When Byron was given a new assignment, he always felt like a crow's beak.

He had complained to himself that instead of taking on the task of reconnaissance, it would be better to attack the fences and sentry groups that Rhodok had built on the border.

After that, Earl Greyward gave the task to the mercenary forces employed by the Kingdom Army, as well as one of his own troops.

This was mainly because the kingdom's army was not ready, and it was easy to attract the attention of the other party if it attacked rashly, so it sent part of the troops to raid the military post on the Rhodok border.

A thousand mercenaries, plus two or three hundred soldiers of Earl Greyward, sounds like a lot. But their opponents ranged from five or six hundred to more than two thousand, well-trained Rhodok soldiers.

However, Byron was only a mercenary captain, and was not qualified to question the nobles' decisions, let alone resist orders. If he doesn't act, then the noble lords will most likely punish them, this is the military camp of Swadia, and Byron has no power to resist them at all.

Moreover, Byron has a bit of a friendship with Count Claes, and Count Grayward is a notoriously good guy and strategically conservative. Byron believed that they would not give this order at random, and that would still be a good chance of winning.

Byron took orders from several counts, and when he returned, he immediately gathered the soldiers he had brought with him.

The archers were well stocked with arrows, and the infantrymen checked their armor and shields and sharpened their swords. The cavalrymen put on their horse armor, took their spears and javelins, and pinned swords and war hammers to their waists.

Every heavy cavalry had to spend at least ten minutes with the help of others. They all wore thickened chain mail or cuirasses, arm guards on their arms, and shin armor on their legs, making them very protective. Even if it is a charge against a rain of arrows, it is not much of a problem. There is also a horse armor that is also made of chain mail structure, which can greatly improve the protection level of war horses and improve their collision ability.

And some of Byron's infantry were also equipped with cuirasses. A cuirass of average quality often costs only one or two hundred dinars, and if it is to repair those captured cuirasses, the cost is even lower, only half of the normal one.

Compared to those armor accessories that require fine machining, a single piece of directly machined plate armor cuirass is the cheapest of plate armor equipment.

Even the crossbowmen were equipped with chain mail, carried crossbows behind them, and carried twenty or thirty crossbow arrows. Even the women who worked in linen had a soft armor underneath their coats, which provided some protection.

While the other mercenary teams were curious as to why Byron would bring a bunch of women into battle, they didn't pay much attention to it.

Fifteen hundred troops, led by a baron and a dozen knights under the command of Earl Grayenward, formed a loose formation and hurried as fast as they could to the forest.

Byron took a general look at the rest of the mercenary troops, and the quality was generally lower than Byron's Peony mercenaries, and they were divided into seven different mercenary teams. However, the proportion of cavalry among the mercenaries is not small, and among the 1,000 mercenaries, there are almost 300 light cavalry and 40 heavy cavalry.

And the army sent by the earl was also elite, more than a hundred Swadian light infantry, fifty or sixty Swadian infantry, about thirty crossbowmen, as well as more than thirty heavy cavalry and a dozen knights.

In addition to the soldiers, several carriages carried torsion ballistas and parts of rams to attack the near-finished wall.

In terms of the overall lineup, it is still good.

At least it's much better than the baron's civil war.

It took Byron two days to cross the border and reach the location of the forest. By this time, the Rhodok patrol had reached the outside of the forest and had just taken down the Svadia assault force.

More than a hundred heavy cavalry charged, and the Rhodoks scattered in all directions. However, Byron knew that they did not take advantage, because the other party also discovered their whereabouts, and the suddenness of the attack was reduced.

At the baron's orders, the mercenaries pulled out the barricades and set fire to several wooden watchtowers on the outskirts of the forest. About thirty Rhodok soldiers were killed by them, and a dozen mercenaries died under crossbows and hoes during the attack.

However, Byron also discovered the power of Rhodok's crossbows, which could easily shoot through chain mail, and the siege crossbow of a Rhodok sniper, who was killed by a knight, shot two foot cavalrymen wearing cuirass. The inexpensive ordinary infantry cuirasses were like papier-mâché under the siege crossbows, which took more than half a minute to wind.

Byron believed that if the shaft was long enough, the steel crossbow could shoot even a soldier wearing a normal cuirass.

The size of the Svadia raid party was not small, and it was impossible to act in concealment. The Rhodok soldiers in the forest immediately gathered, and by the time the Swadia raiding force cleared the outposts outside the forest, about six hundred Rhodok soldiers had formed a strong phalanx, with their backs to the forest and spears lined up, blocking the raiding force.

The veteran Rhodok spearmen turned to the side, and the Rhodok crossbowmen stepped forward and fired their crossbow arrows at the cavalrymen who were still charged.

The Svadia heavy cavalry, which had been charging forward unscrupulously, immediately turned their horses around and changed direction. But even so, the dozen or so heavy cavalrymen at the front fell from their horses, and half of them could not get up again because they had been shot in the vital position or had been trampled by the horses' hooves.

Several other heavy cavalrymen who fell from their horses also began to run back with injuries, and the second row of Rhodok crossbowmen also crossed the crossbowmen of the first row, raised their crossbows and heavy crossbows and fired crossbow arrows, completely knocking down the few cavalrymen who had fled backwards.

The mercenaries stopped, the cavalry tried their best to hold on to the reins, and the infantry stopped at range of the Rhodoc crossbowmen.

This is both a fear and a command. Whether it was the baron in charge, or the captains of the knights and various mercenary teams, including Byron, they all knew that their team formation had been disorganized in the previous battle, and in this case, using these soldiers in a chaotic formation to attack the solid Rhodok heavy phalanx was just giving the opponent's head.

The heavy cavalry ran around and back, and the mercenaries began to form out of range of the Rhodoks.

The Rhodok skilled crossbowmen and veteran crossbowmen retreated into the two wings of the phalanx, and the Rhodok skilled spearmen also raised their shields as tall as the door panels, holding sharp spears more than three meters long, forming a spear phalanx in the middle of the phalanx.

There was also a small group of Rhodok sergeants and veteran spearmen, also armed with large machete-headed spears and sturdy broad shields, standing in front of the crossbowmen, who were well numbered but as difficult to break through as an iron wall.

This was the standard Rhodok infantry phalanx, a "bladed turtle shell" that even the heavy cavalry of Swadia feared for three points.