Skirmish
An unexpected battle and defeat.
We will laugh it off since we can easily repay this debt.
Book 4-8.1
Pareia’s preparations for war were getting more complete day by day.
The better the preparations, the less injuries you will end up with during the war. That much was obvious. Each and every one of the warriors were precious right now; neither Yulian nor Runa wanted to lose those precious warriors because they did not plan adequately.
“Not much time is left.”
“I believe everything will be ready in about half a month. If we can do that, we should have some extra time before heading out to war.”
“It is probably best to give the warriors time to rest once everything is ready to go.”
“Of course. They worked really hard to prepare; we need to give them time to recharge as well.”
Honestly speaking, there were no nations that let their soldiers go home right before a war. People tend to not want to leave once they relax at home, and their senses that they have been sharpening become dull once more. Who would give them leave when their hearts may grow weak right before war? The usual course of action would be to show them a battle between wild animals or sparring sessions with one another as entertainment to get them excited.
But it was different for a desert warrior. It was okay for them to go home for a break to relax. There was no chance of a desert warrior becoming weak or their senses becoming dull because of resting at home.
In fact, it actually strengthened their resolve because of the thought about how they could bring happiness and peace for their family by going to war. As for their senses, that was something that naturally came out when they were in the battlefield.
“We will have a Greatest Warrior meeting soon and can tell them about our plan at that time. Is there anything else we should tell them?”
“I have nothing special to say.”
A messenger warrior urgently ran toward Yulian while the two men were talking.
“Urgent message for the Glow.”
The messenger warrior must have really rushed over as his entire body was full of dust and he smelled pungent of sweat, even though he was a couple steps away.
“What is going on?”
“A message for the Glow. Greatest Warrior Thriger has been injured and 3 ships were heavily damaged.”
“What?”
Yulian and Runa both shouted out at the same time at the messenger warrior’s message. Captain Thriger and the ships were the most important pieces for this war.
They were planning on moving the main forces through the quicksand river instead of the desert. If they lost a couple ships right now, they would face some difficulties with their plan. Most importantly, it was extremely difficult to move a lot of ships at the same time without Captain Thriger.
“What caused such things to happen?”
“I was told that another tribe had appeared on the quicksand river.”
This message shocked Yulian and Runa once more. Who else but their tribe could be on the quicksand river?
“Where is Greatest Warrior Thriger right now?”
“They have anchored at port and have created a defensive formation at that location.”
“The number of enemies?”
As Runa interjected from the side, the messenger warrior started to frown. He had not gotten that information.
“The next messenger will bring more specific details. The message that I was given was that the enemy has appeared on the quicksand river and that Greatest Warrior Thriger was injured.”
“Good work.”
Yulian sent the messenger warrior back before turning toward Runa.
Runa had lost to Pareia when he was with the Wikaly because of the quicksand river. Hearing unexpected news from the quicksand river had caused his head to be chaotic for a moment.
But even that was only for a moment. Runa quickly came back to his senses and urgently started to speak to Yulian.
“There are currently less than 10,000 warriors on he ships. If they could not handle the enemies, it was probably more than that. Can the Glow urgently lead the Red Storm over to the ships?”
“I understand.”
As Yulian started to move to prepare, Runa grabbed Yulian’s arm.
“If you believe they were unable to stop the enemy because they were outnumbered, please make them retreat right away. You must make them retreat if that is the case.”
“What would happen to the ships if we retreat?”
Runa shook his head at Yulian’s question.
“We cannot do anything even if they are destroyed. We can always rebuild the ships later, but we will need a long time to retrain someone who can perfectly maneuver those ships. If we lose Captain Thriger and the crew from the continent, we may have issues running the ships in the future.”
“I understand.”
“I will send the training warriors and Pere-nim as fast as I can as well.”
Yulian quickly gathered the Red Storm as Runa had requested and stared to urgently ride to the quicksand river.
Pareia’s Greatest Warrior Thriger preferred the title Captain better than the title Greatest Warrior.
It was because his preferences from being a ship person in the past still remained. The sea was a rough environment and somewhere the crew had to completely obey the Captain’s command, but that only happened because the captain and the crew were very close to each other.
The difference between Greatest Warrior and Captain was probably just the fact that you didn’t need to add ‘nim’ to the end of Captain.
Rather than Greatest Warrior-nim, Captain was all that was needed.
That was why the team working for Thriger had always just called him Captain instead of Greatest Warrior.
“Captain. I see something coming toward us.”
One of the warriors who was looking around on top of the mast shouted loudly down below.
“Hmm? What else would be out here other than monsters? If it can be seen from far away, it can only be a Sand Dragon. I guess we hit the jackpot today. Everyone prepare for battle.”
“Captain-nim, but based on the way they are moving or the fact that a lot of them are gathered together makes me believe it is not a Sand Dragon.”
“Hmm? It is moving in a group?”
As the monster on top of the pyramid, there was never a time when Sand Dragons moved as a group. The most you would see is a male and a female moving together.
“Let’s still prepare for battle. The only thing other than us on this damned river is going to be a monster.”
Thriger shouted instructions to his crew.
Thriger was no longer the type of Captain to just command one ship. He was now in charge of all twelve ships.
As the red flag signaling battle went up the post, the eleven other ships surrounding them all started to prepare for battle as well.
They were currently training in their defensive formations, so each ship had about 600 warriors each. About 300 of them were needed to actually move the ship.
The remaining three hundred warriors were quickly setting up Runa’s new weapon the Mult-Arrow (a weapon that can shoot ten arrows at once), as well as the Volley Stars.
“What is that?”
Thriger started to frown after seeing a bunch of small objects heading toward them in a group.
What Thriger had seen was a group of small boats.
They seemed very small to fit only about five people each, but they had an extremely large sail. This group of boats were quickly approaching them.
Thriger could not instantly determine whether they were friend or foe. He would have definitely taken care of them at a distance if it was a monster, but the opponent was also human.
Thriger could have never expected that this slight hesitation will end up causing such a large damage to the Desert Runners.
“Raise the blue flag.”
Captain Thriger’s order finally fell. He needed to first determine whether they were friend or foe. If they knew about the sailor’s code, they would stop after seeing this blue flag.
Unfortunately, the boats ignored the signal of the blue flag and continued to approach. The moment they reached into their firing range, TH=hriger urgently ordered an attack.
“Damn bastards! Whoever is prepared to fire shoot them down!”
What Thriger had seen was the five warriors on the small boats pulling back the bowstring with their flaming arrows.
Once Thriger gave his order, the Volley Star, which was capable of shooting long distances, was aimed up into the air. They did not have a restriction to the number of arrows like they used to have in the past, but they still did not have many arrows.
Maybe they would have had more if there was a chance of another tribe having ships that required them to battle. Monsters were easily taken care of by a single Volley Star arrow from each of the twelve ships. That was why they had no reason to carry a lot of them.
A total of around 30 large arrows floated up into the air, and the experienced Volley Star marksmen managed to sink around 20 ships with a single attack.
“No need to retrieve the arrows. Cut the line and load another one.”
Thriger urgently ordered his crew.
This was not the ocean. If the enemy came close and bombarded them with flaming arrows, there was no way for them to put out the fire with just the drinking water they had on board.
They loaded up once more and fired the second Volley Star. At the same time, the Mult-Arrow fired tens of arrows into the air as well.
Unfortunately, the aim of the Mult-Arrow was terrible compared to the Volley Star. They managed to land some damage just by the sheer number of arrows fired, but it was very minimal.
It was because the marksmen who trained in the Mult-Arrow were all back on land. The Mult-Arrow was actually a weapon to be used on land; it was only on the ships right now to be transported.
By the time they were preparing their third arrow, the Desert Runner was already in the range of the enemy attack.
Thousands of flaming arrows were flung into the air. Thankfully, they had to create a really high arc that many of the arrows did not manage to land on the ship. They were too afraid of the Mult-Arrow to get any closer.
“Retreat. All units retreat.”
Once Thriger gave the command to retreat, the Desert Runner brigade started to retreat.