Battle on the scale of tens of thousands is a chaotic thing. Even in this modern era of structured and endlessly-drilled shield walls and cavalry flanking manoeuvres, the distinction from the skirmishes with which I’d been involved was incalculable. When I was ambushed on the road from Hollowhold, when I was pursued in Vizonia; there had been an overriding urgency that made the memories frantic and panicked. There’d been no time for planning or observation. It had been a case of react quickly or die. Losses were totted up after the fact because there simply wasn’t time when each arrow fired could be the one that crippled the party or ended my life.
As the overall commander of a mass battle there was no urgency whatsoever. It took several minutes for the shield walls to approach each other and finally meet, and when they did a great scrummage emerged. The lethality appeared to be quite low, with the round shields not only blocking the progress of most blades but also serving as a battering ram. I felt a general sense of dread, like the anxiety before being summoned to meet an authority figure, only much worse, and though it was accompanied by the usual sense of observational hyperawareness, the duration of such a battle made this exhausting.
And the battle was certainly lengthy. The men in the ranks behind the first put their shoulders to those who stood before them and pushed with the aim of unbalancing their opponents. Whenever this was successful, the unfortunate victim would be forced to adjust his shield or fall to the ground altogether, and in either case he would open himself up to the spears brandished by the second and third ranks. Then the gap would be filled and the contest would resume once more. It was a style of warfare which suited the army with the most stamina and the greatest weight of numbers.
Entregwa’s men outnumbered my own, at least in the shield wall, so I would need to employ less straightforward tactics in order to secure victory. Thankfully, I had spent many a night in consultation with my advisors before today, and felt myself the equal of any man in this arena save Timoth. Both armies had cavalry in small numbers, whose traditional role was to charge the enemy shield wall from the flank or rear, or even their commander if they were left undefended. However, both armies were wise to this tactic and had positioned units of spearmen in square formation at the sides of their shieldwalls, preventing a flanking manoeuvre as the horses would not charge a square and the riders would fall prey to the spears. As such, the cavalrymen bided their time, waiting for their opportunity to strike.
Our faerie contingent was therefore our only hope of breaking the deadlock. They took to the sky armed with bows, a mass swarm of small green-tinged humanoids that flew over our own forces to those of Entregwa. His own archers, as mine, were positioned behind the shieldwall, very close to his own commanding position atop a small knoll with Steib, pumping arrows into the enemy shieldwall and keeping the cavalry at distance. The faeries could not approach Entregwa himself because to do so would be to advance beyond the melee raging below, which was the only thing stopping them from being shot out of the sky by Entregwa’s archers: if fired upon presently their arrows would land among their own men. As predicted, Entregwa’s men raised their shields above their heads and created an effective ceiling to prevent the faerie and longbowmans’ arrows from causing too much damage, but this made them vulnerable to my secret weapon.
The faeries rotated back to the edge of the forest where a mixture of faeries and human civilians including Regeda, Terera, and Tefgae supplied small pots of oil to the aerial warriors in exchange for their bows. They subsequently returned to their positions above the enemy shield wall and dropped the oil onto the ranks of the enemies below.
Recalling Timoth’s orders during the very first Tokuan raid that had set all the events that defined my life into motion, I moved to stand amidst my longbowmen. Men-at-arms were lighting spike-mounted braziers at regular intervals along the line, and I commanded the archers to hold their fire until this was done, and until the faeries had lathered our enemies with countless gallons of oil.
Finally, it was time. ‘Archers, draw!’
The longbowmen pulled arrows from floor and back-mounted quivers, touched their flammable necks to the brazier fires, and drew them against the bowstring. Their aim was to the sky in order to shoot well over the heads of our own men.
‘Archers, loose!’ I commanded.
The hail of fire arrows shot overhead, becoming almost invisible against the harsh afternoon sun. What was not invisible was the result: upon landing among Entregwa’s men, they ignited the oil dripping off their raised shields onto the soldiers cowering beneath, setting fire to dozens of them. The effect was not as large as I’d hoped since the faeries could not carry more than a couple of gallons and still take to the air. Nevertheless, it created instant disarray within the enemy ranks, to great benefit. The centre of Entregwa’s line began to buckle, and I caught sight of Alum leading the charge through a gap in the shieldwall with his Prince’s Guard.
‘Archers, fire at will!’ I gave the final order, before returning command to the local officers. I summoned a messenger to send word to the faerie king upon his return to the treeline - for he fought from the air amongst his kin - that they should take up their bows once more and attempt to harry the enemy cavalry and spear contingents out of position. If we could create an opening for our own cavalry, we could capitalise on the enemy’s disarray and force them into a total rout.
The battle had already taken hours to reach this minor deviation from the ongoing stalemate, and servants brought me food and water to sustain me. I had them run supplies to the archers as well, knowing that they must be tiring. I forced myself to keep my eyes on the battle, lest I miss any opportunity.
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There it was.
One of Entregwa’s spear detachments had broken its square formation under the weight of faerie and Haelling Cove arrows and retreated towards the safety of his archers. I immediately sent word for the cavalry on our left flank to charge into the side of the enemy shieldwall. I envisioned a calamitous strike that disintegrated the unprepared enemy soldiers in its wake, collapsing an entire half of Entregwa’s shieldwall and handing me victory.
The message reached the cavalry commander and he donned his helmet and lowered his lance. His men were already arrayed in a wedge on either side of him, and they quickly drove their horses to a gallop and crashed into the enemy flank. Instantly, massive damage was done, with dozens of enemy soldiers crushed under the weight of the horses.
Unfortunately, the cavalry’s momentum was stopped by the sheer weight of enemy numbers. Entregwa commanded tens of thousands of men and the loss of a few dozen, or even a few hundred, was a small price to pay for trapping an entire wing of Ebonreach cavalry. As I realised my mistake, Entregwa’s cavalry launched a counter-charge into the rear of my cavalry. Caught between the reacting infantry and the oncoming cavalry, my own horsemen disappeared forever. Tadruk attempted to rally his men to effect a rescue, but the strength of the enemy shieldwall was insurmountable and no breakthrough was achieved.
I considered sending word to our spear detachment to charge the rear of the enemy cavalry while they were bogged down in combat but decided against it. Such a manoevure would be significantly slower than those performed by the cavalry units thus far, and they might no longer hold the advantage by the time they arrived. Even if they did, the fact was that the enemy’s superior numbers meant that their shield wall overlapped ours on both sides, meaning that our spearmen wouldn’t be able to reach our shieldwall in any case. The enemy would simply reform the shieldwall to face the side charge and blunt the attack before it could cause too much damage.
Even as I watched, the enemy cavalry extricated itself from the infantry and the enemy spear detachment joined the press, further increasing the odds against us. I had made a tactical error and lost half of our cavalry, and was now outmatched on the left flank. Even worse, it seemed to me that our own army was significantly thinner than before. Hundreds of corpses littered the ground, and the wall had been pushed back almost a hundred feet. Even with dozens of Entregwa’s soldiers burning alive whenever the faeries dropped oil on their heads, a rebel victory seemed assured. Unless I could change the picture, Ebonreach’s army would suffer a slow, bleeding defeat by attrition.
I looked at Wargwa. He was a fearsome unit, standing out even amidst the clash of forty thousand spears. I wasn’t supposed to ride him while pregnant, it was too dangerous… But could he turn the tide of battle? He was worth at least a few cavalrymen on the charge, and if he went berserk and his eyes turned red, he would become an unstoppable juggernaut that could sow discord among the enemy lines.
Even as I considered it, I remembered Alum’s words. I was too reckless. I forced myself to slow down and consider the likely impact of Wargwa’s charge. He would certainly make an impact, but the enemy was well-armed with spears and bows. He would be brought down after killing too few men to make a difference, and I along with him. Alum would probably die too on account of his position in the forward centre of the melee, and the army would then be leaderless. Tadruk would attempt to extricate himself and slip away, and the battle would be lost. Ebonreach’s military strength would be broken and take decades to rebuild, and Entregwa would be free to conquer as far west as Trackford. The wealthy lands there would empower him to drag Wilbern into a long war that would drain both Ebonreach and Trent dry. The Vizonian Order would relish in the turmoil and conquer both Duchy and County, using them as a core territory from which to receive Tokuan reinforcements and assault the rest of Halivaara. King Milos would be forced to withdraw to the defensible Mountain Duchy, relinquishing control of the rest of the Kingdom to Highfather Ioran. The House of Tfaeller would end, and the Kingdom not long after it.
And there was nothing I could do to stop it.
Even worse, as I watched, the faeries disappeared into the Dreadwood Forest. Just like that, without so much as a word. The constant nuisance in the skies which had been our only advantage was gone as quickly as my left cavalry unit, leaving me with a very simple picture: more men fighting less men. I had no idea why the faeries abandoned us before the battle was over but I could hardly blame them. They weren’t suited for open warfare in the first place, and the end seemed inevitable. They had their own lands to consider.
For Ebonreach’s part, our army was also nearing the Forest. The constant retreat of the shieldwall, pushed by tens of thousands of pressing shoulders, forced the archers to the edge of the treeline. If we retreated much further, the archers would lose their line of fire due to the tree cover, and our shieldwall and protective flanking spear units would lose their square formation due to the dense foliage. That would be the end of the battle. My men would be cut down piecemeal in the darkness of the Dreadwood Forest.
Suddenly, there was a tap on my shoulder. I’d been so focused on the broader view of the battle I hadn’t noticed the faerie king appear behind me, though the archers around me certainly had.
‘Greetings, Countess Saemara,’ he said. There was a nasty-looking gash down the length of his right arm. Thick green blood trickled slowly from the wound.
‘Faerie king…’ I mumbled, surprised. I summoned my thoughts. ‘Why have your warriors fled? Surely, the battle is not yet lost.’
‘The loss is inevitable, but that is not why we went into the Dreadwood Forest. Something great stirred therein and we feared an attack on our rear.’
‘Something great?’ I asked.
I turned to look back, into the Forest, and I saw it. As the faerie king took to the sky, abandoning me, I drew my dagger and braced myself.
For what I had seen was the approach of a vast number of nymphs, their mouths opened to reveal rows of pointed teeth, their approach heralded by unearthly shrieks that filled the Forest in a cacophony of horror.