novelraw Chapter 34: Crossing the River (2)
Chapter 34: Crossing the River (2)
Actually, by the seventh day of the river crossing, most of the troops had already crossed over.
But that very afternoon, Iron Wall's scout riders had detected an elite cavalry unit entering the kingdom's border fortress for rest and reorganization.
Henwil knew time was running short—they could encounter the kingdom's elite cavalry as early as tomorrow.
That night, all four floating bridges were put to use, accelerating the crossing process.
This resulted in many people falling into the river, though fortunately the armor had already been sent to the opposite bank.
The soldiers were crossing lightly equipped, so not many drowned.
The crossing continued until dawn, but there were still over two thousand people who hadn't made it across.
They couldn't wait until nightfall now—they had to continue crossing during daylight.
Border Army scout cavalry spotted the situation and immediately understood what was happening.
They promptly launched flare signals to relay the information back.Henwil urged Fabio to go first, but the officer insisted on staying.
Henwil estimated the kingdom's elite cavalry would arrive by noon at the latest.
But these two thousand-plus people couldn't possibly cross quickly!
The floating bridges had limited load capacity, so they couldn't risk putting too many people on them.
The bridges swayed and wobbled, making rapid passage unrealistic.
What made things worse was that more than half of the remaining two thousand people were cavalry.
With both men and horses, the bridges' load capacity became even more constrained.
Additionally, the warhorses needed to be calmly guided by their knights to slowly cross the shaking bridges.
By the time this thousand-plus cavalry finished crossing, the kingdom's elite cavalry would likely have already arrived.
Thinking of this, Henwil immediately pushed the reserve rafts into the water, having infantry board them to slowly paddle across.
Not being specialized crossing troops, even though they had practiced during the large penetration operation, they didn't dare move too quickly now.
The two-hundred-meter river width took nearly an hour to cross at this pace.
But things improved once they reached the opposite bank—they tied ropes to the rafts and paddled back.
For the next crossing, people on the other side could pull the ropes to assist.
Henwil took several hundred men to dismantle tents, taking everything that could be carried.
Everything was loaded onto rafts and sent across with both people and goods.
Finally, after the cavalry finished crossing, there were still several hundred people left.
Henwil called everyone to immediately board the floating bridges while cutting the ropes connected to the wooden piles on the western bank.
As they could already feel the tremors of approaching cavalry, Henwil ordered people on the bridges to quickly untie all ropes securing the underwater anchor piles.
Without their mooring and stabilization, the current began pushing the floating bridges.
Since the eastern shore still had ropes secured, this caused one end of the bridges to drift toward the river center.
Then, under the water's force, the bridges swung lengthwise against the eastern bank.
Everyone lay flat on the bridges, securing themselves and not daring to move, fearing the structures might capsize or collapse.
Just then, Henwil saw the kingdom's elite cavalry on the opposite shore—shock cavalry with red capes.
Arrayed in orderly formation under their commander's banner on the river's western bank, they silently watched the group now dozens of meters from shore.
Their silent solemnity created palpable pressure that even the river couldn't block.
Fabio and others began cheering, with some soldiers even laughing and shouting insults across the water.
But Henwil shouted urgently: "Watch out! They're about to shoot!"
No sooner had he spoken than the cavalry commander raised his hand, and the row of riders behind him uniformly took bows from their saddles.
"Into the water! Use the rafts for cover!"
After shouting this, Henwil rolled into the icy, bone-chilling river water, feeling the vibrations through the raft above.
Henwil held his breath for over a minute before surfacing on the raft's opposite side.
By now, the raft resembled a cactus—completely covered with densely packed arrows.
Looking around, he saw many rafts had soldiers pinned to them, with bodies floating in the river.
The enemy continued firing volley after volley at the rafts.
Henwil could only take a deep breath and continue hiding beneath the raft.
After coming up for air twice more, Henwil felt riverbed silt beneath his feet and emerged to find himself only four or five meters from shore.
The opposite side had stopped shooting now, so Henwil swam directly to the bank.
Just as shield-bearing soldiers pulled him ashore, Henwil saw Fabio wrapped in a blanket, jumping and shouting: "Organize archers! Return fire!"
Henwil took a blanket offered by a soldier and ran to Fabio: "Enough, sir! It's pointless!
Our successful crossing is already the biggest blow to them—why waste arrows?"
"Hmph! They're getting off too easily!"
After changing clothes, Henwil found Fabio organizing people to remove bodies from rafts and collect the arrows.
Seeing Henwil approach, Fabio held up an arrow: "Tsk tsk tsk! Truly worthy of the Night Falcon Knights.
Extremely wealthy—even using heavy-tipped armor-piercing arrows! These aren't cheap!"
Henwil took the arrow, examining the over two-inch-long arrowhead.
Now he understood why their arrows were so powerful—able to penetrate human bodies and pin people to the rafts.
Fabio sighed: "Such a pity! We were so close to complete success, yet we lost nearly a hundred warriors!"
Henwil thought to himself: Because you couldn't keep your mouths shut! They were about to give up, but your provocation made them unleash that fierce volley.
Because of the crossing, they'd removed their armor, leaving them virtually naked against the arrows.
Nearly a hundred dead, plus many wounded—with this era's terrible medical standards, half the wounded would still die.
Doing the math, they'd lost over two hundred people just to vent anger—a completely pointless loss.
Fabio showed no regret whatsoever, instead excitedly saying: "We've actually battled the Night Falcon Knights!
And retreated completely intact! This achievement would be rare even among the elite infantry corps of various kingdoms!"
Hah!
Is that how you put lipstick on a pig?
Henwil asked: "Sir, what exactly is the Night Falcon Cavalry? I haven't heard of them."
Fabio corrected: "Knight order, not cavalry! They're one of Ika Kingdom's elite forces.
They maintain six thousand members, with about a thousand being knights.
Even their squad leaders are at Knight Rank, and the rest have received formal knight training.
They're an extremely powerful shock knight order!
No infantry regiment dares withstand their charge without cover protection.
Like Billie Kingdom's Red Eagle Knights, they're elite forces—true battlefield deciders.
Our duchy has always wanted to establish a knight order.
But so far, we've only managed to assemble a two-thousand-strong unit.
With only about three hundred knights, we're completely incomparable to these true knight orders!"
Saying this, Fabio pulled Henwil along: "Alright! We've finally returned! Now we need to rest properly!"
Henwil glanced back at the solemn cavalry on the opposite shore.
This is the kind of army I want!