different matter.

Without their warhorses, the Herders were no different from the Paratu People; full of hatred, the Paratu People were braver, more ruthless, and merciless than the Herders.

The Terdun people in the west who wanted to come to the rescue were blocked by the farmers of Iron Peak County, stationed beside sharpened wooden stakes.

The Terdun people on the eastern plateau desperately shot arrows, but no matter how many they fired, they couldn’t save those Terdun trapped in the pitfalls.

If the Terdun could be dragged into close combat, the people of Iron Peak County, with their greater numbers and higher morale, could not possibly lose.

The panicked Terdun light cavalry either charged into the river or abandoned their horses and crawled away, with some Terdun trying to climb onto the plateau by stepping on the bodies of fallen men and horses.

“Move the bodies!” Adam roared as he swung his long spear, knocking down light cavalry that stepped on corpses: “Move the bodies away!”

“Blow harder!” Ronald, who was watching anxiously, bellowed at the bagpipers with bulging eyes: “Blow with all your might!”

The sound of the bagpipes suddenly increased by a third, straining to accompany this bloody spectacle.

Ronald looked toward the position of the horse-tail banner, waiting for the Terdun commander’s judgment.

Would it be a desperate measure, or a gamble of fate?

On the high ground of the riverbank, Duodai of Green Plumed Feathers again had thoughts of “running away.”

Duodai truly hadn’t expected the enemy to have such tactics; he admitted he lost one round, but he hadn’t lost yet — because not many of his men had fallen into the traps.

Ronald’s position offered limited visibility. But Duodai had a clear view of the enemy opening their maw wide, devouring close to a hundred of his men at least.

The balance of power had already shifted significantly, and Duodai felt it was better to retreat and plan for the long-term.

Before Duodai could issue the order, six armored warriors had already mounted their horses and were charging towards the chevaux-de-frise with roars.

Duodai could run because he had not suffered many casualties, but it wasn’t the same for other leaders.

Those six armored warriors who charged without orders, their followers, relatives, and slaves were all trapped within the chevaux-de-frise. If they ran, they would lose everything.

Duodai cursed in fury, and the remaining armored warriors looked at each other uneasily.

“Nayen!” an armored warrior confronted Duodai and demanded, “The infantry can barely hold on! What are you hesitating for?”

Among the Herder tribes, an armored warrior was not simply “a soldier in armor,” the armor itself symbolized a rank in the hierarchy of power.

Most of the Terdun who could afford armor were chieftains’ descendants, attendants, and personal guards.

The armored warriors beside Duodai were not his employees, but his shareholders.

Torn between retreating and going all in, Duodai struggled to decide.

Seeing Duodai’s hesitant demeanor, the other armored warriors urged him loudly. Some even mounted their horses indignantly, looking ready to take action on their own.

“Then let’s charge in and fight! Leave life and death to the gods!” Duodai clenched his teeth and stomped his foot, “But don’t just charge blindly! You all follow closely behind me, we’ll cut through those wooden forks and behead the infantry leaders first!”

The armored warriors shouted excitedly, each grabbing their spears and mounting their horses.

Duodai led more than twenty armored cavalrymen down the slope in a formation sharp as an arrowhead, heading straight for where Ronald was.

This was a true heavy armored lance cavalry, a unit no longer found in the structure of the Paratu Standing Army.

Because with the increasing power of firearms, the cost and effectiveness of heavy armored lance cavalry did not match up.

But on this battlefield, this group of fully armored cavalry, some even equipped with horse armor, was the toughest iron hammer.

Ronald watched the armored Herders charge down the slope with a roar.

The decisive moment had arrived — that thought unexpectedly sprang to Ronald’s mind.

How to counter the shock of heavy cavalry?

Use fortifications to block, or fill with human lives.

With the chevaux-de-frise in tatters, only human lives could fill the gap.

Fill it with the barbarian armored cavalry, victory; get crushed by the barbarian armored cavalry, defeat.

“The decisive moment has arrived!” Ronald drew his saber and screamed with a martyr’s determination to everyone beside him: “Take up arms! For your families! For your bloodlines! Long live the Republic of Palatu!”

The farmers might have clearly heard what Ronald was saying, or they might not have, and it’s very likely they didn’t care at all about the Republic of Palatu, but everyone roared “Long live!” nonetheless, leaning on the chevaux-de-frise stakes, awaiting the moment to decide life or death.

The Terdun heavy cavalry struck towards Ronald with the force of thunder, and at the last moment…

At the last moment, they suddenly turned and ran away.

The farmers from Iron Peak County were lost in a fog, not understanding what the barbarians were up to.

“Rats! Cowards!” Having come back to his senses, Ronald immediately hurled insults at the Terdun: “Go back and crawl into your mothers’ skirts!”

Duodai couldn’t hear these words, and Ronald did not shout them for the enemy’s benefit.

His audience — the farmers of Iron Peak County — laughed triumphantly, hurling all manner of foul language at the backs of the barbarian cavalry.