Chapter 115: Enemy Casualties and Battle Losses

As for the two-headed ogres, there was no such thing as tactics; they refused all commands during the battle, managing only to distinguish friend from foe to avoid friendly fire. Beyond an initial charge that dealt heavy damage to the gnolls, they spent the rest of the battle chasing them across the valley, though they failed to kill many enemies. Only two lucky ogres, upon seeing a large group of gnolls clashing with the infantry phalanx, joyfully swung their clubs back into the fray, successfully creating a bloodbath and alleviating the pressure on the infantry's shield wall. As for the ogre chieftain, Krog, he remained stuck in a trap until the end of the battle, unable to extricate himself, and could only pass the time by gnawing on gnoll corpses to make himself feel useful.

The Basaka longbowmen, converging from all directions, did not look down on the Riverbend infantry or the two-headed ogres for their low kill counts; instead, they were full of respect and exhilarated by the fight. The infantry shield wall had drawn the enemy’s fire, and the two-headed ogres had shattered the enemy’s formations; their actual contribution far exceeded the number of kills they recorded. If four hundred Basaka longbowmen had fought over six hundred gnolls alone, they might have inflicted heavy casualties at the start using their range, but once the gnolls closed the distance and entered melee, their advantage would have turned into a disadvantage. Facing gnolls better suited for group combat, more than half of the Basaka longbowmen would have died in the melee. Yet, in this large-scale battle, they lost only seven men.

Of those seven, only two were from the Wolf-Tooth tribe—who held a grudge against the gnolls and lost their sanity to hatred, only to be killed in retaliation. The other five were the more cautious Great Falls wildland hunters. These five had been safely firing from the trees alongside their companions with no threat to their lives, but seeing the Kobold Honor Guard being chased by gnolls nearby, they jumped down to help. A dozen wildland hunters engaged in a desperate melee with over twenty gnolls in the woods, paying with five lives and seven or eight injuries to secure victory. Though they usually treated the kobolds with disdain, on the battlefield, they subconsciously viewed them as comrades-in-arms. None of the hunters involved felt they had done anything wrong. Even Bjorn, who cherished his kin above all else, only frowned upon hearing the news but offered no rebuke.

The Riverbend infantry lost only two men, with seven or eight seriously wounded, not counting minor injuries. With the support of Leo’s yew longbow and a small squad of two-handed warriors, the shield wall remained unbroken until the end, preventing the battle from devolving into a chaotic melee.

This was a situation Leo had desperately tried to avoid. While the Riverbend infantry were well-trained and capable of crushing wild tribes, they were by no means battle-hardened veterans. Even with the simplest shield wall, which they had practiced for months, errors still occurred; expecting them to maintain squad coordination during a chaotic melee was a fantasy. Once in a melee, the soldiers would have to rely on individual prowess, and even if they didn't trade one-for-one with the gnolls, the casualties would have been immense.

Leo himself had exhausted half a quiver, with nearly every arrow killing or severely wounding an enemy. Since he had to shoot over the infantry shield wall, he could only aim for the heads and necks of the gnolls. Within thirty meters, Leo’s aim was unerring, and almost every target dropped instantly. However, as a commander, his priority was monitoring the battlefield and maintaining the formation rather than acting as a longbowman, so he could not unleash his full output.

The heaviest casualties were not suffered by the Kobold Honor Guard, who were responsible for covering the Basaka longbowmen, but by the refugee crossbowmen. Eight died and over a dozen were wounded, with at least five expected not to survive. The gnoll and boar-man hunters were equipped with ranged weapons and engaged in a firefight with the crossbowmen while the boar-man warriors and gnoll brutes charged. Some approaching gnoll brutes would also throw short spears. While the Kobold Honor Guard could retreat into the woods and escape quickly when attacked, the disciplined ranks of the refugee crossbowmen could not evade and had to endure the losses.

Vich, the deputy commander of the militia, stood to one side with two subordinates acting as a disciplinary squad. In previous training and before this battle, Vich had issued countless stern warnings: if anyone dared to desert, he would personally cut off their head on the spot. Because of this, despite the casualties and a momentary wavering in their ranks, the refugees did not break. Before coming to Riverbend, they would have fled at the mere sight of a charging gnoll brute.

This is the reality of serf soldiers. In the south, where the population is dense and non-human tribes are rare, human lives are cheap in the eyes of lords. Wars between southern lords are often just serf against serf, pitchfork against pitchfork. Everyone goes through the motions, acting as extras, and casualties are low unless they are run through by a knight's lance. But in the North and West, where the population is sparse, non-human tribes are numerous, and the environment is harsh, border lords must frequently lead their troops to purge these threats.

Even if serf soldiers are braver there than in the south, a single battle often results in heavy casualties. Under the fierce assault of wild tribes, serf soldiers lacking armor are easily slaughtered. Professional soldiers, however, are different; even a first-level conscript infantryman with an iron-studded leather cuirass and a wooden shield gains significantly higher survivability and combat effectiveness. Thus, in the armies of many border lords, the proportion of serf soldiers is very small, consisting mostly of professionals. With an already small population, turning serfs and farmers into cannon fodder would leave no one to till the fields. This isn't out of kindness, but necessity.

As for the kobolds, aside from the newly joined black-furred kobolds—who charged forward to bite the gnolls in an attempt to prove their worth, resulting in heavy losses—the remaining Honor Guard suffered few casualties. The deaths of the black-furred kobolds went unnoticed, and no one knew the exact casualty count of the Honor Guard, as kobolds cannot count. They left their fallen comrades lying in the woods, never thinking to retrieve them for mourning or burial. Even Fissa did not care about the death toll; after the battle, she gathered her kin, and seeing that the crowd was still vast, she felt at ease.

Leo, unable to stand it, had Fissa dispatch a group of kobolds to retrieve the bodies from the woods and hold a funeral. Rather than looking for their fallen, the kobolds were more obsessed with scavenging the battlefield. Most were scurrying about the valley, rummaging for anything they deemed valuable, then bringing it to the Riverbend infantrymen in charge of counting spoils. They would wag their tails, staring with eager eyes, waiting for the soldiers to return the "junk" they didn't want. These items were the kobolds' own spoils, their glorious proof of victory over the terrifying gnolls.

As the industry leader in scavenging, Fissa naturally wouldn't miss this kobold carnival, and she even took her guards with large baskets to scavenge the boar-man nest. Leo believed there was nothing of value there, especially after a great fire had likely consumed even the food. His assessment was correct; there was nothing of worth in the boar-man nest, and the kobold guards following Fissa were very disappointed. Only Fissa was ecstatic, for she had scavenged a large group of gnoll pups.