Swiss Arms

Chapter 4

-VB-

After a quiet week of final preparations for the forces of the baron, we marched out of the town of Vaz and towards the city of Chur. The whole army trudged forward in a disorderly line, clogging up half of the dirt road.

From the front, I spied roughly four hundred men, which was a lot for a mere baron to call upon.

Unlike the Far East, European wars and conflicts struggled to match the scale of the Asian ones; from what I remembered, the 16th century Japanese invasion of Korea resulted in more than a million casualties compared to the English-Spanish War which resulted in less than fifty thousand deaths. It wouldn’t be until the Thirty Years War that Europe would reach the same level, and that was because things like disease, famine, and other series of unfortunate events struck Europe at the same time as the war. But then the high estimate of eight million deaths of Thirty Years War would be dwarfed by the concurrent Manchu Conquest of China with its twenty-five million deaths.

War was not a good thing. Just imagine how much labor a country could have gotten out of those dead people!

But that wasn’t right now. The Thirty Years War hadn’t started. Martin Luther wasn’t even born yet. I was just participating in a minor war in a minor province in the dysfunctional Holy Roman Empire in the thirteenth century.

The baron’s army had a rough composition of 5% cavalry, 60% spear, 10% close melee, 20% archer, and 5% others. Others being mercenaries like myself who weren’t one or the other when it came to classification. In my personal opinion, this was not an optimal army composition. There was too few cavalryman to cover the flanks. However, the baron was restricted to what he had nor was this region particularly war-prone to need someone like the baron to extensively prepare expensive warhorses for war.

I frowned as the army walked over a hill.

And then I caught sight of another army coming towards us from afar.

“... This is where we fight, isn’t it?” I mumbled as I quickly looked around.

It was a flat area with nothing between us. The hills had been just big enough to obscure each other until we were within half a mile of each other.

“Archers!” the baron called out. “Form a line! All others, form a spear wall in front!”

I looked at the other army. They were … bigger. Far bigger. At least twice the size of the baron’s army.

This was going to be a mess, wasn’t it?

My eyes widened as I saw -.

“Cavalry!” I shouted as I pointed towards the left flank of the bishop’s army.

True to my words, a hundred fully armed and armored cavalry stood waiting for their orders on the other side. That was three times more than our own horsemen.

My brain quickly went through the numbers.

This was… this wasn’t going to be a victory for us. We had too few numbers of blockade the full length of the valley to negate the cavalry advantage nor did we have enough specialized shock-and-awe troops to burst through the middle of the enemy formation.

Then the bishop’s side pulled up a white flag. A flag for truce.

The bishop wanted to talk.

I looked towards the baron.

“Raise the black flag.”

The charcoal-stained flag came up.

It was going to be a direct fight.

The baron’s army quickly moved to obey him.

The bishop’s army moved as well.

My eyes widened as I realized what was happening.

The bishop already knew that the baron’s army had been coming this way. His army had been here and ready.

I snapped my attention back to the baron.

The idiot hadn’t even scouted!

“This is going to be a bloodbath,” I mumbled to myself again, but the others next to me heard me. I quickly got into position at the far right flank of the army, which was probably where the cavalry was going to hit. I knew that I was putting myself at risk, but dammit if I didn’t try something!

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And then their cavalry thundered forward.

“Alex!” the baron shouted.

“Got it!” the master-at-arms shouted back from atop his horse. “Men, to me!” he roared, and the baron’s men-at-arms, all of them horsed, thundered forward.

“Good luck!” I shouted after them, and Alex gave me a salute. It might be the last time I see the man. The brave fool was going out there to fight a force three times his.

The bishop’s army began to march forward.

“Hold the hill!” the baron roared. “It’s easier to stab down than it is to stab up!”

I watched the cavalry clash and grimaced. The enemy formed a wedge and drove our already small cavalry into two, and then smashed into them with lances.

“Archers, get ready!”

There was a cacophony of wooden sticks behind the frontline while the distant whines of horses and clash of metals filled the front.

“DRAW!”

Our cavalry got routed near instantly. This was bad.

“LOOSE!”

Just as our fleeing cavalry sped towards us, the archers loosed.

Our cavalry was safe as they ducked underneath the arrows.

The others weren’t.

Instead of chasing, they turned.

Except for a small group of them who decided to charge into the hail of arrows after the fleeing cavalry.

Shields held up above their heads, the arrows rained down on them, and only one horseman and his horse fell.

Our cavalry blitzed by me.

I didn’t see Alex among them.

In an instant, I wrestled the spear from the hands of my neighboring peasant and hurled it.

With the strength of five people in my body, the spear flew true as if it was an arrow.

And slammed right into the vanguard horseman’s horse.

The horse and the horseman tumbled, and the unexpected tumble got the others behind him to crash into him. Those who weren’t right behind quickly brought themselves to a stop and fled right back to the bishop.

I blinked in surprise. Damn, if I knew it would be that effective, then I would have made a bunch of spears, even if they were only wooden without any iron speartip.

“HOLD!” the baron ordered again.

Okay, one flank attack stopped because the enemy was arrogant enough to travel so closely (probably to decrease the chance of arrows finding a target).

And then the arrows shot up from their side.

“SHIELDS!”

I just wrapped myself and the man who I stole the spear from with my bear cape and then ducked.

Arrows came whistling in, and then -.

T-t-t-t-thunk.

When no more sounds of arrows came, I pulled my cape back to peer outside.

More arrows.

“ARCHERS, KILL THEM!” the baron roared desperately.

T-T-T-Twang!

“GAH!”

“H-H-H-”

And then arrows stopped raining.

I pulled the cape back with a flourish and grimaced after looking over the frontline.

A tenth of the spearmen were dead already.

I looked towards the bishop’s army, and noticed less than five percent casualty.

So… our three hundred fifty versus their seven hundred.

I drew my longsword from its sheath.

50 feet.

40 feet.

30 feet.

20.

10!

5!

I jumped forward, spinning my longsword into a wind blurring rotation.

The spears that came thrusting towards me found their tips and shafts being cut away.

And then I was upon them.

My blade slashed into regular peasant clothes. Flowing with the momentum of my first strike, I came spinning right back and cut a man’s stomach apart. I ignored the entrails flowing out and spun again.

I carved a bloody path into the flank before the cavalry could do so to ours.

A sword jabbed forward blindingly fast from within the ranks of the enemy as I spun, but it bounced off of my chestplate. It wasn’t a peasant levy but a man-at-arms, armored in padded gambeson and with a sallet covering his head.

For the attempt, I sliced his skull in half horizontally, cutting right through his helmet like a hot knife through butter.

Men came at me with spears.

I grabbed one and pulled it back as I backpedaled. Twisting it out of the man’s grip, I returned it to another spearman by throwing it and piercing his chest.

Then I jumped over their concerted strike.

They watched with wide open mouths. And then realized just how close I was.

My longsword swept through them like a scythe harvesting wheat.

Then I noticed a small crack.

Grunting at my own work’s inferiority, I ducked underneath a few strikes and grabbed the sword of the man-at-arms I killed.

It was pitifully light, but maybe that was the point of this particular… shortsword.

I took a step back and launched myself while unclipping the bear cape.

As spears came at me, I pulled my cape forward and spun it around. The speartips caught in the fur and bundled up wildly and out of their owners’ grasps.

Again, I took a step back, but I did this again to unfurl my cape and pull out the spears I’d just confiscated with a parlor trick.

… Was it me or were there more of them?

Then I jolted in surprise when I heard a roar behind me and ten horsemen bearing the banner of the baron charged forward, parting around me like a river.

Grinning at the backup, I quickly hurled a spear at a soldier trying to unhorse my ally, and grinned in satisfaction as he went down. The cavalry broke through the men and thundered around, leaving me alone once again until they could come around swinging again.

The soldiers of the bishop turned towards me: the immediate threat.

With my longsword in my right hand and the shortsword in my left, I grinned maniacally and held my ground.

“COME AT ME!” I roared.

Because each man I killed was a spear, a sword, an armor piece, and more that would go to my home!

The now desperate soldiers roared out and charged at me.

-VB-

Gasping like a man stranded in the desert for days, I pushed myself up slowly from where I had been kneeling.

I had fought for an hour - a full fucking hour! I glanced at my stats and grimaced.

Despite being an absolute superhuman Chad of a warrior, I was down to a third of my HP and single digit STA (energy). If I had to fight for even five more minutes, then I would have been a goner from being overwhelmed.

'The might of human numbers, pioneered by China and Russia!' I thought hysterically.

But it hadn't.

The battle ended when our center broke through as their flanks collapsed.

And it was a victory for the baron.

The baron’s banners flew in the sweeping winds of the Alps proudly atop the hill.

The flag of truce came up once again from the routed bishop’s army.

I watched as the baron went down to meet the bishop.

And came away with a paper in hand.

"Victory!" he roared.

And we cheered.