Ch.617Heinrich’s Stratagem

======[ Joshua ]======

Joshua’s main force from Landenburg managed to break through the enemy cavalry’s encirclement at the cost of nearly two thousand lives.

Afterward, to confuse the pursuing enemy cavalry, they split their remaining two hundred troops into three groups, losing another hundred knights and one Master in the process.

By the time they finally reached the border of Dane, they were left with only about a hundred knights, four Masters, and one Hero.

“I see… Sir Klaus…”

A knight reported Klaus’s death with a bowed head, trembling with a contorted face. Joshua patted the knight’s shoulder lightly while sighing deeply toward the sky.

Though he had prepared himself for sacrifices when they decided to split their forces into three, his heart still felt heavy, as if a lump of lead had been placed in his chest.

‘First Bertrand, and now Klaus is gone too… I have no words to report to His Lordship.’

The Sword of Landenburg. Two of Ludwig’s elite warriors, trained to counter Orhan, had fallen before the war had properly begun, along with almost all of Landenburg’s cavalry forces.

Although the Ka’har had suffered several times the losses, the damage to their own side was too great to feel any joy.

—-

Unlike the Empire, which had built a massive wall to completely block the Ka’har cavalry’s entry, Dane had adopted a defensive strategy of constructing five fortresses at strategic border locations that organically supported each other, surrounding and annihilating invasion forces through coordinated efforts.

There were problems with this approach—border villages remained exposed to Ka’har raids, and the overwhelming mobility difference meant they risked being overrun before fortress troops could mobilize to surround the enemy.

Nevertheless, Dane had no choice but to adopt this fortress-based defense strategy.

They weren’t ignorant of the fact that building a massive wall would be the best solution against the Ka’har. However, Dane found it impossible to construct a border wall like the Empire had.

Whenever Dane showed signs of building a wall, the Ka’har, having grown wary after seeing the Wall of Berengaria, would lead large armies to destroy the foundations of the wall before retreating to the great plains.

Dane’s military strength wasn’t enough to stop the Ka’har from persistently destroying the wall’s foundations and returning to the plains, so they ultimately abandoned wall construction and opted for fortress defense as the next best solution.

“—Even so, with our current strength, this is a defensive line we can’t break through.”

Michel Lambert clicked his tongue. Though they were both westerners, Dane’s border guards wouldn’t welcome Imperial citizens coming from the plains.

Far from welcoming them, they’d be fortunate if the guards didn’t capture, interrogate, and execute them.

“Even if most of Dane’s forces are attacking Panam, they wouldn’t have completely emptied their border fortresses. We’ll have to move carefully to avoid the fortress surveillance…”

The original plan had been to break through before the border guards could mobilize their forces, using their two thousand troops, but having lost most of their forces to the enemy cavalry’s pursuit, that was now impossible.

Michel’s suggestion was to move quietly under cover of darkness, bypassing the fortress surveillance to return to the Empire.

“If we do that, we’ll be caught by the pursuing enemy cavalry again. I have an idea.”

Heinrich shook his head, interrupting Michel. In his judgment, while Michel’s suggestion might allow them to avoid the Dane fortress surveillance, their movement would be too slow, making it obvious they would be caught by the enemy cavalry.

“Do you have some kind of good plan?”

“I don’t know if it’s good… but I do have a plan.”

Heinrich explained his strategy to his comrades, who were looking at him with half-doubtful expressions.

“Indeed… moving like that would create a conflict between Dane and Ka’har while securing our safety.”

Joshua nodded, seeing the merit in the words. William, Michel, and Hayden also agreed with Heinrich’s plan. To them as well, it seemed like a simple yet effective strategy.

Two hours later.

Two hundred and five war horses galloped across the border of Dane.

—-

“Huh?”

Max, a guard stationed at Brandt Fortress, one of the five fortresses on Dane’s border, spotted something rushing from the east for the first time since his assignment here.

‘Dust…?’

With darkness beginning to fall and the distance being quite far, he couldn’t make it out clearly, but something like a massive mass was raising dust as it rushed toward the setting sun.

‘A mass, dust, from the east… wait, could that be?!’

Max, who had been narrowing his eyes and tilting his head, suddenly stood up as if struck by lightning. The advice of his seniors, veterans who had guarded Brandt Fortress for years, flashed through his mind.

‘Ka’har…!’

The eastern raiders who swept through border areas with their cavalry. Max hurriedly turned to wake his senior colleague who was dozing off while sitting on a wooden box.

“Senior, wake up! Enemy raid!”

“Hmm…? What enemy… an enemy raid?!”

The senior soldier, who had been mumbling in a half-asleep state, jumped up in surprise.

“Enemy, you say? Could it be the Ka’har!”

The senior soldier grabbed the spear he had left leaning against the wall and looked in the eastern direction Max was pointing to. His pupils clearly reflected a group of riders approaching from the distance.

Riders galloping toward the west. Upon witnessing this sight, the senior soldier rubbed his wide-open eyes once, shook his head vigorously, looked beyond the wall again, and…

A moment later, he muttered in a dazed voice with his mouth hanging open.

“…What is that?”

“Huh? It’s not the Ka’har?”

Despite the situation calling for an immediate alarm, the senior soldier was just staring blankly eastward with an incredulous expression. Puzzled, Max turned his gaze toward the approaching dust cloud.

And like his senior, his jaw dropped.

“…What is that?”

Max doubted his eyes as he watched the approaching dust cloud getting closer. As he had initially suspected, it was indeed hundreds of riders raising dust, but… even Max couldn’t determine whether to consider this an attack.

And for good reason—

The two hundred warhorses galloping toward the west carried only a single rider.

“A wild horse herder…?”

Seeing a man covered in a hooded robe leading two hundred warhorses, that was the only possibility Max could think of.

—-

Upon receiving Max and his senior’s report, the commander of Brandt Fortress decided to send out only a small cavalry unit to identify the stranger rather than putting the fortress on alert.

Hundreds of riderless horses without saddles and a single unidentified man—it was too bizarre to be considered an enemy raid. Even if the man was confident enough in his skills to come alone, there was no reason to bring hundreds of masterless horses.

However, the cavalry sent by Brandt Fortress failed to discover the identity or intentions of the group.

“…He disappeared?”

“Yes. By the time we approached, only two hundred masterless horses remained. It seems… he noticed our approach, dismounted, and escaped by hiding in the dust cloud.”

“But why?”

Even for the fortress commander, who prided himself on having experienced all sorts of situations, this incident was completely incomprehensible. It was almost as if they had been tricked by a ghost.

‘What on earth is happening? Is this some kind of gift from Volberg…?’

He was desperate enough to consider such an irrational explanation. Though the identity of the vanished man remained unknown, Brandt Fortress had gained two hundred and five warhorses as strategic resources.

“They’re definitely not wild horses. They show signs of having been trained as war mounts.”

“That makes it even more strange. Two hundred masterless war horses. It feels like picking up a blood-stained money pouch—extremely unsettling.”

The commander of Brandt Fortress felt an inexplicable unease about this bizarre incident that defied his common sense, but he couldn’t reject such good fortune either, so he brought the two hundred warhorses into the fortress.

—-

‘They took the bait. Yes. It was too tempting a prize to ignore.’

Heinrich smiled with satisfaction as he secretly watched the Brandt Fortress soldiers returning with the two hundred masterless warhorses. His strategy was working perfectly.

‘They probably suspected it might be poisoned bait, but from a fortress commander’s perspective, the opportunity to acquire two hundred warhorses couldn’t be ignored. Everything is going according to plan.’

As Heinrich had predicted, the commander of Brandt Fortress led Landenburg’s warhorses inside the fortress, never suspecting they were a poisoned chalice with Ka’har pursuers attached.

What would the enemy cavalry tracking the Landenburg horses’ hoofprints think when they saw the tracks leading here?

‘They’ll think we’ve hidden inside Dane’s territory. In reality, we never even crossed the border.’

All the enemy cavalry could track were the hoofprints of two hundred warhorses on the ground. They couldn’t tell whether people were riding them or if they were empty.

Heinrich’s strategy exploited this blind spot.

The rest of his forces had never even crossed Dane’s border. They had simply dug trenches and hidden in the forest near the border.

Heinrich was the only one who had entered Dane’s territory, leading the riderless warhorses.

‘Now… I just need to return to Landenburg before the Ka’har reach this place.’

This was something only Heinrich could do. Unlike the other knights and Masters of Imperial blood, he was a knight born of Dane lineage.

Unlike his companions who would stand out, he could blend naturally among the citizens of the Kingdom of Dane once he removed his robe and armor.

So he would simply travel through Dane’s territory and cross over once he reached the border with the Empire.