Medieval Gacha Lord
Chapter 93: Frontal Charge

Chapter 93: Frontal Charge

Chapter 93: Frontal Charge

In the evening, Ulm and the others rode their mounts and arrived at the army, which was setting up camp behind a leeward earthen mound.

The newly arrived Winged Hussars and Axe Guards, somewhat nervously, performed the ceremony of pledging fealty to Lothar one by one.

They would be incorporated into Lothar’s personal guard. Thus, Lothar’s Winged Hussars now numbered seventeen, and the Varangian Axe Guards, ten.

Early the next morning, the army set out once more.

Marching in the desert was so tedious and dull. Everywhere was a scene of dusky yellow. The broken walls and crumbling ruins of ancient buildings stood upon the ground, and one could vaguely still see the mottled traces left by past civilizations.

Ahead, black smoke billowed and churned, reaching straight to the sky. Vultures circled in mid-air, seemingly ready to descend and feast heartily at any moment.

"There’s a situation! Prepare for battle!" Lothar ordered loudly.

Two knight squires, acting as scouts, lightly equipped, rode forward to investigate.

Knights, attended by their squires, began to don their thick armor. Sergeants in a flurry gathered around the baggage wagons, fumbling to put on their helmets.

No one could march in full armor in such a climate. As long as enough scouts were sent out, the probability of being suddenly attacked in the desert without even having time to properly don armor was not high.

"The weather lately seems abnormally hot." Inspector Andrew, while armoring up, lamented, "Though it’s always hot in previous years, this year is exceptionally so. Look, those riverbeds have all cracked."

"Why doesn’t it just bake those Saracen whelps to death? Why did they have to pick this damned weather to invade the Kingdom!"

Banu assisted Lothar in fastening the buckles on the back of his half-plate armor. Then, Lothar, in turn, helped Banu don her suit of half-plate, handcrafted by Marlus, with its prominently raised chest piece.

"You look like the legendary Joan of Arc," Lothar praised. Banu nodded slightly and fastened on her heavy iron helmet.

No matter how beautiful a woman, once clad in such iron armor, her delicate figure could no longer be discerned. Marlus was a pragmatist, with limited concern for aesthetics.

However, one could still see that Marlus had been "thoughtful" in his design; otherwise, unless Banu bound her chest, it would have been difficult for her to wear this suit of iron.

Fringilla was wrapped in a black robe, only her eyes visible. Vampires did not fear light, but that didn’t mean Fringilla enjoyed sunlight. The terrible, glaring weather of Jerusalem made her wish she could stay cooped up in a dim palace every day.

Not long after, the scouts returned and reported, "It’s just a village that has already been plundered. But the enemy has withdrawn."

Only then did the army begin to advance again. The soldiers were somewhat impatient to remove their heavy iron armor, but Lothar merely said, "The enemy may not have gone far. The terrain here is very suitable for them to hide their movements."

Then, he sent men to sternly stop those soldiers who wanted to take off their armor. His personal Winged Hussar guard patrolled back and forth at the front and rear of the column. Lothar didn’t need to explain to the soldiers why he was doing this; he just needed them to obey.

Inside the village, broken walls and crumbling ruins were everywhere. Amidst the collapsed earthen walls, blackened by fire, were the charred remains of houses and furniture, with embers still glowing within. The very air above the ruins shimmered from the heat.

"Search for survivors!" Lothar called out loudly. "The enemy is deep in our territory and alone; it’s impossible for them to have taken captives."

"But..." A trace of worry flashed across Hans’s face, half a sentence left unsaid.

Sure enough, while passing through a small alley, Lothar saw, on the ground, a "skull tower" made of stacked human heads.

Headless corpses lay crisscrossed, casually discarded in front of the village church. The cross had been broken and thrown into a fire, where it was now burning.

On a wall, a line of large characters was written in blood—"Payment for the massacre you committed in Jerusalem a hundred years ago!"

The blood-dripping large characters made many of the sergeants, who had never seen such a scene, show expressions of terror. They couldn’t understand the meaning of the words, merely thinking it was a curse left by the infidels, and became agitated because of it.

"It’s an infidel’s curse! Damn it, we’ll be haunted!"

"Heavenly Father protect us, may evil spirits disperse!"

"We should have brought an army chaplain to pray for us immediately!"

Lothar sighed lightly. He looked up at the vultures circling overhead and was about to order his subordinates to throw the corpses of these dead into the fire to burn them—they had no time to bury bodies, and it was better to let them be annihilated by flames than to be pecked beyond recognition by vultures.

Just then, his eyes suddenly narrowed. The sun in the sky was too dazzling, preventing him from initially noticing an inharmonious shadow hidden among the flock of vultures.

But now, the more he looked, the more something felt wrong. It was like a wolf that had mixed into a pack of huskies—it just didn’t fit, no matter how he looked at it.

"Damn it! There’s a falcon hidden among those vultures! Someone is watching us!" Lothar shouted, "Everyone, withdraw from the village! Prepare for battle!" If they remained in the village and were trapped by the enemy, it would be disastrous.

A herald took out a bull-horn bugle, put it to his lips, and sounded a melodious call.

Some sergeants and knights, though not understanding why, obeyed the command and orderly withdrew from the village.

Just then, the scouts who had been sent out again suddenly galloped back, one with an arrow protruding from his chest. They shouted, "The enemy hasn’t gone far! It’s a cavalry troop of several hundred men!"

Lothar said urgently, "What do you mean by several hundred. How many are exactly?"

The scout stammered, "We... we happened upon them when we went over a small hill. They were hidden in the shadow of a river gully. We didn’t have time to count... we only know the ground was covered with Saracens’ black scale armor."

"This is a trap!" Lothar clenched his fists.

Fortunately, they had discovered it in time. If the troop had dismounted here to rest, or drunk water from the village wells, which had very likely been poisoned by the enemy, the entire force would have suffered a devastating disaster.

As if knowing their presence had been discovered, the sound of dense hoofbeats arose. A cavalry troop, clad in uniform black Saracen-style armor, galloped out from the upward-extending river valley like a gust of wind.

In the sky, the falcon shot out like an arrow, detaching itself from the flock of vultures and landing on a Saracen knight’s arm.

The man looked with some surprise at this army that was rapidly deploying into formation and preparing to meet the enemy, said something to his companion, and then the entire cavalry troop began to spread out, approaching the Knightly Order.

Lothar rode at the head, leading the Winged Hussars and his core knights forward to meet them. The imposing might of over a hundred armored cavalrymen immediately made the enemy cavalry commander frown—this army was by no means the rabble of some minor lord.

Ryan loudly berated the sergeants under his command, ordering them to place the baggage wagons in front to serve as barricades and a bulwark against arrows. NovelFire

Some sergeants, meanwhile, used the partially intact village ruins for defense; the enemy only had cavalry, which would find it difficult to maneuver in such terrain.

These sergeants of the Royal Knights, each with a shield, did not fear the Saracen cavalry’s mounted archery; what they dreaded most was their devastating charge.

As they drew closer, Lothar had already roughly counted the enemy’s numbers. Three hundred! Three hundred light and heavy cavalry!

This was definitely not a small contingent, but an elite force under one of Saladin’s foremost ministers or lords. Their commanding officer must also be an important figure.

Seemingly realizing this bone was not easy to chew, the Saracen cavalrymen halted not far away and began to nock arrows, shooting towards them.

The enemy leader’s face showed disdain. Even if Lothar’s side had numerous sergeants, in a field battle, two legs could never outrun four. These Saracen cavalrymen outnumbered Lothar’s cavalry by more than two to one. They knew very well that Lothar’s knights, exhausted from a long march, were absolutely no match for their own cavalry.

The enemy leader raised his hand, then lowered it. The sound of bowstrings releasing twanged through the air. Arrows flew like locusts.

An arrow thudded into the kite shield in Lothar’s hand, its tail still quivering slightly.

His face turned somewhat grim. The enemy cavalry outnumbered his own. Unless he first engaged them with his cavalry and tied them down, his infantrymen at the rear would have no chance to deploy.

"Fringilla, prepare to cast Mass Bloodfall! We must charge! Constantly taking fire like this is too damaging to morale!"

One volley of arrows. Apart from one unlucky fellow whose horse was shot in the leg, causing him to fall and break his neck, Lothar’s cavalry company suffered no casualties.

If the armor of the armored sergeants had some "watered-down" quality, the armor worn by the cavalrymen was almost all of fine quality. As long as it wasn’t a vital spot or their mounts that were hit, they had no fear of the Saracens’ mounted archery.

This was also why the Saracens had begun to reform their tactics in recent years, training Latin-style cavalry that used couched lance charges.

Lothar rode his horse to the front of the column and shouted loudly, "These Saracen villains have just massacred our Christian brothers! They originally intended to use treacherous schemes, like rats hiding in a sewer, waiting for an opportunity to ambush us! But why, after being discovered, did they not flee like rats exposed, but instead dare to audaciously open fire on the cavalry of our Royal Knights? Because they do not fear us! They know we are an exhausted army from a long journey! In their eyes, we absolutely dare not charge them!" Lothar paused, then shouted, "But are you truly going to submit to the expectations of these despicable Saracens?"

"No!"

"We will attack! Kill all these Saracen running dogs!" The cavalrymen roared in response.

Lothar shouted, "Correct! In the name of the Father! In the name of the King! In the name of the Royal Knights of Jerusalem! In the name of the Winged Hussars! Charge!"

The next moment, those cavalrymen with feathered wing decorations on their backs let out a roar and, following Lothar, charged down the hillside like a whirlwind.