Chapter 89. Nightmare of the Battlefield (2)
It wasn't an illusion.
Several of the vice-leaders around him had definitely seen it too. Their heads had also clearly turned toward the sky, if only for a moment. But there was no way to confirm what it really was now. All the horses had already picked up speed and could not stop. If they loosened the reins even a little here, they would be trampled by the hooves of the horses behind and die without even leaving their bodies intact.
"Hyah!"
Salakat whipped even more fiercely.
Whatever that thing flying backward had been, it didn't matter. What could one thing do alone?
That was his first mistake.
Kugugung!
Salakat's vanguard finally collided with the rear cavalry of the Expeditionary Army.
Puk! Peobeobeok! Kkeuaak!
Heads flew, arms and legs were torn apart and twitched. They fell to the ground one after another, trampled and bursting. Death followed in a line.
"What are you doing, you sons of bitches! Fill the gaps immediately! Do you all want to die, huh?!"
At Salakat's curse-filled shout, the nomadic cavalry continuously filled the empty spaces forming in the front ranks.
The battle was fierce, but since both sides were elite troops, neither could easily overpower the other.
In particular, deep within the Northern Expeditionary Army's formation, many archers were deployed, so it wasn't easy for Salakat to lead his cavalry to break out to the side.
And that wasn't all.
Among the infantry that occasionally popped out from the rear, there were those holding leg-severing hook. Whenever the leg-severing hook, a large sickle with the blade mounted in reverse, swept low, the horses' ankles were mercilessly severed. The riders on those crippled horses fell to the ground, and soon after, their heads had no choice but to fall as well.
Indeed, the composition of the Northern Expeditionary Army was arranged not for sieges, but for dealing with the cavalry of the battlefield.
However, Salakat's Ten-Thousand Cavalry Unit was by no means weak either. It wasn't on the level of the Gray Wolf Squadron, but they were still battle-hardened troops famous in the north.
Salakat's subordinates did not get pushed back and continued to pressure the Lee Ja-song unit. On the opposite side, Timur Khan's main force would probably be slaughtering the expeditionary troops like mad.
If someone were watching the fierce exchange from the sky, they would judge that Timur Khan and Salakat were in the advantageous position. At least, up until now.
'Yes. If we just keep pushing like this, we win! Even if they have numbers, they're surrounded from both sides! If we just hold on, the Khan will surely annihilate them all!'
That was the second mistake.
Uaaah! Kkikkeua!
All kinds of screams threw the battle line into chaos, and countless people died. Naturally, the thickness and length of the front line gradually grew thinner and shorter.
But strangely, screams were also coming from places other than the front line. The battle should clearly only be happening in front of where Salakat stood, but the sounds…
'What? The rear?'
Salakat threw a dagger and planted it into the crown of a leg-severing hook soldier who was trying to cut his beloved horse's ankles, then turned his head back. Something was definitely strange. Many of the cavalry units, who should have been using their mobility to quickly strike the flanks of the enemy infantry, were still stuck in the rear.
"Go to the rear and see what's going on."
"Yes, sir!"
He sent one vice-leader, who was fighting fiercely right next to him, to the back. It had become close combat and the front line was spread wide, so letting a single horse slip to the rear was not that difficult.
'Could it be that thing from earlier? But the battle situation has already tilted our way.'
That was Salakat's third mistake.
He swung his blade again with force.
Was that the signal?
Suddenly, the soldiers holding the center of the enemy formation rapidly retreated backward. Salakat and many of the Thousand-Men Commanders chased after them and plunged deep into the enemy ranks. They judged there was no risk of encirclement anyway, and thought that if something happened, they could just pull their troops back.
That was his fourth blunder, and it decided the fate of the twenty thousand cavalry.
Uwaaaah!
It was when Salakat and the Thousand-Men Commanders were rapidly pushing into the enemy formation.
Suddenly, the Northern Expeditionary Army's formation reversed.
The troops that had been lagging behind in the rear lines of the expeditionary force quickly split to the sides and began to surround Salakat's cavalry in a circle. From the start, Lee Ja-song's force was overwhelmingly superior in numbers, so unless the nomadic cavalry retreated, they couldn't avoid changing into a formation like being wrapped in a cushion. Once that happened, the one-on-one structure turned into a two-versus-three or three-versus-four situation, forming a crescent-shaped formation that was absolutely advantageous to the Northern Expeditionary Army.
Kkeuaak! Euaak!
In an instant, Salakat's entire Ten-Thousand Cavalry Unit shrank back. Only then did Salakat try to retreat to reorganize the battle line, but it was already too late to control the excited nomadic soldiers.
"Damn it! We've fallen into a trap!"
In the end, Salakat tried to break out to the rear by himself, but the ground was already so clogged with corpses and dead horses that there was no place to even set foot.
Pababak.
He climbed onto the saddle, kicked hard off the horse's back, and leapt high over the encirclement to the rear.
Naturally, his previously blocked field of vision opened up wide.
Only then could Salakat clearly see what was happening at the rear of the Ten-Thousand Cavalry Unit.
"...!"
There was someone there.
A man who swept through the gaps of the allied forces like a storm, his long bangs whipping like a blade. And beside him, someone riding what looked like Kaiji.
No one could stop him. The Hundred-man Captain Salakat had sent earlier seemed to have been dead for a long time already. Moreover, that man was deliberately hunting down and killing only officers and commanders.
Tadak.
Salakat stepped back onto the rear of the battlefield. Now, even just standing there, he could sense that man's presence. In a hellish place where blood was being thrown like sand and sprayed everywhere, he was there.
Peobeobeok! Krrr!
At the very spot where the Ten-Thousand Cavalry Unit needed to break through, the corpses of cavalrymen were being lifted into the air at all times.
"Were the ones surrounded… us?"
By just one person, the entire rear of the twenty-thousand-strong cavalry Ten-Thousand Cavalry Unit was being thrown into chaos. He looked like he had taken wounds here and there, but he absolutely did not feel like someone who was about to die.
"I was mistaken…"
He understood how things had turned out, but it was already too late.
It was true that the enemy was only one, but he alone was enough to cut off the rear of twenty thousand men. The ones being encircled weren't them, but us. The battle situation was rapidly tilting to their side. Now they were too deep inside the enemy formation to escape easily. The enemy was gradually widening the encirclement using their numerical advantage.
If it were just him alone, he might be able to escape somehow. But what would he gain by doing that?
Chang!
Salakat drew the twin blades that were crossed in an 十 shape on his back. Since it had come to this, he would at least take down the most dangerous-looking enemy before dying. Wouldn't that be, at the very least, a way to repay a little of the favor he owed Timur Khan?
He ran toward the distant storm of blood. The cavalry were packed too densely to run easily, so whenever necessary, he cut down even the heads of his own allies without mercy.
"Come out! Come out, you bastards!"
The man, Dong Bong-su, was now so thoroughly dyed red that it was impossible to recognize his original appearance.
The nomadic cavalry were already hesitating to approach his monstrous figure.
Chang.
Salakat went near Dong Bong-su and clashed his twin blades to draw his attention.
Seuseuk.
Dong Bong-su killed one more person.
Then he turned Kaiji's reins and looked at Salakat. Just like Dong Bong-su's body, Kaiji's glossy silver fur was already soaked in blood and gleaming.
Seureureung-.
Salakat pressed the two blades in his hands together, scraping the blade edges against each other, and slowly lowered them beneath both shins. It was his unique mounted stance.
Dong Bong-su also slowly raised his wanderer's sword straight in front of him. Then, after looking at Salakat for a moment longer, he dismounted from Kaiji.
"Too good a prey to eat at sixty percent."
With that, he immediately sent his movement technique flying toward Salakat.
***
Boom.
He didn't know how many thousands of lives had already disappeared. One more, then another soon after…
There was no end.
Even the sounds of battle from the distant rear, where Salakat should be fighting, seemed to be gradually diminishing. It wasn't because they were winning. If that were the case, he would have seen the enemy troops being drawn over there. But the Northern Expeditionary Army's troops kept gathering toward Guisui Fortress.
It seemed that even the last troops he had led out of the fortress were now reduced to only a few thousand.
'Did we lose?'
He had never once thought they would lose, but… Timur Khan had no choice but to admit it now.
They lost. They failed.
It was his complete defeat.
For a very brief moment, the words "escape" and "return in glory (捲土重來)" floated through his mind.
But he soon erased them.
There was nowhere left to go, no more troops to gather, and no remaining commanders. Mamorota was dead, and Salakat might already be dead as well. All the other outstanding commanders were also down there, bleeding and fighting. It wouldn't take long for all of them to return to nature.
Timur Khan had returned to Guisui Fortress and stood atop the walls instead, at the moment when victory had begun to tilt.
A strong wind blew and stabbed painfully at his heterochromatic eyes, but he did not return to those old sparrow-like eyes. He couldn't.
He looked down at the battlefield for a while longer, then turned his head to look inside the fortress. It wasn't the great battlefield, but it was his land. Guisui Fortress. This fortress had protected the entire Northern Plains for decades.
'This is the end here, too.'
Perhaps because all men from fifteen to sixty had been mobilized, the inside of the fortress was extremely quiet. At best, only ownerless cattle, pigs, and sheep wandered around, crying. The rest of the people were probably hiding somewhere, holding their breath—no sign of them could be seen.
He bit his lip tightly, lifted his head, and looked up at the sky. The wind was still fiercely lashing at his eyes and back. Even so, he stood silently with his hands clasped behind his back.
The sky was clear, and the clouds were plump and fluffy. Just like the livestock below.
"Is it a good day?"
To die...
How much time had passed? The front line had almost moved to the entrance of Guisui Fortress.
Whiiing-.
With a strong wind, from far away, a pair of human-wolf (人狼) flew extremely fast toward the top of the fortress wall. Timur Khan didn't look, but he knew. Even so, he did not turn his head in that direction. His gaze was still fixed on the sky.
Tadak.
The huge wolf landed smoothly on top of the wall without any obstruction. The spot was about ten jang away from Timur Khan.
"You've come?"
Timur Khan said without lowering his gaze, as if he had been waiting for a long time. Depending on how you heard it, it almost sounded like a friendly greeting to an old friend.
Dong Bong-su rode Kaiji and approached from behind him.
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