Chapter 119: The Battle Begins

Generally speaking, a night raid in war does not mean quietly killing the enemy while they are asleep in the dead of night; rather, it means the attacking side uses certain methods to suddenly startle the majority of the sleeping enemy, causing chaos. The attacking side then exploits their own prepared advantage, utilizing more organized formations and better-equipped weapons and armor to launch a one-sided massacre against the panicked enemy.

This tactic cannot be used just whenever one wants. First, the soldiers of the attacking side must be elite, and they must be able to see in the night; otherwise, before the battle even begins, the army that was originally concentrated will scatter on its own.

Second, they must be veterans seasoned in battle who will not be affected by the surrounding chaos, capable of calmly and steadily killing those enemy troops who lack organization but are running about in a frenzy, all while not breaking ranks themselves.

Third, intelligence must be sufficient, requiring an understanding of the basic situation of the enemy camp.

And all of the above, the Dwarves possessed. By the time Allen returned to the Dwarf camp from Thranduil's camp, it was already approaching evening.

After Balin and Dain learned that the Elves had agreed to the plan they proposed, they began organizing the Dwarf warriors in the camp to prepare for battle. Because it was a surprise attack tactic, no great commotion was made in the camp. The Dwarves kept a close watch on the Easterling camp, but were the Easterlings not also keeping a close watch on the Dwarf camp?

At this time, any abnormal movement in the Dwarf camp would be equivalent to telling the Easterlings, "I am going to attack you, get ready."

To avoid having their plan discovered by the Easterlings in advance, Balin and Dain ultimately decided to take only three hundred of the most elite Dwarf veterans, and issued each a black cloak to cover their plate armor, which might otherwise shine in the moonlight. After all, Dwarves have the weakest short-distance explosive speed of the three races; while their short legs make their lower bodies stable, they also prevent them from striding out to move quickly.

Since they cannot move quickly, concealment becomes exceptionally important.

Under the gazes of their younger kin, the Dwarf veterans silently made various preparations for war; to them, this was merely a small interlude in their long lives.

Age can absolutely be taken as a representation of combat power for Dwarves. Their physical fitness reaches its peak around the age of forty, and this peak period can be maintained for two hundred years or longer—a duration sufficient for them to hone their combat skills to a master level.

It is only in the ten years before a Dwarf dies that their physical fitness rapidly declines and their appearance ages quickly, but from beginning to end, they never experience baldness. Of course, this condition assumes the Dwarves are diligent in exercise, rather than obsessed with a life of ease and delicious food.

One interesting example is that there were two members of the Expedition who were bald. One was Dwalin; his baldness and the battle tattoos on his head were a matter of his own interest, not caused by illness or physical constitution, because Dwalin lived to be 340 years old. In this period of the Third Age, he could be considered a quite long-lived Dwarf, which might also have a lot to do with him being a member of the royal house of Durin.

Because most Dwarves value their beards exceptionally highly but do not place as much importance on their hair, Dwalin's behavior was not particularly strange. If you were in a city in Middle-earth and saw an adult Dwarf with thick hair but a smooth, beardless face, you should be careful—he is likely not a proper Dwarf, such as a certain fellow who took a fancy to an Elf and was even able to capture the heart of a female Elf in the end.

However, there was another person in the Expedition who was also bald, and that was Bombur, the fattest Dwarf in the Expedition. His "brilliant" hairstyle was not what he wanted, but was caused by his excessive obesity. Of course, early obesity does not affect the movements of Dwarves; at this time, Bombur was quite agile and reliable in battle.

However, in Allen's memory, because Bombur acquired a large amount of wealth after the Battle of the Lonely Mountain, he lived an extremely comfortable and extravagant life at his home in the Lonely Mountain thereafter. By the year 3018 of the Third Age, Bombur was so fat that he was unrecognizable, and he was even unable to walk on his own. At that time, he needed six young Dwarves to use all their strength to lift him just so he could barely move around his own home.

It is evident how terrifying obesity is for Dwarves. From this, one can also see that although Dwarves have good resistance to evil, they are no different from other races when it comes to beautiful things.

Watching the Dwarf warriors who had already begun to silently make preparations for battle, Allen also gathered his own men together. The Cavalry who had followed Allen to the camp had already rested for an entire afternoon, and the fatigue caused by the journey had been swept away.

As for Allen, ever since he began practicing his "Qi Technique," physical fatigue rarely appeared, and the "Qi Technique" Allen practiced even had a good restorative effect on his spirit.

And as for Holimion and the other Twilight Knights, their powerful physical fitness meant they would not care about this little bit of fatigue at all.

In his quarters, Allen informed the captains of his various Cavalry squads of the plan, letting them prepare for battle in advance.

Time pushed forward second by second amidst the preparations of all parties. When the sky had just turned dark, Allen began to have his men leave the camp one squad at a time. After all, no matter how intelligent horses are, they might make some large commotion during movement; one or two would be fine, but if they were concentrated together, it would be hard not to attract the enemy's attention.

These Cavalry would travel ten kilometers south along the edge of the forest, where Woodland Elves would be ready to meet them. Allen's Cavalry subordinates were all of Kujit origin; their previous standard of living was very poor, and quite a few had night blindness. But ever since following Allen, if nothing else, their standard of diet had risen sharply to a certain level, and night blindness no longer existed.

Under the guidance of the moonlight, after they left the camp for a distance, they began to drive their horses toward the designated meeting point. Allen was the first to leave the camp; he had to make some preparations at the gathering point.

By the time Dain arrived at the assembly point prepared by the Woodland Elves with three hundred Dwarf warriors at midnight, Allen had already taken his men and, using the bridge prepared by the Elves, left the area to scout the situation of the Easterlings.

Thranduil used boats with Magic, and in a very short time, prepared a very stable temporary bridge in the river channel. If this bridge was no longer needed, one only needed to pull up the wooden planks on the small boats and then row these flat-bottomed boats away.

Being able to prepare so many boats so quickly was also thanks to Allen's information; the Elves, who were always ready to provide support, had prepared quite a large number of boats.

At this time, using this bridge, the Dwarf and Elf troops crossed the Running River and began to set off toward the Easterling camp. They would arrive before the Easterling camp when the Great Hope Star shone bright.

As Easterling Warlords, Hamish and Kurda had been living quite well during this period. Most of the work Ashur had assigned to them recently was very easy and full of rewards.

Although they were required to turn over half of the slaves and spoils obtained according to Ashur's demands, how much constituted "half" was still up to them to decide.

As long as it was not too outrageous, it would be fine—provided, of course, that they gave a share to Ashur's messenger.

They were already well-versed in such matters. As for why Ashur asked them to act a day early, these two were also well aware. Forced by Ashur's powerful strength, and coupled with the fact that they had indeed obtained quite a few benefits recently, the two did not argue much, obediently setting off on the path ahead together, and arrived at the east bank of the Long Lake one after the other, where they built their respective camps.

The Easterling camp was actually very crude. One part was composed of the War Chariots they drove huddled together, and the other part was made of wood they had plundered, plus the day-and-night work of the slaves, to form a huge circle. Everyone lived inside this circle, and there was no quality of life to speak of. Most of the slaves slept huddled together, and even those soldiers did not have much space for activity.

The advantage of this kind of camp is that it can be built extremely quickly; for the Easterlings, who were skilled through practice, they could build the camp in a very short time. But the disadvantage is also very obvious: the defensive effect of this kind of camp is relatively poor, and for an enemy that is prepared, it is very easy to break through.

It is just that the Easterling camp often had a huge number of people, and their ferocity—daring to launch an attack on the enemy just by picking up a blade—was enough to make up for the camp's lack of defense.

Usually, the camp wagons of the Warlord or chieftain would be in the very center of the camp. On one hand, the center is the safest place; on the other hand, it also allows them to assemble the troops in their hands more conveniently.

Under the Warlord, there were naturally lower-ranking managers, usually called Chiliarchs or Bannerets. Their numbers were not fixed, depending entirely on the degree of trust the Warlord or Chieftain (that is, Ashur) had in you. For example, Akad, as one of the Warlords, was a Banneret under Ashur. Of course, no matter how much he was trusted and valued by Ashur before, he had already been sat to death by Grim.

Being able to become a Warlord, Hamish and Kurda were naturally not rookies who knew nothing about warfare. When they first established the camp, they built an extremely tall arrow tower in their own camp, keeping a close watch on every move of the Dwarf camp across the Long Lake, which was several miles wide. At the same time, they also sent out their few Cavalry to patrol along the river and around the camp. However, because the Cavalry were too scarce, their patrol frequency and range did not amount to much for the Cavalry led by Allen.

When Allen led more than a hundred Cavalry into the Dwarf camp during the day, these two were nervous for quite a while, and huddled together whispering for a long time at dinner. But after seeing that there was no major movement in the enemy camp, they let down their guard and instead gathered together to drink fine wine.

In fact, the relationship between the two was very good, and if there was an opportunity, they would always get together to have a drink. But to avoid attracting Ashur's suspicion, they would always mock each other in front of their own leaders. Of course, this method was not very clever; Ashur knew that the relationship between the two was not as bad as they made it appear.

The two drank until after midnight before returning to their respective camp wagons, drunk, to rest. After all, it was not easy for them to travel a long distance to get here, and once Ashur arrived tomorrow, they would not be as convenient and free as they were now.

However, Kurda was more careful than Hamish. Before falling asleep, he still ordered his soldiers to strengthen their defense to avoid any problems in the camp at night, but feeling a bit dizzy, he forgot to have his soldiers notify Hamish to take the same action.

It was also at this time that Allen, leading the Cavalry, had already cleared out the Easterling's outer scout Cavalry completely. Their numbers were truly too few, and they were simply unable to contend with Allen, who was leading the Twilight Knights. The short, sharp cries of surprise they let out before dying also failed to serve as a warning to others in the camp.

Soon, Allen led his men and approached the Easterling camp.

Although the relationship between Hamish and Kurda was excellent, their two camps were still set up separately, located in the north and south on the east bank of the Long Lake, but they were very close to each other, with the two gates separated by less than two kilometers.

The first camp Allen faced was Kurda's. At this time, according to the leader's orders, soldiers holding torches were patrolling everywhere on the camp walls. Once the Dwarves and Elves approached, the enemy should be able to react very quickly and organize to deal with the Dwarf surprise attack.

And the Horse Archers under Allen's command could not clear out all the Easterlings on the walls in a short time. Allen felt that the camp in front of him could not achieve the best surprise effect, so he decisively led his Cavalry to bypass the camp in front and headed to Hamish's camp further north.

The defense of this camp was much sparser. After clearing out the surrounding patrol Cavalry, Allen arranged for Holimion to keep a close watch on the surroundings, while he himself followed the original path and found Dain and Thranduil, who were leading their troops forward.

After explaining the enemy's situation, Dain also agreed to use Hamish's camp as the breakthrough point. Three hundred elite Dwarf warriors, with the support of the Elves, were enough to deal with the Easterlings in their panic.

And Thranduil indicated that his soldiers would hide in the shadows, keeping a close watch on the situation of the other camp. If the enemy provided support, then the one thousand Elf Warriors led by Thranduil would launch a fatal sneak attack on the enemy.

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If there was no movement from the enemy's other camp, then Thranduil would also lead his soldiers to join the ranks of attacking Hamish's camp.

After the first camp was broken, both sides would join forces to break the other camp.

Although Dain was a bit dissatisfied with this result, considering that he had promised before that the Dwarves would charge at the very front of the attack, and coupled with the fact that this was a surprise attack and the three hundred Dwarf warriors were enough to handle such a battle, he nodded and agreed.

By the time the Dwarf army slowly approached the enemy camp without the enemy noticing, Thranduil's army had already disappeared into the night. Allen did not know what method Thranduil had used, and having already raided to the vicinity of Hamish's camp, he could not worry about that anymore.

"Begin."

Following Allen's order, Holimion and the Twilight Knights, who had already dispersed and were galloping around the entire camp, pulled out their Noldor Rune Bows one after another and shot the soldiers patrolling around the camp.

At the same time, following behind them were Cavalrymen holding Fire Oil jars. On their galloping horses, they threw the Fire Oil jars in their hands forcefully into the camp along the edge of the camp, or onto the War Chariots and wooden walls that made up the camp walls. Finally, there were Cavalrymen holding torches who ignited the places stained with Fire Oil.

Being more precise in their throwing techniques, they were assigned this task by Allen.

Such a commotion naturally caused a reaction from the Easterlings in the camp, not to mention the sky-high flames that followed. Soon, the expected chaos appeared in the Easterling camp, and at this time, the Dwarves, who had already approached the gate of Hamish's camp, formed their proud military formation according to the current situation.

"Boom—"

Following the massive sound, the wooden gate of Hamish's own camp was blasted to smithereens by Balin's increased-dosage Flash Bomb.

"Sons of Durin!"

Dain let out a roar and led the Dwarves behind him in a charge.

The sounds of battle soon rang out across this once peaceful night.