Chapter Seventy-Nine: The Burning Gate

Under the city of Dehrim. ()

The defenders sent most of their soldiers out of the city to fight, and with the soldiers that Harlaus had replenished one after another and some mercenaries who were ready to make a fortune, the number of defenders in the city had exceeded 8,000. If it weren't for the soldiers of Frost Castle who blocked the town too quickly, some of the forts on the west side of the highlands would have been able to support some soldiers.

The Imperial Officers of Dehrim mobilized some able-bodied citizens to join them. The townspeople were given simple weapons and then incorporated into some inconsequential units. In short, the defenders did not suffer in numbers. And they had tall walls and ample supplies of weapons and food, all of which were not readily available to the Frost Castle army from afar.

He was particularly unimpressed by the way Dehrim's defenders went out of the city to fight, and he felt that the northern army was coming south in one go, full of vigor, and the defenders would not have made such a decision if they were not stupid.

You didn't know about the pressure from the Captain of the Dehrim garrison. Haraus is a man who pays attention to 'battle', and although it is most beneficial for the defenders to retreat in the city, Haraus does not like it, and he wants to see the defenders more active, at least to make counterattacks against the invading enemy.

This style of Haraus can be seen in the North Sea War many years ago, when the Swadia army was exhausted, but Haraus still drove his soldiers through the fields and rivers to pursue the Nords frantically, indeed, Haraus won a series of victories, but in the last battle, Swadia was finally defeated, and the disintegrating Emperor ** team soon lost the North Sea. Until now, Harlaus doesn't feel that his decision-making mistakes have been wrong, he has always regarded the failure of many years ago as an accident, and he feels that he has won so many times and only lost the last time.

Deherim's garrison commander prepared to make contact with Fredrik of Frost Castle below the city, and then retreated to the city to wait for reinforcements. This would suffice to write in a distress letter to Harlaus: "Our army, having inflicted great casualties on the enemy, has moved into the town defenses. ”

That would sound much better, and Harlaus might reward the defenders.

Outside the city, the defenders marched steadily after forming their formation, and they moved farther and farther away from the walls. The generals of the defenders made the most secure formation, with three legions forming the thickest central position, a reinforced phalanx of light infantry on the left, and a considerable number of crossbowmen and a cavalry of four hundred men on the right. This is a stable arrangement that can withstand shocks in any direction and has good defense against frontal impacts. On the entire front, it will be difficult for Fidel's army to shake such a well-established army. That's what the defenders wanted: force Fidelik back, engage in some local battles, and then calmly return to the city.

As the defenders began to move forward, the soldiers of Frost Castle spread out on both sides and slowly retreated.

The soldiers of Frost Keep kept their distance from the defenders--- out of range of their bows, but just enough to make the defenders feel threatened. At some distance from the wall, the defenders were somewhat concerned that they were too far away from the wall, and that the gap left could be exploited. However, the scouts reported that there were no enemy reserves on the battlefield for more than ten miles to the left and right, so there was no need to worry about cutting off the rear road.

Whenever the defenders advanced, the soldiers of the Frost Castle would retreat, and when the defenders stopped, the soldiers of the Frost Castle would stop one after another after a few minutes. This game of testing each other has already disgusted the officers and men of the defending army. This boring game is simply more boring than hiding behind the walls and shooting aimlessly. Moreover, the soldiers of the Frost Fort did not carry enough siege weapons this time, which made the defenders feel that they were safe no matter what, and they rarely thought about the safety of their city defenses, and just wanted to force the Frost Castle people back as soon as possible.

Further back is the village where the soldiers of the Eastern Army were stationed, and the village is now almost deserted. Dehrim's defenders had erected a watchtower and had drawn a canal of water from the Highland River to fill it into a muddy swamp, which they hoped would weaken Fidred's cavalry.

However, this proved to be nothing for the Frostburgers, who had spent a day cutting down trees, spreading wood in the swamp, and throwing sand and gravel along the way, to break the painstakingly designed barrier against cavalry. The watchtower around it has also been occupied by the Frost Castle people, and now the soldiers on it are carefully observing the movements of the defenders, and sending a signal to their troops in time.

Soon, a clear brass horn sounded around the soldiers of the Frost Castle, the soldiers stopped, the soldiers in front crouched down and buckled their shields on the ground, and the rows of soldiers in the back also copied out their shields and replenished them intensively. After the first few rows of soldiers were in position, the soldiers further back began to take a defensive stance by changing their spears from standing upright to diagonally forward. The crossbowmen took the arrows one after another. The soldiers of Frost Fort stopped and made a confrontational gesture.

The location of the battlefield was basically established.

The defenders responded quickly, and the soldiers on either side maneuvered outward, faintly moving forward to cover the mid-line action. And the three corps in the middle were lined up in dozens of rows, and under the orders of the officers, several platoons were formed into a large group, which was pulled away from each other at a certain distance, so as to facilitate a short sprint. The front rows of soldiers began to gather in the middle, forming a hammer-shaped protrusion where the best equipped hoplites were concentrated, and once the charge began, they would lead the soldiers behind them.

It seems that the Dehrim defenders are ready to attack first, but the Frost Castle has not given them that opportunity. On the side of the soldiers of Fort Frost, a cavalry of more than three hundred men rushed at an oblique angle to the position of the Dehrim.

The sudden rush of cavalry did not affect the rhythm of the defenders, the two flanks of the defenders continued to spread, and the center began to close, only the cavalry on the flanks, after observing the invading enemy at the Frost Castle, sent two brigades to deal with it. The Deherim cavalry crossed almost directly in front of the line, and rushed towards the cavalry, and after the cavalry had formed and left, the crossbowmen on the right flank of the Deherim advanced dozens of paces and fired a dense rain of arrows at the attacking enemy.

The cavalry of the Frost Castle continued to advance, and under the rain of arrows, some of them were shot by arrows, and occasionally some of them were dismounted, and some of the mounts were either so frightened that their hind legs stood upright, or they fell to their knees. But in any case, this loss was insignificant for a large group of cavalry. But what was surprising was that the cavalry of the Frost Fort suddenly dispersed. This took the commander of Dehrim's defenders by surprise: in the face of a cavalry force that was rushing towards him, he abandoned the formation just because of a rain of arrows?

This cavalry is either undisciplined or lacks common sense.

Soon, the officers of the defending army discovered that they were not at all the elite armored cavalry of the Frost Castle, which was famous all over the continent--- but just some steppe cavalry armed with light armor and sabers and short bows, or more precisely, a rabble of Kugit.

The clever minds of the defending generals had an idea: after the war was over, it would be an excellent discrediting event for Fiedre, and the use of Kugit soldiers would be unseemly for an imperial king.

The generals of the garrison felt that this propaganda would be appreciated by His Majesty Harlaus. But he didn't have time to rejoice yet, he had to deal with the strange Kujits first.

He took a closer look, and as expected, the Kugit cavalry was almost crushed at the touch of a button. They fought in a completely unorganized manner, relying only on their individual skills or tacit understanding with their partners, and more than a dozen people, some Kujits, or even a few people, formed a small team, shooting arrows in vain by the rushing cavalry brigade. The arrows were like wheat stabbing at the ploughing oxen, and had no effect on the cavalry brigades that were moving in formation.

But their disarray also confused the defending cavalry that had resisted them: the Kugit cavalry had almost no center of operations, and each of their units fought on its own. No matter which Kugit force it is, if it is caught up in the landslide-like charge of the defenders' cavalry, it will be crushed. After the cavalry, only a few ownerless steppe horses and some dying Kugit were left. The Kugit don't look like well-trained warriors at all, they're just improvised patchwork nomads.

Putting these people on the battlefield is simply sending them to their deaths.

However, this can't help but be the envy of the farming people, almost all of those steppe people are born cavalry, they maintain a cavalry cost is extremely low, and the nomads are hard and hardworking, as long as they can be assembled for a certain amount of military training, they can often burst out of great combat effectiveness.

In any case, the Kugit were scattered in half an hour under the onslaught of a well-disciplined Imperial cavalry in the battlefield of confrontation between the two sides. They systematically ran to the right of the Frost Castle soldiers, where they assembled. The half-hour seemed to be a bit futile, and the people of Frost Castle seemed to have gained nothing except the loss of dozens of soldiers and horses. On the contrary, the attack was a morale change for both sides, and the soldiers of Frost Fort were still silent, and the defenders were already bursting into terrifying cheers.

Are the soldiers of Frost Castle silent?

The defenders soon discovered that while everyone was staring at the Kugit being ruthlessly crushed, the soldiers of the Frost Fort were making adjustments: the soldiers began to move from the left flank of the formation to the right, it was obvious that this was pre-trained, and their movements were very fast, and the troops between the units quickly changed their positions and moved without any disorder.

Soon the front of Fort Frost took on a strange shape, with almost three-quarters of its forces concentrated on its right flank and forming a wedged protrusion, while on the left it was somewhat weak by the movement of soldiers.

At this time, the cavalry of the defenders had just bypassed the battlefield and were preparing to return to position from the rear of the defenders and assemble.

In this gap, the right flank army of Frost Fort suddenly launched a charge.

The atmosphere on the battlefield suddenly became tense, and the flat line of the defenders immediately made a defensive posture with shields and spears, but at this time they found that the soldiers of the Frost Fort had taken advantage of the half hour of preparation time to concentrate the absolute superiority of the army on the right side.

The number of soldiers on both sides, who were almost the same--- on the right flank of the attack, that is, the left flank of the defenders, there was only a reinforced light infantry phalanx, and this 1,200 men were originally prepared to use their high mobility to carry out the covering task when the main position was threatened, but now, it had to face the onslaught of more than 3,500 elite soldiers of the Frost Castle.

The commander of the Frost Fort people methodically commanded their respective troops to set off one after another while the defenders had not yet made countermeasures. Soon, the first troops of the Frostburgers had rushed to the flanks of the defenders who had not had time to move, and these Frostburg soldiers had connected their shields into a column of shields, and they held the ends of the spears between their arms, and the spears were several meters long with their hands, and behind the first rows of soldiers, more soldiers stretched out their clumps of spears from their shoulders and heads, and a solid wall of death with spearheads surging rapidly.

A dull collision sounded in this part of the battlefield, and the screams and shouts of the defenders' light infantry resounded through the battlefield at once.

With the help of inertia, the hundreds of spears continued to move forward. The soldiers on both sides fought with courage and skill on the line of contact, the soldiers with spears had no way to retreat, they could only move forward, and the soldiers in the middle had to bear the pressure of the dense crowd behind them, and they had only one chance, which was to crash away from the enemy in front. Some of the soldiers had been pierced by several spears, but they still straightened their spears and shields, not because they were too brave, but because they had no chance of falling to the ground, and they knew that if they let up, the battle line would collapse, and their only chance of survival would be lost.

The defenders were very brave, and the quality of the emperor was excellently reflected in them, but they were at an absolute disadvantage in numbers and tactics, and soon they were forced to retreat. The collapse began to manifest itself at several breaches, and before long, the defending light infantry could no longer maintain a full front, and they were ruthlessly cut off. When the light infantry found themselves in the midst of their line having rushed into the ruthless Frost Castle soldiers, they were devastated. They began to retreat in the hope of regrouping in the rear.

After the light infantry rout began, the soldiers in the middle of the defenders panicked: opposite them, there were soldiers on the left who had just set out from the Frost Castle, although there were not many of them, but they were not to be taken lightly, and what was even more irritating was that their flanks were already threatened by more and more Frost Castle people.

The tactics of the Frost Castle have earned them an advantage. While their right flank had already repulsed the defenders' flank, their left flank had just set out. In this way, although the left flank of the Frost Castle was inferior in numbers, they were indeed a new division that had just launched a charge, and they were opposite the enemy army that had been heavily disrupted.

Sure enough, after repelling the light infantry on the defenders' flanks, the Frostburgers immediately turned to attack the exposed flanks of the defenders' center. The chaos spread, and the entire defender formation felt the pushing and shouting from far and near in panic.

Just when the defenders in the middle position were looking left and right, worried about the safety of the flank, the last troops of the Frost Fort people did not hesitate to collide with them, and formed a flanking attack with the right flank army that had charged before.

At this time, the garrison commander was mobilizing his flank crossbowmen and cavalry behind him, hoping to drive out the Frostburgers at the front of the line before the battle situation deteriorated further, and then turn around to deal with the enemy forces on those flanks. The officer frantically sent several heralds, demanding that the defeated light infantry quickly regroup and then enter the battle as soon as possible to relieve the pressure on the flanks.

At this time, something happened that made the defenders desperate.

The scattered Kugit had regrouped with a group of Mamluk-looking guys. The odd army of Guri was purposeful to meet the defenders' cavalry, intent on threatening the defenders' crossbowmen. This forced the crossbowmen to move closer to the center and seek cover from the cavalry.

Due to the crossbowmen, the defending cavalry could no longer carry out the task of crushing the enemy in front of them.

The crossbowmen fired two or three rounds of arrows before the mixed cavalry attacked, and then hurried back, and in front of them, the cavalry that had just pursued the Kugits charged at the attacking enemy again. This time, however, under the command of the Mamluks, the cavalry of Frost Fort was no longer a mess of headless flies, and these well-honed desert warriors delicately carried out the interspersed outflanking of dozens or hundreds of people. The two cavalry units were entangled with each other like two strands of rope, and if there was a lone cavalry, they would be immediately overwhelmed by the surging enemy.

Crossbowmen faced the cavalry, having completely lost the ability to cover the battle. They dropped their bows and crossbows, copied their improvised weapons, and prepared to fight like light infantry.

Soon, the defenders' center began a crowded retreat, and the fallen soldiers had to hold their shields to cover their bodies from being trampled to death. The formation had been torn apart, and various gaps were poured in by the light infantry of the Frost Fortress with short swords and armor-piercing hammers. A low, painful cry rang out over the field.

The will of the soldiers in the middle of the garrison, who were facing the encirclement, first collapsed, and they began to turn around and run backwards.

The crossbowmen quickly abandoned the defenders when they realized that the center to which they were attached had become apparently defeated. The regrouped defenders' light infantry, after a weak resistance, broke up once more.

With the exception of one or two legions that managed to maintain a formation and retreat, most of the defenders began to flee through the field in a disorderly manner towards the town.

The battle began only four hours ago.

At the beginning of the battle, my father made a large circle from the north under the leadership of a scout, where the newly formed cavalry regiment was on standby under the leadership of Wright. Father's troops were also already massed around the cavalry, a special unit equipped with mule carts and fuel. As the main formation began to leave the city walls, the elite cavalry of the Frost Fort was rapidly circling the open space between the walls and the defenders.

Some squads dressed in the defenders' scout costumes raided the defenders' scouts along the road. Towards the end of the battle, the cavalry of the Frost Fort had cut straight between the city gate and the rout. The retreating defenders will soon discover that it is not the safe gates that await them, but the best armored cavalry of the Frost Castle.

By this time, my father's troops had set up several light stone throwers, which were violently throwing fire oil bombs onto the city gates. The gates of Dehrim were soon ablaze, and the defenders at the head of the city were shouting in panic.

On the battle flag of the Eastern Army, the flame was bright.