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TWL Chapter 369: Steel, Fire, and Fury
🕑 Added 2025-04-25 23:27:18 +0000 UTCRayla swallowed hard. She knew Duke Lannister had mage-like abilities and could return to camp at any time—but the rest of them didn’t. For all she knew, today might be the day she gave her life in service to the king.
The thunder of hooves shook the ground. A Nilfgaardian cavalry unit broke away from their main camp and charged toward the Three Lions banner. From their position, they could already make out the enemy—and when Rayla saw that silver sun banner fluttering in the wind, her face turned pale.
Lann, on the other hand, was elated.
That distinctive banner meant this wasn’t just any unit. This was the Ard Feainn Division—which meant 'Great Sun' in Elder Speech. Formerly part of Nilfgaard’s Third Legion, they had now been deployed to support the infantry-heavy Eastern Army Group in their fight against Aedirn and Meve.
This was one of Nilfgaard's heavy cavalry units.
The cavalry force before them wasn’t large—only around two thousand riders. The Third Army Corps had likely dispatched only a portion of the Ard Feainn Division as reinforcements. Even so, the soldiers behind Lann were already turning pale.
Their loyalty kept their bodies standing firm, but they could not suppress the rising fear—after all, just a few days ago, this very unit had torn through the allied forces of Aedirn and Lyria with overwhelming force!
What was even more concerning was that, according to the intelligence they had obtained about Nilfgaard, the Third Army Corps still commanded four more cavalry divisions like this one.
It was a clear testament to how deep Nilfgaard’s military reserves truly ran.
At this moment, among the harassing troops, only Lann appeared excited. Taking down part of Nilfgaard’s heavy cavalry here would be an excellent move.
Before the Mahakam heavy infantry officially entered the fray, he would personally test the weight of these enemies!
...
Sensing the unease among his men, Lann sighed softly in his heart.
He suddenly regretted not bringing House along. If that guy were here, he could have shouted something to boost morale—something he was particularly good at.
But now, Lann would have to do it himself.
"Lyrians, Aedirnians, and Rivians—" he bellowed.
Even with the deafening thunder of hooves across the battlefield, the roar of the Lion still reached every soldier’s ears—short, but powerful.
"This is the same unit that just days ago drank the blood of your comrades, the very butchers who are now slaughtering your countrymen and destroying your homes!"
At this distance, they could already see the capital city of Lyria in ruins in the distance. The eyes of the Lyrian soldiers in the ranks were the first to redden.
Lann flipped his left hand, and several alchemical glass vials appeared in his palm, each filled with potions that emitted different colored lights.
Although Jerome had prepared a full set of potions and most decoctions for him, Lann rarely needed to rely on such external enhancements during combat.
But today was different—today, he was facing a full-fledged army head-on. He had to summon one hundred and twenty percent of his strength.
"Now," Lann roared, "your king and queen have entrusted you with the heaviest of missions!
In the histories to come, it will be recorded that it was your blades that cut off the Nilfgaardians’ advance—that it was the screams of their dying soldiers under your swords that marked the beginning of Nilfgaard’s downfall, and shattered their dreams of marching north!
This will be a saga to rival the Battle of Sodden Hill!"
Drawing the Sword of the Lady of the Lake with his right hand, Lann seemed to raise a blazing torch in his grip.
Without bothering to bite off the wax seals, he slashed the vials through the air, neatly severing their necks with his blade.
"And now," Lann roared, "you have only one task—follow me! I will lead the charge!"
Throwing back his head, he gulped down the swirling contents of the vials.
Even among witchers, with their superhuman toxin resistance, this dosage would have been lethal. Only Lann, thanks to his mastery of potion-related abilities, could rapidly metabolize such a heavy intake.
Immediately, Lann felt his heartbeat pounding like a war drum.
Even without a mirror, he knew that the veins on his forehead and around his eyes must be bulging grotesquely, and his complexion had turned deathly pale—like a ghost poised for battle.
The sound of hooves grew louder and louder. By now, no other sounds could be heard.
The enemy was drawing closer—there was no turning back!
“Blackwind.” Lann patted his old companion. “Charge!”
The black steed let out an excited, piercing whinny. Its suppressed wildness burst free, and in an instant, it surged forward like a storm.
With Lann atop it, the horse raced past the banners of the Three Lions, overtaking all the knights, galloping at the very forefront of the formation!
He could already see the enemies' faces—the faces that the people of Cintra had long dreamed of smashing to pieces!
Lann suddenly raised his left hand, pouring massive amounts of magic into it—
[Igni Sign: Pyromaniac: Magic Burst!]
A wall of fire erupted violently in front of the Nilfgaardians, completely without warning.
The leading hundred heavy cavalrymen—men and horses alike—were instantly engulfed in flames, shrieking like tormented souls in hell.
This was fire that could ignite even steel!
The horrifying spectacle stunned the cavalry behind them.
Their skin blistered from the heat, but what truly chilled the Black Army to the bone wasn’t the loss of the soldiers up front—it was the fact that the horses had panicked!
The once-orderly vanguard plunged into chaos. Warhorses collided, bit at each other, and trampled over one another.
The intense heat and searing pain made them blind to friend or foe.
In the blink of an eye, countless horses fell, creating a living barricade, while countless knights were thrown from their saddles and smashed into pulp beneath trampling hooves.
For heavy cavalry, this was catastrophic.
What should have been a death knell for the enemy had turned into their own death sentence.
And their enemies?
Lann flipped his left hand, pulling a massive lance from his [Inventory].
With terrifying momentum, he drove it straight into the disordered Nilfgaardian ranks.
The moment the lance collided with the first heavy cavalryman, it exploded with a deafening boom into a shower of wooden shards.
The enemy’s breastplate shattered on impact, flesh and blood splattering into the air, as if struck head-on by a giant’s hammer, merging with the rain of shattered wood.
Lann’s body didn’t so much as flinch, and Blackwind’s stride only grew faster.
Casually discarding the broken lance shaft—crushing an unlucky knight into the mud beneath his hooves—Lann swiftly drew another lance from his Inventory, continuing the brutal cycle.
[Boom! Boom! Boom!]
Each impact sounded like an alchemical bomb detonating, echoing through the Nilfgaardian formation.
Lann forcibly carved a bloody path through the enemy’s heavy cavalry ranks!
Meanwhile, the allied forces of the two kingdoms behind him had officially engaged.
The Nilfgaardian heavy cavalry had lost their momentum, while their enemies’ steeds had just reached the peak of their strength.
The sound of lances shattering became even more frequent, louder, and strangely delightful to the ear.
Lann threw aside yet another shattered lance shaft and began considering whether he should commission the dwarves of Mahakam to forge him an all-metal lance—or better yet, perhaps a heavier poleaxe, a bec de corbin, or even a… glaive?
Witcher swords simply weren’t built for mounted combat.
Still, the charge had fulfilled its purpose: momentum had been seized, enemy morale crushed, while their own forces’ spirits had soared to a satisfying high.
Lann quickly estimated the distance between himself and the enemy’s Sun Banner Sword-bearers—close enough to use his next move.
He patted Blackwind's neck.
“Play by yourself for a while. Be careful,” he said.
Blackwind promptly stomped on the chest of a fallen heavy cavalryman, crushing it flat, then twisted its neck to smash the skull of an enemy warhorse.
Snorting loudly afterward, it seemed to urge Lann to hurry up and lighten its burden.
Lann chuckled softly.
Emerald green light enveloped his body—
[Blink!]
In the next instant, his vision was swallowed by a thick surge of chaotic energy.
When his sight cleared again, he was face-to-face with a black-winged helm.
Lann stood atop the crushed skull of the enemy’s warhorse.
Under the time-slowing effect of his skill, he could clearly see the lines on the man’s face stretching and twisting—morphing into raw terror.
This was the standard-bearer of the Ard Feainn Division.
The Sword of the Lady of the Lake, burning bright as a torch even in the darkness, carved a tremendous arc through the air, gleaming for an instant before vanishing.
A sharp crack resounded as the standard-bearer’s mount, his body, and the flagpole behind him were all cleaved cleanly in two.
With a rustling clatter, the great Silver Sun banner unfurled one final time, billowing in the wind before crashing down, knocking over several unlucky cavalrymen.
It was trampled deep into the mud by the relentless hooves.
"Lann Lannister!"
Faintly, Lann heard a voice shouting.
Turning toward it, he spotted a man clad in high-grade officer armor—likely the commander of this cavalry unit.
Lann’s distinctive appearance, armor, and weaponry made him impossible to mistake—and no doubt the Nilfgaardian officers at the front carried an 'enemy recognition list' where his name stood among those marked for death.
Immediately, Lann saw the Nilfgaardian cavalry, with the officer at their center, pivot as one and charge straight toward him.
For heavy cavalry in mid-charge, such a maneuver was no small feat, a testament to the elite discipline of the Ard Feainn Division.
Unfortunately for them, Lann’s appearance had been too abrupt, and the initial clash too brief.
During a charge, battlefield communication was virtually nonexistent, and the Nilfgaardians could only make out flickering firelight ahead—completely unaware of what had just transpired.
They would find out soon enough.
Having tasted the exhilarating joy of slaying an enemy champion and seizing a banner, Lann was now thoroughly satisfied.
Standing behind enemy lines, with no allies nearby to worry about accidentally hitting, he had complete freedom of movement.
He stopped swinging his sword.
Instead, as the heavy cavalry barreled toward him like an unstoppable battering ram, he simply slammed his left hand onto the ground.
A massive chunk of his mana drained away instantly—only to surge back moments later under the effects of his potions.
[Aard Sign: Aard Sweep: Piercing Cold: Magic Burst!]
For soldiers born under the warm southern sun, it was their first encounter with the freezing cold of the North.
It would also be their last.
