Chapter 444: Exactly Half

The force led by the lord of Hagenhausen consisted of twenty cavalry, a hundred infantry, and thirty archers. A hundred and fifty men, and this was what a single provincial lord could muster. It drove home the difference in weight class between us and Basel all over again.

Of the territories in the Rosenheim region, the most populous was Denmach. Denmach’s population was around five hundred, and even calling up every able-bodied man there, a hundred was the limit. With a full mobilization, I could probably scrape together two hundred.

Judging by the state of their equipment, this wasn’t a full mobilization either. First, I dealt with the enemy’s scouts. Moving in secret, Barosi and Ted struck both patrols at the same time and overwhelmed them.

With that, the enemy had lost their eyes.

But it was only a matter of time before we were discovered.

If the regular reports from the scouts stopped coming in, they would naturally grow suspicious. Anyone who bothered to send out scouts would have allowed for the possibility that I might ambush them. Which is exactly why I had a plan.

"Sir Szolnok, take twenty riders and draw out the enemy cavalry first. Sir Debrecen, when a gap opens between their cavalry and their infantry, lead the horse archers in and hit their bowmen. I’ll take the rest of our cavalry and strike their riders in the flank to close the encirclement."

Infantry and archers can never catch horse archers. Hit-and-run was the one thing mounted archers did better than anyone. My goal was to lure in the lord of Hagenhausen, surround him, and take him prisoner.

"Heirs of the Eagle! Show them the spirit of the Magyars!"

"A sasért! (For the eagle!)"

"Magyarországért! (For Magyarország!)"

Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud!

Barosi and his riders charged bravely.

Ever since Fiel had been promoted to commander of the Imperial Knights, Barosi was the one rider with the makings of a charge leader to succeed him. He tended to let his body outrun his head, but that was no bad thing.

The Hagenhausen cavalry must have had plenty of real combat experience, because they responded calmly to his sudden attack. But when he skillfully wheeled away and drew them after him, they took the bait exactly as planned.

Seizing the opening, Herto, who had moved up under cover, struck the exposed flank of the enemy archers. Fifty riders loosed at once, and the archers were helpless. Accuracy suffered, but the sheer volume was devastating.

The enemy infantry raised their shields to screen the archers, who returned fire at once, but the horse archers had already drifted out of range. Herto’s men kept right on harassing them from there, striking and pulling back, over and over.

Once I confirmed the enemy was fully split apart, I led the remaining cavalry in a charge against the flank of the Hagenhausen horsemen, who were still playing tag with Barosi.

Ted’s scouts came pounding along behind us.

Crunch! Crash!

"Aaaargh!"

"Neigghhh!"

A collision of heavy cavalry carries the destructive force of two dump trucks hitting each other. And since we struck an undefended flank, our own losses were, naturally, almost nonexistent.

In an instant the enemy cavalry was cut in two, and I had punched clean through the middle of them. The Halberd of Hades drank its fill of blood again today. It smashed through breastplates without mercy and killed rider after rider.

"I-it’s the Gale Knight!"

"Stop him! Aaaargh!"

Crunch! Crunch!

No flimsy cavalry sword is going to block a halberd swung from horseback. Before long, there was nothing around me but enemy corpses and riderless horses. More horses for the ranch today. Very satisfying.

Winter’s going to scream again.

I killed and went on killing, a wolf loose in a flock of sheep. Soon there wasn’t an enemy rider left in sight. Only the lord of Hagenhausen and his closest men remained, fighting hard against my soldiers.

Not bad at all.

But the Hagenhausen cavalry had been wiped out.

They were elites, so none of them ran, but most were put out of the fight. Surrounded front and back and beaten down from every side, of course they couldn’t hold. Ten riders died by my hand alone. Half of their horse, all told.

"Are you the lord of Hagenhausen? Surrender now."

"...I surrender."

Realizing he had no chance left, the lord of Hagenhausen surrendered. We had three lightly wounded and no dead, so the ambush was a perfect victory for the Gale Knights.

Disarming the surrendered riders and soldiers was the natural next step. Nobles wouldn’t have their arms and armor taken, but most of these men were commoners, so their gear went straight into the spoils of war.

We stripped the bodies on the field clean, too.

"You bastards! You can’t take my weapons and armor!"

"What’s this son of a bitch saying? Hand it over quietly."

A few prisoners scuffled with my men to keep their gear. A common sight whenever spoils were being collected. Neither side spoke the other’s language, so they only talked past each other until somebody’s patience snapped.

"Filthy savages from the east!"

"I think he just called us savages."

"This son of a bitch has some nerve! We’re the Gale Knights!"

Prisoners getting jumped by a pack of angry soldiers happened often enough. I had Barosi find out what had set them off, and he came back saying the man had called them savages and my men had lost their tempers.

At least they hadn’t killed him. I’d ordered that no prisoner be killed, and furious as they were, they had obeyed to the letter. That was real progress. These Hungarian riders used to be wild horses.

"...What happened to Wischelbach? Is it true what they say...?"

"The first thing you want to ask me about is your neighbor? We plundered it cleanly, then hauled the lord of Wischelbach, his heir, and the captured knights off to Hissen."

"Then my own lands are fated to be trampled just as brutally."

This man clearly had the wrong idea about me. I could have explained a hundred times over and it still wouldn’t have gotten through, so I gave up. There wasn’t some wild rumor going around that I’d burned the place to the ground, was there?

The trouble with the medieval world is that information is murky and unreliable.

Besides, brutal plunder was simply common sense around here. Hagenhausen was tormenting himself over the fact that his own hasty judgment had cost him the battle. He’d given the order to pursue without ever realizing it was bait.

If his riders had stayed massed with the infantry, it wouldn’t have been an easy fight for us either. Giving Barosi only twenty riders was meant to make us look like easy pickings, and he fell for it beautifully.

He must have known he’d lost the moment I hit his flank from where I’d been waiting. In any case, the only way to clear up the misunderstanding was to let him watch with his own eyes how I plundered Hagenhausen.

As always, I’m a man who believes in restrained plunder.

I strictly forbade unnecessary killing, so from the point of view of the people being plundered, they ought to have been grateful. Hmm, grateful? That sounds a little off. In any case, Hagenhausen was in an uproar.

"Th-the lord’s been taken prisoner!"

"It’s over! We’re all going to die!"

But when we marched in and there was no massacre, no arson, no looting, no rape, the people of Hagenhausen were left thoroughly bewildered instead. My men only licked their lips and never laid a hand on a civilian.

They’d seen in Wischelbach what happened to the ones who tried.

That had been a public execution in all but name.

"I’ll be taking exactly half. You’d do well to explain it to your people and have them hand over half without hiding a thing. If I catch anyone at it, I won’t merely confiscate everything they own; they may end up beaten to death by their own neighbors."

"That’s all? You’re only taking half?"

"I took exactly half in Wischelbach too."

"..."

Hmm, he didn’t believe a word of it. What is wrong with this era? I say I won’t kill anybody, won’t touch anybody, and will take exactly half, and not one person can believe it. Then again, that is the common wisdom here, so what am I supposed to do?

"I also have the knight you sent to reinforce Wischelbach in my custody."

"So that’s why we stopped hearing from him. Margaret will be relieved."

"Margaret? Who is that?"

"A handmaid who’s like a little sister to me. Sir Payne’s wife."

"Ah. Then I’m afraid I’ve wronged her. But we’re at war, so I’d hope Sir Payne’s wife can understand."

The damage Hagenhausen had taken in this battle was enormous. They had already lost the knight named Payne along with the reinforcements sent to Wischelbach, and on top of that, they’d been ambushed by me while answering the Count of Basel’s summons.

In the end, the lord accepted the whole situation and cooperated with me. He handed over half of his own property first, then told his people that this was better than being killed or violated, and so persuaded them to submit to the occupying force.