Chapter 84 - The Immortal Legion in Black Armor

'Their captain?'

Reacting to the voices around him, Shan immediately urged Arwin toward the horse archer struck by his lance. His hand, empty since throwing the broken weapon, naturally drew Guardian of the East from his waist.

"Th-that...!"

"Stop him!"

The enemy who had just displayed such tremendous skill with a lance had now drawn a visibly powerful magic sword and was going after their captain. Yet the half-horse archers merely exchanged terrified looks and urged one another to stop him. Not one dared step forward. It was hardly surprising after they had just watched every comrade brave enough to attack him die.

The enemy captain, thrown from his horse with the lance lodged in his side, was being tended by his lieutenant, who had dismounted beside him. When the lieutenant stuffed something into the wound the lance had made, the bleeding visibly diminished.

"Damn!"

Seeing Shan approach, the captain's eyes widened in horror. He shoved his lieutenant away by the chest and drew his sword. Was he at least determined not to hide behind his subordinate, as befitted a captain?

Just as Shan rode up to finish him with a downward slash, the enemy captain flung his sword aside, raised both hands, and shouted.

"I surrender!"

"... What?"

The utterly unexpected words made Shan instinctively pull Arwin's reins and slow down. All the ferocity the captain had shown moments earlier had vanished. Blood trickled from his mouth as he gave Shan a servile smile.

"I surrender—cough—I surrender... Warrior, among warriors, please show mercy, to this lowly shepherd, of the plains."

Though injury and exhaustion broke up his words, he begged desperately for his life.

When the bewildered Shan remained silent, the man even bent down and pressed his head into the dirt. The violent movement sent blood spilling from his pierced side.

"Please, spare me, my lord! Master! I don't, want to die! If you only spare me, I will serve you as your slave!"

A Pendian knight would sooner die than surrender so dishonorably. For them, surrender meant fighting as hard as they could, accepting defeat, and gracefully paying a ransom to an opponent with whom they shared mutual respect. Who would have imagined that a warrior who commanded over three hundred horse archers and was skilled enough to drive an arrow into Shan's chest could behave so basely and brazenly?

His surprise soon passed. Taking the man up on his offer of servitude, Shan promptly gave an order.

"If you truly surrender, tell your men to disarm and assemble."

"Pass it on."

"The captain's orders! Disarm! We surrender!"

Apparently unable to shout with a hole through his side, the captain spoke briefly to his lieutenant, who raised his voice to relay the command.

The horse archers, who had been watching their imperiled captain, glanced at one another before dropping their weapons and raising their hands. The knights of Pales, still tangled among the enemies they had been pursuing, looked equally dumbfounded when their opponents abandoned the fight.

"What in the...?"

"Do not attack anyone who surrenders! Bind their hands and take them prisoner!"

Shan responded swiftly with orders of his own and let his heightened concentration subside. As he exhaled deeply, the fatigue he had briefly held at bay settled over his entire body.

'Whew...'

All he had actually done was ride, make a few thrusts, and throw his lance once, but the strain had been considerable—more mental than physical.

Watching him, the enemy captain's lieutenant asked cautiously,

"Um, may I tend to the captain?"

"You may."

With his side pierced through, the man would not recover immediately even with a priest's healing. Naturally, he would hardly be capable of so much as an imitation of his specialty, mounted archery.

While the lieutenant treated his captain's wound, the heavy cavalry of Pales bound the surrendered horse archers with the ropes they carried. They did not bother making them dismount. Since the captors were also mounted, it was easier to lead their prisoners along on horseback. Fortunately or unfortunately, those on the fringes had fled, leaving only a couple of prisoners for each rider to handle. The work was soon done.

Yurk rode over leading four horse archers tied together with a rope and gave Shan an incredulous look.

"What on earth happened here, Lord Guardian?"

"They said they surrendered."

Anyone with eyes could tell that. His question was how it had happened, but Shan did not really know either. Ravana approached and explained.

"People from Horace readily surrender when the battle turns against them. Their honor doesn't lie in holding out."

In Pendia and other lands with flourishing knightly traditions, laying down one's life for honor was taken for granted. In contrast, the people of Horace considered it perfectly natural to submit when they could not win. That was why a great chieftain would sometimes emerge, subjugate several tribes, and threaten Libert.

"Huh..."

The knights of Pales looked fascinated by a custom so foreign, despite Horace belonging to the same Arman Alliance.

"But can we afford to spend this much time here? The main force is still fighting..."

"Taking them prisoner is faster than running around trying to wipe out every horse archer who resists."

"Oh."

The impatient knight nodded, convinced by Shan's explanation. Shan had already accounted for all that when accepting their surrender. As Sherin had said, this was not a battle they needed to risk their lives for in the first place. There was no reason to throw themselves into a frenzy of killing and being killed. Besides, they needed to change horses after that exhausting chase. They could leave the prisoners with available infantrymen then.

With his explanation finished, Shan checked that matters were more or less settled and immediately ordered a return to the main force. It was a remarkable sight: roughly a hundred and fifty horse archers being escorted as prisoners by about half as many heavy cavalrymen.

Riding at the head of the column, Shan addressed the enemy captain, who was grimacing and clutching his side.

"Your standing?"

"The Lugan tribe, the chieftain's second younger brother... Ranta."

His voice trembled, as though the horse's bouncing gait were aggravating his wound. Still, they could hardly dismount and walk out of consideration for him.

"Were you hired by Prince Elvin?"

"No, by the king of Luman. Our tribe is from southern Horace. When food runs short, we usually work as mercenaries under them..."

Shan had wondered how they had come all the way to Pendia from the distant west. So they had sailed across the sea and been hired by Luman's king. Ranta looked far too exhausted to endure further questioning, so Shan asked no more. They had reached the battlefield where the infantry were clashing, anyway.

As Shan and the others drew closer and surveyed the battle, their eyes widened.

"What on earth...?"

* * *

"Aaaaargh!"

After the cavalry left to check the enemy horse archers, the infantry of Pales had advanced in formation and clashed with the enemy foot soldiers. Normally, battles between heavily armed infantry were not easily decided. Their defenses were excellent, but they lacked the offensive power cavalry gained from speed.

What they needed, therefore, was strong defensive capability and the endurance to hold their formation and stand firm: to keep pushing against the enemy with the shields in their left hands while jabbing with the spears and swords in their right, cowing their opponents and preventing them from attacking freely. Yet their first real battle unfolded quite differently from what they had been taught.

"Huh?"

One Altoan soldier of Pales was startled after locking shields with an opponent and thrusting his spear through a gap. By luck, the spear had slipped between the enemy shields, torn through the leather armor covering his opponent's chest, and plunged inside.

In a mock battle, a strike against armor would have been discounted. Here, his opponent slumped to the ground, blood pouring from his mouth, his heart pierced through. Strengthened and sharpened beyond ordinary weapons by a magic stone, the spear could easily penetrate leather armor even wielded in one hand.

The enemy's weapons, by contrast, could not readily harm the soldiers of Pales. In particular, the hydra-hide armor worn by the three hundred elite troops in the front rank had been fashioned into coats and trousers. Covering almost everything but their faces, hands, and feet, it made them virtually invincible.

The soldiers of Pales soon realized this. Rather than merely brace themselves shield to shield, they began attacking more aggressively.

"Heave!"

"Ghurk..."

Covering their vulnerable faces with their shields, they practically leaned against the enemy's shields and hacked and stabbed at the bodies beyond with their right-handed weapons. This brutally crude tactic, which would normally have gotten them killed first, worked even better than expected. Though their opponents stabbed their limbs and torsos as they pressed against the shields, the blows did no damage.

Anvil had met anvil, yet the weaker one—Prince Elvin's infantry—was being chipped away without reply. The greatest problem was the conscripts brought in to fill out their numbers. Poorly equipped and less well trained, they were slaughtered without even a chance to resist.

"Aaaagh!"

"Spears and swords won't even pierce them!"

"Run!"

"You bastards! Anyone who runs will be executed!"

Despite the threats of the veterans behind them, the formation gradually began to scatter. Fear was contagious. As conscripts fell back blindly and left gaping holes in the defensive line, even experienced soldiers retreated, unwilling to stand alone and die like dogs. Needless to say, the sight sent the morale of the Pales troops soaring.

"Hahahaha!"

"This makes me feel like a knight!"

To ravage an opponent without suffering a scratch oneself was every warrior's dream.

Exultant, the infantry of Pales poured into the broken formation and butchered their enemies like wolves among sheep. The unusual appearances of the Altoan mercenaries, who made up most of the elite vanguard, only heightened the terror. When a soldier with a bird's beak for a mouth clacked it and glared, conscripts threw down their spears and fled, shouting.

"The monsters of Alto are immortal!"

"They can't die!"

Of course, the soldiers of Pales were being wounded and killed too. Most injuries were blows to their hands or feet or thrusts to their faces, but a few unlucky men were struck in exposed parts of the neck and bled to death, or died instantly when their heads were pierced. Yet for every Pales soldier unlucky enough to die, ten of Prince Elvin's men fell, making those losses difficult to notice.

"What in the world..."

"This much of a difference?"

Even Pales's own commanders were bewildered by their infantry's performance. Better though their weapons were, they were unremarkable as magical devices went. Their armor was likewise superb, but no one had expected better armor to improve their ability to break through an enemy line. This was a difference mock battles could not reveal.

Quickly recovering from his surprise, Roden, the acting commander, ordered the standard-bearer beside him,

"Send the flag signal. Two white and one purple."

"Yes, sir!"

It was one of their prearranged orders: abandon the existing line formation and engage in small units of ten. Veterans spotted Roden's signal and passed it on. The infantry split into smaller groups and seeped in among the enemy. Feeling surrounded on every side, more enemies lost the will to fight, accelerating the collapse of their formation.

Watching from across the field, the commander of Prince Elvin's right wing groaned and gave an order.

"Send out the knights! Break their momentum!"

"But my lord Count, if we commit the knights now, facing the enemy knights will be—"

"If our infantry collapses like this, we won't even get a chance to use them!"

Unable to dispute that, the protesting knight bowed his head. A moment later, some eighty cavalrymen who had been standing by against a possible surprise attack rode around their own infantry's right flank and charged toward the enemy foot soldiers.

"For His Majesty the King!"

"Pendia forever!"

The thunder of hooves made the Pales infantry blanch. They had dominated the enemy foot soldiers with an overwhelming advantage moments earlier, but these opponents were knights, the nightmare of every ordinary soldier. Granted, only the dozen or so riders at the very front were actual knights.

Fortunately, Roden had ordered a response the moment he spotted the enemy cavalry setting out. The heavy infantry immediately gathered with nearby comrades and formed defensive ranks to meet the charge.

"Charge!"

With a thunderous crash, the knights drove into the infantry with spirit-infused lances. Contrary to expectations, however, their powerful charge failed to send dozens flying at once and shatter the formation.

Had their spirit carried an image of penetration, things might have been different. But an image of impact meant to push the enemy back could not inflict such devastating force on troops clad in enchanted hydra armor. Those in the first and second ranks were knocked sprawling, but from the third rank onward, they managed to hold, bracing against the shields of the fourth.

And cavalry that failed to break through and lost its speed was utterly helpless.

"They've stopped!"

"Kill them!"

"Go for the legs!"

"Urgh!"

As the Pales infantry slashed and stabbed the warhorses' legs, riders tumbled to the ground. A few hastily cleaved enemies apart with spirit-infused sword strikes, but using their power in such desperation left them rapidly exhausted.

"Damn it, retreat! Fall back!"

Had they thought they were charging heavy infantry in steel armor, they would have attacked in a way that chipped away at the edges. The captain of Prince Elvin's cavalry was issuing retreat orders with a dismayed expression when his eyes suddenly widened.

"Damn—"

Having handed over their prisoners and finished their preparations at Princess Sherin's main force, Pales's cavalry was charging again. Just as the enemy riders finally shook off the infantry around them, the knights of Pales accelerated on fresh, spirited mounts and slammed into them.

"Here we go!"

At their head, Shan thrust his lance through an opposing knight's throat and activated the magical device. The Lance of Blazing Fire exploded, hurling the knights beside his target in both directions.

* * *

While the army of Pales on the left wing overwhelmingly ravaged the enemy right, the battles in the center and on the right unfolded rather differently. First, Duke Morayen's battle on the right wing was progressing more sluggishly than expected. He had remained thoroughly defensive throughout.

'This isn't my fight anyway. Taking an active role would only waste my soldiers' lives.'

The idea itself resembled Sherin's, but his approach was more underhanded in that he would not even do the bare minimum expected of him. He did not send his knights out at all, simply hunkering down with his infantry and holding formation. Prince Elvin's forces opposing him found it difficult to press an aggressive attack.

That did not last long. A masked group appeared among the enemy, changing the course of the battle. Duke Morayen frowned at the bizarre sight.

"What are those?"

They wore exotic masks and nothing on their upper bodies, making it clear that some were women rather than men. Dressed so indecently in the middle of a battlefield, they sang in an unknown language and performed grotesque dances. Even when several fell dead to archers' arrows, the rest paid no heed.

Before long, the reason for their bizarre behavior became apparent.

"Y-Your Highness! Our soldiers are attacking each other!"

"What?"

At his lieutenant's report, Duke Morayen quickly turned his gaze. Just as reported, some of his soldiers were attacking their comrades. No—that was not quite accurate. With his distinctive artist's eye, the duke discerned exactly who was fighting whom.

"The conscripts recruited in Pendia have gone berserk...!"

The elite soldiers he had brought from Libert were unaffected. Only the men levied after he occupied the territories of northwestern Pendia were swinging their weapons at their allies, eyes rolled back. The problem was that they outnumbered his elite troops.

The differences in equipment and training meant that most were subdued without doing serious harm. But with their ranks tearing themselves apart in the middle of battle, the army's defenses could hardly function properly.

"What on earth is this? Could it be the work of those southern-continent heathens?"

"Whatever the means, we must retreat for now, Your Highness."

"Very well. Order a retreat. Have the cavalry disrupt the enemy line and prevent pursuit!"

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Fortunately, none of the cavalry under the duke—knights, squires, and mercenaries—had been affected by the frenzy. As his army withdrew, the duke studied the masked dancers with a cool expression.

"Whatever their trick is, they've landed a blow. Have they used a secret weapon they never even used against Conrad...? It seems to require certain conditions."

He had a rough idea what those conditions were. Turning to observe the battle in the center, the duke realized with relief that neither side held a clear advantage there. Early in the battle, the elephants had trampled and crushed conscripts in droves, but Conrad's army had such vast numbers that it had weathered the assault and driven the beasts back with volleys of arrows.

The infantry conscripts faced one another in a complete melee, even the most basic formations shattered. Across the broad plain, scattered knights continually swept past each other, impaling and killing one another with cavalry lances.

"Come at me, then!"

"I'll kill you!"

Most striking of all was the duel between the kingdom's strongest knight, Marquis Abel, and Elvin's lanky Lug. Despite his imposing build, the towering knight moved more nimbly than ordinary knights, using his superior height and reach to maintain his distance. Thrust after thrust flew toward Abel, so long-ranged that he seemed to be launching his lance rather than stabbing with it.

Abel compensated for his physical disadvantage with overwhelming skill. Always faster, perfectly anticipating and blocking each attack before it arrived, he gradually closed the distance. Their lances and shields, relics of the old Alto Empire, threw off sparks and violent cracking sounds with every attack and parry. It was a duel of such caliber that the other knights nearby scarcely dared interfere.

What interrupted it was the distant beat of drums signaling retreat.

"What? Why?"

The knights serving Prince Elvin looked baffled as the order came from their own lines.

They were nowhere near being at a disadvantage. If anything, they held a slight edge. Why retreat now? Questions were one thing, however; in battle, obeying orders from above came first. Lug drew well back and glared at Marquis Abel.

"I'll have to avenge my squire another time."

"I sincerely hope you can."

Abel's utterly unruffled expression only irritated Lug further. He lifted his visor, spat, and returned to the main force with his comrades. Fortunately, their opponents had suffered substantial losses as well and did not pursue.

A short while later, back at the main force, Lug and the other knights learned why the sudden retreat had been ordered.

"The right wing was almost annihilated. If we hadn't pulled back quickly to regroup, even the prince and His Majesty might have been in danger."

"How on earth did that happen?"

With their superior overall strength, they should surely have stationed a sizable force there. As the knights wondered, one who had fought on the right wing muttered in a shaken voice,

"They're monsters... The Witch Princess's hound, that green-eyed monster! And the Altoans who follow him, too!"

Deep terror seeped into his voice as he described the monstrous knight who seemed to dominate the battlefield alone atop his enormous horse, and the immortal legion clad in black armor. Such behavior was uncharacteristic of a knight who had fought countless battles, and fear began to show on the others' faces as well.

"I see."

Unlike the horrified men around him, however, Lug simply nodded in acceptance. The boy knight he remembered was more than capable of such a feat.

'Sir Shan...'

As Lug recalled the past, his face held none of the deep hatred and hostility it had shown earlier. Instead, it bore something like a boy's admiration.