Chapter 62: Crossing the River

"Crossing the River"

More than thirty heralds gave orders at the same time, and tension among the soldiers rose to the highest point. Before the war, the priest walked past the soldiers with a holy vessel stained with water, asked them to kiss the objects, and wished them a safe return.

A few hours earlier, an advance party of 200 soldiers had crossed the canal in a fast boat. They routed the Wikibians after establishing a beachhead and helped secure the pontoons.

A few days earlier, the Scouts had been inspecting the canals in dinghys, and some of the boats were suddenly blocked when they were approaching the riverbank, only to discover that the Vekians had filled the canals with iron drills that were able to block the boats. These iron drills are firmly inserted into the stone crevices under the canals. Before the scouts could figure out a solution, the Wikiasian archers fired a barrage of arrows from behind the fortifications into the canal, knocking several scouts into the water.

After patrolling for a while, the first scouts had to return to the shore with two watery corpses.

Later, the scouts changed their tactics, and the boats carried stone and wood, and under the rain of arrows from the Wikibians, the scouts threw the writing into the canal little by little, and soon the stones were exposed to the water, and the Wikibians tried to clean up the things and found that they were unable to do so, and could only watch the Swadians turn their hard-earned underwater defense line into an extension of the land.

A few hours earlier, the advance party had been stepping on the rocks in the river, and when they had just landed, the advance party was under great pressure, and the Wikibians poured out of almost every house and tunnel, and the soldiers barely disembarked before they had time to form a formation and were forced into the fight. The banks of the river were crowded with well-armed soldiers, whose shouts of killing seemed to be in the ears even across the canal.

If it weren't for the fact that the Third Legion's grenadiers threw fire oil bombs at the Wikipers, forcing the Wikibians to retreat, it is estimated that the advance team would have had to retreat in disarray.

However, the grenadiers suffered their own losses, and an ill-trained soldier accidentally burned a speedboat, and the fire quickly spread to the surrounding boats. If it had not been for a brave group of soldiers to prop up the burning boat, it is likely that the soldiers of the advance party would have been cut off, and the soldiers waiting on this side of the river would not have been able to support their comrades on the other side.

After the Wikibians were forced to retreat, the soldiers quickly drove their boats through the canal, constantly securing pontoons with iron hooks and pulling them to the center of the canal. Craftsmen fastened the pontoons little by little along the river bank with huge iron nails and wooden tenons, and a simple pontoon bridge appeared little by little on the canal under the cover of the soldiers.

More than thirty Wikibians suddenly rushed into the river from the upper reaches of the canal with small boats, and the soldiers headed straight for the pontoon bridges that were being built, carrying lit torches and oil, in an attempt to burn them.

More than two hundred archers and grenadiers along the coast aimed all their weapons at the Wikibians, and the boats were struck by arrows like leaves in the wind. A brave Wikijan stood up and made a gesture to throw the torch, and in the next second, he was covered in arrows, and a Svadian crossbowman cursed that the torch was full of arrows.

The suicidal assault of the Wikibians was unsuccessful, and half of them died on the spot on the river. The rest were either shot like hedgehogs in their last days, dragged into the water by their heavy armor and struggled, and some finally surrendered.

The Suno soldiers came to them in a dinghy and stabbed the struggling Wekians in the canal with their spears. These Su Nuo soldiers greeted their comrades on the shore as if they were playing some game. The soldiers lined up on the banks of the river looked at the soldiers struggling in the water and the swaggering Suno.

The most impressive is when a Willow soldier pulls a Wikijan out of the canal, cuts off his ear and throws him into the river, when the Wikibian suddenly yells in the standard Zhivadine accent: "Please"

This made the Sunoites laugh, and then stabbed the apparently Swadian soldier to death with a spear like a fish, and the soldier's blood stained the surrounding water red, and more Vycchians were pierced around, and they were half-floating in the canal, like pieces of meat floating in soup, and their bright red blood floated all the way to the edge of the pontoon. The pontoon seemed to be a passage paved in a pool of blood.

The Sunoites scooped up the dead and began to cut their scalps and ears--- which was the practice of recording kills on the battlefield. After a still dead Wikibian had his scalp and ears cut off, he looked at the surrounding Suno-soldiers in horror, and the Suno-soldiers were so frightened by this monster that they cut off his head, and then hastily stripped off his iron armor and threw him back into the river. It took a while for the wiki to die.

Soon after, the pontoon bridge was paved.

The Suno people crossed the river first, and the soldiers looked like ants clinging to the leaf stalks in the water. This torrent of steel quietly and quickly ascended to the position on the opposite bank.

There suddenly burst out a group of Zhivadine civilians, who had been hiding in the fortifications controlled by the Vickyan soldiers, who were requisitioned citizens in charge of chores, by this time, the Wikibians had retreated to several guard towers and fortresses around the stone fort, and large swaths of the city had been abandoned, and these citizens were able to escape.

Apparently wishing to flee away from the battlefield, the citizens began to gather towards the pontoon, which the refugees rushed to after shouting their allegiance to Swadia. The Suno soldiers shouted at the civilians and demanded that they return to their homes. These townspeople, who had had enough of the frightened homes, were now bent on escaping, fleeing across the river, out of the city.

The Sunoites were caught off guard by the citizens on the other side, and several officers whipped the Zhivadins who were crowded at the front with leather whips, but it didn't seem to work.

"Draw the sword" Officer Su Nuo finally gave the order, and in the next few minutes, the soldiers of the Eastern Army on this side of the river saw that the Su Nuo soldiers were drawing their knives to kill the unarmed citizens of Zhivadin, and those citizens did not expect that the soldiers who claimed to have come to rescue them would actually face each other, and for a moment they retreated back from the way they came. After the citizens retreated to the rocky streets with reluctance and fear, the soldiers of the Eastern Army found more than a dozen bloody corpses on the ground, which were still carrying parcels containing food and clothing, and they did not expect that they had survived the siege for so long and would eventually die on the banks of the river.

After all the Suno people landed on the opposite bank, the Eastern Army could no longer hold on.

On the edge of the pontoon, the soldiers gathered densely, almost as if the pontoon bridge was about to be leveled.

Finally, more than thirty heralds gave the order at the same time: "cross the river"

The ranks of soldiers finally began to move slowly. My father had crossed the pontoon bridge two hours after hearing the order to cross the river, and when he stepped onto the other side, the Suno soldiers were moving the bodies of the citizens aside.

The father saw a soldier rummaging through a citizen's parcel and cutting open the corpse's mouth with a knife to see if he had valuable dentures. Not only my father was watching, but also the soldiers of the Eastern Army who passed by, and these Suno people were throwing their bodies around as if no one was around, and loudly showing off the rings cut from their fingers to their companions. Listening to these familiar Suno accents, my father suddenly felt a disgust that he had never felt before.

His father's hand was on the hilt of the knife at his waist, and Yuzema, who had seen it at a glance, stepped up to stop his father and looked at him deadly. Sam's face turned pale with anger, but after seeing Yu's actions, Sam was also shocked that his father might do something unfavorable, so he came over and grabbed his father's horse reins and took him away.

Every soldier of the New Eastern Army who passed by looked at the remains of the Zhivadins--- who were eating the same bread as the East Swadians; Using the same calendar; fearing the same gods; share the same forests and lakes; Speak the same dialect.

And the reason why he followed the army so far was to save this group of people, but now these citizens have been killed like dogs by their own friendly troops, and their bodies have been wantonly plundered and insulted.

If it weren't for the military judge who found out that something was wrong and drove away these Su Nuo soldiers in time, it is really impossible to say what the cold-eyed Eastern Army soldiers around him would do.

Not far ahead, there is a square, at the end of which the Wikibians have set up a barricade. It was the end of the area controlled by the Wikibians, and behind it were several fortress attics, flanked by stone forts built during the Chanda era, and in the middle of the stone forts was the dock that supported Zhivadin to the present.

Zhivadin's falcon banner still fluttered high above the docks, seemingly unconcerned by the closing Svadian lions.

The sound of Wiki trumpets came from all sides, and there were a constant stream of lone Swadians being besieged by Wikibians who rushed out of their houses. But the Svadians quickly routed these harassing soldiers with numerical superiority.

My father led the soldiers to clean up a mill and kick out a group of Wikibian soldiers who were hiding in it. The father cornered a Vickyan teenager in the room, and the father pointed a sword at him, and at that moment the father realized that the teenager was no different from a normal Swadian teenager in any way except that he was wearing a Vecchia helmet.

The boy begged for mercy in an almost crying tone, speaking in a stiff Swadian dialect.

As soon as his father was in a trance, the boy struck hard, opened his father's sword with a short hammer in his hand, and jumped out of the side window. Outside, the surprised shouts of Swadia soldiers rang out, and the shouts quickly spread from near and far. My father thought about this Wikibian who had deceived him, but he felt a little hateful.

The surrounding houses were being cleared one after another, and the soldiers began to pour into the square, about to push the Wikibians into the water tonight

When the father left the house, he heard the crying, he followed the sound to a door, it was a small house where the grain was stored, the father opened the door, by the dim light, the father saw that the room was full of people, these people looked at the officer at the door in horror, several children who were covered by their parents still cried, and the people in the house suddenly stirred.

When Sam arrived, his father closed the door and told Sam to guard the place and not to allow anyone, not Su Nuo, to move anyone in the house.

Salander.

In the mosque, Charlie and Edward had just finished their homework and gotten up to go home.

Seeing that the two people were twins, the people on the road cast curious glances.

"You're going to Nord?" When he got into the car, Edward asked, "I'd like to get together with you more." My wife wants to meet you and he makes delicious cherry pies. ”

"Well, I'm going to go soon" ''I heard that your wife is pregnant?''

"Yes," Edward smiled faintly, "I'm going to have a child of my own." Why are you in such a hurry, I would like to talk to you more after the old man goes. ”

"It's because of the old man's business," Charlie nodded, "You know what, the old man has his own children too." ”