Steel, Explosives, and Spellcasters-Chapter 758 - 57 The Triumphal Song_2

Chapter 758: Chapter 57: The Triumphal Song_2 Chapter 758: Chapter 57: The Triumphal Song_2 Chatan’s head collided with something hard, and darkness clouded his vision as he lost consciousness.

Thirty meters from the Taltai Division camp, with his hair still dripping wet, Winters raised his military saber and barked an order, “Ready!”

Behind Winters, hidden in the darkness, crouched eighteen warriors, their lips purplish-blue, bodies shaking.

In front of Winters stood four stalwart warriors, carefully chosen.

To evade the Terdun sentries, twenty-two warriors had followed Winters, swimming across the river upstream from two kilometers away, clutching sheepskin bags.

The Herders would never have imagined that they had unintentionally taught the enemy how to use sheepskin bags to stay afloat.

The four stalwart warriors each lifted a palm-sized iron-gray grenade to eyebrow height, with a long fuse extending from the top of the iron sphere.

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Winters walked behind the four, not striking a flint but four strands of gunpowder fuse had already begun to burn.

“Throw!” Winters roared.

Like ancient athletes throwing the discus, the four stalwart warriors took long strides into a run, spinning a full circle, using all their strength to propel the grenades toward the Taltai Division camp.

The hissing grenades vanished into the darkness, overpowered by the roar of Winters’ voice, even muffling the dull thuds of explosions, “Again!”

The iron from the Iron Peak Mine smelted by the apprentice blacksmith Carlos was of poor quality, brittle. But Winters found a use for the brittle iron—making grenades.

Through improved techniques, the weight of the grenades produced in Iron Peak County was reduced to under 1kg.

With the reduced weight, there was no longer a need to use the “chain-ball” throwing method—this was far too dangerous, with a slight mishap potentially sending a grenade onto the heads of one’s own troops.

Men were running about frantically, and warhorses neighed violently; the Taltai Division camp was in utter chaos.

The Taltai Division, equipped to ward off the cold, had arranged their horses on the outer circle of the camp with sticks and ropes to block the wind.

Bright lights, gunsmoke, and loud bangs—any one of these could cause horses to lose control, let alone all three assaulting the horses’ senses simultaneously.

A horse, overtaken by its instinct to flee, wildly struck the other horses around it, broke through the ropes, and bolted into the night.

More panic-stricken horses rampaged through the camp, trampling the crowds and spreading panic to more horses and people.

“Don’t panic!” Taltai shouted himself hoarse as he ran about, yelling, “Open the rope barriers! Scatter the horses!”

The deep rumble of military drums drowned out Taltai’s desperate cries, and a single glance at the scene before them was enough to make the Taltai Division’s warriors’ knees go weak.

Hundreds—no, thousands—of torches burst forth like a monstrous wave from the riverbank, charging toward the riverside, rising above the water, pressing onwards to the West Bank.

They were determined to force a crossing of Big Horn River!

“What? How can this be?” Taltai grabbed a slave trying to flee at his side, his eyes red, questioning in a confused frenzy, “Watch out for us! The bipeds should be watching out for you and me! Why? Why are they crossing the river?”

The slave, usually subservient, showed a fierce look, shoved Nayen away forcefully, and struggled onto a horse that had neither a halter nor a saddle, and fled without looking back.

“Father!” Taltai’s son, accompanied by two personal guards, spotted Taltai at once amidst the scattering crowd, “What do we do?”

“It’s fake!” Taltai suddenly realized, “The bipeds can’t have that many soldiers; those torches are all fake!”

“What do we do now?”

“Draw swords! Mount up! To the riverbank!” Taltai roared with a ferocious look, “Kill anyone that comes!”

Meanwhile, on the East Bank of the Big Horn River, Bart Xialing’s throat was already hoarse beyond recognition, but he was still desperately shouting, “Yell! Everyone yell! [Herde Language] Taltai is dead!”

The battle at dawn yesterday saw almost equal casualties for both armies.

That night, Winters took with him the twenty best soldiers and veterans.

Bart Xialing had just over a company of soldiers left; the great disturbance they created was due to mobilizing every man, woman, and child in Niutigu Valley who could walk.

The fighters were rowing rafts made of door panels and logs with all their might, heading towards the opposite bank of the river.

The mobilized civilians, lacking the courage to cross the river and fight, could only shout.

“Yell! Goddammit, yell for me!”

The disjointed shouts began to rise, “[Herde Language] Taltai is dead!”

Within those shouts were the naive voices of children, the muffled tones of the elderly, and the sharp pitch of women.

“Yell! Yell!” Bart Xialing was almost frantic with tears, “If you don’t yell, Blood Wolf will die! One! Two! Three!”

The people gradually raised their voices louder, “[Herde Language] Taltai is dead!”

“One! Two! Three!”

The awkward shouting merged into one sound that pierced the sky, “[Herde Language] Taltai is dead!”

“I’m not dead!” Taltai cried out in fury, madly whipping his warhorse, “I’m not dead! I’m right here!”

On the perimeter of the camp, eagle-eyed Winters drew his military saber, pointing directly at a notably conspicuous, corpulent Herder: “There!”

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The twenty-two warriors stopped concealing themselves, removed the coverings from their spears, and leapt up.

“That man is Taltai!” Winters seemed to enter another persona, letting loose all the emotions suppressed for so long in this moment, laughing wildly with unrestrained, cruel delight, “Gentlemen! Follow me!”

But before Winters could take his first step, he was halted by someone grabbing him from behind, “No!”

It was Xial.

“What are you doing!” Winters roared furiously.

“You can’t go!”

“You have no armor! No horse! You’re not a Centurion anymore! I am!” Tamas stood in front of Winters, holding up his long spear and bellowing, “Follow me!”