Swiss Arms
Chapter 178
-VB-
Duke Frederick
1310
Frederick couldn’t believe his eyes.
His northern shore army with close to a thousand three hundred men was losing to an army that couldn’t be even half its size.
“What the hell is happening over there?!” he hissed before looking to his left to the southern army.
The southern shore was a stalemate between his and the count’s army there; the space available for the two armies to fight was simply too narrow for his army to use its larger size. He already expected this and also expected the same from the northern shore.
But apparently fucking not!
“... Get the archers to start climbing the side of the hill!” he ordered. “Get them to shoot down on the count’s army from the hill!”
A messenger ran off. This was a far too detailed order for the horns to convey.
He watched as the messenger rode up to the rear of the Black and White commands and began to relay the orders. But in the time between him ordering and the Black and White commands receiving their orders, the frontline had fallen back by visible amounts from where he was in the far back of the lines.
That was not good.
But he watched now as archers began to climb the side of the hill.
---
Hans
1310
I took a step back after carving through … what had to be at least a hundred soldiers.
I grunted as my soldiers filled up the space quickly and kept the frontline in place with their spears and shields.
I wiped the blood off -. Nope, I just smeared more blood on myself. Goddamnit.
I looked around to assess both armies’ position.
The southern shore held on. Good.
I looked around the northern shore around me -.
I narrowed my eyes when I saw the duke’s army climbing the side of the hill. The hills were nearly forty-five degrees steep, so it wasn’t an easy climb at all, and partly why neither side was using our cavalry… not that I had many horses to use in the first place.
But those archers… They were going to be trouble if I left them alone. Those arrows were going to reach deeper into my formation.
I looked around and … oh, there were plenty of spearheads and swords my enemies dropped.
I mean, of course, they would drop it. They were dead.
I reached down, picked up two swords, and tossed them up and down.
Okay, that should be … good enough.
I stabbed my giant sword into the ground and gripped the first sword by the handle. I reared the sword back and took aim at one of the archers still climbing the hill… And, with a swing of my arm, sent the first sword flying.
---
Gerald froze when he heard a high-pitched hissing.
He looked to his left, but by the time he looked, the hissing had already gone past him.
There was a slick like knife cutting into meat.
He looked back up and froze again.
Because Johan, one of his squad mates, laid pinned to the ground by a sword that came out of nowhere and stabbed him through the side-back.
“W-Wha-?”
He heard another hissing quickly growing louder.
He curled up… before he realized that he was on a steep hill.
He yelled as he tumbled down but not before he saw that his squad lieutenant had gotten a sword buried in his ass and was screaming in pain.
---
I grunted.
Okay, I had a pretty good accuracy with throwing swords.
I picked up a broken spearhead.
Threw that.
I watched it as it arched over the battlefield before dipping back down and striking at an archer with the blunt end. The Habsburg archer yelped (or looked like he did) as he tumbled down.
This time, I picked up a whole spear… and threw it.
---
Gerald gasped as he pushed himself up, and his old bones complained at the tumble he’d just gotten up from.
‘I get it,’ he thought to himself as he looked around. Then he groaned when he saw his broken bow. ‘Goddam-.’
And then a bow just randomly clattered down from the hill to his feet.
Blinking, he reached down, grabbed it, stood back up, and looked up.
His jaw dropped when he saw a spear flying down and stabbed a poor fucker in the skull.
Archers who were still alive quickly began to climb back down, some recklessly running down hastily in fear while others crawled down more carefully but no less nervously.
---
Frederick
He stared.
“What the fuck is that?!” he hissed angrily at the pathetic climb and the hasty retreat his archers had beat after the first five or so got nailed to the hillside by swords and spears, not arrows.
Then he watched as a spear shot up from the count’s side, peaked, and dipped back down into his northern army’s rear.
There were shouts to dodge but obviously, someone didn’t, because someone squealed out like a stuck pig when the spear landed.
---
Hans
“And I’m out of spears,” I mumbled before pulling my sword back out of the ground and pushing my way to the front.
The Habsburg soldiers who saw me quickly began to backtrack. Some even outright tried to run.
But sadly for them, I was fast and I was all out of mercy after what their lord did at Bruneck.
I swung, and men fell. Some lost their arms. Others died with half of their body or head falling away from the other.
Regardless of how it happened, people died when I swung my sword, and with each swing, I took a step. With each step, I carved deeper into the Habsburg army.
And soon… they couldn’t handle it anymore.
They began to run.
That’s when I saw the first Habsburg knight coming up to meet me, armored from head to toe and wielding a mace.
He swaggered up to me … and then paused.
Yeah, you thought I was a knight, didn’t you? Why else would you bring a mace instead of a sword?
“All of you have been dying to a mere mercenary?!” he shouted angrily.
Wow, he thought I was a mercenary?
I mean… I didn’t armor myself like a lord or knight, so it wasn’t a bad guess.
“I’m Count von Fluelaberg.”
The knight froze.
And then his demeanor changed.
He looked … excited?
“I challenge you, count!” he shouted and rushed at me.
I blinked.
“Okay.”
Then I swung.
He dodged.
I blinked in surprise.
“Holy s-!” he hissed out as he tumbled away, faster than most men did. “How are you swinging something that big that quickly?!”
“I just do,” I grunted before swinging again.
He rolled. Again.
“Are you a knight or a hedgehog?!” I yelled at him.
He tried rolling again when I swung, so I buried the sword after it came down, used it as a pole, and jumped on the knight.
The knight, who was getting back up, had no chance against me when I came crashing down on him.
“I-I surrender!”
I was about to cave in his face when he said that.
That made me freeze.
I growled. “Fucking fine! You three, get this fucker to the back of our line! He’s my hostage now!” I shouted at three of my soldiers who were behind the frontlines.; They quickly came up and dragged him away.
I pulled my sword out of the ground and turned back to the now nervous Habsburg army.
And let my level 73 [Intimidation] loose.
The nervous army… quickly became nervous-wreck army.
And when I began advancing, they routed.
---
Frederick
He watched in confused shock as the northern shore army, the Blacks and Whites, broke and ran.
What?!
They were running from an army half of their size! Half of the army hadn’t even fought anyone yet! Why were they running?!
And then …
That’s when he saw the count for the first time in his life.
And the count saw him, too.
For a split second, it was just that: two men looking at each other in the middle of a battlefield.
But that changed.
Frederick felt his stomach drop, watching the blood-soaked man start walking toward him, slaughtering anything and everything that got in his way.
“K-Knights! T-T-The count is exposed! Get him!” he shouted, stuttering. He didn’t care that he sounded like a coward making that order. All he wanted was for that thing to die as quickly as possible.
The knights that were with him, most of whom were still on their horses, quickly reared up and charged forward through the fleeing Black and White command soldiers at the count’s northern army which had now come out of the narrow lake shore to chase down the routing army, which brought them out to a wider and flatter eastern shore of the lake.
The knights thundered down, and his levies jumped out of the way of the charging cavalry.
The count… did not.
Instead, he pulled his giant sword back, braced himself, and swung.
The first cavalry that got close was cut from the top of the head, through his entire body, and the horse beneath him was also bisected.
For a second, there was silence in the valley.
Then his cavalry tried to turn away to not run head first at the count.
It was too late.
The count jumped after the second horseman and struck the knight mid-air with his sword.
The count landed… and looked up at him from the lower part of the valley.
Frederick’s heart stuttered.
He gripped the reins of his horse… and pulled away from the battle.
“Retreat!” he shouted. “Sound the horns! Retreat!”
But something came hissing toward him. Thinking it an arrow, he quickly tilted his entire body backward.
Except it wasn’t an arrow.
It was a spinning sword. The count’s giant sword. That spun.
And sawed through his armored horse’s neck from left to right without stopping.
His horse buckled and fell forward, and he screamed as he found himself flying out of his saddle and into the grass-covered ground.
He struck and tumbled.
Hissing, he tried to get up … before realizing that something was wrong with his right arm. He looked and saw it bending the wrong way.
But before he could scream, someone grabbed him.
“Get the duke out of here!” someone shouted as he was quickly hoisted up onto the lap of a knight, and the knight rode hard and fast out of the valley with what knights that were still left.
Hissing and grunting in pain, Frederick looked over his shoulder and saw that the count had stopped chasing… but only because he had been delayed by the dozens of knights that had given their lives trying to stop him.
Frederick watched dejectedly in fear and pain as the count’s northern shore army came around and slammed into the rear of his southern shore army.
He watched as the Habsburg banners - along with those of his knightly and comital houses - fell to the pincer attack.
Frederick realized…
That was it.
This was the end of the war.
Not only did he fail to defeat the count who had killed his brothers, he had failed himself and his men by running away so pathetically.
---
Hans
“... I’ll give that boy credit,” I mumbled to myself as I turned around to look at the final clashes of the battle. “He’s smarter than his brothers.”
Because unlike his brothers, he saw that I was coming for him and ran.
I took a deep breath in and looked at the situation.
The smaller half of the Habsburg’s army had been crushed, and now, the smaller of my army crashed into the rear of their larger half.
This left the now two thousand five hundred or so of the Habsburg soldiers cornered on all fronts. To the south was another steep hill. To the north was the lake. To the west stood close to eight hundred of my soldiers. To the east was now my three hundred of my soldiers.
They should be able to win, yes? It’s still two-to-one.
But I saw their men breaking. They saw how their comrades in the north got broken, and now, their archers and rear were getting slaughtered. Soon, their backs would be exposed and they would die.
And as both sides of the army began to fall… they began to jump. They jumped into the lake. They started to climb the hill.
And once the first hundred or so fled, that broke their own defense enough that the rest of the army fell.
“Let live anyone who surrenders!” I shouted loudly, and my words echoed around in the valley.
Not too long after that, they began to surrender. Levies, men-at-arms, and knights all alike.
By the time the sun rose to the peak, it was done.
The last of the four Habsburg army had fallen to my blade like all others before it.
But I had a question.
I was told that this army was supposed to number five thousand. I only saw beforehand, and the dead laying on the ground along with their belongings like tents and pots more or less confirmed it.
So where was the last one thousand?
I looked around before sighing. “Bring me the knights!” I shouted this time, and soon, my soldiers - in the midst of their looting of the dead - dragged half a dozen knights up to me. I looked them over. All of them looked like sorry pieces of shits. “Where’s the last one thousand of your army?” I asked them directly.
They were reluctant to say.
“... The first one to answer simply gets released, no hassle, and I don’t ask for ransom.”
The man whose armor and arms looked to be least of them all stood up quickly. “They were sent to burn down your capital city!”
I froze.
The soldiers around us froze.
I slowly turned to look at him.
“What?”