Quest: book 3 Page 7

7

  The five hundred people camp is very small, it will be flooded by more than one thousand cavalries in a moment.

  The cavalries were getting close to them with a slow pace, the orderly hoof sounds clanged on my heart as the war drum, the spears in the hands were hung on the shoulders, the tips of the spears pointed to the sky. We pretended to be the general reinforcements to get close to the camp slowly, we were going to fight them unprepared.

  In the evening, alarmed by the depressing poundings, the standing on the watchtower guards unlocked their voices to scream at the people down in there. It was right at the dinner time, the camp was full of the running around soldiers, looking for weapons, looking for commanding officers, looking for queues...

  There were a lot of people still holding the rice bowls in their hands. Gradually, some people saw the dresses on the closer and closer cavalries, they started yelling in succession. (All the empire troops have the same dresses) The bawls brought the new confusions to the camp, a lot of people who just picked up the weapons began to walk back to their bowls... Why still need to be nervous while they had already known that it is their own troop?

  Even a small officer brought a few people to walk to the camp gate, it looked like that he was going to open the gate to meet their own guys.

  "It's the striking formation!" the guards on the watchtower finally saw clearly our formation, they began to shout again, "they are in striking formation! Enemies! Enemies!"

  The distance was so close, it's meaningless for disguise.

  A fireball was ejected from our side, it swept past just over the heads of the cavalries, and smashed on the camp gate heavily.

  This is the signal for the general offensive!

  The close formation immediately spread out, the originally pointing up pikes had been put down evenly, the slow and orderly hoof beats became extremely messy! In the moment we saw the signal, the cavalries began to get into the sprint speed in turn.

  The enemies who were still holding the rice bowls scurried around like a headless chicken again. But the several time that enemy to reinforcement and reinforcement to enemy made them couldn’t come over for reaction, they must be more confused, this can be told from their slower speed.

  The first impact wave was five hundred cavalries, they divided into ten columns to rush to the camp in turn. Everyone kept five arms distance with nearby companions in order to bring the weapon's power into play, there were about fifteen horses distance between the columns. They bent their waist, bonded their bodies tightly onto the horse backs, kept urging their rides with the spurs on the heels. Their goal was to rush to the other side of the camp.

  I and Martin Arthur rode on the horses, we were watching all of these on the terrain a little higher place, behind were a small group of messengers and a few staff officers.

  "What do you see?" Martin Arthur pointed at the first impact wave and asked me.

  "The mob!" I answered with a bitter smile, "no any highly trained features!"

  Even though I hoped that my own army could make a beautiful annihilation battle at the first time very much, but I sill had to tell the truth. Because the impact we were having had a bit changes in the cavalries formation, some blunting front, some lagging behind, and some still trying to keep up with others.

  "You don't waste the acerbity language." Martin Arthur said to me in all seriousness, "but this is your army."

  "So what? Just because they are my army, so I gave them this kind of evaluation! I need to mend them well after this battle." while I spoke, I was watching the cavalries rushed into the enemy camp.

  There were no too many protections for the camp, inside a circle of looks like very thin enclosure, there were some tents set up neatly and lots of materials piled up on the vacant space.

  The fence of the camp was boomed scattered here and there by the wizards with the fireballs, just a few wood battens left like the weak grass shaking in the wind.

  In the hoof beats, the front of the cavalries broke through the fence, they lunged the long spears in hands into the enemies bodies scattered around in extremely messy mercilessly, they were still trying to keep the speed of the impact along the way. Speed, oh speed, it's the life of the cavalry.

  There were not a small amount of elves magicians mixing in the last several columns of the troop, they began to send out a large number of wind class damage magic. Before the other party had time to organize the effective defense, even a little magic wind blade could have the enormous damage.

  "This is more like it." Martin Arthur was observing carefully, he just praised them orally. It happened that a cavalry couldn't retrieve his long spear after he lunged it into the enemy's body, he was dragged to dismount by his own pike in loud scream, the cavalries behind would not stop for him... A blood mist came up, he had become the meat mud...

  "Meaningless sacrifice," Martin shook his head, "it looks like that you have to move your repair plan earlier!"

  I wrinkled my eyebrows slightly, I opened my eyes widely, and I tried to grasp the overall situation and could see more details at the same time.

  The result was very disappointing.

  The prior military meeting decided, we have to give the enemy excruciatingly panic and confusion in the first wave of the impact, then the troops behind would launch the deadly attack from the side. Therefore, not only all the sorcerers and the most intrepid soldiers were in the first wave troops, but also asked them to bring a large amount of claws to pull down the tents.

  First the problem is what the weapons brings. At the high velocity, it's not much difficult to lunge the long spear as the major weapon into the enemy's body, but it is not so easy to retrieve it back. That requires a pair of very nimble hands and rich experience, or immediately retrieve it after stab it into the appropriate depth; or choose a good place to stab in, normally it is above the chest, puncture it with the pike mercilessly! At the same time he opens his arms and lift it up, strokes a semicircle with the back of the pike, turns the enemy's body over backward and drags out his pike.

  The result? Some guys retrieved the pikes too early because of their estimate shortage, the direct consequence was that they didn't let the enemies lose the fighting ability. Some didn't raise their pikes up to an enough range, that made them sprain their wrists or have the shoulder dislocation. What's more, some were dragged to dismount by the rope claws which were used to pull down the enemy's tents! Fortunately, the enemies were very panic, many people were knocked down by the horses and trampled to death. Otherwise, to win the battle by these rookies? Shit, I don’t think so!

  The most front cavalries had rushed to the center of the camp, they mopped down a lot of enemies on the way. But looked at their situation, it seemed like that they were chased down by the enemy, the formation is messy, and act like fools! If we didn't have many plentiful experienced officer as the hard core, if we didn't have the elves sorcerers with the deep magic attainments help us to clear up the messy situation, if we didn't have the clever tactical arrangement to make the enemy confused first, if we didn't fight with the power play, if it's not a surprise attack... I couldn't go on to think.

  "Signal! The lateral cavalries begin to assault!" I gave the order.

  "But when the lateral troops rush to arrive there, the people on the back of the first wave cavalries haven't get out of there yet! This will hurt our own people!" One of the subordinate staff officer shouted. In the enemy camp, there were about one hundred people fell off the horses, they were fighting with the enemies as a crowd.

  "I-- said-- assault!" I gave him a clip on the ear, I felt numb in my palm, I didn't have the time to explain. If the entanglement kept going on like this, not only the dismount people would die, but the enemy also could organize up the effective defense!

  Three fireballs were ejected onto the sky, the cavalries on the camp side shouted loudly, they began the attack.

  This team was lead by Hairt and Marf, they had the lessons drawn from the first wave's mistakes, the
ir impact formation were relatively tidy.

  If the first wave of the attack was like a black tornado blew through the camp, this wave of attack was launched like a group of black locusts. Under my and Martin Arthur's assignments, they kept the formation with the slower speed, destroyed all the enemies on their way, and pulled down all the tents... The exquisite riding people also pulled the hapless who fell off the horseback previously up to their horses as possible as they could. Of course, not every hapless people had this luck, there not a few died under the own people's hoofs tragically.

  The first wave cavalries had already rushed to the other side of the camp, the utterly discomfited officers scolded their subordinates to turn around... They rushed into the camp once again.

  The shouts with bellow came from the camp. The setting sunlight shined on the weapons, occasionally gave out the reflective lights of the death breath... The five hundred infantries were totally collapsed in the one thousand cavalries' back and forth impacts. Besides a few half-dead lay on the ground moaning, the rest were all dead.

  "Immediately clean up the battle field!" I and Martin Arthur rode into the camp side by side together.

  "What do you want to do?" Martin Arthur asked me in a low voice.

  "We can't no longer fight like this!" I said, "we certainly will lose if we fight like this!"

  All the officers stood behind me and Martin Arthur, they were listening to Martin Arthur's postwar summary.

  "In general, boys." Martin Arthur said, "you lost the battle!"

  "But have we achieved our goal?" some of the officers retorted quietly.

  "Yes, we achieved our goal!" Martin Arthur said, "but how many soldiers have we lost?"

  "The statistics is here," Hairt took a look at the battle damage report in his hands, "the soldiers have one hundred twenty three dead, seriously injured sixty four, regardless of the minor injured. The loss of the horses is around one hundred."

  "The other party has just five hundred infantries! Five hundred infantries!" I roared loudly, "we dispatched over one thousand cavalries and some sorcerers, and it is even a sneak attack! We lost this many people! You have the face to call this result as a victory! What people are these died soldiers? They are just only the soldiers? No! They are the brothers fighting with us side by side! They are the future backbone of our army! They are the tinder! You go to say to the died soldiers, say it! Say we won! Stand in the midst of the died brothers! Go say to their remains!"

  There were no more the voice of argument.

  "Of course, this can't all blame on you. Our army has just been established, it surely will have this or that problems. You have tried your best on the battlefield, I can see all of these." looking at the officers' dropped heads, my tone was down a bit, "but at the same time, I also saw your prewar carelessness and postwar relaxation! The officer is the model of the soldiers, if you treat the battle in this manner, what manner will the soldiers treat the battle?"

  "It's our fault!" after all the officers were not stupid, they came over to understand it, "please Your Viceroy give us the punishment!"

  "Now we are not in a hurry, we still have the ferocity battle to fight." I shook my hand and said, "the junior officers go back immediately to deal with the cleanup, encourage the morale. The senior officers leave to discuss the next battle."

  "The latest news from the scouts, the enemy's main force has been close to the boundary. Under our alien races friends' pursuit, they lost some people, they have about fifteen to sixteen hundreds left, they have about a little more than two thousand with the troop in the desert entrance. They have a day's journey away from us." After the juniors officers left, Martin Arthur began to read the battle report, all the people presence were listening attentively to his a bit husky majesty voice.

  Hairt went on to explain our situation, "now our force is one thousand four hundred cavalries, and some other arms."

  "The situation is just like this, everyone think about it well over," I said, "how should we fight next? Everyone can speak."

  The map was opened on the vacant lot, the officers were discussed under the several swaying torch flames. They occasionally caused some bitter quarrels.

  "To be sure, if we deal with the enemy the obverse side," Martin said firmly, "we don't have the odds, so you don't have to think in this regard."

  Looking at the officers' depressed faces, I encouraged them, "it just for picking up the enemy's front, this is our weakness. But we also have our advantages! Let's first analyze all the situations."

  Hairt was the first to speak, "the soldiers still have no chance to get the complete cavalry training, this is our weakness."

  "Our soldiers have the more skilled pure infantry's method of operation," Moah said, "and our weapon equipments are very good! The morale is pretty good as well. These are all our advantages."

  It looked like that the former Moah was same as Hairt, he had been growing slowly.

  "What about the enemy? What do they have? And what they don't have?" I lost no time to remind everyone.

  "From their speed to see, you know it is a very experienced light cavalry troop! They have the very strong power..." Martin Arthur explained the advantages of the enemy for us. The accurate vision, the original opinion, it's rational. This was our these novices unable to do so. He made all of us listened convinced.

  "The enemy's weakness is in their fatigue, and they are also chased from behind, they have certain losses." an officer spoke out his views in a small voice, "we can crack down on the enemy's disadvantages with our advantages!"

  "That's right," I evaluated his suggestion, "this is the truth that everyone understands. But how to do it specifically?"

  Another officer bowed his body a bit, he pointed at the map and said, "we can produce all kinds of conditions to our benefits, at the same time to let the enemy careless."

  This suggestion was given our affirmations, the officers had come up with all kinds of ideas, some of them were remarkable insights...

  "Good!" I took a look at the time, I signaled to hint everyone to stop the discussion. Martin Arthur looked at me by the side, he had a smile on his face.

  "Since we are on the same page, let's do it!"

  After we arranged everything, Martin Arthur and I stood on the roadside watching the soldiers started off under the officers' lead.

  "Not to teach them a good lesson?" Martin Arthur asked me softly.

  "Thought about it, or I should wait!" I gave the salute back to a column of walked past soldiers who were greeting me, "being not well ready is my fault! No complete training is my responsibility too. They have nothing wrong besides the attitude problems."

  "So you just only reprimanded their attitude?" Martin Arthur were the same giving the salute back to the soldiers.

  "No matter what, the troops have to keep the morale." I said, "it's not good to have too much reprimanded."

  Martin Arthur looked at me, he had the expression of admiration on his face, "from my observation these days, you are a good general, a wise general. Your subordinate officers and soldiers are very lucky!"

  "Lucky? I hope so, but it will be a tough battle tomorrow night!"

  Looked at the sky over our heads, I said such words.

  On the night sky, the stars twinkled.