Chapter 164 The Coins Begin to Move
The eastern flank.
The two lines wore different shades of red. The soldiers marched toward one another, while the bolts from the crossbowmen struck their shields. Every now and then, an error or simple luck caused an arrow to strike a man. He fell, and his place was taken by another soldier. When they were so close that the arrows could strike their own soldiers, the captains shouted to stop shooting.
The line captains heard the sound of arrows striking shields cease. They sounded their horns to charge. Hundreds of men surged forward in unison and began to fight. Spears shattered against shields. Shields were smashed by heavy blows. Screams of rage and pain intermingled. By spear, sword, mace, or axe, a new shade of red began to appear.
Finally, the cavalry captains decided where they would strike. The army companies positioned to the north charged toward the western flank of the soldiers of Colina Alba. The companies of that noble house charged to meet them in defense of that position. The knights clad in red, silver, and gold held the numerical advantage. They pushed the line of soldiers dressed in red and yellow eastward, driving them away from their army. Men on both sides fell, dead or wounded. But the greater number belonged to the army of the Queen.
In less than an hour, the captains of Colina Alba ordered a retreat. Slowly, they fell back toward the walls. They carried all the wounded that they could. The soldiers and knights of Aurelio followed them until spears and arrows began to strike them from the defensive walls.
The western flank.
The soldiers from the Islands and Colina Verde varied enormously in their appearance: tall men with fair skin and red hair; men of medium stature with fair skin and dark hair; and short men with dark skin and dark hair. The soldiers on the opposing lines were fair-skinned or slightly darker and had brown or black hair. The royal army of King Aloisio never accepted those of mixed or inferior blood.
The two lines closed in as arrows were raining down. The commander of this flank was more aggressive; the knights initiated their charge before the lines had even made contact. They galloped toward the eastern flank to attack the line of soldiers clad in russet and amber. The knights of Colina Verde and of the islands charged toward the same point to engage them in a fierce battle. The lines of infantry and mounted troops began to fight in unison.
The gigantic knights of Isla Oveja shattered shields with enormous spears and powerful strikes. Afterward, they crushed skulls with their heavy maces. The knights from the other islands hurled slender spears with great precision and fought with swift swords. The charge of the knights of Aurelio broke after twenty minutes of blood and pain. They fell back to regroup. The knights in blue and red did the same.
The soldiers of the Queen fought with valor and courage, but, after hundreds of casualties and deaths, they began to retreat and form a defensive line. The captains assessed the situation and realized that they had suffered heavier losses than their enemy. They gathered their wounded and withdrew, while their crossbowmen fired to provide cover. The knights to the north attempted another charge to annihilate the soldiers. Once again, they clashed with the knights of Isla Oveja, with a similar result. The two forces separated and regroped in a more distant and safe area.
The center of the battle.
The knights of each army positioned themselves in the center, with the soldiers marching on both flanks. The lines were of almost identical length, but those of the army of the Queen were less deep to cover the same distance. The Blue Knights were exactly in the center of the line. They marched at a steady pace until the archers of Puerto Blanco began to fire with their enormous bows, made of wood found only in the Greenwood. Arrows pierced shields and armor, killing or wounding some of the knights clad in red. Shortly thereafter, the crossbowmen of both armies unleashed massive volleys of bolts. Each side advanced with increased speed to close the distance.
Many horns signaled the charge of each army. The soldiers, horses, and nicorns charged in massive formations toward the enemy force. Behind the lines of Puerto Blanco, all the archers ran swiftly toward a position behind the war unicorns. The unicorns ran faster than the horses, heading northeast instead of continuing in a straight line. The archers fired over the formation toward the line of knights in red, the target of the Blue Knights.
The arrows fell with great force, and the lines of horses wavered as the Blue Knights hurled their first spears. With great precision and timeliness, the archers ceased fire and withdrew slightly to verify whether their lines had been breached. Together with the crossbowmen, they would fire upon any formation that managed to break through the ranks of their soldiers. The Blue Knights used spears and swords to breach the lines of the enemy knights. The Unicorns gored any horse or man that came within range of their horns. Many of both were trampled beneath their massive hooves.
Count Heinrich had been waiting for this and signaled the charge for his company with his horn. They attacked along the flank of lines of the knights of Aurelio, shifting the axis of the battle from north and south toward west and east. In the east, the soldiers of Puerto Blanco fought against numerically superior forces; however, the contest remained balanced, as they were better trained and more motivated. The line of knights pushed the combat of the soldiers further to the west, and the soldiers, too, began to pivot their lines. With a target in sight, the fair-haired archers took precise aim at the red tabards.
The Blue Knights had suffered no significant damage in their combat, and Rodrigo sounded a loud blast on his horn. The Unicorns wheeled to the north and began to gallop at a speed that no horse could match. Just to the north of them lay the reserve forces, bearing the standards of Aurelio and his second-in-command, Pasqual. Two hundred of the most powerful animals in the world, accompanied by men of great strength and courage, approached three hundred powerful knights and more than a hundred crossbowmen.
The alarm horns sounded by the knights of the army of Aurelio sounded somewhat hesitant. Usually, that meant the captains were frightened. But in this case, they were following orders. Both to the west and to the east, sixty knights helped sixty crossbowmen mount their horses, and they galloped at full speed toward the center.