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.
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[1] It’s an old Korean song; the lyrics are changed slightly for copyright reasons (I would presume) https://youtu.be/eIzSPygzLmc
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