The horse became restless.
They have the same intelligence as human children and have their own hearts and emotions. They will feel fear when faced with threats and will attack madly when angry.
In order to make the horses easier to control in Padrosi and other areas with developed livestock industries, except for the horses with the best bloodlines reserved for breeding, most of the other stallions used for riding are actually geldings.
If a horse weighing hundreds of kilograms has a violent temper and is not under control, it is likely to be taken over by instinct and cause greater harm to the rider once it encounters any situation.
As herbivores, horses' instinct is to turn and run when faced with a crisis. Excellent horses not only require physical fitness and endurance, but also require long-term training from an early age to overcome this escape instinct. Those who can stay tamely by their master's side without turning around and running away, and who have the courage to rush toward threats under the command of their masters, are the top knight horses.
But just like people, courage comes from knowing the threat and working hard to overcome the fear, rather than being fearless due to ignorance.
They have experienced a lot. Whether it is Henry's group or the horses of the Imperial Knights, they have experienced many harassments and attacks by these abominable undead together with their owners. Even if it can't be explained, many horses are traumatized just like humans.
"The gold team dismounts and walks." Constantine made a decision decisively. As a knight, it seemed like a stupid decision to give up the advantage of losing the horse. However, even though he had eaten enough recently, it was not enough to restore the long-term endurance of the horse. fatigue.
The padrosi style war horse vest is very heavy due to its size. Although the cost is only about the same as a set of full-body armor because there are fewer details that need to be refined, the steel used is nearly twice as much as a set of full-body plate armor.
This is one of the few weaknesses of the Imperial Knights. Since the full load including the knights and their weapons is nearly 200 kilograms, they are highly dependent on logistical support. They can hardly carry any supplies themselves, and the war horses also need a lot of fodder. support.
As long as there are no supplies for two or three days, the war horse will not be able to fully exert its combat effectiveness. Not only that, but even a gelding with a very docile temperament will start to become irritable and disobey instructions when it is unable to have a full stomach.
The ancient city of Katigali is located on the edge of the Bao Forest. Although the total area of the city-state is not small, due to its disrepair and collapse and overgrown vegetation, the place where you set foot needs to be carefully considered.
Although most of the surrounding areas have signs of biological activity all year round, the weeds on the ground are relatively less lush and the view is better. After all, it is built on the edge of a forest with a height difference.
There is a gap of tens of meters between the area where Katigali is located and the lower forest floor below. With the lush vegetation here, if you force yourself to ride a war horse at this juncture, you will accidentally lose control. If you roll down the slope with your feet empty, you will die without rebirth.
This is a typical multiple-choice question. A trade-off must be made between combat effectiveness and control of the situation. Commanders throughout the ages have encountered this situation, and the decision made by Constantine was relatively conservative and mature, showing his experience in this regard.
To gain better control of the situation at the expense of reducing some of their combat capabilities and remove factors that may lead to loss of control, it is precisely because there are too many unknowns in front of them.
The cognition between insiders and outsiders is really different in this kind of place. For a noble lady like Margaret who just likes to read adventure books, the great and outstanding commander in her mind is usually the kind who can take risks. People who strive to win create miracles under extreme conditions.
But as we have been saying, in fact, what any qualified commander should do when encountering a situation is to try his best to avoid falling into a dangerous situation of winning, so that the situation is always under control, minus the instability factors. Although some actions may seem inhumane, this ruthlessness and decisiveness are exactly what it takes to become a famous general.
There is a Lamanite proverb that says: "One general's success results in ten thousand bones." And the so-called "ten thousand bones" are not all composed of the enemy's corpses.
"Disperse, team size." Constantine himself, Mikhail and several other higher-status knights stayed on the horse to gain a higher view and command. The knights who dismounted and walked carried their left waists. There was a warhammer on the right side of the long sword, and he lowered his posture and walked forward step by step with the spear in hand.
They were divided into groups of 5 to look after each other. They retained the buffer distance when a battle occurred and were not too far apart, allowing them to cooperate with each other.
"March!" It was not a problem to be stuck in the dense grass to the area outside the city of Katigali. After the walking knights as the vanguard had somewhat distanced themselves, Constantine waved his hand and ordered those behind him to do so. The team followed cautiously.
The reason why knights' horses are so expensive was revealed at this moment. These intelligent animals followed obediently beside the carriage team under the command of the imperial knights who stayed behind. Although the riders are not on horseback, they know how to follow autonomously, using their bodies wearing heavy vests as the outer guards of the team.
"Slow pace - slow pace!" In comparison, the merchants' horses were much worse. Since they could not eat for a long time and had to run around pulling heavy goods, they became He was very disobedient and always wanted to turn around and eat the horse grass that he had harvested and put on the carriage.
Merchants had to spend more effort to prevent these stubborn beasts from getting out of control. It is extremely difficult for a carriage pulling a load of goods to move in a careful formation on such uneven and overgrown terrain. You know, and after almost colliding with the imperial knights guarding the outside, there was another small wave in this already uneven team.
The knights looked here through their visors. Although their eyes could not be seen clearly due to the light, the merchants could still guess what they were thinking.
"What's the use of pulling such a large cart of goods now?" They couldn't help but think like this. Such large four-wheeled carriages were filled with all kinds of goods, which added up to Several hundred kilograms, because most of them brought various supplies and tools in order to preserve them as long as possible.
In the current situation where food is scarce, horses have to pull such a large amount of inedible food. There is no place in the wilderness to sell it for food. They are reluctant to throw it away. If they don't throw it away, it will slow down the entire team. Naturally, those noble knights had many opinions in their minds.
Fortunately, with the enemy at hand, no one was stupid enough to actually start arguing over such things in this situation, so although there were some collisions and slight frictions. However, they all suppressed it wisely and quickly passed the edge of the high field grassland and entered the vicinity of the bare Katigali.
"Change to double columns." After entering different terrain, Constantine immediately ordered the team to make adjustments. In the past, it was necessary to open a road while advancing in the dense grass, so a single column was the most convenient and fast. Now that we have a wider terrain here, it is easier for the combatants to protect the front with a shorter and less long one.
The slow carriage spent more time adjusting while walking on the dirt ground. While the people behind them were reorganizing their formation, Henry and Mira in the front were doing what they were best at——
They are observing.
We often say that any living thing - or any tangible thing in the world - as long as it is actually here, it will never have no impact on the surrounding environment.
The same is true for Warcraft. Based on various details in the surrounding environment, you can analyze and study what kind of animals live here and how many there are.
And what kind of monsters live on this bare grassland under the sun can be seen with a little observation.
The weeds were not completely trampled to the point where they could no longer grow. They were so clean and even, they could only have been eaten. The thick vines on the surface of the mottled city wall, which are more than one meter high and bare below, are completely different from the ones above that are covered with leaves.
But the most obvious thing was the layers of prints on the ground. Mira frowned her pretty little eyebrows and said softly: "There are so many hoof prints."
Herbivorous monsters, according to the theory explained by Horno, obviously exist at the lowest end of the monster food chain and are the first type to mutate. The rest of the monsters are probably omnivores and carnivores that feed on these monsters. . So everyone initially guessed that there would be such a herbivorous monster here - but this does not mean that it is much safer.
Suomir, the far north land on the east coast, has the largest deer in the world. It weighs more than 700 kilograms and has a banner of nearly two meters and a length of more than one meter and five huge horns. When they go crazy, they can wear a deer all over their body. Knights in plate armor were knocked off their feet and suffered a lot of injuries. If there was no protection, you would die from a series of comprehensive factors such as organ rupture, fractures, excessive blood loss caused by ruptured arteries, and internal bleeding.
We have mentioned again and again how important size, physique and tonnage are. Knowing how to settle here, having the ability to settle here and making your descendants eat plants that are directly affected by magic. Then it mutates into a monster. In addition to being smart enough to judge what food is good for itself, such a creature must also have a strong enough physique to defend its territory.
And they don't have a good look at the invading ghouls, nor are they inherently kind to these uninvited human visitors after more than two thousand years.
The team gradually moved forward, and the knights on foot who were staying in place began to move forward again when they saw that they had finally organized their formation. But this time they only advanced a short distance before the knight leading the team in the center released his hand holding the spear and clenched it into a fist and raised it.
"Stop! Everyone is on alert!" Constantine quickly made preparations based on the forward's feedback, and then he turned around, first winking at Henry, Mira, Ferruccio and Filippo, and then He nodded to Mikhail again.
They are all people engaged in combat professions, and they still have the professionalism to do what to do in this situation. Mikhail stayed as the knight's adjutant and cooperated with Moreau and the other mercenaries to guard the convoy, while the remaining five people, including Constantine himself, rode forward on their war horses.
Constantine's own war horses are naturally the best, and the remaining four horses are not covered with armor, so they are relatively energetic compared to other knights' horses.
They drove their horses forward as a coordinated escort for the foot knights, because the tonnage and size of the monsters that might exist in the local area might not be something that an infantry group could handle.
"Qiang——" But before they could catch up, there was a commotion among the knights in front. Several of them directly threw the spears in their hands, and then pulled out their long swords, while the rest Many people picked up the war hammer.
Piercing weapons, edge weapons and blunt weapons cooperated with each other. Even if the knights were dismounted, they were still extremely powerful and made quick and decisive judgments. They changed their formation and became a horizontal formation, obviously to intercept certain targets.
"Wha--" Just as the five people here speeded up and rushed forward, five or six ghouls covered in bright red blood rushed out from the other side of the main entrance of the ancient city of Katigali.
"Enter the enemy on the right!" Although everyone should have noticed it, the leading knight still shouted to make others understand the situation. 'Vitality' The tenacious undead can still run hard even with a spear stuck in their bodies, and how different the methods used by knights in full armor in infantry combat are from those of mercenaries, our little Mira This time it was an eye-opener.
Mercenaries' sword blocking and various other dodge movements are ultimately centered around the concept of "not being hit", and the armor they pursue is also mainly about agility.
But the fighting methods of knights and regular troops armed to the teeth cannot be the same.
The arm armor will limit the degree to which you can bend your arms, the shoulder armor will prevent you from raising your entire hand, and the full-face visor used by the cavalry will block your vision to a large extent - so even if you are wearing a full set of heavy armor But avoiding being hit is an extremely stupid idea.
"Drink ah ah ah -" In order to overcome fatigue and anger, the knights let out a loud war cry, and then rushed directly towards the ghouls with sharp teeth and claws.
"Pang Qiang——!" The impact caused the armor to deform, but the knights who had long been accustomed to this did not fall or hesitate. Instead, they immediately got close to these terrifying monsters that could tear ordinary people into pieces. Fight. They actually don't need to hold a shield, and they definitely don't need to dodge, because the reliable armor is a shield with extremely high coverage.
Therefore, the real way for a knight wearing a full set of heavy armor to fight on foot is to turn his body into a weapon and a shield.
Face the enemy head on, without fear.
"Column!" The knights on foot entangled this group of bloody ghouls, and Constantine shouted, quickly closing the distance between the five knights who were not long. During the march, they transformed into A formation as sharp as a Padrosian rapier.
Sharp, yet not fragile.
"Bang!!!" Like a cross T-shaped horizontal line, the cavalry as fast as thunder directly slashed several ghouls with piercing belts and seriously injured them. When they reached the front, they turned around and stopped the momentum to avoid When they rushed out of the open space, the foot knights who had retreated during the cavalry charge stepped forward again, stabbing the ghouls with their long swords and spears, and then their companions smashed the back of their heads with war hammers, completely killing them. Dust to dust to dust.
Clean and neat, without any sloppiness.
With a reliable partner controlling the front, coupled with perfect armor and coordination, the lowly ghouls have nothing to fear.
"call--"
But after solving them, before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, their eyes were naturally attracted to the blood on the other side.
The body fluid of a ghoul is black.
So the blood-red color on their bodies can only come from other creatures.
"All of them are dead." Mira murmured softly.
Now they know exactly what kind of monsters occupy this place.
Although there are more forests and wetlands in the southern part of the empire, there are still grasslands and the like in some areas.
Perhaps because of the mist, they accidentally lost their direction and settled here. The scarred and dead creatures were, surprisingly, three snow-white horses.
The two elders and the younger looked like a family. There were several ghouls lying around that had no open wounds but were already soundless, proving that they were not killed by chopping melons and vegetables, but this huge piece of The sun-drenched land looked different from the dense forest behind it, and it was full of life. However, it was filled with the smell of death dripping with blood. For a moment, the strange feeling of dissonance made people unable to accept it.
"Don't relax, it's not over yet." But the situation obviously did not allow them to be sentimental here. Some rustling sounds came from an invisible corner of the ancient city not far ahead, and everyone had to pick up their weapons again. .
"Ha-hu-" Because she was facing the sun, Mira couldn't see clearly ahead, which was a bit disadvantageous for them, but the girl opened her mouth wide and took a deep breath, still slowing down with the rest of the team. forward.
