Episode 19 : The Great Advance - Part 3

"The enemy! It's the Om!"

 As the screams echoed through the Semitic camp, an uncontrollable chaos began to spread through the entire Semitic army.

 When the Paro twins, warned by Istvan, rushed to inform Roto, the situation was already out of hand.

 The Semites, who are almost apes, have a much keener sense of smell than men. In spite of the muffled and silent vigilance of the Mongols, when they had come within five tadds of the oasis, the Karoi, who had been asleep and huddled together on the outskirts of the army, suddenly sprang to their feet as if struck by some great fright.

 Then they looked around and sniffed and squeaked at each other with a gesture that seemed more like that of a creature itself from one end to the other.

 At the same time, Linda and Remus rolled up to Roto and, not knowing that the heartless Istvan had already given up on them and had retreated to the safety of his hiding place alone, they tried their best to make him understand with their body language, but there was no time to let Roto understand them. But there was not enough time for Roto to fully understand.

 Suddenly, Shem and the others changed their appearance, and they snapped to look into the darkness. Outside the oasis, they began to hear something squeaking and screeching, and the sound of something running around.

 Roto's old, wise face suddenly turned pale.

"Shiva! Shiva!"

 A young Rak warrior rushed in while they were calling.

 He was so flustered that he could not speak very well. He does not seem to notice that Linda and Remus are standing anxiously holding each other's hands, points to the darkness behind him, and shouts something in a high-pitched voice. Of course, Linda and Remus do not understand.

"...!"

 Something, Roto shouted back.

"Alfetu!"

 They will cry out the name of their God, as if they were terribly angry, and then suddenly they will rise up.

 Even when he stood up, he was only at the level of Linda's chest, but he was a great chieftain, and there was something about him that naturally intimidated people. By the time Roto had given his orders in rapid succession, and Raku and his men had rushed out in a panic, Karoi's unrest had spread to all the camps of Shem.

 They are desert barbarians who are not familiar with the first step of such tactics as setting up sentinels at night to prepare for surprise attacks and always being ready to get up and shoot spears.

 Although they are a little more night-sighted than the Mongol soldiers, they still panic when they are informed of a sudden surprise attack, run around in search of their weapons, shout at each other when they collide with others, try to snatch people's weapons, or even kick and scream at those who are sleeping peacefully in the midst of all this commotion. and scream.

 The chiefs continued to rant and rave and shout instructions, but they did not seem to have much effect. István's instructions to pretend to be asleep so that they would not be aware of the surprise attack and so that they would have more time to prepare for battle were, rather than being without merit, completely useless from the start.

 If Guin had been there, his strong leadership might have managed to bring even those Shem and his men together, calm them down, and help them rebuild their ranks.

 However, Roto had no power to control the other chiefs. Karoi, in particular, had a strong spirit of independence and self-reliance.

 The Karoi were the first to realize this, and they came out of their confusion relatively quickly. They call themselves the race of the warriors of Shem. When they took the machete and the poison dart, there was no time to stop Roto when he heard the news.

"Aiyah!"

 Under the command of Gauro, the Great Chief, they set out for the oasis in a flash, without having formed a proper formation.

"Follow Kaloy! Let the enemy come!"

 Iracelli is ranting and raving. Glo follows him out of the camp. There's no tactics, no formation.

 On the other hand, the Mongol army, which knew that the surprise attack had already been noticed, did not hesitate.

"Charge!"

"Commence all-out assault!

 One after another, Amneris's mouth issued orders, and with Astrias's troops at the apex of the triangular wedge, they headed straight for the oasis, covering the remaining distance.

 When the two armies were this close to each other, it was pointless to use the crossbow to check them or to probe each other for traps. The two armies simply clashed head-on, struggling and pushing each other by force and power.

 The horses' hooves kicked up sand, and swords clashed fiercely with armour and saddles. The last few treads to the oasis were swept away in a flash.

"Captain! Shem's on his way!"

 Pollack shouts.

"Don't you dare! Crush him with a single stroke!"

 Asturias shouted back. Shem's army came rolling down, raising its machetes in pieces, and crashing into Mongol's army, emitting that strange, deafening sound.

"Aye! Aiyah!"

"Hyah! Hyah!"

 It is the distinctive beastly cry of Shem that we have heard so many times already.

"Get it, get it! Come on!"

 Asturias drew his sword from his hip and released it.

 Like locusts, Shem and his men ran past the head of Mongol's army and jumped straight at them. They jumped on top of the horse, dodged the knight's sword, and hit the knight on the head with a stone axe.

 The one from below knocked off the horse's legs with a stone axe and sprayed its eyes with poisoned arrows. Sooner than expected, Shem, caught off guard, seemed to be ready to strike back. Immediately, a chaotic battle ensues in front of the oasis.

 At last, the warriors of Rak, Lhasa and Tubai came down to join the battle line.

"Aye! Aiyah!"

"Mongol! Mongol!"

"Hyaaaah!"

 Like black ants on a giant locust, Shem and the others did not feel the urge to be caught off guard. But the pigments of battle that mark their faces are not to be found, as if they had not had time to go that far, and in the darkness it is impossible to tell which of their kind they are.

 When the knights' long swords hit him, the little Shem's body let out a scream and swooped backwards, tumbling onto the sand.

"Ilum squad-- forward! Irm squad, forward!"

"Go around. Cut off Shem's path of retreat."

"The enemy is a smaller group than you think!"

 One after another, messages were sent out, and the main force of the Mongols drove into the oasis in a wedge shape, and the last Ilm unit started to move slowly.

 As we had agreed, we made a wide circle and spread out in a semicircle to block the Semites' retreat. If the Semites again fled to the far side of the dunes, Mongol's army would not have enough strength to pursue them further into the depths of Nosferus. The mission of the Ilum Corps was a serious one.

 The Ilm squadron ran straight through the streets where fierce fighting was already taking place.

"Pass through the oasis - cast your net between the oasis and the rocky mountains you see on the other side!"

 Irum rasps.

"Crossbowmen, forward-- infantry, spread out!"

 The rocky mountain that Ilm pointed to as his target is the place where Istvan hid, but of course the Mongol army could not have known that.

 In the light of the dawn, which is becoming brighter and brighter, Asturias, who was swaying his sword from side to side and checking his surroundings carefully, frowned.

"Pollack."

"Hyah!" Astorias jumped up with a strange cry, and pulled the reins of the horse to cut off the Karoi warrior who was trying to jump on the horse's head. Asturias shouted angrily as he dodged the stone machete that had swept him off his feet and made the hippopotamus jump, showing that he had plenty of time to fight.

 The loyal second-in-command has been trying to protect the captain, and has been trying to cut off Shem and the others by being close to Astorius,

"Yes, sir.

 Using his sword as a pike, he skewered the Semites who had sprung at him, and shouted back at them. The stubborn blood spurted from the stab wound like a shower over his red headdress and face beneath it, and he spat a curse word to make the horse squirm and wiped his face with the edge of his cloak.

"Don't you think it's strange that he's nowhere to be found?

"You're a Leopard!"

 Pollack has known the young captain's feud with Guin since the beginning. He glanced from side to side as if to say, "Oh, no,

"Speaking of which - but Shem's main force is still in the oasis. They're probably in there."

"Not only that. Not the traitor, not the Paro twins. It's in Shem. If they were here, they'd certainly stand out like a sore thumb."

"It's an oasis!"

 Pollack, seeing that Asturias was somewhat absent from the battle, was distracted in his search for it, and cautioned him as he approached the horse.

"Captain, behind you!

"Whoa--"

 Asturias turned and fiercely cut down Shem with his sword, who had crept up behind him and was about to blow a poisoned arrow into the horse's buttocks.

 Swoosh and bleed.

"Oasis."

 The night is about to dawn.

 It was no longer purple or blue, but white and blue. I could clearly see the yellow teeth of Shem and his men, the stiff black and brown hair that covered their bodies, and even the color of the old blood that had stuck to the stone axe.

 Asturias looked around, trying to assess the situation.

 What he saw was a chaos, like a swarm of locusts and a swarm of ants, or a knight with a whole army of Shem warriors attached to him, or a barbarian with a horse sprawled across his back, cut to pieces by Mongol soldiers. The Semites had no tactics, no leaders, and they just kept on slashing and attacking.

"Polack!"

"Ha!"

"All right, then, let's get you into that oasis."

"Yes, sir!"

 Pollack's hand goes up and the whip swings wide.

 The Red Knights of Asturias's squadron swiftly dismissed Shem's prey with a swiftness that showed the extent of their daily training, and came rushing around the captain with their horses.

"I'm going to hang on to the oasis! I'm going for the leopard man and Argon's el!"

 Asturias shouted loudly as he glanced at the Ilm troops as they crossed the side of this chaotic scene and the oasis. He glanced back. The remnants of Regan's squadron, the rear half of Astorias's squadron, and Amneris's squadron of Vron and Lint seemed to have moved forward, and between the brown, black, and tan Semites, a bright white armor was visible, mixed in with the red armor of the Red Knight. It appears that Mongol is pushing the battle forward.

Of course. Such a small, ill-equipped barbarian tribe, if they were to take advantage of us or use some trivial trickery, but if we were to meet them head-on, this Mongol army would not fall behind.

 Asturias grinned a grin of satisfaction under his cheek.

"Hey, make this day the last day of the Semites!"

"Oh!"

 Hearing the cries of the crowd, Asturias kicked his horse in the stomach.

"To the oasis!"

 Asturias and his followers, the Red Knight heroes under Polack, made their way through the confusion and over the remaining distance to the oasis.

 Seeing this, Shem and the others rush in from both sides, trying to prevent it.

"Aye!"

"Yeeeeah!"

 The hoofs of the red-armoured horsemen kicked away the little apes who tried to come between them and the oasis, threatening them with their stone machetes, and their long swords were brandished above their heads.

"Gaaaah!"

 A sorrowful exclamation comes out of the mouth of Karoi, who is hit by the hoof of a strong horse and flung away.

"Stay out of my way!"

 Asturias again spurred his horse's belly as hard as he could and led the charge into the oasis.

 Between some trees and shrubs and their undergrowth, there is a pond with brownish water, winding in a strange way.

 Shem and his men had already finished their preparations and were waiting for the advance of Mongol's army to come into the oasis. At once, from the shadows of the trees and the rocks of the pond, with a shrill, menacing sound like that of a snake, small but deadly darts of venom came upon them.

 Asturias drew back his cheeks more deeply, laid his head down on the horse's neck, and rode on, protecting his face from the arrows.

"Caaaaah!"

 Shem, who was knocked away to the right by the sword, screams and falls to the edge of the pond. Blood gushes out from his split head, creating a wave of bright red in the brownish water.

 The Red Knights drove their horses into the pond and wiped out the precious water of the desert. Their hooves stirred up the sand at the bottom, and the pond turned a dark shade of mud, and the blood of the fallen Shem and the others flowed into it, turning the muddy surface of the water even darker.

"Heeey!"

"Aye!"

 Raku and his men, throwing away poisoned arrows, rush at you, brandishing stone machetes.

 Asturias's eyes wandered madly about, looking for Guin, while he kept his eyes on Shem. He could not forget the humiliation inflicted on the leopard-headed warrior.

 But as far as I can see, the leopard-headed stalwart who should have been so conspicuous is nowhere to be seen. There is no sign of the blue knight who betrayed Count Mars. All that came running through the grass of the oasis or leaping from the trees with strange voices were the diminutive, hairy forms of Shem.

 Strange--a faint suspicion crossed Asturias' mind.

You're not here. That's absurd-- so this is not Shem's main force? No, but judging by the numbers, I don't think there are many more elsewhere.

"It's dangerous!"

 When he heard Pollack's piercing cry, he drew himself up with all his strength and dodged the stone axe that had knocked off his head.

 However, there was a nagging uneasiness in Asturias' heart. The Leopard-headed warrior's cunning and rampant trickery had made him suffer many times before.

(Also, he's got something on ...)

 I can't get rid of the fear that he might be hiding somewhere, pulling some of the Shemites along with him, to make some kind of strange move that no ordinary person would think of.

"Guin! Guin, where are you? !"

 As if to somehow blow away his anxieties, Asturias pulled on the reins and ran wetly up the bank on the other side of the pond, shouting as loud as he could.

"Hide yourself, coward! Come out and fight me! Astorius is here. Astrius of Arvon wants a showdown with you. Guin! Guin, where are you?

 Behind Asturias, calling desperately as if for a lover he had not yet seen, the battle now raged across the oasis, the knights in red armor and the brown-haired raks, dipping in the pond, blood staining their undergrowth, or snapping the branches of the bushes, fighting to the death. They continue to fight to the death.

 Suddenly, Asturias's eyes caught sight of a group of apparently very high-ranking Semites on the outskirts of the oasis, at the base of the tallest tree.

 A group of elites is guarding the mass. Apparently, they are trying to gradually escape the battlefield and move to a safer place while holding them in place.

 Inside, white hair glistened.

(You're the chieftain of Shem!

 Asturias took the long sword back with a gulp.

"Alright!"

 I'm not letting you get away with this. He'll give you the whip.

 In a panic, Pollack organized the best men around,

"Follow the captain! Don't let the captain get isolated!"

 I followed him, ranting and raving.

 Asturias doesn't care about that either. He is determined to take credit for it. Guin, too, if there is no traitor, at least give him the head of the great chief of Shem. As if to dispel it, he rushed toward it.

 The crowd was immediately in turmoil.

"Caaaaah!"

"Aye, aye!"

"Alfetu! Alfetu!"

 Asturias, clad in red, had the vigor of a demon god that could not be turned away.

 Where Astorias goes, blood splashes, screams and screams of desperation immediately erupt, and the small warriors of Shem who stand in the way of his rush are hauled to their knees and flung away one after another, screaming.

 A great agitation prevailed in the group of palm-roots. Asturias saw that the Shemites who were hugging the tree were suddenly scattered in all directions, and that some of them were hurrying away to protect a Shemite whose whole body was ashen white, who looked like a chief, and a very old chief at that.

"You can't let him get away!"

 Asturias shouted and squeezed the reins, and suddenly saw something trying to escape in the opposite direction, still guarded by several people.

It's a person!

 The silver hair glistening in the morning sun, and the tanned but sleek white limbs hidden by the hairy bodies of Shem and the others, caught his eye. Something hot and cooing went up in Asturias' heart.

I got it!

 If I were to put it into words, it would be just that.

(Paro twins!)

 The twins were seen when they were seized by Amneris on the bank of the river and brought before the Lady in her tent. Even if there had been no one else but Shem and the others in such a situation, it is a striking sight that, once seen, could never be mistaken again.

If Guin and Argon's El are nowhere to be found...

 This is also a credit to you, he said. Finally, Asturias was so excited that he stopped trying to chase the chief of Shem and turned his head back to the left.

"There they are! It's the Paro twins!"

 Behind him, he hears Pollack's high-pitched whimpering. Asturias clicked his tongue. He wanted to capture the twins with his own hands and lead them to Amneris.

"That's my prize!"

 As soon as he shouted, Astorias charged the horse and pursued the Semites and the twins, who were trying to escape. Several Semites tried to stand in their way. Without paying much attention to them, he carelessly knocked them aside with the handle of his spear.

"Move!"

 No matter how fast Shem and the others were, there was no way they could outrun the horses on the flat, straight road. They quickly caught up with him, overtook him, and, unable to stop because of their great momentum, overran him and turned their bodies around.

 Seeing this, the twins changed their direction and tried to escape to the oasis where they had come from, but the two armies were now in confusion, and most of the Mongol army had lost their horses and were in a fierce battle.

"Linda!"

"Remus!"

 The twins shouted and dodged, then split off to the left and right and tried to run through both sides of Asturias' horse.

"I can't let you go!

 Asturias took credit. Raising his long sword, he was about to strike the boy, a small child, who was about to slip through the side of his horse. The strict order not to kill had long since passed from his mind.

 The boy dodged the blow just a few golts short of his goal. The reaction threw him off his stance. He fell to the grass.

"I got it!"

 Asturias grabbed the reins of the horse. The hoofs of the raging horse, foaming between his teeth at the smell of blood and the tumult, were lifted high, and before the boy had time to get up, he was trampling down the slender body.

 A moment later!

"Remus!"

 With a scream, the girl with the long platinum blonde hair ducked under the horse and fell on top of her brother!

"--!"

 Burning with a voiceless rage, Linda, in an effort to protect her twin from the claws of the enemy, draped herself over her brother, twisted around, and glared at her attacker.

"Agh--!"

 Suddenly, a piercing cry escaped Asturias' mouth. He squeezed the reins further, almost unconsciously.

 The horse, which had turned its head away to the limit, could not hold back and stood on its haunches. Asturias gave a cry and fell unceremoniously from the saddle of the horse.

 But Asturias did not even notice that he had been disfigured in front of his men.

 He clutched his hands in the grass, and in a half-recumbent position, trying to sit up, he stifled his breath, forgot to pay attention to his surroundings, and stared at the girl who had made him fall from his horse.

 What a girl that must have been!

 It's not that I don't like it, but it's not that I don't like it. The two eyes that shone so brightly became a fiery furnace, and it seemed as if they were going to burn and burn out the outlaw who dared to touch it.

 What dignity and fierceness surrounded her!

 Asturias faltered before the spirit of the little queen, who was only fourteen. It was only for a moment, of course. Immediately, he regained his composure and, without looking back at the horse, stretched out his hand to catch them both.

 But that moment of hesitation was enough. More agile than desert rabbits, the two children sprang to their feet, took each other's hands, and ran, dodging the many hands that were being swiftly thrown at them. In their backs, they had the expression of small animals that had been hunted down.

"Seize them! Don't kill it, it's the Paro twins!"

 Behind him, Pollack's loud voice rang out. Asturias stood there, breathless, stunned, sword in hand, oblivious to the chase. Asturias stood there, breathless and stunned, sword in hand, forgetting to follow.

 One after another, red-armoured horses rode past him. He regained his composure, followed the horse, and jumped on, but even then the girl's majestic gaze, which had seemed to pierce his eyes, seemed to be staring him straight in the face, ready to burn him.