Chapter 108: The Cavalry

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As the Deer-Crane Guard slowly retreated toward the southeast, the cavalry of Flying Horse Stronghold had already raced to the entrance of Black Wind Stronghold.

Chasing Wind Horse of Flying Horse Stronghold dismounted and stood gazing at the raging fire within the stronghold. The flames had consumed his ambitions, along with his grand designs.

After this fire, all his grain and provisions would be gone. He would no longer possess the means to stand against Windstone Village, and could only slink back to his stronghold in disgrace. After this battle, his prestige as alliance leader would inevitably plummet, and he would never again be able to rise above the other strongholds.

Chasing Wind Horse clasped his hands and bowed. “Lord of Black Wind Stronghold, are you all right?”

“What did you call me?” One Streak of Smoke’s tone was strangely off. “Lord of Black Wind Stronghold? This morning, you were so warmly calling me ‘Grand Lord,’ and now I’m Lord of Black Wind Stronghold again?”

Chasing Wind Horse had no idea why he was being berated. He muttered a few embarrassed words and withdrew to one side.

“Where is your lord, Winged Horse?” One Streak of Smoke asked despondently.

“Our lord sent me ahead to assess the situation. He’ll be here shortly.”

“Hmph.” One Streak of Smoke understood perfectly. After this battle, Flying Horse Stronghold would become the greatest power in the region.

At least Winged Horse had possessed enough foresight to leap overboard before the ship sank. Otherwise, this fire would have burned all his horses to death, and he might well have fallen into ruin with them.

Just as he reached this thought, One Streak of Smoke suddenly grew alert. Why had Winged Horse seemed to know that the stronghold would catch fire? How had it happened that the moment he left, the flames had sprung up?

And the fire itself had begun in the strangest manner. Just as One Streak of Smoke was gathering his men in preparation for an attack, tents throughout the stronghold had caught fire one after another. He had immediately ordered the soldiers to join forces and extinguish the flames, but the blaze had been too fierce. Not only had they failed to put it out, many men had perished in the inferno, forcing him to withdraw ahead of time.

Though he had repeatedly ordered his men to form ranks and leave the stronghold, the bandits had still run about like headless flies, fleeing in every direction. By now, only a dozen or twenty men remained at his side. He had sent people repeatedly to gather the scattered survivors, yet not a word had come back.

The other strongholds had suffered losses as well. Some had been reduced to nothing but their lone leaders, every soldier under them having vanished for no apparent reason.

Only Winged Horse of Flying Horse Stronghold had survived intact while all the other strongholds were destroyed. And almost immediately after he withdrew from his own stronghold, it had caught fire.

To call that a coincidence was simply impossible.

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Xu Wenshan knew that the great fire had brought all of Flying Horse Stronghold’s forces into action. If they could not return to the stronghold before the cavalry discovered their trail, the outcome of the war might be completely reversed.

The Deer-Crane Guard continued marching southeast. An hour had passed since they set out. The moon had risen, and the clouds had dispersed. Beneath the moonlight, the stronghold to their northwest was shrouded in billowing smoke, the dense black clouds swallowing the stars across a wide stretch of sky. Some distance from the stronghold, another plume of smoke was rising as well. It was smaller than the main column, but in Xu Wenshan’s eyes, it was far more terrifying.

The enemy riders had arrived.

If they stopped upon reaching the stronghold, they should barely be able to see his troops. But if they were conducting a search, there was a very good chance they would discover them—unless they could reach the dense woods beside Windstone Village before the cavalry arrived and conceal themselves there.

Xu Wenshan looked toward the southeast. A high slope lay in that direction—the very slope they had stood upon when they first emerged from the woods on their way to Windstone Village.

He still remembered that from the foot of the slope, one could see the whole of Windstone Village spread across the basin below.

“Make for the high slope to the southeast! Full speed ahead!” Xu Wenshan ordered.

The soldiers quickened their pace. Their spears struck against one another from time to time, ringing with metallic clatter. But the hoofbeats behind them were drawing closer and closer.

Xu Wenshan glanced back again. Before, he had seen only smoke and no riders. Now, beneath the moonlight, he could vaguely make out horses’ heads emerging from the haze. His heart tightened.

“Up the slope! Up the slope!” he urged.

The soldiers hurried up the incline. By then, Xu Wenshan could see the riders behind them drawing ever nearer. Clearly, they had seen his troops as well.

The fire had destroyed most of the enemy’s cohesion, but the greatest miscalculation was that it had failed to cripple their cavalry.

Still, at least he had chosen the most suitable battlefield for his men before the enemy could charge into their formation.

“Stop! Form a hollow square where you stand!”

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The soldiers were panting like oxen, but long training had made them thoroughly familiar with military commands. At once, they formed a hollow square on the spot. Though it consisted of only a little over thirty men, it could well have been the smallest square formation in history.

Closer and closer came the enemy riders. The soldiers could almost see the sweat on the horses’ necks, glistening in the moonlight.

“Charge! Charge! Charge!” the cavalry commander shouted, urging his riders forward. In the blink of an eye, they had thundered up to the spear formation before Xu Wenshan.

With a shrill whinny, the warhorses reared. The soldiers shouted as one, a row of gleaming spearpoints aimed directly at the animals’ throats. The riders lashed their mounts desperately, but the horses refused to advance another inch. They raised their forelegs high, and one or two, unable to keep their balance, toppled down the slope together with their riders.

“Control them! Hold them! Control the horses!”

The cavalry leader kept urging his men to rein in their mounts, but no matter how the riders drove them forward, the warhorses refused to take another step. At most, they reared before the spearmen, their forelegs pawing the air.

The psychological pressure on the spearmen was even greater than that on the riders. Before them loomed enormous creatures of horse and man combined. In the presence of cavalry, their spears seemed as fragile as chopsticks.

Anyone who had never faced a horse might find it difficult to understand what the spearmen were feeling. On the Earth of Xu Wenshan’s former life, when the Spanish colonists invaded the Aztec Empire, two hundred cavalrymen had once routed twenty thousand Aztec warriors. Those warriors, armed with obsidian weapons, had been undeniably brave. Yet when confronted by Spain’s modern cavalry, they had collapsed like a mountain giving way. The emperor’s litter had been overturned by the charge, and the emperor himself had been stabbed to death on the spot.

The reason for such an absurdly lopsided casualty ratio was astonishingly simple: the Aztec natives had never seen cavalry before. They thought the riders were monsters with six legs and two arms.

Sweat trickled from the spearmen’s helmets. Their hands trembled around their shafts—not entirely from fear, but also from excitement. They longed to drive their spearheads deep into the throats of the riders before them. Yet iron discipline held them fast in their assigned positions, while their spears, no matter how far they reached, lacked the natural mobility necessary to pierce the enemy’s throats.

The cavalry leader knew that any further attack would be little more than a desperate effort. He shouted, “Fall back! Fall back! Brothers, follow me!”

The riders whistled down the slope from another direction. At its foot, they regrouped, intending to launch another charge.

The spearmen had only just begun to relax when their tension rose again. They discovered that the hands gripping their spear shafts had already begun to weaken.

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