As if it had formed a ring of ice, the spell split into several layers and then shrunk in size and then hit the legs of the horses, completely freezing their legs and making them get stuck on the ground. Most of them got their legs broken due to the sudden stop, and the riders fell, almost all of them. The battlefield grew silent thanks to that. That was indeed something that deserved the title of sorcery… As for the caster, Sarah fell with her butt on the ground since she was completely dizzy due to mana exhaustion. Even Billy and his friends were completely speechless.
"Finish off the fallen riders with your magic," Sarah said to her students.
Although she didn't stand the whole cavalry battalion, those three hundred that targeted them had become sitting ducks. Even without Billy, Kate, and Natalie's help, the recruits could have defeated them with ease. Nevertheless, some riders tried to escape, but they failed miserably while being attacked by the powerful and price barrage of stone bullets.
After seeing the enemy riders being defeated like that, the defenders' morale was sky high and then managed to push down even the mighty barbarians. Once again, the actions of the special unit completely switched the flow of the battlefield.
Despite the shocking surprise, the enemies managed to organize their forces and then retreat. While Sarah was out of mana, the enemy didn't know that, and they couldn't afford to be completely wiped out, even though that was just one-third of one-third of their total forces. Nevertheless, that battle ended with four hundred losses on the defenders' side and nine hundred from the attackers.
Although they arrived at the end of the fight and prevented casualties on the garrison of that side, the special unit also suffered some losses. Particularly Natalie's group, who worked at the very front line. Their initial push made them lose twenty-one recruits, and around ten others were heavily wounded. After hearing about that, Natalie just nodded and maintained a neutral expression. Still, those who knew her could tell that her hands stayed clenched for quite a while. They were also dripping with sweat…
"This is war… People die all the time," Kate said while she was looking to the sky, and her fists were trembling. "Still, I don't think I will ever get used to this sight or this feeling of regret. Perhaps if I had done things differently and taught my students a different type of magic."
"You shouldn't try to get used to that, but you shouldn't doubt yourself and think of changing the past," Billy said. "A wise man once said this: I shall grieve, and I shall weep. But I shall never regret… You trained them knowing that they would join a war, so you did your best to teach them. Thanks to that, you made three hundred people learn magic, you should take pride in that."
"I suppose you are right…" Kate said and then sighed. "Still, I will try to come up with ways to make my students work better alongside the others from other groups."
If she was planning to learn something like the spell Sarah used, then Billy would also like to learn it. Nevertheless, while he could understand the theory, putting something like that into practice was hard. Nevertheless, as long as more people learn magic and try to develop new spells, Billy would gladly help them spread the knowledge.
In any case, Billy went to check the other battlefields, and he saw that the north was making the enemies taste hell. The combination of Lily and Alexander's groups was quite deadly. So, the enemies never reached the walls. On the other hand, the guys on the southern side were having a hard time…
"Well now, what should we do about this?" Billy rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
On the next day, everyone noticed that the enemies made fewer enemies attack the northern part. Meanwhile, the other two sides suffered some heavy losses. Naturally, Alexander's students were doing their party, but the real reason was due to Lily's archers. Now that the enemies decided to mix the powder and abilities of all their armies, they had more chances to attack the enemies, and those archers were above the ordinary ones, even though they didn't have that much experience.
On the night of that day, all the captains and leaders were summoned to the guild, it was hard to say if Jean had obtained some good news, but only those would liven up the mood a bit. Due to the overwhelming difference in numbers, it was hard to win battles on more than one side. Splitting the archers wasn't a good idea either since they felt confident while Lily was around.
"Thank you again for your hard work, everyone, today I am going to tell you our plans for the next few days," Jean said. "Basically, I want all of you to focus on defending and nothing else. Don't send too many troops beyond the walls, if possible, don't send any. We have the resources and supplies in this town to support our army for three months and I don't think that the enemies have the luxury to wait for that long. They are being cautious and are avoiding night raids due to the craftiness of our allies, so we need to do this until they find it dangerous to keep their borders and cities with the minimal number of soldiers, or until we find an opening."
Billy was expecting to get an earful, or at the very least some annoyed looks from the other captains after he made Alexander move on his own, but no one did that. While he was thankful for that, he wished that he would be scolded so that he would feel free to complain about those plans soon afterward. Waiting for a chance to strike a powerful blow on the enemy's army wasn't his style. Neither did have that much patience in the first place.. Not to mention, Billy didn't feel like wasting three months of his life in a war… It was time to be extra creative and deadly to end that way and go home.
