At dawn, the mournful blare of horns rose from across the plain.
What had begun as a single note soon swelled into a chorus of dozens, like one sparrow taking flight and drawing twenty more in its wake.
Four hundred years ago, when the Sixth Crescent Alliance Army had annihilated an ogre regiment in a single charge, the horns had sounded. Five hundred years ago, eight hundred years ago—in every moment history recorded as a victory won by pure cavalry assault, the horns had never failed to ring out. They were daring to proclaim it to heaven and earth: today, history would repeat itself.
— Keeeeeeh.
— Grrooooh, kaaah…
The forest spirits stirred busily.
Had they sensed that mountains, rivers, grass, and trees would soon be dyed in blood? Green spirits peeked their heads out from between the trees, only to scramble back deep into the forest in fright when the horns blared again. Even without a breeze, the branches and leaves shook violently.
"Spearmen forward! Spearmen forward!"
Dwarf mercenaries rallied the peasant militia. The dwarves were small in stature, but their voices carried like thunder by nature. Born and raised in the most barren of highland regions, spending their entire lives—up to a hundred and fifty years—on battlefields, the dwarves were the undisputed elite soldiers.
"You hear me? Do not move away from the barricades under any circumstances! If the man in front of you falls, rush to the barricade and cling to it."
"No matter how fiercely a knight charges, he cannot break through the barricades. Just remember one thing: hold the barricades! If the barricades fall, we die too—but as long as they stand, the enemy perishes."
The dwarves wove between the ranks, slapping soldiers on the rear. It was to ease the tension of battle. This company of fifty dual-axe mercenaries had all risen to the rank of noncommissioned officers, and they skillfully shepherded the soldiers into position.
The peasant militia knew how to use spears against goblins and orc. A spearhead that could pierce a monster could naturally pierce a human. What they needed was not weapons training but the discipline to form orderly ranks. The mercenaries guided them in that.
"…It seems the Queen of Bretagne intends to skip the pre-battle speeches," I murmured.
I stood at the rear of our formation, watching the twelve-thousand-strong army spread before me in a single glance. Jeremy, assigned as my bodyguard, nodded in agreement.
"It makes it even more obvious that the Emperor didn't lead this personally."
"Mm. She's confident she can't win a war of justification against us."
They had even omitted the priests' chanting of hymns before the battle—despite having a Saint on their side. Henrietta de Bretagne was focusing purely on combat.
— Shhhheeeek!
A thin veil of dawn mist lay over the surroundings. Five or six bolts of fire rained down through the hazy sky. The enemy mages had opened their attack. Fire magic was a simple yet devastatingly effective method for burning barricades. The enemy regarded our barricades as obstacles, sure enough.
But mages in this army did not belong to them alone.
— Protego!
— Scutum!
Our side had twenty-six mages in the field. Though the majority of magic towers had declared neutrality, the nobles had dragged in mages by any means necessary. Mages loathed the use of spells refined for scholarship and truth as mere killing tools, but the nobles' resourcefulness was not to be underestimated.
A broad defensive barrier unfurled across the sky. The fireballs were intercepted mid-flight. One mage even fired a water sphere that struck a fireball dead-on—an impressive feat of precision.
"Yaaaaah!"
"Long live the Frank Empire!"
When the enemy's volley failed spectacularly, the soldiers erupted in cheers. The dwarves led the roar. Raising morale right before entering battle like this was enormously important. Beyond the mist, the enemy was silent.
"They're not attacking with magic anymore."
"Right! They must have realized burning down the barricades was too difficult."
I clenched my right fist. My hand tightened on its own. Our forces matched or even exceeded the enemy in magical capability!
Choosing the Saint-Denis Plains as the battlefield offered numerous advantages. This stretch of land was flanked by a river to the right and a forest to the left—narrow. The narrowness was what mattered. The spearmen who formed the backbone of our army grew stronger the more tightly they were packed.
"Now the Queen has nothing left but a cavalry charge…!"
Cavalry, on the other hand, grew more powerful the more spread out they were.
When charging, they wielded lances ranging from three to eight meters in length. The Bretagne knights were especially famous for their eight-meter lances. Regular cavalrymen who could not use aura had no choice but to carry four- or five-meter lances…
The cavalry lined up in a single column, lances leveled, and thundered forward. That alone was terrifying.
But what if the battlefield was as narrow as the Saint-Denis Plains? The power of a cavalry charge diminished.
Moreover, we had deployed barricades across the front. There were only small gaps between the barricades. The Bretagne cavalry had no choice but to charge through those narrow openings. The power would not merely decrease—it would plummet.
The final uppercut was the spearmen. Though their spears were barely five meters long, behind the barricades, they could rival not only cavalry but knights themselves. I declare with certainty: this place is the grave of cavalry.
— Clatter, clop-clop, clatter…
At last, a squad of cavalry emerged from the mist. They were roughly two hundred meters from the barricades. Hundreds—thousands—of riders in resplendent armor trotted their horses forward. Countless suits of armor formed a silver tidal wave, crashing toward us like a tsunami.
"Quite the spectacle, as expected."
I gripped my commander's baton tight. By now, cavalry would be charging at positions other than the left flank I commanded. This was where the battle would be decided.
"Jeremy! Give the order to fire!"
"Yes!"
At Jeremy's signal, an assassin disguised in soldier's armor unfurled a banner. Receiving the signal, the dwarves at the front roared. Prepare to fire, prepare to fire!
Three thousand archers raised their bows in staggered succession.
Our army had not been foolish enough to send only spearmen to the front. We had positioned ample archers behind them. While the spearmen and barricades held off the cavalry charge, the archers would pick the enemy off. It was a near-perfect combination.
The dwarves bellowed.
"Fire! Open fire!"
An arrow rain tore through the sky and drove into the Bretagne cavalry. Roughly twenty riders tumbled from their horses at once. Arrows were not particularly effective against heavily armored heavy cavalry—but in this case, the arrows had struck unlucky horses.
I whooped in triumph.
"Excellent! Keep pouring arrows on them! I'll cover every last one!"
"Spearmen! Spearmen forward!"
Cavalrymen who had evaded the arrow rain had now closed to the barricades.
Twenty men unseated might sound insignificant, but that was twenty riders neutralized in a single volley. Repeat that four or five more times and you'd have a hundred. As long as they could not break through the barricades, all they suffered was mounting losses.
"Ah…!"
Jeremy drew a sharp breath beside me. When I turned my head, her eyes were wide open.
"Something's wrong, Commander! They don't have them!"
"Don't have what? What's missing?"
"The lances!"
Jeremy shouted.
"The cavalry aren't carrying lances!"
"What?"
I whipped my head around to look at the front. Armor gleaming silver without a gap. Warhorses bred from monster hybrids. Everything a heavy cavalryman could need. —But there were no lances!
The eight-meter knight lances that had always sent infantry trembling with fear—Bretagne's trademark—were absent. The five-meter lances regular cavalry used were absent as well. Instead, they carried weapons that heavy cavalry would find utterly foreign.
"Bows…?!"
In that instant, thousands of arrows streaked through the air. The Bretagne cavalry regiment had become horse archers! They had ridden to within ten meters of the barricades to take aim. The utterly unexpected attack left our soldiers in shock.
"A-Arrows!"
Screams erupted everywhere. Soldiers pressed tightly against the barricades were struck and toppled by arrows. Dozens—no, from a quick glance, nearly a hundred—spearmen went down. Unlike the heavily armored heavy cavalry, most of our men were peasant militia. Their defense against arrows was simply on another level.
The Bretagne cavalry began circling endlessly at a distance from the barricades. The front rank loosed arrows and peeled away; the next rank fired and withdrew. It looked as if they could repeat it forever. Swarm! A swarm tactic! A cavalry-archer tactic one might expect from nomads—now being executed by the finest-trained cavalry on the continent.
"R-Run! Take cover!"
"Fools! Raise your shields! Raise your shields!"
"Aargh! My arm—my arm!"
The army dissolved into chaos in the blink of an eye. Spearmen held up small wooden shields, desperately trying to fend off the arrows. Peasants, facing an arrow storm for the first time, frantically covered their heads with shields. Naturally, the spears gradually drooped toward the ground.
I stood stunned, unable to speak for several seconds. What I blurted out next was less a word than a cry of sheer disbelief.
"So that was your aim, Henrietta…!"
"Commander! Give the order!"
Jeremy snapped me back to my senses from the side. Damn it! There was no time to sink into fury. The dwarves were keeping the ranks intact, but continuing like this would only mean casualties piling up. I gritted my teeth and bellowed.
"Fight arrows with arrows! Bring the archers forward—those with shields, cover the archers!"
"I'll relay the order immediately!"
Jeremy gestured to twenty assassins. Since the command fell outside the range pre-designated by banner signals, the operatives had to relay it by hand.
Fortunately, these were elite assassins who ranked among the fastest in the Demon Realm. Despite thousands of spearmen packed tightly at the front, the operatives deftly wove through and delivered the order to the dwarf sergeants. In less than a minute, the dwarves were shouting.
"Archers forward! Archers forward!"
"Use your shields to protect the archers! You bastards, don't lose your nerve! When horse archers fight archers on foot, our side wins every time!"
"Trust your comrades! Protect your comrades!"
The soldiers scrambled into motion. Archers darted between the ranks. Archers who had been buried in the crowd were shoved forward by their comrades' hands. They began loosing arrows with slight delays between volleys. The dwarves pumped up their spirits.
"Aim for the horses! Shoot the horses!"
The three thousand archers were mostly hunters. They could not execute the synchronized volleys of trained bowmen, but their accuracy was second to none. Trusting their comrades' cover, the archers began firing desperately.
"Damn it!"
I stomped the ground in rage. We'd been completely fooled!
Queen Henrietta had seen through our entirely defensive posture. We had been crowing about choosing the Saint-Denis Plains as our battleground, but Henrietta had secretly wanted exactly that.
I gnashed my teeth. I had experienced this same situation before. The Margrave of Rosenberg—they too had deployed highly trained cavalry to execute horse archer tactics.
"Another Austerlitz…!"
Tens of thousands of spearmen packed into a narrow plain. A perfect setup to maximize casualties from arrows. We had been so terrified of Bretagne's cavalry charge that we'd been captured by that image and failed to prepare against horse archers.
"Commander. We still hold the advantage."
Jeremy spoke calmly. She wore no practiced expression on her face. Jeremy's blunt, icy nature showed through plainly.
"As long as we maintain shield defense and keep using the archers, the horse archers will eventually have to withdraw. Look—the barricades are serving as a wall."
Jeremy was right. I had ordered the barricades built sturdily, and thanks to that, they made excellent cover.
A considerable number of archers had crowded behind them, firing through the narrow gaps between barricades to avoid the incoming arrows. The spearmen gradually retreated to positions the arrows could not reach.
"I know. I just despise myself for being deceived by Queen Henrietta!"
"She may have achieved a momentary shock, but it hasn't shifted the advantage to Queen Henrietta's side. If we remain composed going forward…"
Jeremy trailed off. She was staring ahead. I sensed something ominous in her eyes. I turned to follow her gaze.
The horse archers were slowly pulling back. Dead warhorses lay scattered everywhere, struck by our arrows. They had retreated to avoid further losses from our counter-fire—or so it seemed.
"The second wave…!"
As if rotating with the first, a second wave of cavalry was galloping in. These riders were more splendidly outfitted than the horse archers before them. They were knights. The knights bore aloft the black lily banners symbolizing Bretagne as they drove their warhorses toward us.
Full plate armor—even the horses were encased head to hoof.
Unlike the first wave, they were equipped as cavalry in the most perfect sense. Yes—perfect equipment! They gripped eight-meter lances in their hands!
Desperate screams tore from our soldiers.
"Knights! A cavalry charge—!"