Chapter 57: Volume 2 Chapter 17 – Desperate Assault (Part 3/3)

Kaede watched as the Northmen's first attack was thrown back with heavy casualties. Hundreds of men now lay dead or dying on the snowy fields. Though their efforts weren't completely in vain as they had managed to create several passages through the first ditch, some of them made using the bodies of their own fallen comrades.

She could see a second attack forming in the distance. It was difficult to make an estimate due to the poor visibility. However her guess was that the next wave was three to five times the strength of the previous attack.

The familiar then furrowed her brows as she heard a strange noise. It came from the east, past the extreme right flank where the Weichsen line met the shores of Cross Lake's eastern wing.

"Do you hear that?" Kaede spoke out loud as she moved to the eastern end of the bastion.

The sound was difficult to describe. But it reminded Kaede a bit of when she stepped on broken ice. She also had trouble seeing where it came from, as a thin, morning mist continued to cling onto the surface of the lake.

This doesn't feel right, the familiar puzzled as she glanced further south. Why is only this part of the lake still foggy?

"I don't hear anything from over there," the lieutenant answered back before pointing in the other direction. "The battle is that other way."

I know that! But...

The sound kept on coming. It was as if some giant was crunching the ice beneath their feet, grinding the frozen crystals together.

Kaede raised her binoculars and peered out into the water.

The weather wasn't actually cold enough to freeze the lake. Yet as she scrutinized the surface, she could see a sheet of ice forming, growing across the water as though it were a new road.

It was also wide enough to match a six-lane highway. And it would soon meet the shoreline, just behind Weichsel's defensive fortifications.

Water expanded as it froze, which meant the crystalline dendrites of ice inevitably pushed against each other as blocks of ice solidified and took shape. This 'crunch' of crystals caused by rapid freezing was what she was hearing!

Exclamation marks shot through Kaede's mind as she rushed to send this information up immediately:

"<Pascal, there's a hostile force approaching from the east! They're freezing the water into a bridge!>"

"<Tell Major Karen-- GAHHH!>"

His reply never finished. A fusillade of explosions resounded from the west like distant, rolling thunder. Kaede immediately swung her binoculars in that direction but she couldn't see the source of the blasts in the obscuring snow.

Nevertheless, Pascal's final cry had given her more than enough clues on what had just happened -- the command center had clearly been struck by a powerful magical assault.

"<Pascal...? Pascal!?>"

Kaede felt as though someone had just stabbed a dagger into her chest. Her mind completely blanked out for a split second as she cast aside all other thoughts in a desperate bid to reach him.

"<PASCAL!>"

However their telepathic link remained quiet, completely silent. Not even white noise could be heard from the other side.

Please-please-please be okay...

Kaede shut her eyes for a quick prayer to whatever gods in this world who would listen. Yet even as her chest contracted, even as her beating heart accelerated...

There was no physical pain, no mental onslaught. She wasn't keeling over. And despite the overflowing fear and anxiety that crowded her thoughts, her mind remained clear and open.

She simply needed to use her head.

I'm still alive, aren't I? Then Pascal has to be as well.

She wasn't sure how alive though. Was he injured? Crippled? Unconscious and bleeding to death even at this very second?

However one thing was apparent. If she didn't do something and fast, he really might end up dead before the day was finished, along with everyone else on the Weichsel side of this battle.

Kaede could still hear the crunch of ice crystals. She could see the frozen highway grow closer and closer to the shores. The surface of the ice soon transformed to a layer of snow. And through the mist she could spot the figures of Northmen...

First a few, then dozens, then hundreds. All making their way across the frozen bridge.

They'll smash into our right flank and roll up the entire line like a carpet, just like Caesar did at Pharsalus! The young girl thought before she looked around. I must warn this Major Karen!

The familiar leapt off the bastion and landed in the deep snow right next to a communication trench. She then climbed down and ran to where the battalion command was situated.

"Major! There's a hostile force incoming from the east! They're freezing the lake to make a path!"

Major Karen von Lichnowsky was a woman who looked to be in her late 'twenties'. Moderate of build and on the plain side of pretty, she was most noticeable from the back due to her long, wavy red hair. She stood adjacent to her signal officers with a swordstaff in hand, and her attention immediately fell upon Kaede as the familiar spoke. However the dark-green eyes above her freckled cheeks looked uncertain, as though unsure of how to respond to the civilian girl before her.

"Command from HQ!" Kaede then stressed with a complete lie, hoping that her grim expression and battle anxiety might bury any obvious signs. "Swivel all men and face right to refuse the line! Their flank attack will be upon us within a minute!"

"We just lost contact with..." One of the signal officers spoke.

"I'm the familiar of Captain Pascal von Moltewitz, tactical officer to Brigadier-General Bernard! Do I look dead to you!?" Kaede almost shouted as she channeled some of her uneasiness into impatience. "We must refuse the line or they'll smash straight through us!"

Major Karen held a look of clear disapproval at Kaede's tone. However she didn't waste another second before bellowing out orders:

"SWIVEL RIGHT! REFUSE THE LINE! REFORM RANKS CENTERED ON ME! MOVE!"

'Refusing the line' was a classical tactical maneuver where troops reformed at a perpendicular angle to the main battle line in order to repel flanking attacks. Well-drilled in battlefield maneuvers, Weichsel's soldiers in blackened half-plate armor ran through the communication trenches before climbing up to reassemble their formations.

In just a few minutes, a new line anchored at the bastion that Kaede once stood on began to take shape. Nearly two hundred men gathered to stand behind a shallow communication trench that ran from the bastion all the way to the rear -- a mere thirty paces from the lake's shores.

More men were making the way up from further west, but they wouldn't get here in time.

The crystallizing ice bridge diverged and met firm ground in three locations. The frozen water looked thick enough to withstand even explosive shells. The top layer then transformed into compacted snow, just before the enemy vanguard skied across.

"WARDS UP!" Major Karen cried out from beside Kaede. "Legion Resistance!"

Platoon and company leaders soon joined in with their own spells, while Kaede brushed across her arm to activate the rest of her self-enhancement spells. Her body took on a stone-like consistency while rotating spellshields began to orbit. Her mind cleared as Mental Clarity pushed out all unfocused thoughts.

The first skiers were still making their way across the snow-and-ice bridges as they crouched down. They took aim with their repeating crossbows and swung the back-mounted levers to release rune-inscribed bolts.

A cascade of missiles flew out and into the Weichsen formation. Their low kinetic energy meant they mostly bounced off the armor of anyone they hit, but that didn't matter as the bolts began to detonate in fire and thunder on impact.

Explosions tore across the field as though a howitzer strike just hit the defensive front. The Resistance spells offered some protection against the elemental bombardment. However the sheer intensity still left many troops bloodied and dazed.

"HOLD VOLLEY! BOWS ONLY!" Kaede heard a captain cry out.

Weichsel's infantry predominantly used the steel-limbed arbalest as their ranged weapon of choice. However there were a few archers within each platoon who now took aim.

Kaede followed their lead as she pulled out her morphic blade, which she had left in its bow form. She drew one of five rune-inscribed arrows that Pascal made for her and notched it against a Northmen.

Nevertheless she could feel her reluctance to take aim at the vitals of real people. Her first shot was released in haste, and the arrow missed its mark by almost a full pace.

Concentrate! The Samaran girl berated herself as a second wave of skiers neared the shores.

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This is no time to hesitate. It's kill or be killed!

Even at a glance Kaede could tell that these new attackers were elite infantry. They wore crimson armor made from the fire-repellent hides of volcanic drakes, while their hands carried weapons that looked like two enclosed steel pipes glued together. A hand-pump extended from the back of the bottom pipe, while two tubes connected the assembly to a backpack.

Are those... flamethrowers? The familiar could hardly believe her eyes.

"SIPHONS!" A young lieutenant cried out with the shadow of terror in his voice.

"BY RANKS!" Major Karen was more steadfast as she swung her swordstaff forward. "VOLLEY!"

"Catalyst Dispel!"

"Lightning Blast!"

The first row of arbalesters took aim and released their bolts before crouching down, followed by the second and then third rank. Three waves of steel bolts shot out towards the new threat in quick succession. However massed volleys were far from optimal in countering troops in scattered formation.

A combination of Dispels and bolts brought down nearly twenty siphoneers. But many of the shots either missed or bounced off wards. Focused spellfire from the bastion's mages took down several more, however that still left almost half.

The remaining two dozen flamethrower infantry activated runes which made their skis accelerate into a dash. They soon reached the shore and made their way up the gentle slope.

Behind them followed at least a hundred huskarls, the professional retinue troops of the northern lords. Each of them was clad in wooly, chainmail-and-hide armor and holding a massive zweihander sword that looked capable of cleaving a horse in half.

A banner that flew among them caught Kaede's attention. It was the red dragon flag of the Kingdom of Vastergotland.

Kaede forced her gaze away from their deadly greatswords before nailing her sight to a siphoneer. With the aid of Mental Clarity sharpening her mind, she drew another rune-inscribed arrow and transfixed all attention onto her target.

She hardly even noticed as the Northmen began yelling their frenzied battle cries.

"SHOOT AT WILL!" Major Karen shouted. "KILL THE SIPHONS!"

Kaede felt as her awareness became one with the arrow before her fingers loosened. Her eyes traced the glowing missile in flight as it soared out alongside dispels and arrows from the Weichsen line.

The runic spell which tipped her shot triggered as soon as her target's Repulsion Field ward attempted to deflect the attack. The Scourge Catalyst Dispel then ripped through multiple magical defenses with increasing strength, clearing a path for the razor-sharp bodkin arrowhead as it plunged straight into the victim's upper thigh.

Her target lost his balance and crashed violently on the snowy bank. The siphoneer spun twice before landing headfirst into the snow. His right ski shattering to hurl back a jagged piece of ironwood.

Kaede drew a deep breath before drawing another arrow. Several more siphoneers had gone down in the interim, but there were still nearly twenty of them remaining.

Given the charge speed of ski troops, there simply wasn't time to reload the heavy arbalests. A battalion of Weichsel's infantry might fare well against a more conventional Northmen attack. But they were facing an onslaught of veteran and elite shock troops.

The siphoneers banked in a wide arc as they entered twenty-paces range. Their steel pipes pumped out deadly jets of liquid fire like strafing water guns...

Kaede released her second arrow at the same time.

The siphoneer targeting the Major's command squad hardly squirted before her arrow nailed him in the chest, just below the throat and near the center of the sniper's triangle. The crimson-clad warrior crashed into the snow, stumbling forward as he went before sliding to a stop less than five paces in front of Kaede, dead.

However, one kill was nowhere enough to change the course of the battle.

Soldiers all around screeched with agony as viscous flames sprayed over them. The liquid fire stuck to armor and skin alike, melting flesh even as more flowed between gaps in steel plating to burn what lay beneath. Troopers dropped to the ground and rolled through the snow to no avail, as melted water seemed to feed the very flames into ever greater strength.

Water-intensified napalm... Kaede thought as she watched a scene that could only come from hell itself. Who the devil gave Nordic Berserkers Greek Fire!?

It was even worse than that, as rimefire ate through mana like fuel. Wards such as Resistance which had protected them from the elemental bombardment earlier did less than nothing, as they combusted like paper to feed the flames.

One of the siphoneers had pumped an entire burst onto the bastion that Kaede once stood on. Now, she watched in horror as screaming men -- including the young lieutenant whom she had spoken to moments ago -- leaped off the structure like human torches. They flailed about in the snow with painful cries. However nothing they did could quench the burning rimefire that consumed them alive.

Then, as Kaede thought things could not grow any worse, hell's herald arrived in the form of a new battlecry. The noise came from far behind her this time, along the main line where a fresh Skagen attack of thousands pressed forward into a charge.

At that moment, a voice Kaede had long awaited finally rang through her mind. Unfortunately, its tone was anything but pleasant reassurance:

"<Order Major Karen to hold at all costs! Do you hear me, Kaede? Fight to the last! If the flank crumbles this entire army could be rolled up and destroyed!>"

That's impossible, Kaede thought even as she heard Pascal's stern voice.

Their line was already in tatters. Two companies, more than three hundred men in total, had been reduced to mere pockets of resistance. Two-thirds of the platoons were already routing after taking horrendous casualties from the rimefire bursts. The rest were wavering at best, utterly shaken by the screams of living corpses who flailed out in vain to quench the fires consuming them.

It was especially bad in the center, where only Kaede, the Major, and twenty or so others held their ground in the middle of a huge gap.

Only a dozen siphoneers remained standing. Some of them skied straight through their porous line, burning everything as they moved past the shallow trench. Yet this did little to quiet her apprehension, as the familiar now looked upon a mass charge by hundreds of Skagen ski infantry.

It felt like an unstoppable avalanche of death had rolled across the lake and onto their shores, led by bear-like men holding overgrown foe-chopping swords.

Kaede couldn't help but notice that her arms were trembling. Cold shivers travelled up her spine as she felt almost paralyzed by fear. Her body screamed at her to turn and flee but her eyes couldn't peel themselves away from the approaching wave of death.

It was just like last night, except her situation now was exponentially worse than merely meeting a fire-breathing monster. She faced a tide of Northmen bent on killing everyone here. And she couldn't imagine a single scenario where she could make it out of this alive.

What other choice do we have? Run? We'll be butchered!

No. Pascal wouldn't simply abandon her like this. He must be sending reinforcement even now, which meant that if they stood and fought, they might at least have a chance!

--Yet, to claim this logically was one thing. To overcome her natural inclinations was another matter entirely. Kaede felt sick in her stomach as her legs quivered like jelly. She needed to pass on Pascal's orders but her voice cracked the moment she tried to speak.

I have to do this!

The familiar was still struggling to reign in her fears when, in an instant, she felt as though her emotions had been disconnected. Without any more resistance, she turned to the redhead Major and voiced through hollowed tones completely devoid of humanity:

"Our orders are to fight to the last."

Major Karen blanched as she turned about. But she nevertheless nodded back, as though in grim acceptance that she... neither of them, would live to see past this day.

Recognition and respect passed between the two of them in an instant, before they turned away from each other.

The Major readied her swordstaff with both hands as her steady voice shouted desperately to rally the scattered remains of her battalion:

"YOU ARE SOLDIERS OF WEICHSEL! YOU WILL STAND YOUR GROUND AND FIGHT! HOLD FAST TO YOUR BROTHERS AND DEFEND YOUR HEARTHS FROM PLIGHT!"

Meanwhile, the girl from another world puzzled over a steel 'water gun' just a few paces out. It laid on the other side of a shallow trench where burning rimefire continued to float on pooled water, on the wrong side of her only protection against a wavefront of barbarian tide mere seconds away.

Kaede felt like an infantryman eyeing an abandoned heavy machine gun. It was the only medium that offered her a fighting chance. Twenty paces of fire in both directions would form a sweeping curtain of flames, plugging the hole in their line as surely as any fresh platoon.

What's the worst that could happen? Die?

Her decision came within the blink of an eye as she leaped over to pry the weapon off its dead owner.

She would have to get there before the lead skier. The bulky man clad in chainmail, hide, and rich furs charged across the snowy embankment and straight at her, while his hands raised his zweihander into the air like a looming executioner.

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