Hold the Line
As the first rays of dawn pierced the dark clouds over the Blackstone Mountain Pass, Victor was using the tip of his sword to pry open the leather armor of a Barbarians corpse. The grass beneath the body was tinged with an eerie dark red, the result of yesterday's blood seeping in and congealing. As he straightened up, bloodstains slowly seeped from the seams of his chainmail—proof that he had slept in his armor for three consecutive nights.
"The southeast chariot formation is damaged!" A roar from the watchtower carried on the cold wind. Victor grabbed the lance stuck in the corpse and ran wildly. Memories of visiting the Xiangyang City Defense Restoration Exhibition in his previous life suddenly flashed through his mind. How similar were the wolf-tooth scythes and Yaksha rolling logs used by the Southern Song Dynasty to the spiked wheels spinning on the chariot formation now.
Thirty paces away, five Barbarians battering rams were pounding the protective walls. These battering rams, made from whole Iron Birch Wood, made the ram formation groan with each strike. The defenders' halberds thrust wildly through the firing ports, but the Barbarians warriors, clad in three layers of rhinoceros hide, stubbornly withstood the onslaught of hammers.
"Change to Fire Oil Bomb!" Victor kicked aside a terrified crossbowman and personally turned the Bed Crossbow's directional mechanism. The winch of the triple-bow Bed Crossbow creaked, and the clay pots soaked in pine resin arced through the air before exploding into a thick rain of fire on top of the battering rams. A burning Barbarians screamed and lunged into the gap between the rams, only to have his skull smashed open by Raymond's mace.
"Seventh Ballista Squadron, cover!" Viscount Benjamin's carriage rampaged behind them, and the sight of Benjamin's bloodshot eyes reminded Victor of the "Defend Map of Suiyang in his father's study. Suddenly, the carriage roof popped open, revealing hidden small Catapult, and burning asphalt barrels turned the last two battering rams into torches.
At noon, the Barbarians horns were replaced by mournful wolf howls. Baron Brown spat out the broken arrow from his mouth, his sable-trimmed sleeves already soaked in blood and brown. "The wolf cubs are up to something new!" As if confirming his judgment, Barbarians Heavy Cavalry clad in bronze plate armor appeared on the horizon—the Iron Hoof Tribe Iron Forest Army the Ironhoof tribe.
"Change to armor-piercing spikes!" Victor roared, tearing open his collar armor, the knife wound at his Adam's apple reopening. The crossbowmen frantically turned their winches, the specially made triangular arrowheads gleaming a bluish hue in the sunlight. As the first rank of Heavy Cavalry stepped into the three-hundred-pace death zone, the roar of the Bed Crossbow shook the chariots. One giant arrow, after piercing two knights, still carried its momentum, tore a third man's bronze breastplate to shreds.
However, even more Heavy Cavalry surged forward like a tide. Their warhorses were clad in chainmail, their horseshoes welded with three-inch steel spikes. When Raymond's Heavy Cavalry launched their counter-charge, the sparks from the clash of maces and bronze scimitars formed a fiery line in the air.
"Contract the wagons!" Victor's sword severed a wrist that had climbed onto the guard plate. Crossbowmen began hurling caltrops, the barbed arrows forming death traps upon landing. A Barbarians Legion Commander's horse was pierced through the hoof, and the rider immediately threw his master into the wagon formation, where he was simultaneously pinned to the supply wagon by five halberds.
As the waning moon rose high in the sky, the Barbarians deployed their fire ox formation. Dripping on Fire Oil, the bulls charged towards the wagon formation, driven by whips, the scimitars strapped to their horns gleaming coldly. Viscount Benjamin's wagon roof sprang open again, but the Catapult were too late to intercept it.
"Release the spiked wheels!" Victor kicked open a hidden compartment in a protective panel. Suddenly, massive wheels studded with iron spikes sprang out from both sides of the axle, spinning and crushing into the herd of cattle. Amid the piercing howls of the bulls, Baron Brown led his Light Cavalry out from the flank, using lassos to lure the burning, mad bulls toward the Barbarians main force.
In the darkest hour before dawn, the Iron Hoof Great Chieftain personally led his army in a charge. This two-meter-tall giant wielded a battle axe the size of a door panel, tearing through the palisade's armor plates as easily as shredding paper. When Victor rammed into him, the trajectory of Victor's sword resembled a crescent moon in the sky.
"Golden Sunflower!" The Iron Hoof Chieftain's Common Tongue was tinged with bloodlust as his battle axe shattered Victor's shoulder armor.
Grape seized the opportunity to ram the enemy's warhorse, and with the help of the Combat Assistance System, Victor thrust his sword into the gap under the chieftain's armor. The chieftain's dying counterattack nearly severed his ear, but Raymond's mace smashed the hideous head in time.
At noon the next day, the corpses outside the wagon formation formed a sloping hill. The Barbarians, stepping over the mountain of their fallen comrades, launched their final charge; the rain of arrows could no longer hold back the frenzied horde. Victor poured the last half-bucket of Fire Oil onto the wagon deck, and in the instant the wall of fire rose, he saw a Barbarians boy burned into a fireball, yet still running forward.
"Dismantle the grain wagons!" Viscount Benjamin's wagon burst through the gap, filling the gap in the wagon formation. The soldiers pushed the wagons down the hillside, their rolling wheels crushing the Barbarians ranks to pieces. Baron Brown's Light Cavalry seized the opportunity to launch a suicidal charge, the Northern Frontier nobles shouting, "If I die, remember to carve a wine jug on my tombstone!"
As the setting sun stained the wagon formation blood-red, the Barbarians's retreat horn finally sounded. Victor, leaning against a broken wheel, panted, noticing that the cloud-patterned steel blade of his sword had been serrated. Raymond was counting the corpses with a broken spear; this one-eyed knight's left arm was nothing but bone, yet he could still strangle a Barbarians feigning death with one hand.
"How many arrows are left?" Victor's voice was like sandpaper scraping.
"Thirty armor-piercing spikes, five hundred ordinary arrows." The crossbowman's iron hook prosthetic leg was stuck in the winch. "We've run out of Fire Oil Bomb."
"The other archer units have also run out of arrows," the Third Regiment said from the side.
"Damn it, I clearly emptied the Main Camp's supply warehouses, how come they're being used up so quickly?" Victor said through gritted teeth.
"Even if we had arrows, it wouldn't have made much difference. Our archers are basically exhausted, and our crossbows are badly damaged. In this kind of high-intensity battle that continues day and night, let alone people, even these weapons can't withstand it." Viscount Hawke looked much thinner. This pampered nobleman had kept his promise to Victor and had been leading the Fifth Regiment to firmly guard the flank of the wagon formation.
Viscount Benjamin's carriage was in ruins. He sat beside the pile of corpses, using his broken sword to direct the survivors as they rebuilt their defenses. "Put the Barbarians shields into the gaps..."
As night fell, the last seventeen Bed Crossbow were pushed to the front lines. As the crossbowmen loaded them with arrows modified from Barbarians arrows, Victor suddenly noticed something amiss—the battlefield was eerily silent; even the carrion crows had stopped cawing.
On the horizon, the Iron Hoof Tribe's Running Wolf Banner was slowly lowered. In its place rose the New King's Banner embroidered with Skull and Scorpion. The night wind carried the unfamiliar sound of war drums, deeper and more terrifying than ever before.
"Fuck you..." Raymond spat out a mouthful of bloody saliva. "These bastards have a new master."
This also indicates that the current Barbarians central army is very determined to break the Second Legion's camp, and the efficiency of internal consultation and adjustment is very high.
Victor gripped his sword hilt. Beside him, surviving soldiers were sharpening broken spear tips with whetstones, and blacksmiths were melting Barbarians armor into molten iron to repair the wagon formation.
In the darkness further away, new war clouds are gathering, but the battle flag with the Golden Sunflower Crest still flutters amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood.