Enlightened Empire

Chapter 411: Returning the Favor

"Charge!" At the same time as Herak's command sounded across the battlefield, he himself stopped and pulled out his bow again. While the four hundred native warriors charged ahead towards the camp, his own knights formed around Herak. At the same time, twenty of his knights began to ignite torches, just how they had previously been instructed.

Usually, medalan battles would open with a skirmish from commoners to sound out the enemy and weaken their morale. Those tactics had been completely abandoned ever since they had proven useless in several battles against Saniya's commoner soldiers.

The southerners loved to open with salvos from cannons or muskets. These attacks did far more damage and were far more harmful to morale than the previous skirmishes.

However, Herak's attack had come so fast and from such an unexpected direction that neither the enemy cannons nor their formation of musketeers were quite in position yet. The warriors of Antila were lightly armored, and far more mobile than the usual troops. Yet due to their fast movements, the powerful ranged soldiers of the southern kingdom failed to take advantage of their weakness.

With all other forms of ranged combat temporarily out of the picture, Herak's war bow alone reigned supreme. Right before the warriors on both sides clashed against each other, Herak fired his first arrow. Once more it flew true, and hit the man standing to the right of the commoner formation in the chest.

Three left.

Of course, Herak hadn't just hit anyone at random. The southern army was organized in units of one hundred, and every unit would have its commander marching to the unit's left. His uniform would also have slight differences that were possible to spot once he knew what to look for. These were details he had slowly determined after many months of observation. Now the knowledge had allowed Herak to target the southern army's commanders directly, just how their own had been targeted before.

Right as steel crashed into steel on the front line, Herak fired a second arrow, and killed off a second commander.

Two left. Just enough.

Once more, Herak put away his bow. He still had some arrows left over, but he would need at least one later, and his purpose had already been achieved. Thus, as he put away his bow, the duke faced his knights and once more shouted, "Charge!"

This time, the rest of his men also began to move towards the enemy, following Herak's lead. Unlike before, he would not hide behind his men, but lead from the front. Maybe the cowardly generals of the southern kingdom would always stay behind and watch their men die for them, but Herak would never give up his pivotal role on the battlefield. How would he be able to lead by example if he always stayed back? How would he prove to his men that he was worthy of loyalty if he never showed that he was willing to die with them? Today, not only his own knights, but all soldiers of the southern kingdom would feel their determination.

By the time Herak and his knights closed in on the enemy formation, the medalan warriors under his command were already fully engaged in combat. Half of them had clashed against the equally charging warriors on the left flank of their opponent's formation. The other half had continued on past the warrior formation and engaged the stretched square of commoners in the formation's center.

Like so many times before over the course of this siege, Herak was impressed by the effectiveness of Saniya's commoner armies. Although they hadn't been prepared well and failed to take advantage of the power and long range of their advanced rifles, their halberdiers still managed to hold firm against the warrior charge.

Of course the attack this time was weaker than a full warrior charge. After all, their troops were only lightly armored and not as heavy on impact as usual. Not to mention that half of them had also been held up by the enemy flank, which left the remaining men disorganized as they closed in. Still, no other commoner formation that Herak had ever seen would have managed to withstand the impact of true warriors like this. Their formation barely buckled before it reclaimed its shape.

Soon, the first sporadic shots of musket fire also mixed into the sounds of battle. Protected by the halberds, the muskets behind slowly began to exert their strength. As a result, balance the combat began to tilt. At first, the commoners had been pushed back by the warriors, but now it looked like the outcome of battle hung in the balance. If nothing changed, victory would be decided by grit and morale.

However, the right flank of the enemy was still not engaged. Instead, the two hundred warriors were circling around to hit Herak's main force in the flank. If that were to happen, the encircled warriors wouldn't last long, but Herak didn't care about the fate of the native warriors. To him, they had always just been a decoy to buy him time and create a chance for victory. He didn't need much time, and his chance had already presented itself.

No matter how strict discipline was, no matter how good the plans, in the end, all would have to bow in front of the unpredictable chaos of real combat. In real combat, old habits would always rear their heads again, no matter what instructions a commander may have given beforehand.

Thus, as soon as the warriors of the southern army entered chaotic combat against opponents of equal caliber, they reverted back to their old instincts. Instead of retaining their formation to stabilize the front line or flanking their opponents to relieve the center, they had charged straight ahead and engaged in scattered one-on-one duels with their enemies. These honorable, hot-blooded fights were exactly the way they had been doing battle for countless generations, an instinct that was ingrained in their very blood. Thus, they charged forward every chance they got, drilling ever deeper into Antila's warrior formation.

In contrast, when faced with a strong charge from a powerful foe, the commoner soldiers of Saniya had retreated. To their credit, even the commoner units which had seen their commanders dead or injured from Herak's arrows hadn't collapsed immediately. Yet it was only their training that kept them together.

The habits of these commoner soldiers were also something that Herak had observed closely over the course of the siege. When faced with strong opposition, their training was simple, but effective. Small units of one hundred would form up into a tight square, with halberds on the outside and flintlocks on the inside. Then, they would slowly retreat as the muskets fired and the halberds defended. It was a well-planned tactic that had proven highly effective in preserving the formation, as well as guaranteeing the safety of the commoner soldiers. This was even more true considering just how vulnerable commoners were in open field combat against real cultivators.

This time however, their training would prove their weakness. When the south's warriors had charged ahead, their commoners had retreated at the same time. Even worse, commoner units whose commanders had been shot by Herak had been the ones to link up the center of the formation with the warriors on their left flank. Without their commander to regulate their behavior, they had fully reverted back to their training and retreated even further than other units in the face of the warrior charge.

Thus, the tactics meant to preserve the integrity of the defensive line had instead ripped a deep hole into the intersection between warriors and commoners. As the commoners retreated and the warriors advanced, that weakness continued to grow further and further. By the time Herak arrived, the two formations were connected by a mere sliver of thread.

Together with his hundred arcavian knights, Herak would prove the sword to cut through that thread in a single strike. Instead of engaging the flanking enemy on his left or supporting the disjointed Antila warriors in the center, Herak and his men charged right into the gap between commoners and cultivators. It collapsed without any discernible resistance. Herak just ran through the gap, while the handful of enemy warriors left to fill the hole were easily overrun by his knights. Suddenly, the stable formation of the southern army had been broken, and their troops had been split in two, while Herak and his hundred knights found themselves in the back of the enemy formation.

By this point, the common response would have been to turn around, encircle the enemy, and then rout them. By the time the flanking warriors got involved, the battle would already be decided.

Anyone else may have been tempted by the opportunity, smug that his tactics had finally overcome the invincible armies of Saniya in a major battle. Herak, however, knew better.

It wouldn't be long now until the reserve troops from the front line would come to join the battle on the southerners' side. By that point, thousands of additional troops would join the fight against them. No matter how good their tactics were, they would have no chance against such numbers. No, this mission had been a one-way trip from the very start. All they could do was advance, and hope that they would reach the enemy's command tent and capture their king before they were caught by their pursuers. His plan only offered a slim chance of victory, but for now the path ahead of them looked clear.

As soon as they had broken through, there was nothing but open space between them and the walls. Of course, there was still the thin trench covered in spikes, but that was more of a deterrent against climbing efforts, and no real threat for cultivators.

"Launch the powder!" Herak shouted.

Immediately, twenty of his knights came forward, all of them with large packages of straw that they carried in modified javelin launchers fastened to their arms. The straw was ignited by the torches other knights had previously ignited. As soon as the straw began to burn, the knights immediately threw their dangerous cargo towards the walls. Even before all the packages reached the walls, some of them exploded, and spread burning straw, sharp shards of pottery and the smell of gunpowder throughout the area.

Inside the straw was an urn of pottery, which in turn was filled with compacted gunpowder. Once ignited, the fire would spread across the straw on the outside, then either the heat would crack the clay and enter inside, or the powder would simply get too hot and explode on its own. However, most would break or crack upon impact, and explode then. The packages were large and heavy, so much so that only cultivators could throw them. As a result, their explosive power was also immense.

Boom!

One after another, the urns found their target. While the first few hadn't done any damage, subsequent urns landed right inside the trench, or next to the palisade wall. Aside from functioning as an improvised lute, the straw also guaranteed that the pots wouldn't roll away or break apart to spread around the compacted powder too much after landing. This way, the impact of the explosion would be maximized.

It was a strategy devised after seeing the southern kingdom's use of gunpowder against Antila's wall. Once more, Herak was determined to turn the dirty little tricks of the merchant against him, though the price was steep. This one attempt had used up all the remaining powder in Antila's arsenal.

In return, the effect was considerable. As more bombs exploded, the earth inside the trench was blasted away. Not only was this the wall of the trench, it was also the foundation of the palisades. As the foundation became less and less stable, several pieces of palisade began to lean. One had been directly hit by an exploding urn, and had broken off around the middle as a result. Better yet, the defenders atop the wall were thrown off their feet from the intense, continuous impact. Now they could no longer provide protection to the camp. The last defenses were gone.

At once, several palisades began to lean to the sides. All of a sudden, several holes had opened up inside the insurmountable obstacle. Although they would still be difficult to cross for ordinary commoners, it was no problem for cultivators.

"Charge!" Herak shouted one final time, and then waited for his men to move. Several of his knights got into position in front of the wall, their backs to the palisade and their hands locked together to create a footrest in front of their torsos. Immediately, the remaining knights charged up one after another. They jumped off the locked hands of the readied knights, and were then catapulted up, into the holes in the wall's defense. Some then entered through gaps in the remaining wall, while others continued to run up the leaning palisades.

Thus, several warriors managed to reach the top one after another, where they would fasten ropes for the remaining knights down below to travel up. Within seconds, Herak's knights had conquered this seemingly tough obstacle, with no losses. Soon, all of them would reach the relative safety of the empty enemy camp on the other side.

As for the native warriors of Antila who were now being encircled by the defending army? That was no longer any of Herak's concern. By now, he was only focused on the future. So what if a few barbarians had to die for his future?

In eager anticipation of the merchant's terrified face, he himself followed the first charge of his knights and jumped off one of his men's hands through a hole in the wall. Thus he overcame the final obstacle that stood between him and the merchant. A grim smile of determination formed on his face. By now, surely nothing could stop him anymore.

However, his grim smile only lasted a second. As soon as he crossed the palisades, he spotted a second spiked trench, built some three steps behind the original wall. At the moment, several of his knights had already landed inside. Pierced by the sharpened wood and the force of their own momentum, some howled in pain, while others were already silent.

Worse yet, another line of commoner soldiers stood at the edge of the spike pit with a chaotic assortment of weapons at the ready to intercept them.

How many layers of defense did they have prepared? Herak cursed in his heart. However, he didn't have much time to feel anger.

He was still stuck in the air, falling to his death and surrounded by enemies.