Well, Lorist admitted that using the word "war" was perhaps too generous a description for these two lords. A more accurate term would be an imminent village-level brawl. Just look at the equipment on both sides — only four or five of them were mounted, and they were all leading farmers as soldiers. Not only were they dressed in rags, but most of them were clutching farming tools in their hands…
As a neutral party, Lorist prepared to sit back and enjoy the spectacle of this scuffle. Unfortunately, those two lords didn't seem to care much about their audience's feelings — after nearly an hour, they were still trading insults.
Lorist grew impatient. If they were going to fight, they should just get on with it. After the fight, they could move aside and let people pass. But standing here blocking the road without actually fighting, just hurling insults at each other — what was the point? It was like hogging a privy without actually using it.
"Pate, go ask them whether they're going to fight or not. If they're not, tell them to clear the road and let us through first."
If not for the five large wagons loaded with supplies, Lorist would have simply led the horse archer squad straight across the wilderness instead of using the main road. But there was no helping it — replacement arrows for the horse archers, camping gear and cooking equipment for over a hundred people, provisions and oats for the horses' feed — Sedkamp had packed it all into five full wagons. It made Lorist sigh and remark that if it were just him and Pate alone, there would be no need for any of this hassle. A couple of small travel bags thrown over the horse's back and they could set off. The more people you brought along, the more complications arose. Lorist rather regretted agreeing to Josk's request to bring the horse archers along.
The squad Pate led this time numbered only ninety-seven men including himself, falling short of the full complement of one hundred and twenty. But to accommodate the supply wagons, Lorist had also brought twenty guards. Ruhl and Mod had insisted on coming along no matter what, so Lorist ordered them to take charge of the wagons along with the guards.
Pate returned with a look of bewilderment on his face. "My lord, they want us to stay put here and wait until they've sorted out their winner, after which they'll collect a toll from us…" Pate reported.
"What?" Lorist glanced back at the five large wagons and understood — those two idiot lords ahead had mistaken his group for the escort of a merchant caravan.
"Damn, charging *me* a toll?" Lorist laughed.
"Pate, take the horse archer squad up there. You've got ten minutes to drive them off — oh, and grab a couple of them. Find out why they're fighting." Lorist gave the order in a flat tone.
"Yes, my lord." Pate let out a sharp whistle, and the horse archer squad lined up in two columns behind him, spurring their horses forward in a charge.
When they reached within a hundred paces of the two lords' battle lines, the horse archers reined in, unslung the longbows hanging from their saddles, and nocked arrows while still mounted. At Pate's commands of "left!" and "right!", they loosed a volley each toward the two lords' forces.
Neither lord had even considered the possibility of being attacked from Lorist's side — what merchant caravan skipped the spectacle and jumped into the fray instead? A storm of arrows threw their formations into chaos, and wails of pain erupted everywhere…
Pate led the horse archers through three volleys before whistling once more. The horse archers stowed their longbows, drew their longswords, and split into two groups that charged straight into the two lords' ranks. Just as expected, both forces collapsed. The moment the horse archers bore down on them, the two lords wheeled their horses around and fled. Their soldiers scattered in every direction, a panicked mob.
Pat praised them: "Our horse archers are incredible — they broke several hundred men without a single casualty. No wonder my lord insisted on forming a horse archer corps…"
Before he could finish, there was a loud *thud*. He turned to look and saw Lorist had fallen headfirst off his horse. Pat and the guards were horrified: "My lord! My lord, what happened…?"
Lorist climbed to his feet, covered in dust and looking thoroughly bedraggled, and waved them off. "I'm fine, I'm fine — I just missed the stirrup and slipped off, that's all…"
"What the hell! *That's* a horse archer?" Lorist felt as though ten thousand grass mud horses had trampled across his heart. What he had just witnessed had literally knocked him off his horse. "Those are mounted longbowmen, plain and simple! What the hell has Jostinck been doing training them…?"
Pete brought a few prisoners forward. "My lord, we've gotten the full story. Apparently, over the past half year, the ferry crossing here has seen a steady stream of merchant caravans from various noble houses. Some Viscount named Dawolf set up a toll post at the crossing and has been raking in so much toll money his hands can barely keep up. The two lords here got jealous and tried to copy him—they wanted to set up their own toll gate on this stretch of road leading to the ferry. But this road happens to run right along the border between their territories, so both claimed the right to set the toll. They agreed to settle it here today with a fight."
Well, sorry for interrupting these two lords' little duel. If they had anyone to blame, it was themselves for picking a spot that just happened to be directly blocking Lorist's path.
"When was the toll gate at the ferry set up? How many guards are posted there? What's their combat strength like?" Lorist asked one of the prisoners who looked like a squad leader, since he was wearing a half-body leather armor that made him look considerably better than the other ragged captives.
"About a month and a half ago, my lord," the prisoner answered quickly. "There's a small squad of garrison soldiers guarding the ferry. They used to be part of Viscount Dawolf's newly established town garrison force, but the viscount reassigned them to the crossing to collect tolls. I honestly don't know how strong they are in a fight, but their equipment is quite good—they even have several sets of iron armor…"
Iron armor? Something clicked in Lorist's mind. "Ruhel, Modde, come here for a moment," he called.
"The garrison soldiers came to arrest us and said we were horse bandits…" Ruhel said.
"Pete, take your mounted archer squad and round up the entire garrison squad at the ferry. Pat, bring Ruhel and Modde along to identify them—if they're the same garrison soldiers who attacked you, hang every last one of them at the ferry crossing…" Lorist told Pete and Pat. He had no intention of sitting through another display of so-called mounted archery.
"Yes, my lord. We'll set out immediately." Pete paused, then asked, "And what about these prisoners, my lord?"
The prisoners before them were trembling. Having just heard Lorist order that the garrison soldiers at the ferry be hanged, they feared they were next.
"My lord, spare our lives…" Several prisoners knelt before Lorist's horse, weeping and begging for mercy.
"Let them go. Someone — go to the wagons and bring some wound medicine and bandages. Give it to them and tell them to patch up the injured over there. Let's move out," Lorist said.
The ferry crossing ahead was less than five li away. When Lorist arrived with his five wagons, he saw dozens of corpses strewn haphazardly across the ground, along with several dozen prisoners crouching with their hands clasped behind their heads. Rahl and Modi were leading a group of horse archers in constructing wooden gallows.
Lorist noticed several horse archers wrapped in bandages and asked Pete and Pat, who were coming to meet him: "What happened? Any casualties?"
"Six lightly wounded. Nothing serious — they'll be fine in a dozen or so days. The problem was that some garrison soldiers had hidden inside the buildings, and our men were caught off guard when we went in to search," Pete replied.
"My lord, we've already sent for the ferries from the other side..." Pat said.
Lorist gazed around. More than half a year ago, he had first set foot in the Northland from this very spot, and now, returning to the scene, he found that great changes had taken place. Two additional ferry boats had been added at the crossing on the opposite bank, and on this side a group of bare-backed boatmen were straining to turn four large capstans, hauling four ferry boats across from the other shore. Hmm, it seemed that Baron Shulas on the opposite bank had made a fortune from ferry crossing fees and had purchased two more boats.
"When we were killing those garrison soldiers earlier, all the boatmen jumped into the river. It took forever to call them back. I promised to give each of them one Imperial silver coin..." Pat said.
Lorist nodded. Seeing how hard the boatmen were working, he felt the small silver coin had been well spent.
The last time he had been here, the place had been nothing but wasteland. In just half a year, a small town had already been built on the distant hill. However, the town was heavily fortified at the moment — the walls were packed with people wielding swords and raising spears, pointing and gesticulating toward the ferry crossing. It was clear that the battle at the ferry had alerted the town's garrison that Lorist and his men were hostiles, and they had gone on high alert, arrayed in battle formation.
Rahl and Modi had already erected several dozen wooden gallows and were forcing the prisoners onto them. They had just hanged a few when the remaining prisoners, seeing that death was inescapable, erupted with the will to survive. They suddenly sprang up and bolted toward the town en masse. Unfortunately for them, Pete had been prepared. With a single command, the mounted longbowmen loosed a volley of arrows, turning every last one of them into pincushions.
Cries and curses echoed from the walls of the small town in the distance, but Lorist couldn't have cared less. Right now, he was berating Rahl and Modi: "…what am I going to do with you two, huh? Are you stupid or what? First you don't bind them, then you don't move them somewhere out of sight of the gallows before hanging them one by one — no, you just hang their companions right in front of their eyes. Even pigs would try to run! Now they're all dead. What do we do? Dead or not, hang them up there anyway. They dared to ambush and kill passing messengers — the audacity… Pete, write their crimes down on the sign below so that anyone passing by knows why we hanged them!"
"Your wish is my command, my Lord."
On the opposite ferry crossing, a squad of fully armed guards had appeared. They had witnessed everything that had happened on this side, and it was only understandable that they had strengthened their defenses against any possible surprise.
"Pat, take a group across the river first and inform Baron Shulas that an old friend has arrived. Tell him there's no need for all this tension — I'll pay him a visit once I've crossed."
"My Lord, perhaps you should cross first," Pat suggested.
"No need." Lorist pointed toward the small town in the distance. "They might still be cooking up some scheme over there. I intend to teach them another lesson."
Ferrying over a hundred men and horses along with five large carriages across the river took more than three hours. Lorist was the last to board. Just as only the final seven or eight people remained on this side of the crossing, nearly a hundred men burst out from the small town on the other side, brandishing swords and spears, charging toward the ferry with murderous intent.
Lorist's javelins and the arrows from Pete and several other mounted bowmen turned the twenty-odd bravest who charged at the front into corpses lying in the wild. Immediately after, Lorist and Pete spurred their horses forward, spears leveled, and plunged into the crowd. With a flurry of spear thrusts and sword slashes, the remaining thirty-odd lucky survivors fled back to the small town screaming like ghosts, bolting the gates shut — it looked like they wouldn't dare come out again even if their lives depended on it.
"What a rush!" Pete flicked the blood from the tip of his spear.
"Let's go. The ferry's here — let's board," Lorist said.
On the ferry.
"Lorist, when I was studying in
Lorist was instilling in Pete the correct concept of horse archers and how to build a Mongol-style horse archer corps: "They could assemble and disperse at will, appearing and disappearing like ghosts. Once, they faced an enemy ten times their number and far more powerful, yet after four months they achieved a complete victory with minimal losses. Whenever the enemy split off a force to give chase, they would always lure it into traps, using mobile shooting to stay out of reach while wiping the pursuers clean. The book said their tactic was called 'kite fighting' — attacking the enemy from range without ever engaging in melee..."
"My Lord, I understand what you mean. You want to build exactly this kind of horse archer unit," Pete said.
Lorist nodded with delight. Finally, someone was getting it.
"It's a pity, though — there's simply no way we can do it. The horse archers you described can only exist in legends, in books. They're impossible in reality," Pete said with genuine regret.
"Why?" Lorist was surprised.
"My Lord, we don't have suitable bows. In truth, the hunting bows that nobles use at their grand hunts can fire from the back of a galloping horse, but their range and power are limited — thirty or forty meters at most. That's fine for shooting pheasants and hares, but completely useless against magical beasts or on the battlefield. Among all bows, the longbow has the greatest range and destructive power. Within a hundred meters, a direct shot can threaten even a Gold-ranked knight. Although it lacks the raw draw strength of a hunting bow — which fires heavy arrows for use against magical beasts — the hunting bow's range is only half that of a longbow."
Pete began educating Lorist on the finer points of archery: "The longbow is universally recognized as the fastest-firing and most lethal bow. It's the primary ranged force for both defense and offense. However, the longbow is unsuitable for use on horseback. Even while mounted on a stationary horse, drawing the bow and maintaining balance is extremely difficult. The current horse archer squad's ability to shoot from horseback is already the result of enormous effort by Instructor Jost. Of everyone, only Instructor Jost can fire repeatedly from a galloping horse — I can manage three shots at most before losing my balance."
"If we don't use longbows, then we can't match the enemy's longbowmen in range. Charging too close to compensate would expose us to concentrated fire with devastating casualties. So to build the kind of horse archer unit you described, the first problem to solve is finding a bow that can be used on horseback while matching the longbow's range and power. The second is that we don't have suitable warhorses. Not a single breed of warhorse on the Galentea Continent can meet the requirements for the mounts you described," Pete said, voicing the second difficulty.
"…?" Lorist was confused.
Pete explained, "My Lord, the mounts for the horse archer corps you described need to have robust builds and exceptional stamina, plus strong recovery, the ability to cover long distances, agile footwork, and quick reflexes. They have to be capable of both sprinting across flat terrain and navigating mountain paths to outrun pursuers. On top of that, they need to be hardy — undeterred by cold or heat, with strong constitutions that resist illness. Most importantly, they need to have good appetites, able to eat and digest everything from rough forage to fine grain. We simply don't have any horse like that on the Galentea Continent."
"Is he talking about Mongolian horses?" Lorist thought. The Mongols had swept across the entire Eurasian steppe on Mongolian horses, and those weren't even a particularly rare breed. "The Galentea Continent doesn't have anything like Mongolian horses? Our species resources are that poor?" He felt distinctly disheartened.
Pete drove the point home even further: "My Lord, look at our own mounts. The Northland horses are about average compared to other breeds — they're easy enough to keep, but as mounts for the kind of horse archer corps you envision, they're nowhere near adequate. Of our five wagons this time, three are packed with oats and fine grain. That's because I'm worried about not being able to find provisions along the way and having these Northland horses lose condition. Once they start losing weight and you pile long-distance marches on top of that, these horses will be utterly useless.
For the kind of horse archer corps you're describing, if you're using Northland horses as mounts, each rider would need seven or eight horses for rotation, plus large quantities of fine grain to keep them in shape. Take the example you gave — over four months of fighting with a single battalion of two thousand men, you'd wear out at least ten thousand mounts. Whether Zenor horses or Barigali horses, they're both excellent long-distance runners with superb endurance, but their feeding requirements are even more demanding and fussy than Northland horses."
Fair enough — Pete made a very solid point. What Lorist wanted to build was a horse archer corps, not a horse-trading business. Never mind whether one man could actually manage seven or eight horses; if he went down that road, the first person he met on the road would be asking how much he wanted for them.
Lorist rubbed the back of his nose, feeling thoroughly embarrassed. He'd wanted to build a horse archer corps without even properly understanding what bows and mounts were required. If Pete hadn't spelled it all out, he would have gone right on blaming Instructor Jost for not trying hard enough. He could only blame the instructors at
It would have to do for now. Once things settled down, he'd find someone to look into whether they could develop a recurve composite bow — it was much shorter than a longbow and should be well-suited for use on horseback, though he had no idea whether its range and stopping power could match a longbow. Lorist sat contemplating these matters on the ferry.
…