TFM 235

Give this man a brake :'(

At the sight, the siege unit hurriedly loaded the ballistae.

Varkas wrapped one arm around Tork’s neck and pulled hard on the reins. At the same time, massive arrows, nearly the size of javelins, shot out from three or four ballistae.

Tork nimbly avoided the arrows rushing toward them like the wind, crossed the field in a single breath, and lightly leapt over the fence that had been set up in a line.

Immediately after, the warhorse’s powerful forelegs came crashing down heavily over the heads of the soldiers surrounding the siege weapons.

Seeing their allies’ bodies crushed beneath iron hooves, the soldiers screamed and scattered in every direction.

Varkas swung his sword without delay. The heads of three soldiers who were fumbling to draw the weapons at their waists fell at the same time.

Fresh blood sprayed from the severed surfaces of their necks, spreading through the air like red mist. Cutting through that reeking air, Varkas advanced, and his blade swiftly split through the torsos of the enemies trying to reform their line, breastplates and all.

“Garkash!”

A middle-aged man with a blackened face let out a monstrous cry in the old eastern tongue. It was a word that referred to a savage beast from the legends of the Khan tribe.

Varkas blocked the enormous double-bladed axe flying toward him with the flat of his sword, then drove his spurs into his horse and trampled the man’s body beneath him.

With a dull sound of bones being crushed, blood sprayed in every direction. Tork immediately charged toward the next enemy.

Varkas swung his sword without rest, sweeping rapidly through the enemy line. When the cavalry that had followed close behind him drove into the siege unit’s flank, the enemy ranks, which had seemed solid, collapsed helplessly.

But that unstoppable momentum did not last long. The raiders spread across the field began to encircle the Wolfram Cavalry in a wide ring.

Varkas snatched up the halberd a spearman had dropped, then swiftly slid the sword in his other hand back into his belt.

A long weapon was far better suited for dealing with numerous enemies at once. Gripping the lower end of the shaft with both hands, Varkas swung the weapon in a broad arc toward the enemies gradually tightening the encirclement around him.

The axe blade, rushing forward in a vast curve, swept through the bodies of the raiders charging at him with spears and swords all at once.

Seeing five or six men cut apart together with their armor in a single instant, the heathen warriors hurriedly widened the distance.

Varkas did not miss that brief opening and charged into the center of their formation.

Just then, a powerful impact struck his shoulder.

Turning his head, Varkas found an arrow lodged in the gap of his armor and frowned. Fortunately, it did not seem to have struck bone, but the arrowhead appeared to have buried itself into the muscle.

Gripping the shaft with one hand, Varkas pulled it out without hesitation, then immediately turned his horse toward the archer. Seeing him, the archers hurriedly drew their bowstrings.

But Tork’s legs were a step faster.

In an instant, Varkas closed in on the enemy formation, and his axe blade cleaved vertically down through one archer’s body.

Another archer, seeing his ally split in two, hastily threw aside his arrow and drew the sword at his waist.

But his response came one step too late.

The end of the shaft, swung in a wide arc, struck the archer squarely in the temple.

As the soldier screamed and collapsed, Varkas drove his warhorse over him and immediately aimed the spearhead toward the next enemy. But the enemies surrounded him in layers and layers, refusing to step within range.

Thanks to that, Varkas gained a brief moment to catch his breath. With sharp eyes, he looked over the battlefield.

The Wolfram Cavalry, too, were engaged in battle while surrounded by enemies. When Varkas saw several of them tumble from their horses, he ground his teeth.

They could not hold out like this forever.

Should I secure a path of retreat, even now?

Patting Tork as the horse breathed roughly, he swept his gaze around the enemies closing the encirclement tighter and tighter. Then, all of a sudden, the enemy formation shook violently, and screams rang out from afar.

Varkas turned his head toward the sound.

Through the disordered enemy ranks, he saw something black surging forward like a tide.

For a brief moment, he felt relief, thinking reinforcements had arrived. But when he realized that what had broken through the rear of the enemy formation was dozens of direwolves, Varkas’s eyes widened.

The beasts, each as large as a calf, tore into the raiders indiscriminately, turning the battlefield into chaos in an instant.

He froze for only a moment at the sudden situation, then immediately broke through the collapsed line and charged straight into the heart of the enemy camp.

Even while panting harshly, Tork ran across the battlefield with fierce momentum, trampling enemy soldiers recklessly beneath his hooves.

How long did he continue cutting them down, again and again?

Before long, he realized that the wolves were attacking only the raiders with precise accuracy.

Varkas paused the hand swinging the halberd and swiftly scanned the beasts roaming across the field.

The giant wolves were moving with remarkable coordination, breaking apart the barbarians’ formation.

There was no room for doubt.

Something was controlling the pack.

Before he could even consider what that meant, the tide of battle shifted again. From afar, a thunderous horn sounded, and an ironclad cavalry unit appeared over the ridge.

At the sight of a vast army numbering more than ten thousand, the raiders instantly lost their will to fight and began to flee.

Varkas raised the shaft of his weapon high and shouted in a booming voice,

“Do not let a single one escape alive!”

The moment his order fell, the Wolfram elite unit pursued the enemies scattering in all directions with terrifying speed.

In an instant, the mounted warriors overtook them and cut off their retreat, swinging their blades mercilessly. Meanwhile, the ironclad cavalry that had struck the rear of the enemy formation swept through thousands of enemy soldiers in one devastating wave.

What followed after that was closer to slaughter than battle.

Under the indiscriminate assault of the mounted warriors, the Zram people fell helplessly, one after another. After roughly two hours had passed, the field was piled high with the bodies of heathens crushed beneath the hooves of warhorses.

“Your Grace! We have annihilated all the enemies positioned to the south as well!”

Just as the battle was nearing its end, Daren, who had remained at the southern gate to wipe out the remaining enemies, came galloping over.

Only then did Varkas lower the weapon in his hand.

The wolf pack had vanished from sight before he knew it. Only a few of their number, killed by the raiders, lay limp among the heaps of corpses.

Varkas stared down at them for a moment, then drove his spear into the ground and sprang lightly down from the saddle.

It was to lessen Tork’s burden, even if only a little, now that the horse had already reached the limits of his strength.

“What are the losses?”

“We will need to count the exact number, but it seems there are roughly four hundred dead.”

Daren, who had naturally taken the reins from his hand, answered in a voice sunk low and heavy.

“If we include the public security guards, it may be twice that.”

It was by no means a small loss, but considering the entire city had nearly fallen, it could only be called fortunate.

He let out a weary breath and looked up at the sky, where sunset was beginning to settle.

A dry wind, thick with the smell of blood, swept roughly over his blood-spattered face.

Varkas shoved back his disheveled hair and turned toward the north gate.

“Move all the bodies of the dead to the cathedral. We will hold the funeral rites tomorrow.”

“Understood.”

He soon crossed the field and stepped inside the walls.

Even around the collapsed wall, the bodies of raiders and soldiers lay strewn about in disorder. After watching the guards busily move them into one place for a moment, he approached the battlement, half of which had collapsed, to examine the exact extent of the damage.

Now that the raiders who had run rampant for years had been wiped out, there would likely be no further threat for the time being. But for Kalmor’s security, the damaged facilities had to be restored as quickly as possible.

To rebuild it perfectly, we will need at least four months.

After looking over the badly cracked wall and the collapsed watchtower in turn, Varkas soon moved along the road leading to Laedgo Castle.

Then he stopped abruptly when he found a group of people gathered at the base of the castle tower connected to the outer wall.

Before the heap of rubble from the collapsed building, a woman sat on the ground, wailing loudly. After pushing her back, a dozen or so guards began hurriedly clearing the fallen stones into one place.

Varkas stared blankly at the scene for a moment, then grabbed the shoulder of the nearest guard among the group.

“What happened?”

“Y-Your Grace…”

The guard, who had been moving a large piece of stone beside the outer wall, looked up at him with a bloodless face.

In that instant, a strange chill brushed the nape of his neck.