“Morale is something that ebbs and flows like the tides. An army has to keep building it up, slowly but surely, only to unleash them at an opportune moment like a dam being opened to wash away their foes.” - Attributed to Anduinus of the Strangling Hands, famed Merfolk Warchief from the Western Isles.
“Second throw!” Soledad heard her husband Anatoli command the light cavalry around her.
By that point the frontmost riders of the coalition army’s cavalry detachment already reached thirty paces away from their enemies, and they did as Anatoli commanded. Each rider pulled out another javelin from behind their shield and hurled it towards their foes in a practiced motion, which was repeated by the riders behind them a moment later in a continuous wave.
The deluge of javelins mostly silenced the enemy’s meager arrow fire and dropped dozens of the enemy riders as the projectiles struck either the rider or the horse with often grievous results. Compared to the lighter arrows, the heavier javelins had more force to them and those that took a direct hit were simply out of luck.
“Third throw at ten paces!” ordered Anatoli once more. Soledad’s platoon was at the forefront of the coalition cavalry contingent, which was actually a safer place during the rush. While the enemy cavalry closest to them would be able to aim directly for them, those further behind had to arc their shots over their own allies, and those shots very rarely fell amongst those at the front.
Since there were naturally more enemies that had to arc their shots, those at the front ended up dealing with fewer arrows, unlike what most armchair generals might have thought.
While Anatoli and several other orcs and half-orcs from the platoon’s light cavalry division normally preferred to use bows and arrows, they also carried shields and javelins for this foray, as their foes were similarly skilled in mounted archery. Having a shield allowed them more safety from the arrows fired towards them, while with their strong arms, the orcs and half-orcs could still throw javelins with devastating results anyway.
Each person amongst the over two thousand strong cavalry contingent carried five javelins behind their shields, each javelin long and sturdy enough to use as a short spear for melee fighting as well. Anatoli already ordered them to throw three of the javelins, while the fourth would be used for the melee and the fifth kept as a spare for emergencies.
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As the light cavalry hurled their third javelins, Anatoli’s men also made way for Soledad’s heavier division that had been riding amongst them. While normally heavy cavalry would not be able to keep up with light cavalry, Soledad and her people chose chargers that would be able to keep up with the light cavalry for at least a couple charges while still being capable of bearing their weight.
Since the platoon had trained for the maneuver countless times, the shift as Soledad’s heavies took over the frontline was seamless and done within the final ten paces before they reached the enemy formation. As such, Soledad and her heavies were the first to make contact with the enemy lines, the heavier chargers directly pushing aside and toppling the smaller horses that their enemies rode.
Soledad’s people also struck with their weapons, cutting down riders from their horses and directly throwing the enemy formation into disarray. While they did not number much, the forty of them made their impact felt, and when the rest of the lighter cavalry behind them reached the enemies, they found a target with broken formation to prey on.
As the coalition’s cavalry detachment met the imperial cavalry, they directly broke the imperial cavalry’s formation into two halves since they caught them in the midst of their assault against the coalition army’s flank. Part of the imperial cavalry – including their general – who already finished their attack run and was turning around for another managed to break off in time, but the other half found themselves pincered between the coalition army’s flank and their cavalry detachment.
While the escaping half of the imperial cavalry turned around and peppered the flank of the coalition’s cavalry, causing a noticeable number of casualties to fall in the process, they did not dare to directly tangle with their foes in melee since they were outnumbered, and thus failed to affect the fighting as much as they would have liked to.
As a result, out of the thousand or so imperial cavalry that was caught in the pincer attack, a good four hundred were killed on the spot, while around the same amount were taken prisoner. Only a small portion managed to escape back to their side, many of which carried injuries of varying severity on their bodies. In contrast, the coalition’s cavalry forces took only around a hundred casualties, even if the left flank of the coalition army took several times more casualties in comparison.
Both groups of cavalry broke off and retreated to their respective sides shortly afterwards, while the infantry was left to their battle against each other once more. At a glance, the situation might have seemed to be a roughly even trade, as the imperial cavalry inflicted quite a few casualties on the coalition army’s left flank, but their losses at the hands of the coalition’s cavalry was harder for them to recover from, especially since the imperial cavalry was outnumbered to begin with.
Reinhardt gave a thumbs up gesture to Soledad as she passed by on her way back, knowing that the good showing helped their army’s morale and demonstrated his company’s competence at the same time. It was the result he expected, and the former noblewoman had not disappointed him in that regard, having taken advantage of the enemy cavalry’s preoccupation with their own assault to hit them hard and hurt them badly.
Too bad that most of the forces she used to do that were borrowed forces instead of their own, but it was already good for a mercenary company of their size to have two hundred cavalry as it was.