Chapter 397: Wild Wolf Knights!

Amidst shouts of battle, dozens of simple wooden rafts were cast into the river, and the serf soldiers rushed forward one after another to leap onto them.

Each raft could carry about ten soldiers; over three days, the royal army had prepared more than three hundred rafts.

Thus, three thousand soldiers could be transported across in a single wave.

Of course, the first batch of serf soldiers would bear nearly all the beastmen's attacks, making them the most brutal casualties of today's battle.

Barely had the three thousand landed when the beastmen's slave army surged forward like wolves and tigers.

A dark mass of thirty thousand overwhelmed the three thousand outright.

The rafts had already been rowed back to the river's center; they had nowhere to hide, only grit their teeth and fight the charging beastmen slaves.

One round trip of a raft took only three minutes.

Soon, the second batch of serf soldiers arrived on the rafts.

Yet in those mere three or four minutes, only one-third of the first three thousand landing serfs remained alive.

The rest had become corpses; the once emerald river was stained red with blood.

Faced with this, the nobles didn't even blink.

For this was war—victory always demanded sacrifice.

The second batch of serfs fared no better; by the time the third batch arrived, they too had lost over half their numbers.

Then came the fourth, fifth... until after the tenth batch had crossed, the serf forces finally held a foothold on the far shore, no longer being driven back into the river.

Of course, the casualties were enormous: in less than an hour, the thirty-thousand-strong force had lost at least five to six thousand serfs.

"Good! They've finally secured the shore!"

"Yes! Now the assault will be much easier!"

Yet the nobles still showed no concern for the losses; instead, they smiled with relief now that the foothold was secured.

Especially the later batches of nobles— the more advantage the front gained, the fewer casualties they would suffer.

"Second wave, advance!"

Securing the shore was merely the beginning.

Soon, the commander-in-chief issued another order.

Wooooo!

Amid the blaring horns, the second wave of noble troops charged toward the riverbank.

"The second wave has entered the fray! Can they defeat the beastmen?"

"Yes! If they can, it would be perfect for us!"

"I think they've got a chance—sixty thousand against forty thousand. Even if ten thousand are beastmen, their slave troops are pitifully weak, weaker even than the serfs!"

As the second noble wave began to land, the third wave of nobles chattered among themselves.

Most of them, like Mil and others before, had merely come to fulfill conscription obligations.

They sought no glory, only to minimize the deaths of their own men.

So all hoped the beastmen could be defeated without their own forces having to cross.

And as they spoke, the situation seemed to be turning in their favor.

As the second wave of thirty thousand troops landed, the beastmen slave army began slowly retreating.

"Gervas, looks like we won't get any glory this time!"

"Damn, what a shame—I was hoping to take a few beastmen heads!"

Mil, Ian, and the others looked as if they'd lost a fortune, making Gervas want to punch them.

Of course, those fools didn't realize they were mourning too soon.

For according to the only useful intelligence from this morning:

This group of beastmen had a cavalry unit of several dozen.

Though none had ever seen beastman cavalry firsthand, Gervas knew their reputation.

Unlike human cavalry, beastmen rode enormous snowplain gray wolves.

These snowplain wolves were tier-one beasts—modest in strength, but their size was ideal: over four meters long, they could carry tall beastmen into battle.

Thus, these formidable beastman cavalry could often defeat far larger numbers of human cavalry.

And since they hadn't appeared yet, the battlefield still held surprises.

And indeed, just as the tide of battle began tilting toward the humans:

A horn blast suddenly came from the enemy side.

"What's going on?"

The nobles were utterly baffled.

For the beastmen's horn blast was an attack signal.

But they were clearly retreating—why issue an attack order now?

Roar! Roar! Roar!

"Look! What's that?!"

The nobles' confusion was quickly resolved.

"No! It's the beastmen's wild wolf knights!"

"Damn it! These beastmen hid wild wolf knights!"

"My lord, are wild wolf knights that powerful? They don't even seem numerous!"

"Of course they are—each wild wolf knight equals five elite light cavalrymen; fifty of them equal over two hundred and fifty light cavalry!"

"Our cavalry is blocked by the Pearl River and can't reinforce—imagine what happens when three thousand serfs face over two hundred cavalry!"

"This..." Some nobles unfamiliar with the northern frontier turned pale at this explanation.

Two hundred elite light cavalry, under normal circumstances, could be handled by any marquis or duke's force.

But the stone bridge was blocked—only serfs could reach the far shore.

And serf soldiers, despite their numbers, were unpredictable in battle.

"Roar! Kill all these two-legged sheep!"

Roar! Roar! Roar!

As the nobles felt dread rising, the wild wolf knights charged onto the battlefield.

Amid bone-chilling roars, they plunged into the serf ranks.

What followed was like wolves among sheep.

Wherever they charged, serfs scattered in panic.

Even those who tried to resist were swiftly crushed.

Though strict military law kept the serfs from total collapse, their earlier advantage vanished completely.

They were being pushed back toward the riverbank once more.

"Damn it!" The Northern Legion's commander-in-chief turned livid at the sight.

Two dukes also wore grim expressions.

"We must open the stone bridge passage quickly!" Duke Hernade suddenly spoke.

"But the cost would be too high—there are two thousand beastmen guarding it. To break through head-on, we'd lose at least double that in elite guards!" The commander-in-chief's face darkened.

The "elite" he meant weren't the guards of petty nobles.

They were fully armed Northern Legion soldiers and elite guards of the ducal families.

"We have no choice! If we don't open the bridge and let cavalry cross to help, the serf force will collapse!" Hernade declared firmly.

The commander-in-chief's expression shifted again and again—if sixty thousand troops broke, casualties would be catastrophic.

And that meant defeat in this great battle.

"Northern Commander, half my men and those of the marquises and above will join your Northern Legion's half—attack now!" Hernade urged again as the commander hesitated.

With Hernade's words thus spoken, the Northern Legion commander no longer hesitated. "Fine! Duke Hernade, let's open the passage!"