Bang! Bang! Bang!
Before the burning wooden houses, the fierce crash of shields rang across the battle line like wasteland bison slamming into one another. The front-rank shield soldiers of Castile and the Kingdom roared as one and smashed together with all their strength.
"Lord bless us! Kill the barbarians!"
"For the Main God, hack the demons to death! Roar!!"
Amid devout cries, the Kingdom Warriors each roused the killing ferocity of a holy war. They heaved up their battleaxes and chopped at the Castilian sword-and-shield men in the front rank, hacking out the piercing clangor of metal on metal.
Bang! Clang! Clang!
Yet the fourteen Castilian sword-and-shield men in the front rank still held a tight defense. With iron shields and longswords, they blocked with incomparable skill, even covering one another. And after only a few breaths, the six spearmen in the rear rank had fixed their killing positions. Raising their fine-steel spears high in both hands, they shouted together and stabbed savagely downward at an angle toward the Kingdom Warriors.
"Clava! Matar! Stab!! Kill!!"
The vicious, ruthless thrusts came straight for heads and faces, and Warrior Captain Tai Juying's pupils instantly shrank. He swung his axe with all his might and, by the narrowest margin, knocked aside the fine-iron spear stabbing at him.
"Damned demons!"
Clang!
"Ugh!!... Ah!!"
But the other Kingdom Warriors did not have his battlefield skill. Muffled groans, some high and some low, rang out; only two warriors managed to raise their shields in time and block that dangerous spear thrust. The other three were struck directly by spears and let out unbearable screams. Then the Castilian spearmen in the rear rank, incomparably practiced, lifted their spears, drew them back, retreated a step, advanced again, and shouted once more.
"Stab! Kill!!"
"Ah! The demons' spears!..."