On the frontlines of the League…
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Holding onto his wall, Arminius took cover. He had yet to find a gap in the fire to discharge even one shot from his rifle. His ammunition remained unused, heavy still, when the assaulting volleys suddenly ceased. The League took their chance and rose out of hiding, firing out of instinct, but as the smoke cleared, they heard the distant shouts of officers accompanied by the distinct ring of drawing blades. The men whose feet advanced downhill drummed even in the snow that slowed them down to a march. Desperate to fire another shot, the survivors reloaded, but it must have been the sight of their desperation that pushed the Confederates on.
They cried, their comrades in the reserves cheering them on, and three regiments’ worth of troops charged. Behind a wall of logs riddled with holes, Arminius looked to his flanks and centre, where there was no escape. Unbroken, his iris purpled, his spirit sending a surge of electricity through him. He slung his rifle onto his back and armed himself with his sword. His comrades rose out of cover to brave the oncoming horde. Their peasant blades were no match for the Confederacy, but together, they hoped that their morale was enough to withstand the enemy.
Arminius climbed onto the low wall as Arnau and his sergeant archer watched his back. “On guard!” Unafraid that the enemy could shoot him down, the lieutenant cried, his voice cracking.
The regiment dug their heels into the snow, their backs illuminated by their fires still burning. A field of haze surrounded them and broke their view and that of their enemy, but their charge did not slow. Knowing no fear, the rattling of their equipment grew ever louder until the shine of their blades escaped the veil.
The Confederates threw themselves into the arched wall of steel with a cry. Pierced, slashed, and cut, their bodies came in waves without end. The pressure of their weight was forced against the weaker Aelon, and the momentum of their downhill charge began to pillage the defences of the nine hundred whose reserves dwindled. Witnessing their quick demise, even the freshest troops began to waver, but standing shoulder to shoulder, their allies were able to convince them that death was coming regardless. It was their last stand. They believed that they would die no matter their resistance. The spirit of the defenders suddenly grew unbreakable, and they sought to take as many lives as they could before they would inevitably fall.
In a frenzy, the Aelon swung their swords, even if their bodies cried for help and began to disallow their limbs from moving. Even though the act of defending that bridge was reasonless, the survivors remained on guard, in hope that reinforcements would soon arrive.
In the centre, the battle was the fiercest. The League formed around the lieutenant’s wall and fought ferociously as he defended the summit. The Rus attempted to assail it, but with the valiant defender standing on higher ground, they failed to overcome him. Under Arminius’s sword, the Confederates were cut down before they could lay a hand on him, but despite his superiority against those who were forced to fight an uphill battle, every inch of land soon became necessary to defend. He could not break from position. However, as he fought man after man without a break, the battle wore on him more than any other. When his mind seemed to fade for a moment, deprived of food and rest, he could do little to avoid mistakes. His back foot lost its standing, and he slipped, and although he had dodged the swing of a sword by the length of a hair, he had surrendered his fort.
As he fell onto the snow, the enemy mounted the wall and secured the brow, visibly relieved to have gained a foothold. However, a cluster of arrows then struck them in the head. The enemy tumbled backward and crashed into their comrades behind them. Their gain was lost, and in their place, an archer leapt onto the battlements and drew three arrows from his quiver. Firing them in succession, he kept the horde away alone. Arminius was recharged by the sight of his friend, and he lifted himself from the ground. But when he sought to take up his post again, he was held back by the sight of an open palm.
Holding his hand back, the archer halted Arminius. “Stand back, Armin.” Without a break in his breath, Károly warned him.
He seemed to have planned his counterattack, so Arminius let him be and retreated as he asked, stepping off the wall. The Confederates began their ascent again, climbing over the bodies of their fallen, hoping that they could wet their blade before they could fall. But another arrow had already been nocked on the archer’s bowstring, which he drew, his arms tensing as blood was diverted into his fingers. Eifer flowed into the arrow’s shaft, and soon its tip glowed with an amber tint. Energy pulsed from Károly’s body as he gritted his teeth, the fletching of his arrow close by his cheek. His bow was at its limit, and the arrow hummed. When Károly let out his breath, the arrow slipped from his grip, and the missile propelled forward.
Stunned by the blinding light that came at them, the Confederates stood their ground, but nothing could have saved them. They were pulverised. Their bodies above their torsos disintegrated into atoms. The arrow had become a spear, roaring with vivid power that shot through the dense ranks. Flames tore and flares danced, ripping the ground apart, its snow melting into boiling mist. It burnt anyone near enough to feel the heat and seared those on the edge of its path. Fire engulfed their faces and cooked their flesh from within when they breathed. Waves of boiling snow swept outwards, and a trail of smoke and ash followed. The devastation ran on without any soldier capable of stopping the arrow.
The wrapping gale, which whipped towards the third general, flung aside those who dared believe they could stop it, but he did not move. His spear remained steadily still when it whistled past him, striking an officer beside him and those behind him. Aurelius averted his gaze from the comet’s fleeting light as it vanished into the forest. Then, in the woodland, an explosion rocked his ears like the landing of an artillery shell. A wall of blazes coated the trees in orange flames that approached him and the backs of his troops at an incredible speed, but the force did not reach the forest’s edge. Dismantled by the winter winds, the heat was dispersed, and a smoke plume was sent hundreds of paces high into the sky. Anyone within a dozen leagues would have caught sight of it. However, the wielder of this power suddenly felt its repercussions.
Had hunger and lack of sleep not reduced him to exhaustion, Károly could have made another shot. His body could take no more when a stray bullet struck his stomach. He froze in fear as he felt his joints buckle. The archer barely had the strength to balance himself and fell backward into the snow. Flinching from the slightest sound, Arminius stared at Károly, whose breaths were shallow. Only then did he realise that his stubborn decision to hold his ground would lead to the same fate for all his comrades.
As Arnau fought back the Confederates who had finally assailed the half-charred wall, Arminius sheathed his sword and grabbed Károly by his jacket, intending to retreat.
The Confederate ranks began to reform. The Rus filled in their gaps like water in a bay and crushed the weakening fire under their boots. As told by their grandfathers and fathers, the League’s enemy fought well in the snow. There were those who were sceptics of the rumour, believing that they were stories and nothing more, but it appeared truer by the minute.
Standing unbothered by the marksman’s arrow, Aurelius looked to his right, where his subordinates had been smudged into the earth like red watercolour. Their legs were the only remains which were intact, and everything which was above their intestines had disappeared. The general smiled at the sight, reminding him of a scene that had been burnt into his mind as a child, but he was not unscathed. The radiating heat had burnt his arm, slowly being cooled by the air.
A girl approached him, coughing from the ash and smoke. “They seem more difficult than we’d anticipated.” The general’s aide raised her concern. “Should we pull back?” She suggested a manoeuvre that would not be unusual.
“That’s needless.” Aurelius turned back to her, enlightened by the archer’s fire. “If they are waiting for reinforcements, it would do us no good to spend too much time here.” He deduced from having battled them in such a short length of time.
Stumped by his answer, his aide turned to him. “Reinforcements?” Unsure if she had heard his answer correctly, she repeated it.
She attentively watched the frontlines shift back and forth, her head itching, when she spotted her clue obviously laid out before her. The defender’s centre formation had not retreated despite their dwindling numbers, as if they knew they could hold their ground for a while longer for something to occur. Yet, neither did they attempt a breakthrough. Taking notice of the other fronts, the battle was similarly a stalemate. Not one inch was given, and not one inch was taken. Their enemy fought as if they were hiding behind a corner. The tactic of doing so dealt the slightest damage and gained them nothing, except to buy time and keep the attackers at bay. As her general said, they appeared to be waiting for something.
“Ready the second and third, lieutenant.” Aurelius issued his command after a long pause.
The lieutenant snapped awake and stamped her foot into the snow, righting herself. She yelled out his command, which was rapidly repeated along the front until their voices were heard no more. Until the order had reached the edges of the army, the general’s staff stood in silence. Then, the next four thousand troops who were to join the melee retrieved their rifles and unsheathed their swords. The sweat from their palms greased their hilts, bearing to be patient for another minute. They set their sights on the path they were going to charge down, but it did not come before Aurelius moved too.
Letting out another smile with his tongue pressed against his teeth, he lifted his glaive up from the snow. His lieutenant knew what he intended to do but she said nothing against it, knowing that even if her general despised it most, he would do everything to reward himself with victory. The glaive dragged along the ground as Aurelius began his march, his forces following beside him, taking every step he took.
They advanced downhill, their footsteps moving the earth. The battle, just paces away, was quiet compared to the sound of their feet, as momentum propelled them into the grip of gravity. Their captains unsheathed their swords, and then their sergeants and lieutenants followed. The Confederates committed themselves to the charge, a scene which straightened the hairs on the backs of their comrades, while the Aelon braced for impact. But the defenders, mere hundreds in number, could do little against the force of this numerous foe. The front lines began to shift, and cracks began to show. The Aelon slowly learnt that miracles did not exist.
Passing by his troops to reach the bloodshed before his prediction could unravel into reality, the general met his first foes, yet even without the technique or the strength that a man of his rank on the field typically had, his spear was being swung around like a pen in his hand, spinning into his fragile enemies. The blade clawed into flesh, and its steel hummed before each strike. Even at close range, he was not so inept. Aurelius parried and locked a soldier in his grasp before he pushed his thumb into his eye. Screaming as it dug deeper into his skull, the unfortunate soul felt his eye become plucked from its socket. Then, his screams ceased. He fell back first into the mud, and his skull was crushed under the heel of the general, who moved onto his next prey, choosing him to be their enemy, but again, a single swing felled them, the spear slashing them apart. Their guts poured out as they knelt in agony. The fiend, driven mad by the taste of blood that soaked his face and hair, gashed open the centre lines.
Outnumbered, the deaths of the defenders climbed. The survivors had lost the source of their morale and slowly abandoned their posts, withdrawing further onto the bridge. The trail of fire from Károly’s arrow had long been trampled out, and any wall they had erected had been demolished. The fight was no more a siege battle where time was on their side. It had become a field battle where soldier fought soldier and blade clashed against blade. The rearguard reinforced the front, however hurt they may have been. The fight became a game of how quickly the defenders could fall.
On each flank of the single front, those closest to the lieutenant were cut down and dragged away. He watched as a bloodied Arber was saved by the brutish Gin, both protected by the Rus, Lev, who had a spear thrust into his shoulder. Arminius did not catch sight of every happening that plagued his comrades, but it was clear that his front had collapsed.
Finally, the lieutenant made the wrenching decision. “All forces, retreat—!” He yelled, but he was silenced by the sight of a wave of shadows appearing from the blazes of the forest.
Gunfire rang out against the backs of the Confederate reserves who had not thought that the enemy could appear behind them. For Aurelius, it was too soon, but he seemed to blame no one but himself for not having heeded his lieutenant’s counsel. They struggled to regroup themselves for even a half-hearted defence. Unsure whether they should bear their rifles or their swords, the Rus gave up their ground and withdrew. However, some charged into the forest alone in a counter-attack, guided by their sergeants and corporals, who assumed that those were their orders. There was no sign of unity. The rearguard had been shattered.
Emerging out of the woods where the fires that the archer had set loose roared, an army twice the size of the Rus’ had the Confederates surrounded, and the battlefield soon took on the form of a double encirclement. Taking command over the ridge, one figure stood out clearer than the rest. He wielded a war scythe and uprooted his enemies like he did blades of grass. The elder regained his posture momentarily and rested the shoe of his peculiar weapon in the snow. His colonel marched up beside him, and two lines of riflemen showed themselves out of the treeline. A volley of arrows arched over their heads when their gunners knelt and fired into the swarm, the smoke and mist shrouding their presence.279Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqzYzAvNThP
LANGUAGES
Zhermanner has remained the international standard of communication since the fourth century of the Albrecht Era, replacing Latinger, but during the blight of the Second Calamity, many nations under the rule of the Three Kingdoms of Zhermannen were forced to replace their mother tongues with Zhermanner as the primary mode of official and informal communication in private and public settings. As a result, several cultures throughout the world have all but forgotten their mother tongues. However, given the recency of this replacement, commoners, who constitute the majority of the world population, use a variation of the language called Vulgar Zhermanner. Regional dialects fall under this category. One’s social class is often assumed by whether they speak Vulgar or Standard Zhermanner. But, Zhermanner is not the only language that exists. In the Far East, the three Seriker languages, Northern, Eastern, and Southern, are widely used, although none of them are mutually intelligible. The Rus also have their separate language. However, some areas have a preference for using Vulgar Zhermanner in the Rus dialect. The smallest language to exist as an official mode of communication is Danner. It is only used by four nations and shares its roots with Zhermanner.
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