“Some people just refuse to accept anything that does not happen to conform to their personal worldview. Many of these delusional people even do so as adults in positions of power, which often led to outcomes as disastrous as you might imagine.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.

Earl Severen LeCroix gaped as he watched the ongoing battle from afar through a spyglass, in the safety of his army’s base camp, guarded by fifty of his knights and five hundred soldiers besides. The course of the battle had diverged far from what he had expected, and he had difficulty restraining himself from cursing out the incompetent knights that were commanding the offensive.

He missed the late Cairns, and wished he was still alive to command the offensive in his stead. The dependable old knight always got him what he asked for, without fail.

At the moment, the bulk of the Kolain army, a good two thousand soldiers along with most of the knighthood, were encircled by the enemy. The cowardly move to roll down massive logs had taken a lot of casualties before they were stopped, many of which had been from the knights, who were close to the frontlines as he meant for them to break through the city’s defenses and allow the rest of the soldiers to pour through as soon as possible.

All those soldiers and knights, more than two thousand people, were encircled by their less numerous foes, which must have numbered a bare thousand or so at most. What a humiliation it was for his army, to be toyed with by an enemy they outnumbered so greatly and even show fear before them. The Earl wanted to yell himself hoarse but knew that his voice wouldn’t have carried so far up the hill, so he gave up that avenue.

The rest of his troops who were in the back of the formation had also been stopped in place by a thin line of enemy defenders almost entirely composed of non-humans, with many massive therians amongst their numbers that had him suspicious on whether Boroes to their east had broken their neutrality. To see over a thousand soldiers be locked by no more than seventy and was even wavering was a maddening sight for the Earl to witness.

Earl LeCroix was in the midst of weighing the idea of leading a charge with his honor guard in his mind, a beautiful thought where he already fantasized his bravery turning the tables on their foes and leading his soldiers to victory over them when a much closer ruckus pulled him out from his musings and back into the grim reality.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

In horror, he saw how several of the soldiers at the rear flanks of his honor guards had fallen. Some were completely still where they fell, while others were screaming loudly in pain as they held either a javelin or a crossbow bolt that had pierced their flesh. Other soldiers and knights amongst the formation had just begun to react when another barrage of javelins and bolts flew towards them from behind and to the sides of their formation.

The Earl saw how two groups of people mostly dressed in a mismatch of outfits charged out from within the forest to their sides, their advance covered by crossbow bolts fired by marksmen hidden amongst the trees. Even as the assailants drew closer, they pulled out short javelins and hurled them as one in a practiced movement, felling dozens more of the Kolain soldiers.

Then both groups of assailants struck the rear corners of the formation with ferocity and savagery as they swept aside any soldier in their way and left dead bodies where they passed.

It was difficult for Earl LeCroix to judge the situation well, between the chaos on the path leading to Aldenstadt and the assault on his command post. He could not even tell how many assailants were headed towards him at the moment, though he saw that they were approaching his position much faster than he thought possible, scything through his soldiers like a farmer reaped heads of wheat.

“Knights! Stop those scoundrels! I command you as your lord!” yelled the Earl in panic as he saw the enemies closing in on his position. On his command, forty of his knights split off from his side, twenty each headed to waylay one group of the assailants. The Earl watched with anticipation as he expected his knights to blunt the enemy’s charge towards him, which in turn would buy time for the rest of the soldiers to gather themselves and strike these foes from the sides.

It was with wide, unbelieving eyes that the Earl watched how one of the leading scoundrels – a woman clad in black gambeson wielding a pair of oddly-shaped blades – met with one of his knights and dispatched of him like he was a mere beginner instead of a trained and experienced knight.

The knights of Kolain wore full plate armor of the latest model, the best sort that money could buy, which made them nearly impervious to harm from most sources, but the woman had just deflected a swing of the knight’s greatsword to the side with casual ease before she jabbed the point of her other blade right through the knight’s eyeslit with deadly precision.

All of which happened in less than a single second.

A look at the other side told the Earl that the situation there was just as bad, as he saw how a massive bear therian nearly three meters tall simply took a hit from another knight’s sword on his armor without even flinching. The therian’s counterattack with his warhammer was so forceful that it ripped the knight’s helmet off his shoulders… with his head still within.

“Retreat! Retreat! Sound the retreat! Protect your lord with your life as we withdraw!” yelled the Earl in panic as he saw his knights dying in a desperate effort to stop the assailants from reaching him. He himself had already turned his horse around and whipped its flanks to drive the steed to a gallop, escaping towards the east, back down the road.