Chapter 215: Chapter 107: Senior, How Much Longer Are You Going to Hug Me?
A few of his trusted men behind him also drew their weapons, glaring menacingly at the two squads.
He was about to use his own men as cannon fodder for a forced probe.
Left with no choice, the men in the two squads could only bite the bullet. They raised their somewhat crude wooden shields and, under the cover of a volley from the crossbowmen behind, howled as they charged toward the other side of the stone bridge.
On the other side of the bridge.
Upon seeing them, a look of panic seemed to flash across Catherine’s face.
She hastily raised her shield, rather clumsily deflecting a few weak, stray arrows. Then... she wheeled her horse around and fled in a panic toward the birch forest behind her.
"She’s running! That wench is running away!" Their spirits lifted at the sight, the charging cannon fodder broke into an even faster sprint.
They quickly stormed across the stone bridge and plunged into the birch forest on the opposite bank.
Just then, the sound of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from within the forest.
Immediately after, seven or eight Skeleton Wolf Cavalry burst out of the trees, fleeing frantically into the distance without a single glance back.
And, ridiculously, tied to the rear of each of these Skeleton Wolf Cavalry was a bundle of dry branches bound with vines.
These branches dragged along the ground, kicking up a long trail of dust!
The truth was revealed.
"Goddammit, it’s branches! That huge cloud of dust was just faked by these boneheads dragging branches!" one of the sharp-eyed cannon fodder realized, yelling out at once.
"We’ve been had! There’s no main ambush force at all!"
Word quickly made its way back to their side of the bridge.
When Scarface Craig learned the truth, he was stunned for a moment before exploding with rage. The vicious scar on his face flushed red. "Son of a bitch! They dare to fool me?! A few Skeletons dragging branches, and they managed to scare more than a thousand of us into not making a move? Angus, you see this? This is the result of your precious caution! We fell for their delaying tactics!"
He felt as if his intelligence had been gravely insulted. Worse, he felt that Angus was a gutless coward whose timidity had cost them a golden opportunity.
"I’m done taking orders! Anyone who wants to get rich, follow me! We’ll grab that damn Holy Knight first, then head straight for Lakefront Town tonight! If we waste any more time, we’ll lose our chance!"
He vaulted onto his horse, brandished his heavy axe, and roared to the five hundred men under his command.
However, his earlier act of using his own men as cannon fodder had clearly disheartened many of his followers.
Besides, Angus was the commander in name, after all, and had consistently shown a level head. A good number of men were still more inclined to trust his judgment.
In the end, only a little over two hundred men answered Scarface’s call, mounting their horses to give chase across the bridge. Most of them were his own loyalists or the underlings of a few equally greedy and impatient mercenary captains.
The remaining nearly three hundred men hesitated for a moment before choosing to stay with Angus.
"Craig, get back here! It’s a ploy to lure us in!" Angus yelled, his face livid.
The scene unfolding before him was almost identical to his worst fears.
"Lure my ass, you spineless coward!" Scarface shot back, spitting contemptuously over his shoulder. "I’ve got two, three hundred of my brothers here. You think we’re afraid of a few boneheads and some broad? You wanna be a coward, you stay here and cower. Brothers, with me! For loot, for food, for women!"
With that, he spurred his horse into the lead. Followed by a disorderly mob of over two hundred men, he charged across the stone bridge, heading straight in the direction Catherine and the Skeleton Wolf Cavalry had fled.
Angus’s face was livid, and he trembled with rage at his brain-dead teammate.
But he knew he couldn’t just stand by and watch. If Scarface really walked into an ambush and he didn’t attempt a rescue, they wouldn’t just lose men; he would completely alienate their remaining "allies," possibly even triggering internal conflict.
"All units, cross the bridge at once!" Angus commanded, practically grinding the words out between his teeth. "Maintain formation and follow Craig’s men! Be ready to provide support!"
He had to get the main force across the bridge to regroup with Scarface as quickly as possible. He reasoned that with their superior numbers, they should be able to brute-force their way through the enemy’s ambush. They might even be able to turn the tables and clinch an early victory.
The army quickly reformed and set out, with the vanguard marching swiftly onto the stone bridge.
However, just as some thirty vanguard troops and their horses reached the middle of the bridge—
BOOM!
A deafening explosion erupted.
The entire stone bridge began to shake violently. Its weakest point in the center, as if struck by an unbearable force, instantly shattered. Stone slabs crumbled and debris flew as a massive crack shot across the structure.
"The bridge is collapsing! Fall back!"
"AHHH—!"
A cacophony of shouts, screams, and splashes erupted at once.
The thirty or so men at the head of the column were caught completely off guard, plummeting along with their horses and the shattered bridge into the lake below.
Some were instantly killed, their heads smashed by falling stone. Others struggled desperately in the water, only to be dragged under by the weight of their armor, their struggles quickly ceasing.
The troops on both ends of the bridge were stunned, and chaos erupted in the ranks.
Angus’s eyes nearly bulged from their sockets in horror.
"Save them! Quickly, save them!"
By the time the chaos subsided and the survivors were frantically pulled ashore with ropes and poles, only seven or eight of the thirty-plus elite vanguards were rescued. All of them were half-drowned and in no condition to fight.
The other twenty or so men, along with their warhorses, were lost forever beneath the Water Bridge.
Angus’s heart sank into an icy abyss.
’He’d been careless!’
He had let his anger at Scarface rattle him. In his haste to cross the bridge and regroup, he hadn’t even thought to inspect it first.
He had never imagined that the enemy would have laid a trap on the bridge so far in advance, just waiting for them to rush headlong into it!
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