Chapter 401 — Pursuit and Flight
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
Since that decisive victory, this pursuit—destined to be long—had already gone on for three days. And though it was a mere three days, with each day of pursuit Philip felt more and more keenly the effectiveness and the... terror of the lord's instructions.
The lord seemed to have foreseen the course of this war long ago—even the enemy's course after their rout and the vast majority of their reactions. The Cecil army was as though hunting and harrying a flock of frail sheep; in the process, war was stripped of anything to do with honor, yet an ever-thickening reek of blood and cruelty rose to the surface.
As an orthodox knight who upheld the chivalric spirit, Philip nonetheless chose to carry out these orders—not only out of loyalty, but out of reason. Reason told him that these seemingly cruel actions were in fact the way to restore peace to the south as soon as possible; only when those foolish nobles were utterly crushed would he be spared from firing another Shattered Ridge bombardment a few years hence.
The army set out, and the seemingly endless chase resumed across the vast lands of the south. Cecil's combat troops—equipped with thermal ray guns, full of stamina and high in morale—continued to pursue those aristocratic remnants, startled as birds after a bowshot.
After the world-shattering artillery bombardment three days earlier, the noble coalition had long since been frightened out of their wits by the whistling of shells and the roar of explosions. In their flight they had no spare presence of mind to think of countermeasures; and even the few who retained the capacity for rational thought were swept along in the stampede by tens of thousands of routed soldiers who thought only of saving their own skins. Under such circumstances, the Cecil soldiers encountered scarcely any resistance worthy of the name.
In the early stage of the pursuit, a few of the aristocratic remnants that still retained fighting strength had attempted to counterattack, but these units that turned to fight were quickly cut down under massed thermal ray gun fire; the few survivors among them became the first prisoners taken by the pursuing force. And as the pursuit went on, such resistance grew ever rarer and ever feebler.
Like panic, hunger was gradually devouring the strength and will of everyone in that noble coalition.
To save their lives, the noble coalition had been forced to abandon vast quantities of baggage and supplies, including the greater part of their food, which they left strewn along the road of flight. No one had imagined the Cecils would wage such a terrible, merciless hunt. In that endless flight they quickly consumed nearly all the dry rations they carried, while the Cecils' almost ceaseless shellfire and harassment left them no time at all to halt and eat properly.
The fleeing noble coalition had tried to fall back behind the high walls of the Carrol domain for shelter, but the Cecils had shattered those walls before their eyes with "cannons," and the coalition was driven like a flock of sheep willy-nilly westward into the western region. They had tried to obtain supplies from the encampments along the way and from the manors of their own domains, but the Cecils' "shells" would always descend upon them like a shadow. The noble soldiers, having run into their own manors and granaries, would be driven on in panic by shellfire to the next place before they could even gnaw a bite of bread—and their grain would become the Cecils' rations.
The fleeing nobles gradually began to understand. They understood that the Cecils had no intention of ending the war, no intention of stopping to negotiate, no intention of calling it quits while they were ahead. That ancient legend who never obeyed the rules of nobility had, this time, no intention of obeying the rules of nobility either. This war was not a nobleman's game; its purpose was to fight to the death.