“Gather the soldiers!” Murphy said firmly to the General Guards behind him after a brief moment of shock.
The horn was blown, and the loud, low sound resounded throughout the entire town.
The Greek infantry responsible for patrolling the barracks and near the port quickly gathered together upon hearing the horn and assembled near the main gate of the town under the captain and flag bearer’s order.
In order to better deal with emergencies, the territory had developed a special method for dispatching orders.
The lower-level commander of the Greek infantry was commanded by the team captain and the flag bearer. Generally, the captain would take over for the flag bearer when the flag bearer died in battle.
The soldiers gathered in a neatly-formed phalanx at the town’s gate. Disregarding the two teams of general infantry led by General Rio Darley to escort Pulith to trade with the centaur tribes, and the Greek infantry that Lady Elizabeth had taken that day, there were currently five full-strength Greek infantry phalanxes, Murphy’s General Guards, and 11 Spartan Berserker Mode Heavy Warriors. This totaled about 450 people.
The construction of the wooden palisade was almost complete.
Counting the Cretan archers, who could be summoned soon, Murphy wasn’t worried about his ability to hold down his territory.
After the army was assembled, Murphy ordered the knights of the General Guards to go out and scout for the enemy.
But at that time, a horse quickly came toward them from afar.
“Your Excellency, Lady Elizabeth is back,” said the rider, who was one of Lady Elizabeth’s servants. This middle-aged knight had bloodstains on his clothes and seemed to be injured.
The middle-aged knight came to Murphy on a galloping horse, rolled over, and jumped off. He said hurriedly: “My lady rounded up the routed soldiers and is coming back now. There are about 3,000 gnolls pursuing us from behind.”
Routed soldiers?
Murphy was shocked for a moment but managed to react quickly.
Had they already contacted the routed soldiers? Did Lady Elizabeth hurry to respond because they had been rounded up?
Murphy suddenly understood the entire story.
At first, Lady Elizabeth’s territory had been captured by the gnolls. Because the retreat had happened too quickly, many soldiers had been unable to escape. These routed soldiers were later rounded up and finally managed to contact Lady Elizabeth, who had been rescued by Murphy. Their territory had been captured, and not only had Lady Elizabeth lost everything, but the territory’s soldiers and knights had lost their land. They ended up having nothing left to their name!
These scattered soldiers had most likely been gathered by the cavalries that had reacted and regrouped.
A defeated army was akin to a crumbling mountain!
After their initial collapse, the knights who reacted started using the military skills they had learned and began reorganizing the remaining soldiers in order to search for their commander—Lady Elizabeth!
No one was willing to be left with nothing to their name, and the knights reorganized the army in the backlines while preparing to find an opportunity to take back their territory.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
“The fifth formation stays. Everyone else, follow me!” Murphy said. He didn’t hesitate after hearing these words. He left the fifth Greek Infantry formation in town and immediately decided to take the other soldiers to rescue Lady Elizabeth.
With a crack of his whip, Murphy was ready to go.
But at that moment, a group of people rushed to his side.
“O’ Honorable Lord, please let us go with you,” said Utors, the strong leader of the Psaiyans. He had come over to Murphy’s side. Because of the powerful healing effects of Holy Water, this strong warrior had regained his fighting power in just a day. He savagely pulled off the bandages on his back and brought the remaining forty or so soldiers who were able to fight to Murphy.
The lingua franca of the Psaiyans was slightly different from that of the human city-states. Their language was slightly different in terms of syllable pronunciation and was somewhat similar to a local dialect in Murphy’s previous life.
Bring them together?
Murphy looked at the Psaiyan mercenaries who had voluntarily gathered in front of him, but he was hesitant.
“What about your injuries?” Murphy asked.
Utors looked around and walked up to a boulder that was as large in size as a grinding disc. He grabbed it and roared: “LIFT!”
Afterward, he lifted up the stone, which weighed two to three hundred pounds.
Putting the boulder down, Utors stared at Murphy and lowered his head slightly: “You are a friend of the Psaiyans.”
Although the Psaiyans had strong fighting power, they had a low status in the human city-states. In the southern plains, the barbarian population totaled only a few hundred thousand and accounted for one-twentieth of the total population. They lived in the forested areas on the edge of the southern plains and were called “barbarians” by the other humans in the city-states. This was a very common phenomenon. It was just like in Murphy’s previous life where the people who lived in cities generally looked down on rural people.
In the noble council, there wasn’t a seat for the barbarians.
More often than not, they served as mercenaries or cannon fodder for the human city-states.
“Utors” meant “fierce” and “brutal” in the barbarian language, but this didn’t mean Utors was a reckless warrior. This could be seen from the time he was able to find the right moment to launch a counterattack and obtain an opportunity for Murphy to conduct an attack from the rear.
In fact, what he was doing now wasn’t so much for repaying his gratitude to Murphy as it was for fostering a good relationship with him.
Because of the efficacy of the Holy Water, he suspected that there was a god standing behind Murphy! What’s more, this was a human god! This was because, in the human city-states, the gods that the different races worshipped often didn’t shed their light on human believers. What human beings could get from the hands of these gods from other races was really pitiful! Utors believed that these Greeks from the other side of the sea most likely had their own god!
A real god!
If that was true, then it would be worth his time to foster a good relationship with this lord and gain his goodwill.
. . . . . . . . . .
“Depart!”
Murphy nodded and didn’t say anything more. The General Guards took the lead, and the Greek infantry quickly followed behind them.
Murphy called up the auxiliary system map in his head, and sure enough, it showed that about thirty miles from the town, which had all been explored, an unknown number of army icons were advancing. About five miles behind them was the army of gnolls, which were tightly packed together, and their numbers were unknown.
The Greek infantry lengthened their ranks and quickly advanced forward, while the cavalry spread out.
Although Murphy had a strategic map in the auxiliary system, the soldiers didn’t know about this.
After the army was developed, the cavalry had deliberately taken it upon themselves to bear the role of reconnaissance.
Murphy sent a knight on a fast horse to inform Lady Elizabeth of his arrival.
The group hurriedly marched about ten miles ahead and stopped on a high slope east of the territory. The terrain here was good. There was a mound on one side and a small river about five meters wide on the other side.
“Everyone in formation!” Murphy said, standing at the front of the phalanx. He issued the order in a deep, firm voice.
The Greek infantry spread out in formation and lengthened into a long line under the order of the herald. They raised their spears up high and laid a defensive line about 150 meters in length.
Urgently marching was very physically exhausting for the soldiers.
As a commander who had gone through several wars, Murphy shouldn’t have made such a rookie mistake.
When they were about five meters away from Lady Elizabeth, Murphy ordered the soldiers to stop and lay a defensive line. There were more than ten minutes between the arrival of Lady Elizabeth and when the gnolls that were chasing them would catch up with them, which was enough time for the soldiers to rest and recover their strength.
If they had to rush forward and attempt to rescue Lady Elizabeth, then there was a fear that the end result would end in shambles, just like the routed soldiers.
Because the 15-mile trot had consumed a lot of the soldiers’ physical strength.
In the era of cold weapons, this was a fatal mistake!
About ten minutes later, the outline of an army appeared in the distance. At the forefront were the cavalrymen, and they were large in numbers. They kicked up a cloud of dust that obscured the sky.
Murphy stood on a high hill and looked far into the distance. He found that the routed soldiers weren’t completely exhausted and that their formation wasn’t in complete disarray. This made Murphy breathe a huge sigh of relief. The thing that he was most afraid of was that the remaining soldiers that Lady Elizabeth brought back with her would be frightened and would only know how to flee. If that had been the case, then Murphy would have had no choice but to order his soldiers to open their formation and let them pass through.
That definitely wasn’t a good thing!
However, it seemed that these people still had a little fighting power left.
There would most likely still be a few roles left for them to play in the upcoming battle.