Chapter 68 Kikkan Part 1 (2/2)

This was special terrain, with a forest growing in the valley that they were in. Although the slopes were only about 4 or 5 meters high, it was still extremely unsuited for a cavalry unit to battle in. In the middle of the valley, there was a 200-300 meter wide stretch of flat plains – with this kind of extremely narrow terrain, as long as the Odins arranged a small amount of infantry to create a thick human-barrier in this narrow pass, then they wouldn’t get overrun by a cavalry charge.

After all, the third legion wasn’t heavy infantry, and forcefully breaking through a thick troop formation wasn’t something that they excelled at.

When Kevin arrived, the third cavalry was currently caught in a bitter struggle. Centurion Butler fortified his troops on the hillside, and used the narrow ramp to help them painstakingly defend against the Odin’s attack.

They had already struggled here for a whole night, and the third legion took heavy losses. From the 2000 people that were sent, only a bit more than 1300 cavalrymen remained with half on the wounded.

Butler regretted this outcome so much that his organs had begun to go green. He was only the vanguard that carried out the reconnaissance and cleared the path for the main army behind him.

However last night, he encountered a small team of Odin’s caribou cavalrymen. After engaging in battle with the enemy, the Odins lost more than 100 people before retreating. Butler was eager to exploit this opportunity and after this victory he decided to chase after them. During the night, the line of sight wasn’t really good and he was lured into this type of dangerous terrain by the Odins. By the time he realized, it was already too late to withdraw.

This was obviously a trap and the Odin’s clearly intended to swallow the third legion which acted as vanguard.

In the narrow terrain, the cavalrymen were unable to breakthrough and Butler immediately decided to retreat to a hillside. When dawn broke, he had finally determined that a full army of about 20,000 people were besieging him. After getting encircled and nothing went through, Butler tried to bring people for a breakthrough. He tried twice to rush downhill with the cavalry with using their sprinting power; however after killing some Odin’s they were pushed back. The Odins had gathered too much force after all and in this type of narrow terrain, as long as they had a thick infantry formation, Butler was unable to penetrate the opponent’s camp with just 1000 cavalrymen – Just like a rusty dull knife, it was unable to quickly pierce through a thick meat.

After trying to break through twice, the cavalrymen of the 13th Army fought with nothing less than bravery. However, after trying to breakthrough left and right, they were forced to return on the hillside – If they were just a little late to retreat, they probably wouldn’t even had the opportunity to retreat towards the hillside and would been directly encircled on the battlefield!

When Kevin led his troops there, he saw that there was such a dense army with countless Odins under the hillside so may his scalp started to tingle. He had only 200 cavalrymen and it would be really difficult to breakthrough in order to rescue them. 200 people rushing into a camp of 20,000 would end up them getting wiped clean in less than a moment.

However, Kevin soon discovered a strange phenomenon – as soon as his force of 200 cavalrymen entered this area, they were quickly discovered. Butler, who was standing on the mountain, saw that reinforcement arrived, and gathered all his remaining troops to organize another break through. The remaining force of a 1000 cavalrymen pledged to fight to the death, and charged forward, unexpectedly started a killing spree. They had actually forged a bloody road in the middle of Odin’s siege!

Under the hillside inside narrow terrain, there were corpses strewn about, the Odin’s sweeping over them like a tide. As Butler led his cavalry to charge, he forced the Odin’s tide to retreat.

Under this kind of situation, Kevin didn’t have a choice, and could only brace himself for impact, while taking his men to rush for support. Along the way, he crashed through Odin’s formation and massacred, but Kevin somehow gave birth to some doubt in his mind……

The Odin’s soldiers hadn’t resisted nearly as much than he had imagined!

Soon, both forces quickly join together on the battlefield then rapidly tried to withdraw back to the south to meet the main army.

Shouts of thousands of people filled the air, and hundreds of men crowded into the narrow valley. Just when those two cavalry units joined each other, they suddenly heard a monotonous sound made by a horn from a distant slope!

The sound coming from the horn was deep and solemn. All those Odin soldiers who were stubbornly entangled a moment ago suddenly quickly retreated while creating a path on both sides. They soon separated themselves from the Byzantine Cavalrymen.

“They’ll let us go?” Kevin felt doubts in his heart.

At that moment, the centurion of the third legion Butler’s body was already completely bathed in blood. On his armor, there were at least seven or eight puncture marks, and a blade was stuck on his shoulder. His helmet was lost a long time ago. When he joined up with Kevin, he saw that the surrounding Odins were retreating. This silver-haired man maliciously wiped the blood of his face and his expression suddenly changed, “Damn, we were tricked!”

As the Odin’s infantry quickly retreated, on both sides of the slopes quickly came a caribou cavalry unit after another out of the forest!

These caribou cavalrymen were conserving their strength and resting in the forest for an entire night. Seeing one caribou cavalry unit after another madly rushing down the slopes from both sides, Butler’s eyes flashed fiercely. Preparing for the confrontation, he hissed and roared, “Push to the south! Everyone towards the south!! We are breaking through this canyon!!”

However, it was already too late!!

The caribou cavalry units riding down from both slopes used their momentum, and soon smashed into the Byzantine cavalry, before stubbornly entangling with them!

Entanglement! The tactic of the Odin’s was very simple. They stubbornly stuck to the Byzantine cavalrymen, not giving them the opportunity to take a rest!

After breaking out of the siege, the Byzantine cavalrymen’s formation was completely scattered, falling into disorder. In a situation where the engaged in battle while retreating, they didn’t have opportunity to take a breather, and reorganise their formation to carry out a counter-charge.

Just like that, more than 1000 cavalrymen were being pursued and beaten by Odin’s caribou units. There were also lines upon lines of infantry in front to break through and even archers were positioned on the slopes……

Kevin had never fought such a hopeless battle! He knew very clearly that if they clashed frontally, as the most elite Cavalry unit in the Byzantine Empire, they could absolutely destroy those caribou cavalrymen!

However ……However, they were unable to turn around!!!

There was no way to turn their formation!!