Chapter 230: The Duel
< 230. The Duel >
Altan was fast and agile.
He was not just a loudmouth, as Bayatur’s favorite, Senior Warrior.
He knew beforehand that normal attacks would not work against the elite Roman soldiers armed with plate armor.
His aim was not to kill, but to make them fall off their horses.
He moved with acrobatic agility on his horse, dodging Verkingetorix’s attacks with ease and counterattacking as well.
“Haah!”
Altan shouted as he swung his scimitar.
The blade that slashed horizontally bounced off the spear that came down diagonally.
Altan turned his head slightly to deflect the follow-up thrust and smirked.
“You’re not bad for a cowardly Gaul. You must have sharpened your sword for revenge.”
Verkingetorix did not reply to the blatant provocation.
He had a rough idea of what it meant when the enemy said Gaul, and he did not waver at all.
He just added more strength to his eyes that burned with killing intent.
His attacks became more fierce as he continued.
Altan’s body was pushed back dangerously by the spear that flew like crazy.
In fact, if this was not a fight on horseback, it might have ended long ago.
But Altan, who had spent his whole life on horseback since he was young, was a master of mounted combat that could be called the best among the Huns.
Verkingetorix was also skilled at handling horses as a Gaul, but he was no match for Altan in terms of skill.
Altan, who seemed to be only busy with defense, finally caught a glimpse of opportunity.
He deflected the enemy’s spear and used its force to break his balance.
Verkingetorix’s expression changed as his body leaned to one side.
This was the first and last chance.
Altan squeezed out all his strength and pounded Verkingetorix’s armor with his sword.
The armor’s shell fell over with a thud.
Verkingetorix’s body fell under the horse and rolled on the ground.
“That’s it! You stupid Gaul. You only charged like a mad bull.”
Now all he had to do was trample the fallen guy with his horse’s hooves, and no matter how hard his armor was, he wouldn’t be safe.
Altan mocked Verkingetorix with a sneer of victory.
“Heh, this is the difference between us who have spent our lives on horseback and you who are clumsy. I don’t know who your family is, but I’ll send you to the underworld where they’re waiting for you, so don’t be too bitter.”
Altan grabbed the reins to move his horse forward.
A chilling feeling that ran up his spine made him feel a sense of crisis.
Whoosh!
Verkingetorix, who suddenly got up, threw the iron spear he had in his hand.
It was exactly at the same time as Altan’s horse was about to step forward.
Altan desperately twisted his body to avoid the flying spear.
But Verkingetorix had aimed at his horse, not him, from the beginning.
The iron spear mercilessly pierced through the horse’s head and flew past it.
The horse crashed forward with its momentum and Altan’s body naturally bounced up.
As a veteran warrior, he immediately took a falling posture and followed Verkingetorix’s movements with his eyes.
‘Damn it, behind me!’
He couldn’t see the enemy in front of him, which made him feel cold in his stomach.
At the same time, he heard a sound he never wanted to hear.
The sound of his flesh and bones being pierced and torn apart by something.
Thwack!
Something hot pierced through his stomach.
Altan tried to cover his abdomen with his hand.
But the blood that poured out mercilessly made a puddle under his feet in no time.
With a squelch, the spear blade that pierced through his stomach came out sideways.
“Ugh…”
At the same time, he felt a sharp pain in his back.
Verkingetorix’s gladius drew a cruel trajectory over Altan’s defenseless back.
His weapon was concentrated with the anger of all the Gauls who were unjustly sacrificed.
Altan tried desperately to turn his back and counterattack, but it was only in vain.
The reality was that he had no strength in his feet or hands.
Splat!
His chest was pierced by the spear blade that came out finally.
Altan’s eyes became cloudy as he looked at the spear blade that pierced through his chest.
Unable to bear it any longer, he spat out blood from his mouth that held onto the spear shaft that pierced through his chest and twisted it around.
He also made a boiling sound. (Note: I’m not sure what this means, maybe a sound of anger or pain?)
“You coward… pretending to faint and throwing a spear sneakily… that’s why you’re a bunch of peasants who hide in the city and farm… the trait is… hehehe…”
Verkingetorix, who approached coldly, swung his sword and cut off Altan’s neck.
He only opened his mouth with a groan after seeing Altan’s body completely collapse.
“That barbarian bastard still talked trash even before he died. He’ll rot in hell.”
Verkingetorix, who was about to mount his horse, frowned at the faint pain that rose up his body.
He had won, but he had taken more damage than expected.
‘I should have focused on his horse from the beginning, but I was too excited by the idea of revenge. I still have a long way to go.’
It seemed better to take a break and recover some stamina for now.
He wondered about the warriors that Bayatur had left behind, but it was strangely quiet.
He looked around.
Surprisingly, there was no enemy cavalry standing on two legs.
“That was an impressive fight.”
He heard a voice expressing honest admiration.
He turned his head and saw a pile of enemy corpses lying under him.
“I took care of the cavalry so they wouldn’t interfere with your duel.”
Verkingetorix looked at Spartacus with a grin.
‘The strongest gladiator of Rome indeed…’
“I let some of the enemy cavalry escape on purpose. The enemy will be more shaken when they hear of their leader’s death.”
“Do we need to chase the enemy’s monster?”
“I heard beforehand that we don’t have to pursue him too hard. It’s better to support the other units than to chase him who has already gone far. I’ll go ahead then, so rest a bit and join us.”
Spartacus said that and drove his horse away, leading his unit into the middle of the enemy.
The heavy cavalry with eagle wings on their backs.
Marcus called them Aquilanus as they appeared.
Spartacus and the Aquilanus wreaked havoc on the battlefield, attacking everywhere.
Wherever they intervened, the balance of the front line collapsed and the corpses of the Hun warriors rolled on the ground.
The Aquilanus’ spears did not discriminate between ordinary warriors and tribal chiefs.
The Hun army that caught their eyes was simply pierced by their long spears and met their end.
Otgonbayar and Bartjargal, who were responsible for the front line, were dumbfounded by how quickly their allies collapsed.
“Senior Warrior! Those winged bastards are coming this way! You have to avoid them! Fighting them is suicide.”
“Kugh! But if we don’t hold on here, Supreme Senior Warrior will be in danger.”
“But if we stay here, we’ll all die before Supreme Senior Warrior breaks through the enemy lines!”
Bartjargal glanced at Otgonbayar.
He had a look of impatience that he wanted to get away as soon as possible.
“Kugh! Do we have no choice but to retreat?”
It was obvious that staying here would be a death sentence.
The winged bastards were impossible to attack with the current strength of the Huns.
If they only stuck together, it would be one thing, but wherever the winged bastards went, the morale of the Roman army spread like wildfire.
It was impossible to fight against the Roman army that was fully ignited and the winged cavalry.
Besides, he couldn’t even confirm how Bayatur’s flanking maneuver was going.
In the end, Bartjargal made a difficult decision with tears in his eyes.
“All troops! Retreat without looking back! We have to survive to rebuild the plains! Everyone retreat!”
As soon as he said that, the Hun cavalry turned their horses around and ran away.
The pride of the Hun warriors who boasted of being invincible on the plains had long disappeared.
They felt cold in their hearts just thinking of the winged cavalry that spread their wings and ran towards them.
The first encounter with the winged cavalry that tore apart Kublai Senior Warrior’s tribe in an instant was shocking and terrifying.
They knew that if they retreated here, Bayatur’s detachment that had flanked would be in trouble.
But no one asked Bartjargal if he was abandoning Supreme Senior Warrior.
They thought that if they continued to fight here, they would all be annihilated as Bartjargal said.
The only way to rebuild the plains was to survive themselves.
They rationalized themselves and ran away with their backs down.
Their pathetic backs seemed to foreshadow the futile downfall of the tyrant who had ruled over the plains as king.
※※※
“Break through the enemy lines! If we take the heads of Caesar and Marcus, this battle still has hope!”
Even as the tide turned against him, Bayatur’s authority was unparalleled.
The best elites he led broke through the wall of Roman soldiers several times larger than them and kept moving forward without stopping.
He didn’t feel bad about it.
If he continued like this, he could infiltrate behind enemy lines faster than his main force would collapse.
“I’ll take the heads of the North and East Emperors myself! You slaughter the Romans who are in chaos and join the main force.”
Even if he won this battle, the Huns would not be able to win the war.
But if he could kill Caesar and Marcus, he could plan for the future.
He drove his horse forward, leaving behind his words.
‘Spartacus must have been holding Alton back with his life. By now, he might be dead, but there wouldn’t be enough time for him to chase me.’
To seize this opportunity, he had sacrificed the lives of his close aides, whom he had cherished so much.
With the determination that he had nowhere else to retreat, Bayatur felt something strange as he advanced.
Breaking through was fine, but he felt uneasy that the Roman army had given way too easily.
Logically, the Roman army should have known his intention by now.
They should have blocked his way with their bodies, even if they lacked the skill, when he was aiming for their commander.
That was how the Roman army had fought against Bayatur until now.
“Could it be… a trap?”
He regained his cool reason and quickly scanned his surroundings.
He roughly saw the overall movement of the enemy around him and the situation of the Huns in the distance.
At that moment, when he felt a sense of crisis that it might be too late, the movement of the Roman army changed drastically.
“Damn it! They planned to isolate us from the start and then defeat us one by one.”
The Roman army, which had been opening the way in a hurry until a while ago, naturally blocked the rear and flank of the Huns and formed a wall.
Bayatur, who was surrounded by enemies in the middle of a small unit, felt honest admiration rather than confusion.
This was not something that happened by chance.
Even though Bayatur had noticed it in the middle, he was surrounded like this, which meant that it was a trap that had been prepared meticulously in advance.
“So they predicted that it would go this way from the beginning… I wonder whose idea it was.”
Bayatur’s eyes stared at the commander’s flag in the distance.
There were two people who were looking at him from there.
He couldn’t see their expressions, but they probably felt satisfied that everything went according to plan.
“They think they’ve lured me into a trap. But don’t think you can stop me with such a flimsy wall!”
It was hopeless to try to escape with his army here anyway.
Then it would be better to keep going forward and aim for the enemy commander’s neck as he had planned from the beginning.
His appearance of not giving up and coming forward even though he was completely surrounded caught the eyes of Marcus who was watching from afar.
“He is impressive indeed. If he wasn’t such a monstrous enemy, I would have tried to find a way to capture him somehow. What a pity.”
Caesar nodded slowly.
“If there was such a talent among the tribal chiefs of Gaul and Germania, I would have done anything to make him my subordinate. But there is no choice. His death will be the most certain proof that this war has ended with Rome’s victory.”
“By the way, your foresight is amazing as always. Did you predict everything in advance that it would unfold like this?”
“I planned it assuming that the enemy commander’s level was similar to mine or Pompey’s. There are not many ways to win with relatively inferior forces. All I had to do was prepare a way to counterattack appropriately.”
Marcus once again sincerely admired Caesar’s ability.
He or Pompey might have been better at devising a large-scale strategy, but no one could match him in terms of detailed tactical movements.
Bayatur’s defeat was also due to that reason.
The large-scale strategy was devised by Marcus.
Caesar directed the rotation in such an advantageous situation.
No matter how excellent a commander he was, he couldn’t handle Rome’s best forces alone.
‘I wonder if King Pyrrhus looked like that when he fought alone on the sea.’
Marcus felt a trace of bitterness in his eyes as he watched Bayatur fighting valiantly and igniting his last flame.
The grand ambition of uniting the plains and creating an empire of great nomads fell into a fleeting dream.
< 230. The Duel > End
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