Chapter 165 According to his Plan
Under the banners of Aurelio.
Captain Pasqual smiled as he saw the Unicorns charging in his direction. He sounded his horn with a special tone and rhythm. Four captains shouted at their companies.
The crossbowmen ran to the front and formed two lines. The front line fired first. They knelt, placing their feet in the iron stirrups located at the front of their crossbows. When they heard the crossbows behind them fire, they stood up and tensioned their strings using a lever and the full force of their bodies to prepare for the next bolt. They loaded new bolts into their weapons and fired, while the line behind them did the same to reload. Every fifteen seconds, sixty bolts flew toward the Blue Knights.
A company of knights, clad in steel armor and chain mail, galloped a distance to the southwest. Another company did the same toward the southeast. Both wheeled about and formed lines, preparing to charge toward the center once the Unicorns were caught between their ranks.
From the west and the east, sixty knights galloped toward an area behind the Unicorns, while the latter charged toward the banners of Aurelio. They halted, and the crossbowmen dismounted and ran forward in a formation similar to that of the others. They began firing less than twenty seconds after arriving. The knights turned and rushed toward the lines of the other companies to join them.
Pasqual surveyed the formations. They were nearly perfect. He was the most brilliant strategist the Count possessed. The two hundred Unicorns and Blue Knights were soon between two hundred and forty crossbowmen and three hundred and twenty of the finest knights in the army. Should it prove necessary, he had the personal company of Aurelio at his disposal for an attack, in case the others proved insufficient.
The commander looked to the east, toward the banners of Tomás. The young captain had died in a valley of fire, along with his machines, less than an hour ago. But his count was safe, beneath those banners, far from the dangerous Unicorns. Pasqual had heard the account of how Count Esteban had used the speed of powerful animals to overcome a superior force. He guessed that, in all likelihood, he would attempt something similar to attack Aurelio and kill him.
This strategy was sound and stood a high probability of success against other minds. Pasqual remembered the chess matches against Victorino years ago on those nights in the North, when they were not fighting against the savages. The son of Valero was a formidable player, but Pasqual was better.
In the box of death.
Arrows rained down upon their shields and armor. They had anticipated this, trusting that their steel and leather protections would defend them as they advanced toward Aurelio. But when they felt the blows on their backs and heard some unicorns collapse, wounded in their hind legs, they realized that the danger was far greater than they had imagined. A Unicorn took an arrow in his large blue eye. A hoof struck a stone he could not see, and the animal pitched forward, flinging his rider a great distance. As both struggled to rise, the crossbowmen concentrated their fire upon them, and both fell, riddled with arrows.
Indigo Strike deflected an arrow with his horn, but another pierced his shoulder, deep enough to draw blood. He winced with every step but continued running. A point pierced the mail on the shield arm of Count Esteban, and he let out a cry of pain.
An arrow lodged in the mouth of Sapphire Shield, and she bit it, snapping the shaft, which fell to the ground. She tasted her own blood as the arrowhead sliced her jaw with every movement. Captain Pedro. whose eyes observed every movement on the battlefield, saw the knights forming up to charge them from both flanks.
Bloody Beryl suffered a cut to her abdomen caused by an arrow that ricocheted off the ground beneath her and struck an unprotected spot. Peador took an arrow in the leg, near his left knee. The giant grabbed the arrow, ripped it out of his leg, and put it in his mouth, intending to shove it up the ass of Aurelio.
Cobalt Storm screamed when a lucky arrow struck him in the neck, between two pieces of armor. His rider took an arrow directly in the chest, right over the heart, the armor held but felt the organ stop for a fraction of a second. Rodrigo, who knew more about his knights and his animals than anyone else in the world, realized that they would not reach their destination with enough strength to win. He grasped the horn tied to his belt. He sounded a signal, one that these men rarely used in battle. The sounds indicated that they were to turn east and retreat.
Some of the knights wheeled alongside their commander, but Azure Death continued his charge straight toward the banners, and many followed him. The captain sounded the horn two more times, and finally, the aged Unicorn turned to the right; and the animals, many of them his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, turned with him.
With incredible speed for a young animal, let alone one so ancient, he ran toward the enemy before him. Several arrows had lodged in his armor and a few in his flesh, yet pain had ceased to matter to him in battle more than a century ago. He was far ahead of the others who were running after him. As the ranks of knights drew near, he began to scream with horrible sounds, making emphatic gestures with his head.
Unicorns much like Pegasi did not consider themselves similar to horses. However, the language of horses bore a slight resemblance to the language of Unicorns. Facing each horse stood a beast that weighed twice as much even without his armor and possessed a horn capable of piercing the finest steel forged by humans.
The screams and gestures of Azure Death meant, in human language: I am the bearer of blood and shattered bones. I am Broken Horn: who will stand against me?