>>6128102You cannot risk having another one of your few and precious companies break; you order the ragged remnants of your second company to retreat as the leftmost pikemen shuffle rightwards to cover the hole left by their departure, ready to meet a charge from either the greatswordsmen jogging along their left or the host of mounted knights rolling down the hill. The nearby corpses of the arquebusiers left on the ground tell them a grim tale, however, and one they soon experience as the enemy's arquebusiers level down their sights on them and fire off another volley, picking off a scant few unlucky men from both their and their neighbour companies.
This is accompanied by a volley of the remaining arquebusiers of the hostil army, which thankfully seem to have little effect this time around, as you can tell by the rather decreased number of pained yells coming from your side of the line. As your men finally finish loading, however, the time for retribution has come, and you pay it with interest; your rightmost units fire off an accurate volley that decimates the number of the enemy's arquebusiers, who soon begin to rout, their ragged remains turning back and fleeing in what can barely even be called a formation; though their numbers aren't quite so thin that you believe there is no chance of them returning, should their commander be able to rally them again.
With the rout of this unit, however, the enemy's advantage in numbers of firearms shrinks, and they should know very well what little hope awaits them should their knights be defeated; the time for action must be now. With the beating of drums, the hostile pikes begin to march down the field, lagging behind the greatswords running towards your flanks yet holding the same intent nonetheless; the enemy aims for a push of pike! Such fights are as deadly as they are dirty, and with your disadvantage in firepower remaining as long as your arquebus unit stays in reserve, they have the advantage.
