Friedrich's Battlefield - Chapter 119

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS

Translator: Abood

◈ Friedrich's Battlefield

Chapter 119: The Siege of Arnsberg Fortress (3)

“Hold your ground, no matter the cost! The Ferdinand Regiment will soon arrive to our aid!”

On the walls of embattled Arnsberg fortress, Joseph’s voice rang out across a battlefield thick with the stench of blood and entrails, rousing his men. Knights and soldiers answered with strong cries, fighting on with courage.

The enemy’s numbers of noble levies, conscripts, and mercenaries among them, totaled over four thousand. Against the twelve hundred holding the fortress, they had more than triple the numbers.

Ordinarily, that alone would not have been decisive.

But Countess Cecilia Fargiere proved herself a cunning commander, their manner of attack was both insidious and skillful.

Before sending troops to assault, the enemy subjected the fortress to relentless ranged fire. Their regular soldiers, being elite, were all capable archers. Added to that were siege engines like catapults and ballistae. The bombardment from these arms was formidable.

They spared no cost in loosing fire arrows. Whenever they struck the fortress’s wooden structures or supplies stored in the open, men had to rush to douse the flames.

Those fighting the fires worked in dread of stray shafts, and no matter the caution, some were struck down.

The stones hurled by catapults and the bolts of the ballistae could pierce even the walls of the keep and the barracks. Safety could not be found indoors, nor could one rest easily or sleep soundly.

Such conditions dragged on through the nights, wearing everyone down. Their focus on the fight eroded, and morale grew ever more fragile.

And with the coming of dawn, the enemy at last moved to a direct assault.

In the west, Countess Cecilia Fargiere led the kingdom’s elite as the core of a force of roughly two thousand. In the east, Count Patrick Villeneuve with the Armor of the King, joined by Marquis Robert Montesque with his elite, led the remaining two thousand. Each drove their attack against the gates.

The defenders divided their strength in response. Of the garrison still fit to fight, discounting the losses from the bombardment, half were assigned west and half east. Joseph commanded the western force, and Diethelm Brightkreuz the eastern.

The problem was that the moats before the gates had been filled, and the drawbridges no longer served their purpose. The enemy surged forward at full speed, carrying their momentum into an assault on the walls and gates.

Even so, the defenders were not easily taken. Their troops were built around regular soldiers, their commanders a seasoned old general and a knight destined to bear the kingdom’s future.

Shaken as their morale had been, they would not surrender the fortress so lightly. Using the advantage of defense, they fought steadily, turning aside the enemy’s breakthroughs.

From the Ferdinand Regiment had come a message by hawk, they would arrive soon. If they struck the rear of the enemy army even as it pressed the fortress, the foe would suffer a heavy blow and be forced to withdraw and regroup.

Then the siege would be broken, and the garrison could restore its defenses. Once the surprise had been endured, the frontier’s bulwark would not fall.

They had only to endure a little longer. Endure, and they would hold.

“My lord! A portion of the enemy is swinging around from the east! It looks to be the forces of Marquis Montesque!”

At that moment, an infantry battalion commander under Joseph’s command, holding the west, shouted the report from a distant section of the wall.

Joseph turned his gaze that way and indeed saw a body of troops bearing the banner of House Montesque moving westward.

“Tch, to change their attack at this moment…”

Joseph clicked his tongue and muttered.

A bold redeployment in the midst of a melee, only Marquis Robert Montesque, who had led his men for so many years and moved them like his own limbs, could have managed such a feat. Enemy though he was, it was nothing short of impressive.

Yet for the defenders, it was a dire problem. With Montesque’s forces joining Countess Fargiere’s, the enemy at the western gate now numbered three thousand.

The decision to divide their troops between east and west had, in hindsight, turned into a costly inefficiency.

Though Joseph would have liked to shift troops westward as well, the east was under ferocious assault from the enemy’s finest, the Armor of the King.

With his men still locked in desperate fighting there, facing nearly twice their number, it was hardly realistic to detach forces and send them west.

And so with fewer than six hundred left, now little more than five hundred after mounting casualties, he was forced to stand against an enemy assault more than five times their strength.

This may truly be the breaking point. So Joseph thought, yet he betrayed nothing in his expression or his words. He swung his sword himself, cutting down foes and at the same time urging his comrades onward.

The battle grew fiercer still. Amid the tension and frenzy of killing, time itself seemed to blur, until at last the long-awaited report arrived.

“The Ferdinand Regiment has arrived! They’re moving to support the west!”

From the watchtower, half-ruined by the enemy’s bombardment the day before, a brave sentry still standing cried out, pointing toward the northern side of the fortress.

Joseph turned his gaze that way, and indeed he saw them: the Ferdinand Regiment, cavalry at the front, infantry following, and the archers and regimental staff bringing up the rear, all advancing in formation toward the battlefield.

“Rejoice, all of you! The hero’s regiment has come to our aid!”

At Joseph’s call, knights and soldiers alike raised cries of joy.

・・・・・・

The Ferdinand Regiment, having reached Arnsberg fortress, immediately shifted into battle formation.

Just as the scouts they had sent ahead reported, the defenders were struggling hardest on the western side, where the enemy pressed in greater strength.

To strike the Arelian host assaulting that flank, the regiment swung northward, moving around the fortress and hurrying west across the slopes that ringed it, every second a race against time.

“This is a fight where moments decide all! Commence the attack at once! Cavalry, form up for the charge! Infantry, prepare to follow!

At the call of their commander, Count Matthias Hosenfeld, knights and soldiers quickly formed ranks.

They had taken only a brief rest to steady their breath before arriving on the battlefield. With the rapid march thus far, fatigue weighed heavily, but all suppressed it to move swiftly.

Soon, a hundred cavalry assembled at the front, with infantry massed just behind, and archers arrayed to the rear for support.

The formation was simple yet powerful: the cavalry would smash through to open a gap, the infantry would surge in after them, and the archers from the rear would cover the advance. The formation for a crushing charge was complete.

“Charge!”

At Matthias’s command, the Ferdinand Regiment hurled itself with all its strength against the enemy’s flank. They advanced parallel to the slope of the hills.

It was not terrain suited for a charge, yet their discipline shone through, and they drove forward with the same momentum as if galloping across open plains.

“……”

At the rear of the formation, surveying the battlefield from the regimental headquarters, Friedrich prayed in silence for their victory.

The enemy was throwing their full might into the assault on Arnsberg fortress. The western attack especially was brutal.

Not only the royal army, but noble levies, conscripts, and even those same jaegers Friedrich had fought the previous year could be seen pressing the siege.

That troops unsuited for fighting in the open had been committed as well made it clear how desperately Countess Cecilia Fargiere and the other enemy commanders sought to bring down the fortress.

No doubt they had hoped to capture it before the Ferdinand Regiment could arrive.

But they had reached the battlefield before the fortress could fall.

And without giving the enemy time to respond, they were already on the attack, striking at the utterly exposed flank.

The enemy’s numbers were greater, but this advantage more than made up for it.

No army could withstand being struck in the flank while locked in the chaos of storming a fortress.

If their sudden charge shattered the enemy lines, they could link with the defenders at the western gate and drive the foe back.

Barring some sudden reversal, Friedrich thought, there would be no need for him to act. Settling into the stance of an observer, he prepared to watch the battle unfold—when:

“…Friedrich.”

Yurika’s voice, unusually tense, called to him.

“What is it?”

“The enemy’s jaegers… No. Those aren’t jaegers. Their movements are wrong.”

Friedrich’s face drained of color at Yurika’s words.

With his own eyes, he could not pick out the oddity… Amid the enemy ranks where units were intermingled, he saw nothing unusual in the movements of those supposed jaegers.

But if Yurika, whose eyes were sharper and instincts keener, claimed there was something amiss, then there could be no doubt.

Men dressed as jaegers, yet not truly jaegers. That could only mean one thing: Count Cecilia Fargiere had arrayed impostors among the assaulting host, to deceive them into believing the jaeger corps were all committed to the siege.

It was a ruse Friedrich himself had employed not long ago to mislead about the identity of his forces.

If that was so, where were the real jaegers?

Behind their position, at the foot of the northern slope of the hill, stretched a broad forest.

“Lord Commander!”

“Everyone, to the rear! Be on guard! Mounted men, dismount at once! Call the archers back here immediately!”

At the moment Friedrich called out, Matthias had already sensed the same unease as Yurika.

At his sharp command, the bodyguard knights stationed at headquarters, along with some thirty men left in reserve from each unit, all wheeled about to face the rear.

Remaining on horseback would only make them easy marks for enemy fire, so those mounted, including Matthias himself, swiftly dismounted.

An instant later, something whistled overhead, cutting from the rear toward the front. It was too fast for the eye to follow, but the sound told all, it was the flight of a bolt.

One horse gave a shrill cry and collapsed, a crossbow quarrel buried in its skull.

A hair’s breadth escape. Had they delayed dismounting even a moment longer, one of them might have been felled.

With that thought, Friedrich struck his mount’s flank and sent it running off to clear the way, just as the other knights did, driving their horses aside so they would not hamper the coming fight.

The Ferdinand Regiment had reached the battlefield in a race against time, leaving no chance to conduct a thorough reconnaissance of the forest to their rear before forming ranks.

The assumption had been made that, since the enemy’s jaegers would surely be committed to the siege of the fortress, the likelihood of hostile forces lying in ambush behind them was low.

Thus, only a reserve contingent and a few lookouts facing the rear had been stationed there.

Yet the bolts that had already come whistling in left no doubt, there were enemy troops concealed within the forest. And now, as the entire headquarters faced about, those hidden forces finally emerged from the treeline.

Their number was easily close to a hundred at first glance. They wore no armor whatsoever; their hands held only swords and bows, some carried crossbows.

Their weapons were different from usual, but their distinctive movements, and more than that, their foreign garb and features, unlike those of Westerners, made clear who they were.

This was the very jaeger unit. Those arrayed in obvious kit on the siege lines were nothing but impostors, equipped only to give the illusion.

From across the breadth of the forest, the true jaegers revealed themselves one after another, advancing to half-encircle the headquarters.

Though their extreme lightness of equipment made them less individually dangerous than in the previous battle, their numbers were greater, nearly two hundred by estimation.

Noticing the danger just in time was a stroke of fortune amid misfortune.

Had it not been for Matthias’s extraordinary powers of perception and uncanny instinct, they would have been caught in a full surprise attack by the jaegers. The mere thought sent a bead of sweat sliding down Friedrich’s brow.

“Two ranks, form line! Hold against the enemy assault! Fall back while maintaining formation!”

Before the enemy could crash into them, Matthias issued new orders.

Rather than wait for the archers to turn about and counter the rear ambush, by which time this small headquarters guard might already be swallowed up, he commanded them to withdraw toward the bowmen’s line.

Heavily armored knights and shield-bearing soldiers braced the front row, with Gregor standing at the center to direct them. Behind them, lighter-armored knights and archers took their places, joining Matthias in readying to provide covering fire.

With this improvised battle line hastily arranged, the clash with the enemy jaegers began.

The balance held for only a heartbeat. Outnumbered and overwhelmed, the line was soon pressed back.

Blades slashed and stabbed from several directions, while arrows and crossbow bolts punched through the air. Within moments, a handful of men were already down and out of the fight.

Even so, the formation held. That they managed to stave off complete encirclement while steadily withdrawing was proof enough of their mettle as seasoned soldiers.

Each man guarded the next, covering one another to offset the numerical disadvantage, determined to endure until the archer battalion, already wheeling about in response to the signal, could arrive to their aid.

In the back rank of this small shield wall, Friedrich fought desperately at Matthias’s side.

From between the shoulders of the men before him, he thrust his sword outward, serving at the very least as a deterrent.

At his other flank, Yurika showed her formidable skill, slipping nimbly through gaps to strike down an enemy before retreating once more behind the protection of the heavy infantry.

Then, at the very center of the embattled front, where Gregor roared commands while cutting a swath through the foe, a single figure came hurtling forward with explosive speed.

It was none other than the deadly fighter who had scarred him in last year’s battle, the man believed to be the commander of the jaeger company.

Perhaps because his weapon was different from the last time, the enemy commander’s movements were slower, yet still monstrously strong.

This time, Gregor held his ground, their clash evenly matched. Was it the benefit of having faced him once before, or the sheer pride of one of the regiment’s foremost knights that gave him the edge?

Friedrich, meanwhile, had no luxury to weigh the tide of battle, no chance to view the field as a whole. Even breathing was a struggle amidst the ceaseless flurry of combat.

Yet in the corner of his mind, some small fragment that remained cool despite the chaos, his gaze caught a sight at the edge of his vision.

Just behind the enemy commander, a young jaeger had leveled a crossbow. And in his line of fire stood… Matthias.

The battlefield was far too frenzied. Matthias was busy cutting down an enemy who had slipped past Gregor, urging his men on with shouts, his eyes turned away—oblivious to the soldier with the crossbow aimed squarely at him.

“—MY LORD!”

There was no way they could lose their regimental commander, the living hero of Edelstein, here and now.

Almost reflexively, Friedrich sprang out before his foster father, taking a stand as a human shield.

The enemy’s crossbow was trained on him. In the next instant the trigger would be pulled, and a bolt driven by murderous intent would fly straight for him.

‘My cuirass is chosen for mobility’, he thought.

The best leather armor, but leather nonetheless.

Even it could not stop a bolt capable of piercing metal plate.

In other words, he might die here. This could be the end.

Time seemed to slow, though that did not make him any quicker.

He wasn't unprepared to die, but when the moment came there was no time even to brace himself.

Wasting the last few seconds of his life on that thought alone, he sensed the telltale motion that the enemy was about to pull the trigger.

In the next instant, Friedrich’s body was hurled aside as if struck by a heavy blow.

It wasn’t from taking the bolt himself, he had been knocked sideways, not backward.

Crashing to the ground, he turned his head toward the man he had just tried to shield.

Matthias still stood in the motion of shoving Friedrich away with one hand, a crossbow bolt buried deep in his chest.

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