Banners that blotted out the sky rose from the formations like withered arms reaching out of pitch-black seawater. Standards constantly fell to the ground and were constantly picked up again, covered in blood and mud. But the enemies in dark green armor did not mark their units with cloth banners. Feather-decorated standards stood within their formations, feathers of various colors pieced together into distinctive designs to lead their warriors against the enemy lines.
Xu Ning led his unit along the edge of the battlefield. He had no idea what he ought to do now. He had been told to destroy the enemy archers and crossbowmen... But those men drawing their longbows and loosing volley after volley were clearly in the center of the army, protected by deep ranks of infantry. Could his thousand men break through them?
So he approached the enemy formation again and again, then turned his horse away again and again amid the arrows filling the sky, circling the area. Several arrows struck his armor. Most failed to penetrate and bounced straight off. The few that lodged remained hanging from him.
Even so, the impact of the heavy arrows made him grimace. Without lifting his head, he kept his eyes on the enemy line, searching for a possible opening.
As time passed, he grew increasingly anxious. He knew the horses' stamina was limited. If this continued, he would have to force an attack. Otherwise, once the horses no longer had the strength to run, they would be unable to do anything.
Where? Where exactly was their weak point?!
He seemed to have become one with his horse. He did not look at the path at all, yet encountered no obstacles. The enormous, vigorous horse nimbly led the entire cavalry formation. They soared over the grass like eagles, but everyone knew these thousand heavy cavalrymen could turn into raging lions at any moment and plow the formations of infantry and archers to pieces.
As they completed another turn, the formation before them suddenly parted to either side, opening a passage. But it was not for them. It was for the Hols cavalry...
"Tactics requirement: 98
Tactics level: 199
Check passed."
Xu Ning paused for a fraction of a second. Then, at a single thought, he led everyone toward that opening. A cavalry force roughly equal to theirs in number was beginning its charge, but it was already too late for them to build up speed.
In the blink of an eye, the cataphracts, armored horse and rider alike, crossed those two hundred meters and slammed their combined weight of over a tonne straight into the enemy. There was no time to hesitate. He made the decision on the spot, and the others, without the slightest hesitation either, entrusted their lives to him.
A few soldiers who hurriedly thrust out their spears were trampled into pulp under the horses' hooves. Their hastily leveled spears snapped in two against the heavy barding. Thanks to this foolish decision by the enemy commander, the cataphracts drove into the infantry formation almost unimpeded.
The light cavalry had not had time to accelerate. Their horses had no barding, and the riders wore only helmets and light leather armor covering their torsos. On colliding with the cataphracts, they were like porcelain hurled into a heap of rocks, shattering and scattering in an instant.
At the moment of impact, he thrust out his spear as though by instinct. Its head, forged from fine steel, tore through stiff leather armor without resistance and lifted the slender enemy straight off his horse. The two lugs below the spearhead prevented it from penetrating too deeply. Turning its point downward, he simply dropped the corpse to the ground as though discarding rubbish.
"Thrusting polearm proficiency level: 298
Thrust speed bonus: 789
Damage bonus: 564.
Check complete."
...
He thrust his spear again and again as though he had been a lancer for decades. He judged each thrust's timing precisely, using the correct grip to reduce the strain on the shaft and keep it from breaking. Deftly moving the shield in his left hand to intercept every unexpected arrow, blade, and spear, he struck down cavalryman after infantryman like a hawk swooping on its prey.
The galloping horses trampled soldier after soldier who tried to bar their way. The spears thrust at them could not stop the armored horses in their headlong rush. The men could only let this torrent of steel trample and destroy their formation.
The foremost riders had already thrown away their spears. Relying on the sheer force of their horses' impact, they plunged into the enemy formation, then swung flails and iron maces at the infantrymen's heads. All the while, they kept spurring their companions on, forcibly shoving the dense crowd aside to squeeze their way in.
How strange. Just moments earlier, he had been frightened out of his wits, even wanting to abandon everything and flee this terrifying battlefield. Yet once he actually charged into the enemy formation, his heart was as calm as ice. No negative emotions spread through him anymore. It was like brushing a fingertip over a blade of grass, stirring not the slightest ripple in his heart.
When he pierced an enemy with his spear, he could clearly feel the sharp blade slicing flesh and scraping bone through the shaft. It was as though he had thrust his own hand into the man's abdominal cavity and personally touched those slippery organs and bones. It brought the sense of accomplishment a highly skilled doctor might feel when cutting out diseased tissue.
With the spear in his hand, he stabbed the enemies down one after another. Everyone's movements looked as sluggish as wooden stakes to his eyes. He could reach them with his spear with ease.
Even killing more than a dozen men in succession produced no negative emotions in him. Listening to their dying wails, he even felt a bloodthirsty pleasure welling up inside. His thrusts grew ever more precise and fierce.
Thick blood, already half congealed, ran down the spearhead onto his hand. The leather wrapping absorbed it, keeping the long shaft from becoming too slippery to hold.
Using the horse's momentum, he drove home a powerful thrust and pinned a heavily armored enemy to the ground. The shaft could no longer withstand such punishment. It snapped at a barely noticeable break along the grain in its middle. He discarded the half shaft in his hand and reached for the iron mace at his waist.
Carried along by his galloping horse, he passed one bewildered infantryman after another, smashing their heads in turn as though playing whack-a-mole. His iron mace battered the thick metal shells of their helmets out of shape, leaving them dented and caved in.
The head's corners ensured that it did not glance off the smooth surfaces of their armor, while the thick leather grip absorbed the force of the recoil.
"One-handed blunt weapon proficiency level: 256
Swing speed bonus: 704
Swing damage bonus: 503"
...
An entire infantry square broke outright. These bewildered Hols fled in all directions, heedless of where they were going. Even the troops enforcing discipline, cutting down deserter after deserter, could not stop their rout.
They even threw the surrounding formations into disorder. Soldiers who had been holding their ground cursed them loudly, and several neighboring infantry squares fell into confusion.
The cataphracts shouted loudly and swung their short hammers and long sabers, driving the infantry blocking them as though herding livestock. In just a few minutes, they had broken up three infantry squares, moving as smoothly and effortlessly as a hot knife through butter. Scalding blood pounded through their veins, making them cheer aloud as their confidence surged.
The enemy soldiers screamed in despair. Even before those terrible weapons and savage riders reached them, merely seeing from a distance the men whose iron armor had been drenched all over in blood made their legs tremble. They could not even hold on to their spears.
The din of shouting men and neighing horses filled the area. Xu Ning ignored it all, repeatedly spurring his horse onward. Once again, he rode ahead of everyone and hurled himself into an enemy formation. The other cavalrymen quickly followed.
The panicked heavy infantry could not form a spear line in time. They did not even know where these cavalrymen had come from. It seemed that in a single blink, the troops in front had broken, and the riders were already upon them.
In an instant, flesh and blood flew once more, and wailing filled the field. Bodies knocked to the ground were immediately trampled by countless feet and hooves, never getting the chance to rise again. The infantry, their courage gone, scattered to either side like sheep fleeing a tiger.
Resistance before him suddenly vanished. After his horse had charged a few more steps, he saw the archers and crossbowmen standing in loose formation on the open ground...
"Kill!! ..."
PS: I couldn't find a suitable picture of cataphracts charging a formation, so I used one of Bretonnian knights from Warhammer Fantasy.
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