Chapter 337: The Final Battle to Recover Luduga (V)
"Ka-ka-ka..."
There was a sound of bullets popping, and dozens of flaming rocks whizzed into the defense line of the Bagauda rebels.
“Boom boom boom…”
Stones kept falling to the ground, and there were always a few unlucky souls who were lucky enough to catch such a big thing. In an instant, their upper bodies were taken away by the stone eggs, and only the lower body was left, bleeding and slowly falling down.
The stone egg hit the watchtower, and the powerful impact force directly penetrated it. The watchtower lost its support in an instant and collapsed. The sound of breaking and the groaning of wood covered up the screams of the archers above.
"Forward, forward!" With the officers' shouts, a large number of troops, led by mercenaries, marched towards the defense line with more than 2,000 people holding shields in front of them. Then, 2,000 archers came close enough behind the infantry under their cover. They formed rows and frantically covered the enemy's defense line with arrows, so that their archers could not raise their heads under the endless rain of arrows.
"Archers, archers!"
The rebel officers repeatedly called out to their archers, asking them to hide behind specially prepared wooden shelters, draw their bows and launch a frantic counterattack against the attacking Roman army.
“Praise, praise, praise…”
The Roman mercenaries who were charging under the rain of arrows suddenly fell down in large numbers. It turned out that the Bagauda rebels had set up countless traps 50 meters away from the wooden fence of the defense line. The traps were filled with stones and sharpened wood, so that the soldiers who were unfortunate enough to fall into the traps would either die or become bloody and lose their combat effectiveness. In the blink of an eye, they were pierced to death by the overwhelming arrows above their heads. Although death was the end of everything, the tragic scene of them struggling on the line of death filled the hearts of the soldiers who followed them with fear, and such a tragic scene made them lose their fighting spirit in an instant.
“Run! Run!”
The morale of these two thousand mercenaries collapsed after losing more than five hundred people. The soldiers at the front line turned around and fled first. The soldiers behind who were unaware of the situation saw them fleeing and lost all their fighting spirit for a moment, and also fled with them.
"Go back! Attack! Go back! Attack!"
The generals in the rear shouted loudly, but they could not stabilize the morale which was now in a state of disastrous defeat. The mercenaries wailed and ran towards the Roman army like a herd of galloping buffaloes, seeing that everything was irreversible.
"Make them stop, make them stop!"
Marenius was so anxious that his eyes turned red. He personally led the cavalry to form an insurmountable obstacle and slowly charged towards the mercenary fleeing. The wailing mercenaries bumped into the horses' chests. Because the cavalry was arranged too densely, these guys had no chance to get out and escape. They could only squeeze in more and more, talking to each other, and no one knew what they were saying.
"Turn around! Turn around!"
Marenius took the lead in wielding the whip and frantically whipping the mercenaries huddled together below. Stimulated by the pain, the guys screamed and retreated repeatedly, and had to turn back again to the battlefield strewn with corpses along the way. "If you want to live, you must fight. Only by defeating the rebels can you survive. Turn back and continue to attack, continue to attack!" Marenius roared and swung the whip again. At this time, the mercenaries had suffered heavy losses. Hundreds of people died under the arrows while fleeing. They had no choice but to continue to replenish the attacking troops and speed up the siege.
“Ka-ka-ka…”
With loud noises, dozens of flying rocks flew over heads again. This time, the flying rocks crushed the walls on sections of the defense line. At this time, a large number of loopholes appeared on the rebel defense line.
"Seize the opportunity, attack, attack!"
"Napad! Napad!"
The centurions who had just been deployed to the battlefield shouted loudly, signaling the army to rejoin the battle. This time, it was the mercenary troops with shaken morale and two field regiments, who were mixed in with the field regiment infantry.
"You have no way to retreat, you can only move forward! Forward! If you retreat, we will kill you without hesitation. Remember, no retreat, no retreat!" Marenius was indeed an excellent commander. With his roar, the mercenaries, who had collapsed in an instant, set out on the road of attack again in fear.
This time they were not in a panic, but gathered together tightly to form a huge tortoise-shell formation, with the infantry in the front and the archers in the back.
“Ding-dong-dong…”
A barrage of arrows fell on the tortoise shell formation, but they were all blocked by the densely packed shields. Those hiding under the shields took advantage of the gap when the rebel archers were reloading after shooting to draw their bows and shoot arrows, firing back at the enemies inside the defense line and then continuing to hide under the shields and slowly advancing with the troops.
"Don't be confused, don't panic, because the enemy is more panicked than us. Every step we take forward will increase their fear. Don't be afraid, victory belongs to us, it belongs to us!" The centurions kept encouraging the soldiers around them from behind their shields: "When the time comes, we will go in and kill them wantonly. Let them see how powerful we are!"
"Hu, hu, hu..." Encouraged by the centurions, the soldiers kept shouting to encourage themselves. The entire army formation became stable under the leadership of the ten centurions.
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"We have to do something." Seeing that the infantry paid a heavy price for the frontal attack and seeing that the Gothic cavalry had disappeared from sight, Luca realized that he would need to cooperate with the infantry to completely take down this line of defense.
"What should we do, Luca!" asked Andrew.
"Let all the cavalry follow me, let's charge in and beat them so that they can't fight back!" Luca jumped on his horse, picked up the lance hanging on the horse's back, and said loudly to the cavalry behind him: "Today will be our last day to make great military achievements. As you can see, even the Goths don't dare to stop us. Here, unless they have the help of the gods, no one can stop us. Of course, the gods will only watch coldly, because they accept the victors, they will only bless the victors!"
Luga's comfort made the cavalrymen breathe a sigh of relief, and they looked at Luga with relaxed smiles on their faces, as if at this moment they would be the winners and had received God's protection.
"Of course, I led you here from Greater Sicily. I have never failed before, and I will not fail this time either, because our enemies do not deserve our failure. They are frightened and they ask the Goths for help, but the Goths are frightened. No one can help them, only us. We will help them get rid of it!"
"Da da da..." The cavalrymen cheered, beating their shields, eager to try, and wanted to know where Luga was going to take them.
"Okay, now, follow me!" Luga said, tightening his wolfskin cape, and turned back to the cavalrymen, "Let's find a way to defeat the enemy!"
(End of this chapter)