Book 3-3.3 The Wikaly Make a Move (II)
Let’s row our boat forward~
Across the turbulent ocean water to the other side~
Where the mountain view is great and the wind is cool, to the land of hope~
Row the oars~
Match it to the blowing wind, push it through the water and let’s go~ [1]
Thriger’s
voice rang throughout the ship. His voice was so loud that it echoed
from his ship in the lead, to the twelfth ship in the back.
“Captain-nim, this is not the ocean but a field of sand.”
As
the first mate who had been with him since the days of the Desert
Runner shouted loudly from the deck, Thriger waved his hand and shouted
back.
“This yellow ocean in front of us, what else would you call it but yellow ocean?”
At Thriger’s answer, the first mate laughed as if to say there’s nothing he can do about Thriger and focused back on his task.
The
song that Thriger was singing was so catchy that the warriors who were
trained to use the ships started to hum along to his voice.
The quicksand river was full of strong winds as usual, and the sails were catching these winds to push forward quickly.
“Hey~ Is the repair going well?”
Thriger
shouted loudly toward the flapping sail. If you look closer at it, it
looked like there were some people hanging on the sail.
They had
each tied their lifeline to the watchtower on top of the sail and were
dangling around while moving around a large needle.
“This isn’t
our first day doing needlework. After three years on a ship, you’ll
become better at needlework than your wife. Anyways, when will our
newbies learn this needlework? We don’t have only one ship anymore. My
body is getting sore repairing sails all day.”
There was no way for the sails that receive the sandy wind twenty four hours a day to remain in good shape.
In
addition, if you let a rip in the sail last just a few days, the wind
flows through there and creates an even bigger hole, making it
completely unusable. Thanks to that, the crew members had to inspect the
sails throughout the day to look for and repair any holes.
“Isn’t
there nothing I can do? The newbies say needlework is something they
cannot do even if they were to die and be reborn. We might just have to
carry two to three backup sails in the future.”
The desert warriors quickly adjusted to the ship, but they would not even think about doing needlework.
Thriger
tried to beg and threaten them multiple times saying it was necessary,
but with them saying they won’t do it even if they were beaten to death,
Thriger could not do anything about it.
“We might need to bring women on board or go to the continent and hire some crew members.”
As the crew member continued to work hard while complaining, Thriger shouted back.
“I will give you special treatment for your work.”
“The desert tribes don’t believe in personal property, so how will you give me special treatment?”
“Tsk, anyways.”
“Hehehe, do not worry. I am just happy being able to relax and sleep peacefully at night.
As Thriger clicked his tongue, the crew member must have heard it as he started to laugh and respond.
Other
than the Desert Runner, the twelve ships with terrible names (in the
eyes of the original Desert Runner crew, names such as ‘Feet of the
Desert,’ and ‘Chunk of Wood that Squirms on the Sand’ were really
terrible. That was why the crew just called them by number) all moved
quickly like the wind.
Thriger was calculating a date in his head. He was trying to calculate how late they would be.
What
they had forget to include in their calculations in the beginning was
the transportation of rations. They had thought about transporting the
warriors through the quicksand river, but they had forgotten about the
food to feed these warriors. They could move 10,000 warriors at once,
but they could not store any rations.
For the original team, there
was only 150 crew members so they had always had enough food on board
with them. That was the reason they forgot. As for Pareia’s Greatest
Warriors, they were not very knowledgeable about ships to begin with,
and they assumed that rations were included in determining the amount
that could be transported. This was why none of them had realized this
problematic situation.
Because of that, they had to travel across the quicksand river between Pareia and Wikaly twice.
If
you consider the fact that the path to invade the Wikaly from the
quicksand river was rough, it was normal for them to be late than the
arranged time to begin with. That was why he had already sent a
messenger to say they may be late.
‘Shit, whatever. It is what it is. I can’t do anything about it, so no point in worrying.”
Thriger showed the calm that crew members have until they meet a storm and raised his voice again to start singing once more.
Let’s row our boat forward~
Across the turbulent ocean water to the other side~
The Wikaly and Pareia’s stalemate had continued for a week already.
They
did have small scale battles with tens of warriors on each side, but
they were all small with only a few casualties. It was what you would
call reconnaissance battles.
The enemy did not look like they were
going to come out, and Pareia also had no desire to clash head on until
the warriors from the quicksand took over the center of the Wikaly
tribe. Because of that, the battlefield was weirdly calm and peaceful.
The
three moons rose up into the air and the darkness spread across the
desert. Well, the moon and the stars were shining so brightly that even
though it was dark, you could still see about 10m in front of you.
Vibli and Trebol were moving around the flanks annoying the warriors of the oasis.
Although
they only had about 4,000 warriors, they made it so that half of the
warriors in the oasis could not get a good night’s sleep.
The
Wikaly warriors tried many times to chase after them and catch them, but
Vibli and Trebol would wisely shoot some arrows before retreating,
getting the Wikaly warriors all riled up.
They had to do whatever
they could to rile them up and instill fear so that more warriors in the
rear would come down to this oasis. That was the way to make it easier
for the quicksand river warriors.
That was why they needed to draw
the warriors out and play a game of cat and mouse. Since they had less
warriors, they needed to slowly push back, retreating as much as the
Wikaly came forward. The further they got from the oasis, the better.
That was the way to make it so that they will get a greater shock from
the central invasion.
After digging trenches in the day to get
their rest, Trebol and Vibli’s warriors were running around the sides of
the oasis at night shouting and shooting fire arrows to get on the
Wikaly warriors’ nerves.
Boom boom boom boom.
A small drum quickly started beating as thousands of Wikaly warriors came dashing out of the oasis.
“They are chasing us as usual.”
Vibli
coldly mumbled before getting the warriors to ready their arrows.
Pareia’s warriors lifted their bows as if they were used to this by now.
Vibli noticed a large black item on top of the Wikaly warriors pirmas and started to mock them once he figured out what it was.
“Hoho. They must have prepared for us. They’re bringing such a large shield with them on their pirmas.”
“I guess they will chase us for quite a while today!”
As one of the lead warriors shouted back, Vibli nodded his head and ordered.
“Ready.”
At Vibli’s order, the lead warriors lifted up their flags.
Papapat! Papapat!
At
the sound of the pirmas dashing across the desert sand, Vibli lifted
his brandistock high in the air and waited for them to get closer.
“Fire.”
At Vibli’s command, the lead warriors lowered their flags and the desert sky was filled with 1,500 arrows.
Psh. Psh. Psh.
The arrows shot through the night air as they quickly flew toward the Wikaly warriors.
Clang. Clang. Clangclang.
As the majority of the arrows bounced off the Wikaly warriors’ shields, Vibli ordered once more.
“Increase the angle!”
The lead warriors shouted.
“Increase your angle and pull the bow string as far as you can.”
Pareia’s warriors uniformly raised their bows to sixty degrees and pulled back their strings.
“Fire.”
A lot of arrows shot across the night sky once more.
It
would be easy to block them during the day, but right now was night
time. No matter how bright the moon was shining, it was impossible to
see all of those thin arrows.
There was the sound of arrows hitting the shields, but more Wikaly warriors fell off their pirma than before.
“Retreat at full speed.”
Since
it would be hard to lose the Wikaly if they were too close, Vibli
ordered the warriors to retreat. Since they had been doing the same
thing for the last week, Pareia’s warriors quickly retreated as if they
were waiting for his command.
“Charge at full speed!”
Hearing a loud shout from the Wikaly formation, the Wikaly warriors threw down their shields and took out their shamshirs.
Originally,
the Wikaly warriors responded back with arrows as well, but they were
not able to cause any damage to the retreating warriors. After that,
they gave up on arrows and just started to chase them as fast as they
could on their pirmas.
The chase had commenced once more.
Since
Pareia’s warriors were moving with two pirmas each for this plan, after
about 30 minutes, they switched pirmas while still moving.
Only
the warriors with the best mobility and riding skills were brought forth
for this plan, so their movements were as natural as flowing water.
“They are really persistent today.”
Seeing the Wikaly warriors who had been chasing them for over two hours, one of the lead warriors started to click his tongue.
After
taking a look to the back, Vibli started to shout toward the lead
warriors after seeing the Wikaly warriors still chasing them with all of
their might.
“Their formation is starting to crumble! We will
keep running for about thirty minutes before fixing our formation and
counterattacking!”
“Understood!”
At first, there were three
to four thousand Wikaly warriors chasing them, but after a long chase,
they were starting to look like an “I” formation. The lead warriors
understood what their Greatest Warrior was thinking and responded back.
After
about 30 more minutes, the number of Wikaly warriors fell down quite a
bit. Pareia’s warriors made a wide turn as they started to fix up their
formation.
“I don’t know who it is, but they are really stupid. Even if they have the advantage, to chase us this far like this.”
Vibli
felt remorse for the enemy warriors and scoffed toward their leading
officer as he waited for his warriors to finish falling information.
Once
the Wikaly warriors suddenly saw Pareia’s warriors turning around and
fixing up their formation, they looked behind them and realized that
there were not many of them left and quickly turned their pirmas around.
“Alright, it is now our turn to chase them. Charge!”
“Waaaaaaa~!”
Pareia’s warriors shouted as they started to chase down the retreating Wikaly warriors.
The Wikaly warriors in the back started to turn their pirmas around as well after seeing the warriors in the front turn back.
“Don’t leave any of them alive!”
Vibli swung his brandistock widely as he shouted, and the responding shouts of the warriors continued to get louder.
Their bodies were starting to heat up as they managed to push hundreds of hesitating Wikaly warriors off of their pirmas.
After
a week of just shooting their arrows and being chased down, they should
have quite an itch to fight. Pareia was rushing at full speed to slash
the Wikaly warriors in their way.
How much time must have passed like that?
After
chasing them for a wild, Vibli started to get a weird feeling. Even if
the opposing lead warrior was stupid, the desert warriors were not
completely clueless. After this amount of time, they should have started
to fix up their formation as well.
“All units stop!”
The moment Vibli shouted loudly, thick ropes rose up from the sand.
The pirmas that were running at full speed ran into those ropes and started to fall over.
“All units stop! All units stop!”
As
Vibli shouted loudly trying to get them to stop, he felt like his body
was floating in the air. His pirma had been caught by the rope in the
sand as well.
‘What is going on? We already retreated through this area before. When did they make such a trap?”
Truth
be told, all of this was Runa Brink’s shrewd planning. The reason it
felt like a sloppy chase was because the warriors that fell behind had
dug the ground and were hiding with the ropes.
Runa had observed
and dissected Pareia’s attack pattern for the last week and knew that
Pareia’s third generation warriors Vibli and Trebol would definitely
counterattack if they saw a sloppy attempt to chase them. In order to
catch them off guard, they had set the trap in the same path that Pareia
took to retreat.
Pareia’s warriors could not slow down and the
majority of them could not avoid the trap as they started to fall off
their pirmas.
There were many who broke their necks or backs in
the process and died, as well as many who broke their arms or legs and
fainted on the spot.
A very small amount managed to luckily get up
without injuries or not fall off of their pirmas, but the Wikaly
warriors who were hiding nearby caught all of them.
The same thing was happening with Trebol’s formation on the other side.
Pareia’s
two Greatest Warriors could not do much as they served their 4,000
warriors to the Wikaly, and they themselves ended up as prisoners as
well.
The Wikaly counterattack had started.
End of Chapter 3.
Next up:
Man Boo Boo Dang
The phrase Man boo boo dang, which means they can even handle 10,000 people applied to them.
