Der Werwolf: The Annals of Veight Volume 6

by Hyougetsu

  “Perfect. Remain on standby for now! If it looks like Prince Woroy is planning to detour around our castle and head straight for Princess Eleora, strike his column in the flank!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Though I don’t know if just 200 will be enough to do anything... Thankfully even a well-trained army took time to sortie from Creech Castle thanks to its geography. Men marching on ice needed to proceed cautiously or the entire line could end up tripping over itself. Which meant we could still ambush them while they were on the ice. The heavy snowfall yesterday had covered the frozen lake, making it even more difficult to traverse. It was for this reason that I’d given Eleora most of our cavalry. While I was considering our options, Vodd’s squad came back from their scouting mission.

  “Two hundred soldiers just left the castle.”

  “That’s not that many. It’s probably just a large scouting party.”

  It would be risky for Prince Woroy to commit to a full-scale offensive currently. If Eleora’s army turned around right now and struck him after he’d committed all of his troops, he’d suffer a crushing defeat. He was probably worried about that, which was why he’d sent out a scouting party first.

  “Where are they headed?”

  “Straight for us. They’re ploughing their way through the snow right now.”

  Alright, time for a little warm-up.

  “Have the mage cavalry sortie! Strike down the enemy vanguard!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The cavalry of the 209th Imperial Mage Corps were riding terabirds, but the other mage corps all rode horses. Terabirds were good for maneuvering around mountainous terrain, but they weren’t suited for plains battles. The mage cavalry began their advance, followed by a contingent of standard cavalry. I got on a nearby horse as well and joined them.

  “Ah, I knew it! Boss’s going too!”

  “Don’t let him out of your sight! Chase after him!”

  A few of my werewolves hurriedly followed after me. It looked like Jerrick and Hamaam’s squads were on guard duty today. Don’t worry, I’m not planning on fighting this time. I just want to see how the battle plays out. As soon as the mage cavalry reached the lakeshore, they organized themselves into two rows and readied their Blast Canes. The real value of Eleora’s new weapon was that it allowed for non-standard tactics like these. The enemy’s military engineers were at the front of their column, clearing out snow for the infantry behind them. They were at the very edge of the Blast Canes’ range, but if we were going to strike, now was the time.

  “Front line, fire!”

  The captains of their respective squads gave the order to shoot, and flashes of light shot out of the knights’ Blast Canes. Unfortunately for Prince Woroy’s soldiers, the snow made it impossible for them to maneuver.

  “We’re under attack!”

  “Retreat back to the castle!”

  “Gyaaaaah!”

  Screaming, the soldiers dived under the snow for cover. A few unlucky ones were struck before they could move and collapsed.

  “Back line, take aim! Fire!”

  The second row of mage cavalry fired, and a few more of Prince Woroy’s soldiers died. Splotches of red dyed the pure white snow. The enemies in the front were all military engineers equipped with shovels, so they couldn’t fight back. The mage cavalry continued sniping the soldiers hiding in the snow. This was less a battle and more a one-sided slaughter. Eventually, the heavy bombardment combined with the weight of the recent snowfall caused the ice around the soldiers to crack.

  “WAAAAH!”

  A number of soldiers fell into the water, drowning almost instantly. With how cold the water was, they’d likely lost consciousness a few seconds after falling in. The mage cavalry showed no mercy though, and they continued sniping even as men were falling into the water. But even then, they only ended up killing around thirty men. Blast Canes were exceptionally powerful, but even they could only do so much at the very edge of their effective range. Especially since the bullets’ grew weaker the more distance they traveled.

  The remaining soldiers fled back to the castle while the military engineers were picked apart. It wasn’t like massacring all of these 200 troops would change the odds very much, so I decided to call the attack off here.

  “Don’t give chase! Retreat back to the safety of the castle!”

  I gave the retreat order and headed back to my own castle. After that disastrous scouting attempt, Prince Woroy didn’t send any more soldiers out. He realized that trying to advance through the snow right now would end with him suffering severe losses. And so, the first skirmish between Prince Woroy’s army and mine came to a close.

  Though I’d won the first battle, I couldn’t afford to get complacent, especially since Prince Woroy now had an idea of what tactics I used, as well as a relatively accurate approximation of my Blast Canes’ maximum range. In fact, he’d probably sent that squad out to figure out those two things, so I couldn’t say with conviction that I’d come out ahead from this exchange.

  My fears proved well-founded, and that night Prince Woroy tried something new. I was enjoying a mug of hot water and finishing up paperwork when I suddenly heard a shrill noise in the distance.

  “That’s the dog whistle!”

  I dashed out of my tent and found Monza’s squad—which had been out on patrol—running toward the castle walls.

  “What happened!?”

  Hamaam and I hurriedly lowered ropes for her squad to climb, and they shimmied their way up the snow wall.

  “Woroy’s army is on the move! From what I could see he’s sent out more than ten thousand men!”

  “It might even be more than twenty thousand, boss!”

  “They’ve already made landfall on the western shore. They detoured from the south to avoid being hit by our mages!”

  Well, we’re definitely in a tough spot now. It seemed Prince Woroy was determined to crush my army before moving on to stop Eleora. Thankfully Monza had brought me this information early enough that I had time to formulate a strategy. I quickly ordered my army into position.

  “Don’t let them realize we’ve noticed their surprise attack. Mage corps, man the battlements. Heavy infantry, shield the mages while they fire.”

  I picked up my own custom Blast Cane and found an empty crenellation to fire from. Since I couldn’t transform, my visibility wasn’t all that great, but I could hear the sounds of approaching hoofbeats and footsteps in the distance. Vodd walked over to me and whispered in my ear, “Monza said she saw them carrying huge logs. They’re probably planning on using them as battering rams.”

  “Shit.”

  I had no idea how well a castle made of ice and snow could hold against a battering ram. In fact, it was possible that packing down the snow as densely as I had would make it even easier to crack. Of course it was just as likely that the snow would be sturdy enough to hold, but I really didn’t want to test that right now.

  “203rd Mage Corps, deploy along the south wall!”

  I had the units I’d held as reserves fortify the wall I figured was most likely to be attacked. With the snow slowing the enemy’s march, I doubted they’d try to risk circling around to any of the other walls. The risk of being spotted in that time was too high. After a few minutes, one of the soldiers standing atop the lookout tower shouted, “They’re here! I can’t make out their numbers but there’s definitely more than ten thousand! Their vanguard consists of light cavalry!”

  Night attack or no, Prince Woroy obviously knew he wouldn’t be able to keep an assault of this scale a secret for too long. It seemed he’d come to storm the castle by force. Fahn, who was serving as my bodyguard for this fight, muttered, “Why’re they attacking now when they just lost so badly this afternoon?”

  “Because they realized we’re trying to buy time.”

  One of the basics of warfare was to never let your opponent do what they wanted to. Originally it had been Prince Woroy who’d wanted to buy time, but now it was
the opposite. So naturally, he’d found a way to launch an all-out attack to prevent us from doing so. But of course, I’d been expecting this. And defensive battles were my specialty.

  Prince Woroy’s cavalry charged, kicking up snow as they did. Judging by the fact that they were carrying shields and bows instead of spears, Prince Woroy had likely sent them out to test our defenses instead of to do any actual damage to my forces.

  “Mage corps, prepare to fire! But draw the enemy in further before you loose!”

  Right now the only light we could rely on was moonlight. In order to increase my squads’ accuracy, I needed to let the enemy close in before giving the order to fire. It was only after they’d come within 40 meters of the castle walls that I shouted, “Back line, fire!”

  Everyone in the back line unleashed blasts of light at the advancing cavalry. This was my first time seeing Blast Canes used in a night battle and it surprised me how bright the shots looked. They were dazzling. I guess that made sense since the shots were made of light magic. Still, they were more prominent than I’d expected. The enemy would easily be able to discern our positions because of this.

  The bullets burst upon impact, illuminating the ground with brief flashes of light. The light was amplified as it reflected off the snow, and for a moment, the battlefield looked like it was lit by floodlamps.

  “Use the light to help you aim! Front line, fire!”

  The continual bursts of light made it hard to tell what exactly was going on, but I could make out soldiers toppling from their horses. Metal shields were no impediment to Blast Canes. The bullets either pierced right through the shields, or hit them hard enough to push the soldiers out of their saddles. Just then, I heard the sound of numerous objects whistling through the wind.

  “Heavy infantry, raise your shields!”

  The non-mage soldiers hefted their double-layered shields above the heads of the mage corps. A second later, arrows rained down on them.

  “Whoa!?”

  “Gah!”

  A few of my men screamed, but as far as I could tell our losses were light. Fortunately, there weren’t too many arrows coming down on us. Because we were huddled up directly against the castle walls it was hard for archers to angle their fire to hit us.

  “Fire only under the cover of the battlements! The light from the Blast Canes makes our positions obvious to the enemy. It’s too dangerous to fire outside their protection!”

  Anyone who stuck their head over the walls would probably get an arrow through their skull. The cavalry retreated after a single volley, but before we could regroup, Prince Woroy’s infantry began to march. Within the mess of infantry, I spotted a few squads carrying battering rams. They were made of wood, and large enough that they needed 20 people each to carry. The soldiers around the battering rams covered the transport squads with their shields. If the enemy managed to breach our walls, we’d be completely overwhelmed. The difference in numbers was too great.

  “Aim for the battering rams! All squads fire at will!”

  The slow-moving battering rams provided a perfect target for the mage corps. A barrage of bullets rained down on the soldiers, crushing their shields and exposing the unprotected soldiers carrying the rams to concentrated fire. Within seconds, enough of the ram bearers had been taken out that the squads were unable to continue pushing the battering rams forward. A few valiant soldiers attempted to carry them regardless, while most fled, or cowered behind the wrecked shields dropped by the shield bearers. But no matter what they did, the soldiers were easily picked off by the Blast Canes.

  From what I could tell, six battering rams had already been abandoned. A small number of the rams were still moving forward, but their progress had been severely slowed. The squads carrying them had lost too many men, and they were still losing more. Alright, the rams have been taken care of.

  All that was left now was to deal with the infantry. There was no gate to the south, so the only way the soldiers could breach the walls would be to scale them with siege ladders. However, the snowy ground was too slippery to support ladders that tall. Furthermore, I’d posted spearmen at the walls. Their spears were easily long enough to tip the ladders backwards, causing everyone climbing them to tumble down. And even if the enemy soldiers survived the fall, they’d be turned into pincushions by the mage corps. In no time at all, the snowy field below the castle became stained with blood. But just as I was starting to think our victory secured, a messenger from the north wall ran over.

  “Enemy infantry spotted to the north! We can’t make out their exact numbers but there’s a lot of them!”

  “Do they have any siege weapons?”

  “Visibility’s too poor to know for sure!”

  So he’d sent out a detached force even though his army here was already over 10,000 strong. Chances were he thought we didn’t have that many mages and was planning to dilute our firepower by attacking from multiple sides. The messenger’s face looked mildly panicked.

  “The 205th Imperial Mage Corps is holding them off for now, but they don’t have enough bullets!”

  I’d posted the least amount of troops to the north wall. And each member of the mage corps had only a limited amount of shots they could fire before they ran out of mana. I’m gonna need to send them reinforcements.

  “Send all the crossbowmen to the north wall! Take five hundred spearmen as well, in case the enemy manages to scale the walls!”

  I’d wanted to avoid using my crossbowmen since my supply of bolts was limited, but this wasn’t the time to be stingy. If this castle fell in just one day, Eleora would be doomed for sure. If worse comes to worst, I can always transform and fight myself. However, I’d only do that as a last resort. I still had one final trump card left to play.

  I left the south wall in the hands of the mage corps and took Kite with me to the north wall. I’d already sent messengers to the other werewolves, as well as Lacy and Parker, so they were busy with preparations when I arrived.

  “Is everything ready!?”

  “It is.”

  Parker gave me a succinct reply, his voice reassuringly calm. The only time he acted calm was when I wasn’t. I should take some deep breaths. I looked down at my final trump card, a gatling gun version of the Blast Cane. Ryucco had developed it for me, and it was likely the world’s first machine gun.

  “Veight, we’ve finished loading it with mana! We can fire anytime!”

  Lacy gave me a nervous nod, and I nodded back.

  “Alright, let’s get this battle over with!”

  The area to the north of the fortress was densely forested, meaning I didn’t have to worry about catapults or the like coming from that direction. However, the forest made it easy for smaller groups of infantry to sneak up on the castle. I’d had the soldiers cut down the trees within bowshot of the castle, but that didn’t make it any less scary when swarms of soldiers suddenly popped up out of the woods. The mage corps stationed on the north wall were shooting down as many enemies as they could, but there just wasn’t enough of them. Plenty of Prince Woroy’s soldiers had already reached the castle walls and started climbing.

  “Crossbowmen, shoot down the enemies climbing the walls! Spearmen, prepare for close-quarters combat!”

  Crossbows weren’t well-suited to firing straight down, but the mana recoil from the Blast Canes could damage the walls if they were fired too close to the battlements. Heaving with exertion, the Garney brothers hauled the gatling gun into a pillbox of snow.

  “No need to rush! Just make sure you don’t break it!”

  “O-Okay!”

  Once the gun was in place, us four mages prepared to activate it.

  “Okay, let’s do this. Kite, you locate the enemy. Lacy, relay the coordinates to me. Parker, you stay quiet.”

  Everyone responded immediately. Kite cast epoch magic to locate the enemy, using waves of mana as active sonar. He then relayed the information he found via a magic conduit to Lacy. Lacy used illusion magic to mark the loca
tions I needed to aim for. She put a holographic map of the area up in front of me and represented the targets as red dots. Parker quietly watched from a corner. Because of all the flashes and screaming, I couldn’t rely on my werewolf senses to seek enemies out. Lacy’s markers were all I could rely on.

  “So they’re not coming directly from the north, but from northwest.”

  The density of red markers was greater to my left.

  “Sorry, but I’m going to need all of you to die here.”

  I grabbed the gatling gun’s lever and tried to rotate it. But it didn’t budge.

  “Oi, the damn thing’s frozen!” I shouted in surprise. Kite turned to me in sudden realization and said, “That’s because we used Meraldian oil to lubricate it...”

  We’d used the same oil that northern Meraldia used, but it seemed even that hadn’t been able to withstand the bitter cold of Rolmund.

  “Dammit, if we don’t hurry we’ll be in trouble!”

  Parker walked out of his corner and said, “Calm down, Veight. If the oil’s frozen, we just need to heat it with fire.”

  Lacy replied in a panic, “B-But Parker, we don’t have anyone who can use fire magic! I’ll go get a torch!”

  Parker chuckled.

  “That’s because your definition of we does not include me. Here.”

  Parker held out his palm and a small, magical fire appeared within it.

  “Parker, when did you learn destruction magic!?”

  “I only know the absolute basics, but I had Eleora teach me. Now come, let’s get this hunk of metal warmed up. It’s a lot easier to control the temperature with magic than it is with a torch.”

  Man, how many times has this guy saved my ass now? I once again gripped the lever and pointed the gun’s muzzle into the darkness.

  “Here we go!”

  Regular Blast Canes were relatively quiet, but the machine gun’s barrel made an absolute racket as it rotated. On top of that, the blasts of light reverberated into the night sky as they shot forward in quick succession. Wow, it’s actually working. The flash from the bullets was blinding me, but Kite was using epoch magic to keep an eye on the situation.