“A cornered prey could still bite. That’s why you remove their fangs and claws first to be sure.” - Gregorius Aurelius Secundus, Famed general and later Second Emperor of the First Elmaiya Empire.
Even as they fought the Bostvan soldiers around them, the mercenaries elongated their formation, the wedge condensed into a diamond formation instead with their shieldbearers at the sides and rear. With shields in hand, they repelled the assault from the enemy soldiers as they pushed further onward and left them behind their wake.
Reinhardt and Mischka spearheaded the formation at the front, as they crushed their way through the enemy soldiers with brute force and savagery. Reinhardt was no slouch in that department, but fighting alongside the therian matron, he couldn’t help but feel small and weak.
Then again, that would be what most everyone not part of her detachment of giants would have felt anyway. It was hard to feel strong when one fought alongside someone half again your height and nearly double as broad and three times heavier than you were.
Reinhardt parried the spears of three soldiers who all focused on him with the shaft of his weapon. Given the tight room - he was nearly shoulder to shoulder with the next person in line - he would have normally faced some trouble to deal with three at once, but then again, he was not alone either.
With a heave, he shoved away those spears and caused their wielders to lose their balance for a moment. At the exact same time, Elfriede snuck out from behind him and her blades flashed as she carved through the throat of two soldiers at once. Reinhard crushed the top half of the third soldier’s head with his polemace while they were still surprised by the death of their compatriots.
Like a phantom, she then slipped right back to her spot behind him, maneuvering around swinging weapons and arms with ease, often by the slightest margins. Reinhardt knew that the way her senses worked, she would have a perfect “feel” of the position of everything in her vicinity, which was how she moved the way she did even in the crowded battlefield like now.
Unlike Reinhardt, Mischka received no aid. Rather, she had needed no aid whatsoever, and others near her struggled to match her pace, even. Every large step the therian matron took was accompanied by a brutal swing of her oversized blade, which by now was so thickly covered with blood and gore the blade was unlikely to cut well at all.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
Not that it mattered, when she just crushed those she bashed with it instead, sending bodies bent into very unnatural angles to the sides and pulverizing bone and flesh whenever she struck someone. Those who took one of her blows did not die in a pretty way, and that more than anything demoralized those who stood in her way greatly.
Since the Bostvan forces were temporarily isolated from their reinforcements, Reinhardt’s mercenaries successfully pushed their way through them, straight to where the commanders whose steeds Salicia had shot out from under them were. Some enemy soldiers around the area gave their all to resist the mercenaries as they approached, to little success.
When Reinhardt reached the scene, he saw that the enemy soldiers had freed two of the five from under their dead mounts. Both of the rescued commanders seemed injured pretty badly however, as neither walked on their own and had to be carried by their soldiers as they tried to escape. The other three were still pinned beneath their mounts even though the soldiers were trying to pry them out.
Unfortunately for them, Reinhardt had no interest in letting the prey before his eyes escape. He split the formation into two with Mischka leading the other side, and they led their troops to encircle the escaping Bostvans, while Elfriede’s smaller detachment descended on the soldiers who were rescuing and carrying their commanders.
It took her group of killers mere minutes to take care of the soldiers there, before Mischka and Reinhardt returned the way they came and signaled for the mercenaries to reverse their advance into a measured retreat. Grünhildr was at the rear of the formation and led their charge on the way back out, as Reinhardt led his troops to guard their back.
Mischka and a couple of her people had gone to Elfriede’s group and helped her remove the horses off the still-trapped Bostvan commanders. The horses were large, muscular ones, which made sense considering the heavy barding they were clad in, and took some effort even for the large therians to remove.
Out of the five Bostvan commanders, the luckiest one only broke his ankle during the fall. Three had one or both of their legs crushed beneath the weight of their horses, and broke at least several bones during the fall. None of them were in mortal danger, however, unlike the last, unfortunate one amongst them.
His horse had reared and fell directly on top of him when he died. When Mischka freed the man from beneath his steed, he was unconscious, and clearly dying, with part of his chest caved in from the impact. Even so, they took him along with them anyway, in case the healers under the young Duchess could save the man.
They were only paid to retrieve those commanders after all, and the young Duchess had admitted that chances are not all of them would be alive. The mercenaries simply gave their best effort since that was what they were paid to do.
With Grünhildr in the lead, they carved their way out of the Bostvan formation, leaving behind a trail of dead and injured soldiers in their wake. The cavalry stopped their repeated charges when they noticed the withdrawal, and also retreated while the Dvergarder forces intensified their push to attract the enemy’s attention.
Then their groups pulled back together and headed back to the defense line, leaving the Bostvan forces - which were visibly in disarray - behind as the sun began to set. By the time the battlefield plunged into darkness, the battle had ended, and both forces had retreated back to their respective encampments.