Chapter 1312

Yan Liu took command again of the surviving soldiers and ordered them to loose arrows. At this moment, he had lost his left arm, but it didn't matter—the wound had already been staunched with a medicinal agent.

"We absolutely cannot let them cross the Colin Fortress! Loose arrows!"

"Anyone still alive, get up and fight!"

"Let these foreigners witness the spirit of the men of Emperor Tianwu!"

"They may breach the fortress, but they can never break us, because they cannot conquer our spirit!"

On the city wall, the soldiers nocked and loosed arrows in an endless stream. Some of the wounded whose injuries were not heavy carried box after box of arrows up from the temporary storeroom beneath the wall. The rain of arrows fell in profusion. Although most of the cavalry and soldiers wore battle armor with decent defensive properties, there were always a few arrows that found their mark—even if only at the joints of the armor.

Worse still, they aimed directly at the warhorses beneath the cavalry; once a horse was wounded and lost its balance, the rider would be thrown from the saddle.

Even though the Holy Kingdom had ample resources, they had not been able to outfit every soldier in armor, let alone the warhorses—soldiers alone didn't have enough to go around, so how could they spare armor for horses?

Forging a set of barding for a warhorse, to say nothing of how the burden on the horse would slow its charge, a single set of horse armor would consume the materials needed for two suits of soldier armor. By that calculation, a Ma Pi could be brought to market in less than two years, but a soldier—from birth to adulthood, and the subsequent training—required at least twenty years!

Which is light and which is heavy, the answer is plain at a glance.

In the stubborn fighting, most of the Holy Kingdom soldiers believed that a single charge would be enough to rout the soldiers of the Eternal Night Legion. However, they had gravely underestimated these warriors who were filled with the resolve to die.

A single Eternal Night soldier dared to step forward, staking his own insignificant life for a chance to slay the enemy, using the warblade in his hands to cripple the warhorse beneath his foe. When this kind of will spread from one man to the next, it became exceedingly difficult for the Holy Kingdom cavalry to break through in a single push.

Given the limited space itself, even if a single Eternal Night soldier couldn't unhorse two riders, he would drag one rider down with him. Coupled with the sharp arrows raining down from above, the cavalry's casualties far exceeded those of the shield-and-spear infantry.

The General of the Holy Kingdom quickly noticed this situation and hurriedly ordered the archer formations to move up in support. But the Eternal Night Legion, relying on the fortress, could withstand most of the arrow fire; even when an occasional soldier was hit, the enemy's cavalry losses were far greater.

Soon, the General of the Holy Kingdom had the horn sounded to order the cavalry to retreat. His heart was bleeding, and his eyes burned with fury.

This time, he had brought only four formations of ten thousand cavalry in total, but the battle had only just begun, and he feared he had already lost over five thousand excellent Holy Knights—though the enemy's casualties were about the same.

The cavalry were the only threat to the Eternal Night Legion, and their casualties were far fewer than the enemy's—roughly only around two thousand, give or take. Among them, some soldiers felt they could still be saved if treated in time.

The cavalry units began to withdraw one after another. Next to come forward was a combination of shield-and-spear infantry and archers: shields and spears in the front ranks, with archers supporting from behind. At first, this truly gave the Eternal Night Legion soldiers trouble, forcing them to retreat.

But soon, the Eternal Night Legion fell back near the breach and kept hurling down massive boulders from above, smashing and wounding large numbers of the shield-and-spear infantry. Without the protection of the front-rank shield-bearers, the Eternal Night Legion soldiers surged out once more. Facing those archers, it was almost a slaughter; many archers were forced to fight with the swords at their waists. Yet against the Eternal Night Legion, filled with the resolve to die, they cared nothing for their own wounds—as long as the injury wasn't serious, they paid it no heed at all.

Even if it meant death, they would fight with everything they had to take one enemy with them!

The fierce fighting between the two sides grew increasingly intense. Several times, under the main general's organization, the Holy Kingdom battle formations nearly broke through the breach, but were quickly driven back by the frenzied, death-defying Eternal Night Legion.

During this time, both sides suffered countless casualties. The fierce battle continued for two hours. With no result, the Holy Kingdom's main general, seeing morale gradually begin to flag, had no choice but to order the horn-blowers to sound the withdrawal.

The Holy Kingdom's great army retreated like a receding tide, but the Eternal Night soldiers seized this chance to keep shooting arrows, claiming the last few lives. The ground at the breach of the Colin Fortress had been raised by nearly two meters, for it was piled high with the corpses of both sides.