“When the lions are distracted, is when the jackals feast in their stead.” - Old Elmaiyan saying.

People made mistakes when subjected to stressful situations.

At that moment, the Podovnian troops were under quite a bit of stress, what with how many of their compatriots likely trapped by – as well as others crushed beneath – the collapsing seventh wall of Levain, as well as the sudden assault from the south. A more experienced commander might be able to navigate the situation more calmly, but the Podovnian commander at the rear, who was in charge of guarding their camp and siege engines, was not such a person.

Their more experienced commanders were either down south facing the enemy reinforcements in open battle or leading the siege, some of whom might have even been caught up in the wall’s collapse. As such, the commander of the Podovnian rear saw a situation that caused him to be struck by a dilemma. His army clearly needed more people to help out, and he might be blamed if he didn’t sally his troops to do so.

On the other hand, he would also be breaking his orders to stand guard in the back if he did that, which in itself might be grounds for military discipline. The young commander debated himself for a while before he finally came to the decision to lead half his troops to help those caught under the rubble. The other five thousand men left to guard the camp and siege engines should suffice to protect them, he thought.

Unfortunately for him, a certain group of mercenaries had other thoughts about that.

Not fifteen minutes later, around the time when the young commander’s five thousand men had just reached the troops busy with the siege, Reinhardt led all the two thousand or so members of the Free Lances out from where they hid in the forests to the south-east of the Podovnian camp. Their sudden appearance sent the guards at the camp into high alert, but soon they found that they had other matters to occupy them.

Clay urns filled with flammable oils mixed with goblin kindling rained down from above into the midst of the Podovnian camp, shattered, splashed their contents everywhere, and caught on fire immediately afterwards. The fire forced the camp’s defenders to divert many of their people to putting out the fire instead of standing guard, and the mercenaries made full use of the distraction.

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They simply bypassed the camp to the surprise of the camp’s guards and headed straight for the siege engines instead.

There were still a couple thousand Podovnian soldiers guarding the siege engines, and they quickly got into formation when they noticed the approach of the mercenaries. However, those troops left behind to guard the camp and the siege engines weren’t the cream of the crop, as the best such troops would have been with either the siege or the southern force.

As such, they never really stood much of a chance to stop the far more experienced and skilled mercenaries from breaking through their formation.

With Mischka’s platoon in the lead, the Free Lances broke straight through the Podovnian formation. There was little that their foes could do to stop them, and before long, the mercenaries reached the precious siege engines and started demolishing them on the spot. The only silver lining was that the engineers and technicians operating the machines had been evacuated beforehand and thus were spared from the same treatment.

While part of the mercenary company demolished the Podovnian siege engines, most of the rest held the enemy soldiers guarding those things back, while their archers as well as Egil’s slingers kept those in the camp too occupied to come after them. Egil’s people hurled urn after urn of unpleasant concoctions into the enemy camp, while the archer platoons – this time under Salicia’s lead – kept the enemies on the walkways suppressed to the point that they did not dare to raise their heads past the battlements.

After all, she already made her point when she sniped off every officer who did that the moment their heads popped up. The rest of the archers angled their shots higher and arced their arrows straight into the enemy camp, giving those inside more trouble to deal with.

By the time ten minutes had passed, most of the Podovnian trebuchets and arbalests were turned into little more than piles of burning rubble. Their battering rams had been caught in the wall’s collapse, which left them only with their siege towers, which were in the midst of their besieging army and thus out of the mercenaries’ reach. The same applied to the Anduillean siege engines, as the mercenaries could only afford to hit one of the camps, so they chose the one with more siege engines.

Their task done, the mercenaries retreated back towards the forest in good order, leaving behind hundreds of dead Podovnians with many more injured. Their lead elements had almost reached the forest when they noticed that the enemy actually sent people in pursuit, cavalrymen from the besieging army which must have been mobilized hastily in order to catch up to them.

There were around a thousand of the cavalrymen, flying several banners. Reinhardt recognized some as those belonging to minor nobles under Podovniy’s rule, but one in particular was familiar to him. It was a banner that closely resembled that of Du Riffons’ Silver Eagles. Likely the force led by his wayward son, then, and a chance for Reinhardt to fulfill the request the old man had asked of him back before he left for Levain.

Some of the mercenaries continued to go into the woods. The archers and goblins went into the woods only to climb the first tree that could support their weight so they could lend ranged support to the fight to come. The rest of the Free Lances arrayed themselves to prepare a welcome for the enemy cavalry. Most of the onrushing cavalrymen were knights in heavy armor, unlike the typical light cavalry, but that didn’t bother them in the least.

After all, knights fetched not only a higher ransom for them to claim but also a higher bonus for a confirmed kill, so if anything the mercenaries always favored fighting their kind instead.