GATE
Medieval Mercenaries in Another World
Chapter 1: For The Straightforward Pathway Had Been Lost
The year of our lord 1435,
To our most holy father I, Vicar Jan Rokycana of the Holy Church of Bohemia, write you this letter sadly not to thank thee for thy support during the conflict between us and our radical brethren at the wars of Bohemia nor for publicly recognizing our rites as part of your holy church.
While I am most thankful for your decisions and the solutions taken at these events I must sadly write this letter to inform you of a new conflict and one that should interest you greatly.
As it stands, we have once more been invaded. Not by our brethren nor by the East. But by a force that we are still trying to comprehend…
The city of Prague, the capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Yurochka Kaiser a lesser knight and lord of land long lost, now a mercenary with the events of the Hussite Wars behind his back.
A war of Christian identity and ideology, one that he had fought to uphold his faith in the Catholic truth. Yet one that had ended with him sharing formations with people he had once considered the enemy.
"Head up, so I may clean your neck." He instructed his horse, brown and beautiful, which he had been busy cleaning for the last hour.
The time after the war had been eventless once the remaining brigands and bandits had been disposed of. For now, the community had been busy with rebuilding. Even the city of Prague, while not having been part of any sieges, had gained damages to a lesser extent due to the fighting and arguments within it. It had been a city of Hussites… and now it was a city of the true faith once more, albeit one with a Hussite presence still.
He paused, staring into the eyes of his horse as the wind began to pick up his red locks and his horse's own black ones. And then he glanced behind him, towards the tavern where through the warped glass of its windows he could see one of the many men he had been instructed to take into his company of warriors.
Kolya. Youthful, honorable, and a Hussite. A boy whose father had been executed for his stance. Yet one of the most reliable mercenaries Yurochka had ever recruited.
And he frowned at that, forgetting his horse for the moment. The fact that this young man was not only a good soldier, but one who took his commands seriously went completely against Yurochka's understanding. For he was a Hussite. A heretic.
Or rather, Yurochka thought with a sigh, he had been a heretic. For now, by order of the pope, the Moderate Hussites had been welcomed back into the arms of Christ in return for having fought the ones more radical.
Yet it felt wrong to the knight. It wasn't right, not to him. Yet it was what he had been told and thus he had to accept it.
And then that didn't matter anymore. Not at that moment. Not when suddenly the wind picked up and his horse, Christof, raised into the air and neighed in fear.
Yurochka did try to calm him down, to take hold of the reins and pull in hopes to calm his horse, yet the wind picked up to such an extent that it could only be a storm.
The knight fell to his floor, reins sliding off his hands as Christof dashed off to safety.
The man began to move up to his knees and made to turn, arm raised to block off the dust blowing into his face. And then.
Then he saw it. A gate, greater than any Roman ruin he had ever seen within the lands of Bohemia. A gate of marvelous marble stood erect upon the ground of the city as if it had always been there.
And then a monstrosity, a creature of forbidden proportions whose mere visage should not have ever existed outside the pages of manuscripts and the carvings of dead pagans.
A sky serpent. An impossibility. But enough of a sign that he had to stand. Stand and run for the tavern, for his men.
And as he moved he bent quickly down to take hold of rock large enough to fit his hand. A crash later and it had gone through the window of the tavern and gained the attention of everyone inside.
"The city is under attack!" He roared, his men standing up at his voice alone.
"Grab whatever weapon and armor you can carry quickly! Ready shields if you can, we must protect the people!"
Everyone began to hurry as Yurochka quickly moved out of the building towards the one opposite of it, the inn where he had been cleaning his horse. He had risked a glance towards the impossible gate, seeing the silhouettes of warriors coming out of it.
Pushing the door out of his way and finding himself in his room the knight made the decision to discard his plate armor as there simply was no time to take it on. His gambeson, his padded armor, was already on his torso as he often wore it as a symbol of his profession and he quickly made sure to add a layer of chainmail over it to ensure a level of protection.
His helmet was next, looking strange when carried over maille alone before he picked his dagger and finally a warhammer and moved towards the storage by the entrance where he found a large kite shield, something that he absolutely needed for this situation.
With boots pressed against the ground, he was once more out on the streets as his men quickly followed suit. They looked clumsy, wearing half of their equipment and some carrying shields when they usually would not. Luckily the commotion had spread the news around the city and while the imposing army moving out from the gate in front of them bore the likenesses of beasts and demons, support would be there soon.
It has to, Yurochka thought to himself as his men began to flock around him.
"Formations! Everyone! Shoulder to shoulder, I want at least four to five men next to each other for every row! Shields up! Defend yourselves and the men next to you!"
Shoulder to shoulder, as he had demanded, with rows of backup behind them. He was at the front line, something that usually would not be the case but had happened during situations of emergency like the one they currently had found themselves in.
Someone would say it boosted morale yet for Yurochka it was a matter of principle. He had to be there, in the front, if the situation called for it.
"Keep tight!" He shouted as the enemy, the beasts, approached. These creatures with the faces of pigs and other animals disgusted and confused his men. What were they witnessing?
What was approaching them?
Then Yurochka raised his eyes, something behind those creatures taking his attention. Horsemen, a cavalry unit? One of men, not beasts, and they were accompanied by archers just as human.
A horn was sound, civilians began to rush past the mercenaries who moved their shields to let them past as others fled inside the houses.
"Protect the people!" He screamed as the archers began to take aim. "Ready your shields, cover as many as you can!"
But then the bowmen did something he had never seen before. They raised their weapons towards the sky and let them loose as they flew at it. At first, he thought the action illogical as it seemed they were firing at their sky serpents. And then the arrows began to arc, falling towards them.
"Shields up! Shields up! Keep your shields up and back up to protect the people."
The men behind began to do as told, moving back and holding their shields in such a way that they became as roofs above the peasants and nobles passing them. But as the two rows up front turned to do the same their captain, their lord Yurochka, shouted once more.
"First two rows stay in position! Shields front!" He had heard the terrible growl of the pig-beasts and their allies, who had decided to come at them with their primitive yet intimidating clubs and hatchets. The arrows were not just to harm the civilians but to distract the front, a devious yet surprising action.
"Stay together!" Yurochka shouted, his emotions boiling inside him with fear and anger. "Keep your shields up, attack only when you can!"
Phalanx, the old pagan scholars of the Greeks had called it. The idea was simple, a front-row would attack the enemy that pushed against their defense, and once a warrior was too tired he would move to the line farthest back to regain his energy as the man who had stood behind him would take his place. Now they only had a single row backing them up, so it meant having to keep in there as long as possible as the beasts were at them.
But soon their other men would return, having successfully limited the number of civilian casualties and now pressed into the backs of their fellow mercenaries. The front row began to exchange with the one behind them, one by one of the soldiers moved back as someone else went to keep up the shield wall, yet Yurochka stayed in front. Out of principle? Out of god-given fear and anger?
He killed and blocked to the best of his ability but eventually he felt a hand on his shoulder and a voice begging to take his place. His eyes darted back, seeing Kolya.
The Hussite, he thought. God loved irony he decided and with a nod he allowed the boy to take his place and moved back in the line to rest for a moment.
Feeling the need to look up he raised his head, observing the sight that was the sky-serpents. Dragons? All he knew was that their mere presence would raise fear and confusion in the city. Where were the archers? Even if backup took time to realize where they were needed, someone should-
The loud sound of multiple bangs was heard. Volley fire, from the weapons known as hand-cannons or firelances. He had only seen them a few times during the war and found himself in awe as the beast was filled with holes and fell to the ground.
It crashed a few meters away from him, his men in front turning back at the sound.
"Continue as instructed!" He stated before moving towards the creature. It lay either dead or dying but what had taken his attention was not it, but rather the human who had ridden it.
"What manner of man are you," He said, looking down at the panting soldier. "Who place himself upon a creation of hell."
The man would have replied by sitting up and taking out a dagger, if not for spears to push into him. Yurochka flinched and looked up, seeing armored men of the town guard.
And then he looked back down at the dead warrior, the dead enemy, that they had skewered as they pulled their weapons out of him.
Some of them had... stabbed through his cuirass. The sight was most perplexing but it quickly lost meaning as Yurochka turned back to his own men.
"Reinforcement is here!" He told them as the guards began to move past him and into the rows. "Fall back! Save your strength!"
The battle was not yet over but now…
Yurochka sighed.
"Now we win."
Editor's Notes
Warmest greetings to you all. This story acts as something of a rebirth for me. I was previously known as SwedenSpeedway but recently decided to remove some of my past stories, as I felt they no longer represented my current skill in writing. Thus I am now the Northlander and hope that with this new fanfic I can prove how I've improved.
Either way, this story is different from most fanfics based on GATE. Rather than placing American troops alongside the JSDF or outright replacing them with the Soviet Army, I've decided instead to place 15th-century German mercenaries in their place. The idea is simple, I want to use well-researched and realistic historical combatants with the arms and armor of their time as well as their tactics so as to compare it to your typical Fantasy/Isekai nonsense. That being said I do enjoy Fantasy/Isekai nonsense!
Still, I hope that this story will introduce both the comical ("lol fantasy is so inaccurate look") with the dramatic (Discussions of ideology and morality) into the world of GATE.
The protagonist is Captain (or Sir) Yurochka Kaiser, a fictional mercenary leader, and lesser knight. He'll be portrayed as a very faithful Christian but also something of a fundamentalist, at least from a modern perspective. I don't agree with these views but hope that tackling a character whose worldview is so different from my own will be an interesting challenge. That and the next chapter will introduce a character that more properly portrays my own views and perspective.
Since this is a story about the historical and realistic clashing against the fictional and fantastical I hope you in the audience will be willing to bring up some questions for me to answer. There are bound to be historical aspects in this story you are unfamiliar with or perhaps even fantastical tropes that I point out that you believed were realistic.
If you find something you disagree with or believe isn't factual please feel free to comment. I am very much willing to challenge my beliefs and views as long as the discussion is civil, done in good faith, and is able to fall back on factual sources (if necessary).
Historical Inaccuracies of the Special Region
This segment will appear every chapter to discuss aspects of the world of GATE (called the "Special Region" in the source material) which contradict history and that my characters acknowledge and are perplexed by.
1. Archery Volleys: Historical sources and experts all seem to indicate that the classical Hollywood archery volley fire, where a group fire (or loosen their arrows, as was said historically) into the sky all at once for the arrows to then fall upon their victims did not happen. Archers were instead the long-distance snipers of the past, focusing on the aiming front to ensure their arrow hit their targets. They also fired at will rather than all pulling their strings back (which takes a lot of energy and strength to do just for a mere couple of seconds) and loosening said string only when commanded to.
Of course in archery arrows fall in an arc, that's to be expected, but this aspect is still exaggerated in fiction for the sake of the "archery volley".
2. Armor that can be penetrated: The anime, as with many fictional depictions of armor, depicts the cuirasses worn by the people of the Special Region as being one that can be easily penetrated (or even cut through!) by swords or other weapons. This is not how armor ever worked historically. Plate armor's primary function is after all to protect and is made in such a way that you cannot penetrate it. Even if you could you would not be able to get through deep enough to cause damage, hence why plate armor dominated the later end of the Middle Ages.
This unrealistic depiction of armor and its functional historical counterpart will be discussed by the characters further in the next chapter, along with how one would properly get around armor during combat.