In a mixed group like this with a cautious commander, all you have to do is take their leader out and you’ll be fine. That was Gaius’s advice to Sashalia when she had questioned whether or not they could pull off the same trick they’d used in the last battle. Sashalia Denan deeply respected Gaius Beldarus, not only as a man but also as the Black Rose of Igris: she had faith in his experience, skills, and instincts. So she’d believed him, and crafted and executed a strategy based on his advice. Darke’s swift execution of the group’s commanding officer, with the help of their scouts and the kobolds’ noses, contributed greatly to the success of this strategy.
[Attack team to command center: Enemy diverted.]
The report consisted of only two words, but in order to obtain those two words, they’d had to expend incredible effort and make terrible sacrifices.
Kobold deaths: four. Adventurer deaths: two.
These were the results of the first battle in the defense of the Kobold Kingdom.
＊
As Darke ran through the trees, a kobold came up next to her, waving his arms.
“Hahaaa! I got one of ’em!” It was Rain Grass, who was part of her attack team. Just like in the last battle, he’d achieved results right away this time, too.
“How are our losses?” Darke was calm despite her successful assassination of the enemy knight. She knew full well that the battle was only just getting started.
“Leaf Tail got a cut on his leg. And...we lost Sand Head.”
“We got an update from the command center. Two dead in squad four, one dead and one seriously injured in squad six,” the young spirit messenger of the attack team reported to Rain Grass. She was a female kobold who often went on hunts and had been assigned to the unit for her combat experience and her strong legs. “The injured one can’t run, so he’s hiding in the bushes. Hopefully he stays hidden until it’s safe...” The kobolds simply didn’t have the power to evacuate their wounded at this time. It was cruel, but they’d all acknowledged that in the planning stage. “Command has ordered squads four and six to combine.”
“Lady Denan responds quickly, just like I expected.”
That last attack had been carried out by the twelve members of the attack unit and four members from each of the six-member squads four, five, and six, for a total of twenty-four fighters. In just that clash, they’d lost six. That was a twenty-five percent loss, and they’d taken the opposition completely by surprise. The math made the overwhelming difference in the two sides’ fighting power all the more apparent to the Kingdom’s soldiers.
But that fact probably affected the enemy more than it did the kobolds. The sight and sound of the adventurers coming at them through the trees made that clear enough.
“Ooh, we got more on our tails than I thought we would.”
“And if they catch up, we’re done for, but we aren’t allowed to flee as fast as we can... Yeesh, what a pain.” Darke stopped even as she complained, drawing a blade from its sheath. It was a single-edged sword known as a hanger. One-third of the blade was double-edged and it was specialized for both cutting and stabbing. The sword was plain, basically just an extended knife, but it was sturdier than a longsword and often used for hunting by the common people. Recently, the people of the southern lands had been making them with longer hilts so that they could be gripped with both hands. Like Gaius, Darke was well-versed in all bladed weapons, but she gave particular favor to this weapon in battle.
“Oh, you gonna fight ’em?”
“There are some stragglers in the back. I think they need a carrot dangled in front of them.”
“Sounds fun. I’m in.” Rain Grass stood bravely by Darke’s side. The axe he clutched in his hand wasn’t the stone weapon he’d been swinging in the riverbed, but a fine piece of steel crafted by the blacksmith in Ryburgh. He’d left it along their escape route before the attack. Using stone axes and spears in their raid was part of their act to get the adventurers to underestimate them. The other kobold soldiers had all switched to their steel weapons as well.
“Everybody else, keep going! We’ll meet up with you in a minute!” After ordering the attack team away, Darke turned to Rain Grass with a smirk. “Mm... You’re quite the manly specimen, aren’t you, Rain Grass? How is it that you’re so unpopular with the kobold ladies?”
“Wh-Wh-Wh-Who says I’m unpopular?”
“I recall hearing as much from Lady Fog. Ah, perhaps the fault lies with the childhood incidents I’ve heard about, such as when you imitated a cicada in a tree and peed down from the branches, or when you waved a snake around and it bit you on the crotch... Oh, here they come.”
“Hey, wait a second! What exactly have you heard?!”
“Don’t dawdle, now.”
“...Ah, dammit!”
The two of them ran back the way they’d come and attacked three lightly equipped adventurers, the first who had taken off after the kobolds. While Rain Grass split a blond swordsman’s lower leg open with his axe, Darke removed the left hand of a dual blade wielder and the fingers from a fighter with a battleaxe.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
They had neither the time nor the need to finish them off. They spun around and ran off again, leaving the adventurers there to hold their wounds and writhe in pain.
“This is one rough game of tag...”
Eventually, one of the knights or their commander Wyatt would come after them. The adventurers’ battlelust would fade. When that happened, their pursuers would regroup and fall back under Wyatt’s command. This was bound to happen; it was just a matter of time. And once the group had regained its unity, the kobolds would be out of plays to make against them. Before that happened, Darke and her teams had to draw as many of their enemies as they could to the designated location.
＊
“Dawson’s dead!” After receiving that frantic report from the knight Humphreys, Guildmaster Wyatt pushed through the line of stopped men as if swimming upstream. When he finally arrived at the mid-flank section Dawson had been in command of, he found that almost all of the adventurers from this portion of the force had been lured into the forest.