Rise of the Horde

308 Chapter 30The two sides eventually clash against each other with the Drakhars winning the initiative as their opponents didn’t know how to do battle with them because of the formation that was being utilized by the Drakhars. With five spears pointing directly at you, the Ereians were having a headache in trying to get close to their enemies and get them in the range of their weapons.

“Hold it steady!”

“Skewer them!”

The appointed leaders of each unit of the Drakhars shouted while coordinating with each other to maintain their cohesiveness with the other units who were with them. Not knowing how to properly fight their foes, the Ereian left flank continued to be pushed back by their opponents who were decimating their frontline. The Drakhars continuously marched forward in a steady pace and destroyed the opposition without much difficulty as their advantage with the range of their weapons proved to be lethal to their foes who wielded swords and shields into the battle.

The Ereian left flank continued to be push back by the Drakhars. Some of the soldiers of Ounephes tried to go under the first wall of spears only to be skewered by the next ones which were lying just a meter away from the frontmost of their enemy.

Ounephes soon noticed that their left flank were losing the engagement which prompted him to send in the archers from both flanks to go and support their buckling left flank. The archers who were positioned on the left flank of the Ereian army were quick to provide support to their allies as their rain of arrows managed to make some of their foes fall. Both units of archers from the opposition were letting down a volley of arrows upon the Drakhars but many of their arrows were deflected by the spears of their enemies who were at the rear of their formation which were at an angle of forty-five degrees providing a cover for their allies who were at the front.

The Drakhars remained unperturbed by the rain of arrows as they continuously marched forward, for each one of them that fall due to enemy arrow fire they would take two or more enemies in exchange. Even with the aid of the archers, the left flank of Ounephes’ army continued to falter against the face of their foes who courageously brave through the rain of arrows.

Seeing that his move wasn’t as effective as he thought it would be, Ounephes sent in the cavalry which were positioned on their flank and was about to send in also the ones on their right flank when a sudden sound of a battle horn echoed from the enemy battleline.

Zaraki received the approval from the chieftain to march the entirety of the Drakhars forward and end the battle as soon as possible. The collective sound of the Drakhars’s footsteps as they marched forward began to unnerved the remaining Ereian infantry who were yet to join in the fray as they knew that they didn’t stand a chance against their foes in a head-on clash which was already shown to them by their allies who were desperately trying to repel the enemy right flank.

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Ounephes frowned after seeing the advance of the rest of the enemy army, “Let’s give them this battle… Sound the retreat…” he turned his steed around and headed towards their camp. He was confident that if their enemies would press on and chased after them to lay siege upon their camp, he would give them a thorough beating with his magic. Ounephes didn’t want to expose all his cards on the table just yet as he still needed to figure out what are in the hands of their opponent before he would go all in.

The sound of retreat from their enemies surprised Khao’khen as he didn’t expect that despite their advantage in numbers, the enemy commander was still hesitant to give a full-on clash. “Halt the advance… There’s no need to chase after them since it might be just a trap set by the enemy commander to lure us in.” Khao’khen advised Zaraki who was waiting for his decision on how they should proceed.

Hearing the sound of retreat from their side, the Drakhars were confused since they were winning the clash and they should press on with their momentum. The sergeants who were in charge of the detachments who were in the right flank of the Drakhars shouted for the halt of their advance as they allowed their enemies to disengage from the fight and retreat. They shouted orders for their soldiers to begin their withdrawal from the field and return to their camp.

The day ended with no more battles occurring as both sides retreated to their camps to count their losses in the previous battle. Ounephes’ army suffered more than four hundred casualties with an additional nine hundred wounded while the Drakhars only suffered a bit more than a hundred casualties and four hundred wounded. It was an overwhelming victory to the side of the Drakhars as they proved that they are the better warriors over their adversaries.

Ounephes inside his camp began a counsel with his generals to figure out on how they should engage their enemy and their unique formation which was formidable to the eyes of their soldiers and even able to brave through a rain of arrows with only minimal losses. “Any ideas on how we should do the next battle against them?” Ounephes shifted his gaze from the sand table in the center towards his generals who accompanied him but his words seemed to have fallen to deaf ears.

After waiting for a few moments, a voice finally broke the silence of the room, “Maybe we can try and pin down their formation while other detachments would try to flank them or go for their rear…But this would need us to sacrifice many of our soldiers since the formation of our enemies is strong in their front…” the commander of the unit of cavalry which were positioned at their left flank suggested but the eyes of the other generals were mocking him since the strategy that he recommended wasn’t no different from the ones that any Ereian army frequently used in battles.

Swarming the enemy till they break by taking advantage of their numbers has always been the way of the Ereian to do battle. And Ounephes wasn’t a fan of such a strategy since he saw it as an unwise way of fighting and primitive which would cause them to suffer many unneeded casualties if they just had some proper plans to do battle instead of just all out attacking in a swarm to try and overrun their enemies’ lines.