After marching overnight, even Palan himself was a little tired.
But rushing works. Originally, it was estimated that the enemy would not be able to discover the abnormality until at least noon on the 24th, and even if he was lucky, this time might be delayed until the afternoon.
However, they had already arrived at their destination before the sun rose on the 24th.
It was a place marked on the military map as Valley No. 37.
This desert is not an endless, unobstructed flat land. On the contrary, there are many kinds of rolling hills.
These small mounds and sand dunes are not too big, and climbing up and down is not too strenuous, but they are enough for people to see far away easily.
In the military, such terrain features were used quite well by those sand pirates. Relying on their familiarity with this desert, they detect their prey in advance, and then concentrate and suddenly rush out from the back of a certain sand dune, often able to catch the attacked prey by surprise and win.
As for the so-called No. 37 valley, it is an area composed of continuous mounds. Under the area composed of these hills and sand dunes, there is a valley with slightly lower terrain.
According to the newspaper, the sand bandit group at the barren land pass is stationed in this valley.
Just looking at the information and the map, Palan hasn't seen anything yet. But when he visited the scene in person, he found that these sand robbers did have their unique side in taking advantage of the geographical conditions of this special desert area.
They cleverly used the terrain to not only create a relatively comfortable campsite, but also quite secretive. Geographical conditions hide their traces very well. If it is not known in advance and specially scouted, it is not easy to find the traces of the enemy even if they are close.
Just as he was thinking this way, Palan suddenly felt a gust of wind blowing, with Firmino's whisper in the wind: "The secret whistle around the periphery has been cleaned up, and the teams in the four directions are all in place. can attack."
Wind communication is a good tool for battlefield communication. Of course, Paran with a mage can't abandon this convenient spell.
"How long do we have?" Palan asked.
Two minutes later, another gust of wind with news blew over. Firmino said: "Fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes at most, those sand robbers will find that their peripheral sentries are gone."
There was not much time, and Palan said to the mage beside him: "Send an order to the leading officers in the other four directions, and launch an attack on time in five minutes!"
The time now is the darkest hour before dawn. However, under the cloudless and clear night sky, moonlight and starlight can provide some help in vision.
At least, you won't lose sight of your fingers.
Looking down the dunes, there is the camp of the sand bandits. They were quite cautious, and at this time they couldn't even see the dim light of the candle.
But Palan knew that his prey was down here, and the news that Major Firmino personally entered the field to investigate should be reliable enough.
Five minutes passed quickly. Putting away the pocket watch in his hand, Palan drew out the long sword at his waist. The sharp long sword reflected a white light under the moonlight, shining on the sandy ground, flashing past. And he took a deep breath, then exhausted all his strength, and shouted: "Attack! All attack!"
The originally silent desert was suddenly awakened by the sound of shouting and killing! The dust from the footsteps on the ground is clearly visible even at night.
After Palan commanded the army to launch an attack, the Sand Pirates quickly reacted—but this reaction was a little bit bad.
They were obviously unprepared for the sudden attack. Frightened voices came in disorder, and there was a flash of fire. Some sand bandits came out holding torches, wanting to see what happened, but what greeted them was a series of fire-filled crossbows covering and shooting under the darkness of night.
Under such a dark night, the crossbowmen certainly had no way to maintain the accuracy of their shooting. However, Palan never expected this. The gathered crossbowmen need to do nothing more than cover the Sand Bandit camp with rockets before their comrades rush into the enemy camp.
It is not about how many people are shot to death, but it is about expanding the area covered as much as possible and expanding the offensive as much as possible, so as to cause stronger psychological pressure on the enemy. At the same time, those crossbow bolts with flames, which were shot on the tents of the sand robbers, caused the burning, which could further cause confusion among the enemies.
After shooting the rockets, the crossbowmen continued to shake the rocker on the crossbow desperately, wind the string, and then continued to shoot, trying to shoot as many crossbow arrows as possible before the friendly troops entered the enemy's camp.
The overwhelming arrows shot down, showing the fast and powerful shooting speed of the crossbowman.
In fact, although the crossbowmen's covering shots are quite intensive, the actual damage caused by them is not too much.
In complete darkness, in this kind of field of view, only cover-type strikes can be carried out, and it is impossible to pursue the hit rate. In fact, no matter whether it was the first round of rockets or the follow-up shooting of crossbow arrows, except for some really unlucky guys who were shot and injured, most of the other arrows were thrown into the empty space.
But this was enough to cause the sand robbers to panic.
Under the dense rain of arrows, a considerable number of Sand Bandits fled out of the tent with their weapons, and retreated back again. Even the officers of the sand bandits are the same.
And this directly caused these Sand Pirates to miss their last chance.
If they were able to organize their defense first before the army led by Palan rushed in, they would not have no chance of resisting the impact. And as long as you resist for a while, find a mount, and ride a camel, with excellent mobility, it is very likely that some people can escape.
However, they don't even have a decent defense organized at the moment.
Palan took the lead, leading two brigades of pure swordsmen, and rushed in from the front of the sand bandit camp.
There was no obstacle in this process. The Sand Bandits, who were attacked by surprise and suppressed by the rain of arrows shot by the crossbowmen, had no way to stop the advance of Palan's troops.
The two-handed swordsmen gathered in a standard squad, staring at the tents and rushing over. A few torches were thrown on the tent, the tent was lit, and then they stood outside. The Sand Bandit, who couldn't stand the flames, would immediately slash his head and face with three or five big swords as soon as he came out of the tent.
Some even couldn't wait for the sand robbers inside to come out. The small captains who led the team were more irritable, so they would directly order their subordinates to hack at the tent with a big sword. It doesn't matter where he cuts, anyway, even the tent and everything inside are chopped up together.
When encountering some relatively large tents, there may be multiple sand bandits inside, or there may be some leader members of the sand bandits, the pure swordsmen will directly cut through the tents and rush in to fight the enemy. And those sand bandit cavalry without mounts inside are likely not even equipped with all the equipment, so how could they be the opponents of the menacing pure swordsmen
Under such circumstances, few Sand Bandits could break out of the tent alive.
Paran led the crowd forward. In fact, the soldiers he could command now were only a few dozen people by his side. The dark night not only brought trouble to the enemy, but also nearly paralyzed Palan's command system in the melee. It is impossible for him to command the army like his fingers under such conditions.
But it doesn't need to.
At the very beginning of the battle, the situation of the battle had already been tilted towards him to a considerable extent. The sand bandits who were attacked were totally unprepared.
Moreover, the pure swordsman unit is also quite old elite. They have fought many battles with Dane in the South and North Wars. From officers to ordinary soldiers, they have quite rich experience in war. They are fully capable of fighting in small groups under the leadership of officers at all levels without a unified command.
What's more, they don't completely lose their command now. At least, before the war, Paran had clearly issued their own instructions to each of the troops. The task of the frontal assault force he commanded was to rush into the enemy's camp, and to expand the chaos as much as possible and increase the killing effect.
The first stage and the second stage of this task have been considered as completed, and the rest is to see how many enemies they can kill in the dark night.
As for Palan himself, now he is trying his best to keep the cohesion of the troops during the advancing process, and don't run too far in the dark night. At the same time, he is also leading the team he has gathered to continue to kill towards the front.
In the dark night, he himself did not know where he was. But he knew that it was right to kill all the way forward. Going forward, he will always be able to smash through the camps of these sand bandits. At that time, the mission of this part of the army led by him will be considered a perfect achievement.
More than 20 minutes after the battle started, Palan encountered the first wave of friendly troops.
Before the battle started, he divided his army into four parts and attacked from four directions. He himself led the army to attack from the east, and the army in front of him was naturally attacking from another direction.
"Which section do you belong to?" Palan couldn't possibly know every soldier, and the team in front of him was only 20 or 30 people, and there were no senior officers around, so he could only ask.
He didn't recognize every soldier and officer, but the soldiers and officers basically recognized him as a general. A leading lieutenant replied: "We are Colonel Geb's subordinates, and we got separated from the brigade during the previous battle."
Geb was the team coming from the west, and he and Paran just entered from two opposite directions.
Finding Gebu's people at this location basically means that the sand bandit's camp has been destroyed by troops coming from two directions.
Palan stroked the silver mask on his face, and asked the soldiers in front, "Do you know where your large army is?"
"I don't know the exact location..." the lieutenant said, "But, I know the general direction."
After thinking about it, Palan planned to take the team to join Geb first.
So, about ten minutes later, Palan led a hundred people and found Gebu. And the timing of his coming was also very coincidental, Colonel Gebb was gnawing on a hard bone.
That seemed to be the leader of a sand bandit group. Under the chaotic situation, he even gathered hundreds of people and fought against a mixed army of sword dancers and pure swordsmen led by Gebu himself. Have fun. And the direction Palan came from was exactly behind the sand bandits!
So what else is there to say? With a roar, Palan immediately took the lead and led the troops around him to kill.
After all, he has already been promoted to the level of a high-ranking knight, and few people are his all-in-one enemies. Occasionally, he would run into a sand bandit who was a bit capable, and he could do two tricks in his hands. Usually, he would be surrounded by his personal guards, who raised their knives and fell around, hacking to death.
When the sand bandit cavalry lost their mounts, their combat effectiveness was mediocre. Fighting against the mixed army led by Gebu was already a very difficult task, let alone running into the army led by Palan himself. Troop Assault.
They were already falling apart after five minutes. The leader was beheaded by Paran himself, and the other sand robbers also died or fled.
After winning the battle, Palan saw that he and the soldiers under Gebu were chasing the broken soldiers and ran out, so he quickly shouted: "Don't chase! Don't chase!"
"What's the matter?" Gebu took a rag he found somewhere, wiped the scimitar in his hand, and asked Palan, "Why didn't the general let the soldiers pursue him?"
"I need this force to gather." Paland said, "I'm a little worried."
"Worried?" Gebu frowned, "Although there is no way to see the overall situation, there shouldn't be any suspense in this battle, right? What are you worried about?"
"I'm worried about the situation with Lieutenant Colonel Norseman," Palan said.
Norseman was an Elven Sword Dancer and commander of forces attacking in the other direction. He led a brigade of sword dancers and a brigade of pure swordsmen, as well as two squadrons of wolf cavalry. It was the place where the sand bandits kept their camel mounts and occupied it.
According to the plan in advance, after Lieutenant Colonel Northman completed this task, he should release five red flares into the sky to provide a location for other troops to support.
However, it has been almost an hour since the battle started, however, there is still no sign of the red flare in the sky.