Chapter 571: Fragile Resolve
As the saying went, a mountain in sight could still be a horse-killing ride away. When the soldiers of the Ganning Sen Empire saw the monsters amid the billowing dust, they could already make out their size and shape, but they were still far away. There was time to prepare.
Of the tens of thousands of soldiers, roughly eighty or ninety percent had survived the earthquake unharmed, and most of the injured had suffered only minor wounds.
Yet now, apart from the reserves and those awaiting orders inside the city, every soldier on the walls was pale-faced, as though gravely ill.
Spearmen stood beside the archers, who were positioned behind the battlements, with quivers both on the ground and slung diagonally across their backs.
Their heavy breathing was drowned out by the faint, rumbling tremors.
"Creak... creak..."
Two spearmen, one in front of the other, gripped the hardwood shaft of their spear so tightly that their coarse hemp gloves scraped audibly against it. They knew they should relax their muscles now, but they simply could not shake their tension.
These anti-cavalry spears were at least three meters long and usually handled by two soldiers, one in front and one behind. When the officers first ordered these oversized weapons carried onto the walls, the soldiers below had found it strange. But anyone who had climbed up and looked out would no longer have questioned it.
"Relax!!! Loosen up!!! Otherwise, you won't have the strength to thrust when the time comes!!"
"Smack... smack... smack..."
An officer ran over from farther down the wall, striking the soldiers' arms again and again with a flexible rod. It slapped against their leather armor, jolting the rigid soldiers back to their senses.
A person's willingness to shoulder responsibility could, to some extent,