Chapter 5 - Banzai And A Glory Be
15-8-1581
Yamatai - Bay & Fortified Fishing Hamlet
More than 2 weeks had passed since the cove-cave operation and the subsequent investigations. The hypothesis of Lara and Samantha regarding Yamatai islanders as "a mass mix of European, Chinese, Japanese and Korean shipwreck survivors or their descendants who had gone insane" became a universal consensus among the expedition. Since the theory also suggested the enemies' potential of using ethnic-based equipment and gunpowder weapons, it only motivated the troops to fortify the hamlet by ditching a complex network of trenches around the hamlet.
The outer fortifications were supported by countless abatis, caltrops, cheval de frise and trou de loup. They would not only kill or wound enemies but also direct them to selected chokepoints and crossfiring killzones. The soil from trenches was extracted to build primitive defensive mud walls to surround the entire fishing hamlet. They were further reinforced by stockades and abatis. Crude mantlets and pavises were made to protect troops from arrows. Furthermore, there was a beacon on each of the bay's hills to transmit alerts. They deployed various colourful flags surrounding the fortified hamlet to indicate weapon effective ranges. These fortifications consumed most of the cove-cave's salvages and deforested ⅔ of the bay. The mine's mineral reserves were also depleted from repairing equipment and mass forging javelin heads, cannonballs, bullets and mixing gunpowder.
Interestingly, the Quartel-mestre (Quartermaster) found a full set of masterfully crafted female Almain rivet among the cove-cave's scavenger-barrels. The armour consisted of a green gambeson and a slightly rusted chainmail shirt underneath; covered by a breastplate and a backplate; attached with a pair of pauldrons, vambraces and greaves; with an additional right gauntlet. Apart from the gambeson and chainmail shirt, all the plate armour components were marvellously forged from excellent dark steel. They were gilded with various Anglican symbolisms and geometric patterns. The pair of pauldrons were exquisitely etched in a huge golden Canterbury cross each. Due to overexposure of the humid coastal den's alkaline sea water-moist corrosion, some thin layers of green patina appeared on the dark steel plate, creating a contrasting "elegant but venerable" aesthetic. There were also worn but high-quality leather straps with ornate gold buckles to hold pistol thigh-holsters and ammunition waist-pouches.
The full female armour set weighed 13 kg and disturbed evenly to all body parts. It provided excellent protection against pistol calibre bullets, arrows, fragmentations, slash and stabs. Behind the breastplate, there was an engraved Latin inscription,
"Sacra Umbra
Factus a Iacobus Halderus
Grenovicum, Regnum Angliae
Anno Domini MDLXXVI"
Apparently, the full armour set was called "Sacra Umbra", meaning "Sacred Shadow". It was custom made in Greenwich - a town in south-east London, Kingdom of England. The magnificent female Almain rivet was forged by the famous master-blacksmith Jacob Halder in 1576. Since Sacra Umbra still looked relatively new and modern in design, Padre Sebastião speculated that it may belong to the "Y" female corpse-crucifix back in the coastal den. She only decomposed for a year and perfectly matched the armour's good condition. The Jesuit Priest further suggested that the deceased female may be the wife or daughter of some Francis Drake wannabe. Their privateer galleon ventured to Yamatai and doomed everyone onboard. Lara cringed at Padre Sebastião's analysis because the corpse's speculated journey was a certified "literally me" moment, except she was still alive.
Nevertheless, the Quartel-mestre insisted on Lara trying Sacra Umbra and found it somehow perfectly fitted her feminine and athletic hourglass body. He thus issued it to the young Countess as body armour. Despite the uncanny speculated backstory, Lara actually adored Sacra Umbra for its English origin and craftsmanship - a physical reminder of the far cry home.
Lara currently stood guarding on the defensive mud wall near the hamlet entrance. She was equipped with Sacra Umbra with a black linen shirt with loose sleeves underneath. Lara wore a pair of leather gloves, tight umber breeches and dark brown knee-high leather cavalier boots. Her brown ponytail was tied with a huge light grey bow scrunchie but with no helmet. Lara was fully armed with a rapier on her left waist, a parrying dagger on the right and dual wheellock pistols in her twin-thigh holsters. There were also ammunition waist-pouches at both front and back.
Lara put her hands on the railing of the stockades reinforced defensive mud walls, admiring the contrasting scenery of the mysterious humid subtropical green forest and stone-cold fortifications. Suddenly, a pair of warm masculine arms hugged/embraced her hard from behind. He breathed down Lara's right neck, sniffing so hard with the lip rubbing and nose snuggling the tender flesh.
"Ahhh~ You smell so good~ What soap did you use?", Alex spoke affectionately from behind while closing his eyes to enjoy the sensation.
Lara did not resist and only giggled like a bimbo, "Oh~ Hahaha~ Stop it~ Dammit, love!~ That's just my armour's metallic taste- Hahaha~"
Some passer-by soldiers saw their shameless public display of affection and immediately looked aways in disapproval. It was too scandalous for a civilised high moral society. Alex smirked maliciously, "Fufufu… Seems that some lads still refuse to acknowledge our relationship. I need to send a crystal-clear message to them."
"Huh? What are you going to- Ahh!", without letting Lara finish her question, Alex bit her right neck so hard that she gasped in pain. He drew blood and left a huge teeth-mark hickey. Lara tried to struggle away from Alex's death grip but failed miserably. She glared at her boyfriend out of her right eye corner and scolded angrily, "You insolent knobhead! What's that for?! Are you a bloody vampire for fuck's sake?!"
Alex instantly looked guilty like a sad puppy and finally released his hug from behind, "Sorry… I thought you would like it… Ya know, an anonymous informant told me that you fantasise about me… ya know… being possessive, rough, biting you hard all over and what not…"
Lara blushed hard and all her anger instantly vanished. However, she continued pretending to be angry and hissed, "That informant of yours… She's Samantha, right?"
Alex defended nervously, "Well, ye- No! Definitely not!"
"Dammit, Samantha! I know it is you!", Lara exclaimed in (fake) anger. Just as he tried to apologise again, the young Countess suddenly turned around and passionately French kissed his scared boyfriend. She sucked so hard that Alex nearly suffered from anoxia. When she finally pulled out her tips and tongue, Alex panted for a minute straight before responding arduously, "You… You fool me… And you almost suffocated me…"
"That's called strategy, love. You know I cannot physically win you. Gotta use some feminine mind tricks."
The duo shared lighthearted laughs and proceeded to chat about their preferable future dating locations. The discussion quickly went off rail to Samantha's yōkai stories, Padre Sebastião's philosophical research and Catholic catechisms. Alex suddenly asked, "So… what do you plan to do after we finish this expedition?"
"Let's get married.", Lara looked Alex dead in the eye. The calm but absolutely serious tone completely took him off guard. Although they deeply liked each other, their relationship just progressed way too fast. They had only known each other for a month but were already talking about marriage.
Against his better judgement and common sense, Alex nodded and sincerely answered, "Ok. Let's get married."
"I want to raise a big family. We will have at least 4 kids - 2 sons and 2 daughters. The more the better. Any place you want us to settle down?"
"I really have no idea… I mean… We can always go back to my home Canton of Uri but we will just become ordinary farmers, looking at generic rural landscapes for the rest of our lives. I don't think you would like this, at least not until we reach our 40s. This should be our last resort."
"Yea, you're absolutely right… I also don't think returning to England is a good option, considering that my fellow countrymen are prosecuting Catholics. Furthermore, they are no doubt going to have war with the Iberian Union sooner or later. It will not be good for you and the kids."
"What about just staying in Nagasaki or any other Portuguese colonies?"
"Nagasaki was an odd option… Ya know, it is only established for a year with little defence. Any ambitious Japanese daimyō can easily destroy us. As for other colonies, I have little knowledge regarding their pros and cons so…"
Alex chuckled lightly, "Don't worry, honey. We can do detailed research once we return to Nagasaki. Time is all we got."
Lara nodded in agreement and passionately French kissed her soon husband-to-be again. Unfortunately, the lovebird's making out session was abruptly interrupted when the fortified hamlet's bell rang thunderously. The bay's twin-hill beacons were also ignited in flames. These were alert signals for incoming enemy attacks!
Although Lara was not a member of the expedition command and technically still an "ex-criminal", Alex insisted on including her in their emergent strategic and tactical conference. According to the the returning scouts, the invading islanders were indeed a huge milti-ethnic force. They consisted of 1500 cultists, including English, Dutch, Chinese, Japanese and Koreans. They would arrive at the fortified hamlet within 2 hours.
The absolute major only had crude axes, spears and bows with no armour. Some tied themselves with bamboo as armour and used wooden planks as shields. Few were spotted with military grade armour (Sino-Korean lamellar armour, chainmail shirt and bumianjia; Japanese samurai and ashigaru gusoku; Anglo-Dutch jack of plate and Almain rivet) and melee weapons (Chinese dadao and liuyedao; Korean hwando; Japanese tachi; Anglo-Dutch halberd and messer). The rarest were the cultists with hand grenades/fire bombs, hand cannons and matchlock muskets. There was also a huge group of malnourished coolies carrying crude siege ladders, battle rams and supplies. These cultists had no formal military training as they had no scouting party and marched in chaotic formation. Discipline was abysmal as everyone acted like they were going to a picnic. The ragtag cultist-army was led by a hooded pagan shaman with a crude staff made of various salvages.
Due to the overwhelming enemy numerical superiority, the expedition could not stretch out to protect all surrounding areas. It must concentrate on defending the strategic chokepoint of the fortified hamlet at all costs. Therefore, the command was forced to abandon the bay's twin-hills and their simple mountainous fortifications. Luckily, their excellent elevated shooting angle and field of view would not be reused by the enemy because they would be demolished to create landslide-scale blockades. Furthermore, the left hill's waterfall and river were actually not that crucial to the hamlet since water supply was very sufficient from Yamatai's constant heavy rainfall. The right hill's mining reserves were also depleted so it had no use for the expedition.
For naval deployment on the bay, Capitão Cristóvão and 40 Portuguese musketeers were selected to man São Nicolau de Mira. They would operate its devastating cannons and vessel manoeuvres like a mobile artillery platform, delivering barrage and danger close fire support. For landed unit deployment in the fortified hamlet, Padre Sebastião, Lara Croft (now wore an additional black morion), 30 Portuguese musketeers, 20 Japanese ban-zutsu tanegashima ashigaru and 10 Japanese o-zutsu tanegashima samurai (including Samantha) were deployed on the stockade-reinforced defensive mud walls. They formed the crossfire and sharpshooting line. Alferes Alexander, 50 Portuguese pikemen, 40 Japanese nagae yari ashigaru and an awe-inspiring Porta-bandeira were deployed behind the gate. They formed the impenetrable pike square and anvil of the battle. The Sargento, 15 naginata samurai and 15 no-dachi samurai were deployed at the flanks of the pike square. They were the shock troops and formed the combat reserves. Furthermore, these melee samurai were issued with crude javelins to throw at trench-range enemies. The Baterista and Fifer would play military music non-stop to boost unit morale. The Barbeiro-cirurgião and his 3 Japanese medical apprentices/assistants would provide medical and logistic support for the frontline combatants. The 2 Jesuit Deacons were assigned as "masters of signals" to provide target acquisitions for São Nicolau de Mira through flag semaphore.
After finishing unit deployment and demolishing the bay's twin hill to create an impassable blockade, the Yamatai cultist-army finally arrived through the narrow mountain pass. Lara, Padre Sebastião, Samantha and the rest of her firing team all ducked under the stockade of the defensive mud walls as cover, carefully observing the enemies. The 10 Japanese o-zutsu tanegashima samurai attached bo-hiya ammunition to their anti-materiel matchlock muskets. Padre Sebastião started praying the Roman Rite Latin short hymn of Gloria Patri. The rest of the expedition all humbly knelt, lowered their heads, folded hands and followed praying quietly,
"Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen."
They all ended the prayer by drawing the sacred sign of the Cross. Overwhelming strengths of zeal, courage and righteous anger filled their unbreakable souls. The warriors of Christ were ready and determined to vanquish evil.
Once the cultist-army slowly reached the cannon range indication flag, the 2 Jesuit Deacons immediately raised various colourful flags, using semaphore to signify fire mission. After 15 seconds of suffocating silence, a series of thunderous roar of explosions erupted from São Nicolau de Mira on the bay. The navy bombardment commenced through the starboard side's 10 barrels of doom. The large burning-hot iron cannonballs precisely landed into the approaching enemy formation. They instantly ripped waves of cultists apart, rupturing limbs and bursting internal organs like exploding whales. Mass panic followed as blood mists, intestines and bones splattered all over the battlefield like heavy rain. The already disorganised formation was further fragmented. Some wavering cultists tried to flee but were immediately executed by the hooded pagan shaman's heavily armoured bodyguards. Such horrific punishment for desertion temporarily stabilised operation integrity and forced the ragtag cultist-army to charge forward.
The pain of suffering and screams of agony echoed the righteous roars of naval artillery barrage. It continued to blow the blasphemers into oblivion, brutally dismembering them from limb to limb like a skillful vivisection-anatomist. It was not sadistic cruelty but righteous fury from God through blessed batteries of judgement. As the cultists reached the shooting range of o-zutsu tanegashima's bo-hiya, the 10 matchlock samurai launched their incendiary-explosive fire rocket into the charging cultist waves. Huge explosions and flames instantly erupted throughout the battlefield. The blast radius was huge, splashing bodies skyhigh like fireworks and burning human flesh with the rate of barbecue grills.
"Come closer you bloody bastards. Show me what passes for fury among your misbegotten kind.", Lara mumbled as she watched the carnage.
In fear of being executed by the hooded pagan shaman's bodyguard for cowardice, the cultists did not stop or retreat even under non-stop devastating naval artillery and o-zutsu tanegashima's fire rocket barrage. The cultist waves eventually reached the field of hidden trou de loup. Numerous foes fell into the pits and impaled by the sharpened punji sticks, either instantly killed or mortally wounded. It generally halted the cultists' charge as they crammed together and tried to navigate safe pathways. They were insane but not suicidal to rush into traps. Unfortunately, the field of hidden trou de loup was also the shooting range of the standard matchlock muskets. 30 Portuguese musketeers and 20 Japanese ban-zutsu tanegashima ashigaru fired in rapid volley to the halted cultist blocks, effortlessly and accurately mowing them down like firing squads.
Meanwhile, the Barbeiro-cirurgião and his 3 local Japanese medical apprentices/assistants were busy helping the matchlock musketeers to reload or using wet towels to cool down their overheated gun barrels. The Baterista and Fifer played various light-hearted military music to relieve troopers' combat stress. The Porta-bandeira boosted unit morale by vigorously waving the huge and awe-inspiring Portuguese Empire flag-banner.
The bow-wielding cultist started to loose arrows to the matchlock musketeers. Fortunately, they were untrained for high angle shots and only aimed directly at the defensive mud walls, thus wasting overwhelming arrows at the stockades, mantlets and pavises. Despite having numeral superiority, the cultist-bowmen were ignorant of using concentration and volley fire. They only loosed arrows individually and disorderly, thus unable to suppress the matchlock musketeers from harvesting their pathetic lives. Lucky shots which went over the stockades reinforced mud walls were easily blocked by crude mantlets and pavises. While some arrows impacted the Portuguese-Japanese troops, the primitive bows just generated insufficient kinetic energy. Their underpowered arrows simply could not penetrate modern munition armour and harmlessly bounced off. It was only the 30 matchlock and hand cannon cultists who inflicted casualties. Their gunpowder propulsive ball-bullets punched holes into the mud walls' stockades. However, due to worn-out equipment and unfavourable bottom-up fire angle, there cultist gunners could only kill 5 Portuguese musketeers before being annihilated by a series of avenging volley fire.
The one-sided "sitting duck" meat grinding continued until the hooded pagan shaman went berserk. He and his armoured bodyguards ignored the thunderous naval artillery and fire rocket barrage, rushing downhill to the halted cultist block and pushing them forward towards the field of trou de loup as "human trap clearance device". Those who refused to comply were executed on the spot. The cultists had no choice but to slowly move forward. After sacrificing numerous damned souls as literal cannon folders, the ragtag cultist-army reached the trenches. 2 Jesuit Deacons immediately raised various colourful flags again, using semaphore to signify São Nicolau de Mira the end of fire mission. The cultists were getting too close and any further naval artillery barrage may cause disastrous friendly fire. The galleon stopped firing and quickly manoeuvred towards the docks to disembark Capitão Cristóvão and 40 Portuguese musketeers. They would rendezvous at the defensive mud walls in no time.
The trenches were filled with abatis, caltrops and cheval de frise. They also marked the effective range of wheellock pistols and javelins. The Barbeiro-cirurgião and his 3 local Japanese medical apprentices/assistants, 2 Jesuit Deacons, the Sargento and Lara all pulled out their big bore wheellock pistols to shoot at the cultist. Meanwhile, the 15 naginata samurai and 15 no-dachi samurai rushed upwards the mud wall-walk and hurled storms of javelins towards the advancing foes. The cultists used their siege ladder as an emergent bridge to cross the trenches and anti-personnel defensive obstacles. It was a smart idea but due to its narrow size, only a few could cross at the same time while the rest had to further cram and queue up. The extremely passive situation completely neutralised the cultists' numerical superiority, rendering them a beached whale waiting to be sliced piece by piece.
By the time the cultist-army finally reached the defensive mud walls, 500 cultists were purged. Even worse, their ladders were unable to fully reach the top of the stockade-reinforced mud walls. The protrude abatis separated the walls and ladder with a huge gap. The cultists were thus forced to jump to the wall or walk on the sharp and unbalanced abatis to reach the stockade-railing. Needless to say, most of them failed under point-blank musket shots. The 15 naginata samurai and 15 no-dachi samurai also used their long reaching weapons to bash away the crude siege ladders, causing the climbing cultists to fall into the spiked trenches and guarantee instant impalement. Unfortunately, many audacious cultists still reached the mud wall-walk and engaged the melee samurai in fierce close quarters combat. 5 naginata samurai and 5 no-dachi samurai were killed while protecting their matchlock comrades. Moments later, Capitão Cristóvão and the 40 Portuguese musketeers timely arrived at the mud walls to repel the invaders and pushed them back to the trenches. They then reinforced the matchlock crossfire and sharpshooting line, decisively suppressing the cultist wall assault.
Unfortunately, the same could not be applied to the fortified hamlet's only entrance. The relentless attack on the walls divided the matchlock musketeers' attention. It provided golden opportunities for 20 grenade-wielding cultists to throw numerous devastating fire bombs at the thick wooden gate, exploding and destroying it after a few seconds of fuse delay. The wooden splinters and iron fragments killed 5 ban-zutsu tanegashima ashigaru, 5 nagae yari ashigaru and 5 Portuguese pikemen. The huge explosion also disorientated the surrounding troops, particularly the pike square. Luckily, Samantha quickly recovered and spotted the group of bombers. She launched a single bo-hiya with her huge Ferrum Praevaricator. While the fire rocket only impacted 4 cultists, the incendiary-explosion unintentionally ignited their bodies' remaining grenades. It resulted in a massive sympathetic detonation to other 16 fire bomb throwers like domino effect, further enlarging the blast radius and instantly obliterating 40 surrounding cultists.
With continuous rapid matchlock volley and close-range fire rocket bombardment, the ragtag cultist-army was reduced down to 900 men, only about 60% of its original size. However, it did not stop them from charging through the destroyed gate. The breached gate inspired even the most cowardly combatants to attack head on, blindly believing victory was finally in grasp and they could pillage the fortified hamlet. The cultists were unaware of the caltrops on ground, many stepped on it and were crippled. As the wounded fell down, they were instantly stomped to pieces by other following fanatics from behind. The crowd crush and stampede only intensified when the cultists reached a wall of cheval de frise. The disrupted pike square also rallied under Alex's charismatic command, the Porta-bandeira's awe-inspiring Portuguese Empire flag-banner and vigorous military music performed by the Baterista and Fifer. Spearheaded by the ever-courageous Alex, the troops reorganised their formation into an impenetrable pike screen.
Due to natural instincts, the frontal cultists abruptly stopped and refused to charge into the certain doom. Yet, the blocks outside the gate had no idea of the situation and insisted on pushing in, slowly shoving their crammed frontliners to the walls of cheval de frise and 5m pikes. Since the cultists only had crude axes and short spears, none of them could even reach half of the pike square's attacking range. They were thus being effortlessly slaughtered and mass impaled like yakitori tabehōdai.
As the battle raged on, Lara was busy reloading her dual wheellock pistols on the wall-walk. Her movement was slick but emotionless and ice cold. The young Countess fired so many shots and completely lost count on her gunpowder and bullet usage. She had numerous skirmishes in the past 3 years but never at the scale of the current battle. Although Lara only suffered from medium scratches and bruises; thunderous gunshots, roars of melee combat and screams of agony temporarily shell-shocked her. At the moment, Lara had no idea who she was or why she was in the fray of the battle; all she knew was to rapidly reload and kill, as well as keeping an eye on Alex to ensure his safety. Once the dual wheellock pistols were loaded, she immediately fired them into the crammed cultists at a broken gate from the elevated mud wall. The first big-bore bullet exploded a spearman's head like a watermelon while the second punched a fist size hole into an axeman's lung.
Lara did not care for her brutal kills and proceeded to reload again like a soulless machine, only to find her ammunition pouch completely empty. The panic of insufficient firepower awkwardly snapped her back to reality. Lara's first instinct was to search for a matchlock musket rifle from her fallen comrades. She quickly found a ban-zutsu tanegashima and a pouch of ammunition from a fallen ashigaru. He was a graceful Japanese lad with a small wooden cross necklace. A thick wooden splinter from the earlier gate explosion pierced through his carotid artery. His stalwart expression indicated that the death was instant and painless. Lara softly closed the lad's eyelid with her fingers and apologised for taking his equipment, "Sorry brother, I will pray for you later."
As the young Countess poured gunpowder into the ban-zutsu tanegashima's barrel, a huge horn-blowing sound echoed across the battlefield. Lara looked at the crammed cultists at the broken gate and saw them all fled disorderly. The scrambling escape only created even more severe crowd crushes and stampedes. She proceeded to look over the stockades and saw the hooded pagan shaman was the first to flee with his heavily armoured bodyguards. The horn was the signal of retreat and the cultist-army mass routed in complete disarray! The expedition was victorious! The soldiers of Christ triumphed over the vile vermin of blasphemous devil-worshipers!
「万歳! 万歳! 皆殺しにする! 神がそれらを整理してくださいますように! 」, Samantha shouted her battlecry in Kansai dialect and the rest of the Japanese Catholic soldiers echoed thunderously,「万歳! デウス・ウルト!」
Lara had no idea what they meant except the phrase "デウス・ウルト" sounding like "Deus vult". However, the mere thought fuelled her with absolute zeal and vigour. She quickly finished her tanegashima reload sequence and joined the rest of the matchlock crossfire and sharpshooting line, blasting the cowardly spines of the routing enemy into oblivion. Meanwhile, the pike square continued to relentlessly impale the misbegotten cultists who got stuck in crowd crush at the broken gate entrance. The Holy purge had just begun!