Chapter 696 — History Marches On
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
When the signal flare shot up suddenly from somewhere near High Ground Position Four, Philip knew the situation had slipped beyond control.
A battlefield is made of countless accidents and inevitabilities, countless plans and surprises.
The well-trained professional soldiers aboard the Iron Throne reacted within the shortest possible time; the small secondary batteries at the Arsenal Section and the Tactical Section roughly aimed toward the direction of the flare within seconds, and then came a rolling thunder of gunfire as railgun shells traced pale green arcs through the air and burst into brilliant light over the high ground, illuminating the gloomy, dark wasteland in the wind and rain—yet everyone knew this round of counter-battery fire could only salvage whatever had been lost after the plan's failure.
The flare already fired could not be stopped; against the murky heavens its bright blood-red glow lit the entire high ground and the broad plain around it. The Typhonian main force along the Longwind defense line had surely seen it by now.
The hasty secondary-battery barrage lasted only thirty seconds before Philip ordered the whole vehicle to cease fire. As a commander who was no longer green, he knew the Typhonian troops on the Palemel Heights had most likely relocated before the flare went up—that the shelled positions were probably occupied only by a handful of dare-to-die volunteers.
Or perhaps by a single brave signalman.
"General, shall we order the gryphons into the air for a forced reconnaissance?" the Iron Throne's deputy sergeant major asked cautiously. "Or send out a squadron of steel rangers—"
Listening to his subordinate's suggestion, Philip sighed inwardly.
He knew it was likely already too late... The enemy commander was a troublesome fellow—cautious, rational, and probably already somewhat familiar with Cecil's equipment and fighting methods. They would not linger nearby. And he knew just how much the weather would degrade the scouting ability of gryphon riders and ground troops. By now the enemy was probably far from the Iron Throne; searching the entire Palemel region for a knight order that had slipped into the curtain of rain would be like fishing a needle from the sea.
After all, compared with an armored train—vast in size, trailing an unmistakable track—people moving in loose formation and using the trees for cover were far harder to find.
Even so, out of caution he ordered the gryphon riders out. In such foul weather the gryphons refused to climb; the riders spent great effort just to make their mounts circle low once for a reconnaissance that was better than nothing. And the result was exactly as Philip had expected: the enemy had vanished without a trace.
Upon learning this, the young army commander's expression remained calm. He turned to the gunnery officer beside him and ordered: "All secondary batteries, aim at Zones Four, Six, and Seven and the northeastern crossroads. Fire at will for ten minutes."
"Yes, General."
The Iron Throne's mana unit began to hum again; amid the whirring and the noise of machinery, the alternating roar of the secondary turrets echoed low through the Tactical Section carriage. Philip ordered the armor plating on one side's windows opened, and in the murky flashes and the wind and rain, he gazed intently into the distance.
Tonight, Cecil's magitech legions had met the most formidable enemy they had yet faced, and there in that murky curtain of rain, Philip saw the Empire's true rival.
Before today, the Cecil legions had faced opponents of every description: the private armies of the old nobility collapsed at a touch, the traditional knights were brave but already past their hour, the legions spawned by cultists were immensely powerful yet in the end could only be ground to dust beneath the guns, and even an artificial god was merely a mighty monster that would in time fall into an artificial trap...