“Listen to your gut feeling. It’s there for a reason, and more often than not it will save your tail from being chomped on if you follow it.” - Saying attributed to Xaliburnus the Conqueror, First Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.
“Say, Ery, you’re not holding back on our account, are you?” asked Wilhelmina as she fought off another wave of enemy soldiers with the support of her team. The mercenary woman fought more comfortably now that the pressure had lessened, and her team’s individual superiority showed itself as they pushed back their opponents handily.
“Nope. Dad’s orders,” replied Erycea from where she herself was fending off several enemy soldiers. Her small team and Wilhelmina’s three small teams of skilled mercenaries were holding the frontline as some of the reserves reorganized the recruits still capable of fighting behind them, using the time they bought to adjust their formation. “He probably noticed something fishy but couldn’t be sure about it.”
“Would make sense in that case. I know your company could have probably pushed straight to the middle of the enemy forces on your own if you wanted to,” noted Wilhelmina with a nod. Even while she talked her greatsword was not idle, and she swung it around to push aside the spears of two soldiers she was facing, leaving them open to attacks from her teammates. “So what’s the plan? I’ll follow as best my folks can manage.”
“For now? We hold. Push them hard enough to make them sweat and worry, but not so deep as to risk ourselves. If the other flank wants that honor, let them have it,” said Erycea plainly as she struck the hand of an enemy soldier and directly pulverized most of the bones within. Her swings carried enough force to shatter even the hardwood shafts of the spears those soldiers used, so its effects when the blows directly landed on their bodies could well be imagined. “Better them than us. They came here knowing the risks anyway.”
“Works for me. I’ll get those brats in the back to hurry up so they can do their job properly this time around,” said Wilhelmina in agreement. As she promised, within ten minutes the unit behind the frontlines had regrouped around the reserves and took the brunt of the pressure in the area once more, though Wilhelmina herself and Erycea stayed at the front, fighting side by side while keeping an eye on the general situation on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, further left to where the two girls fought at the frontlines, Reinhardt reined in the troops belonging to his company and by extension the Brewers next to him as well, as they were not particularly keen to advance with their flank exposed to the enemy. He knew that the right flank was still making steady progress into the enemy formation, but it was a slower one compared to the left flank, which did so at a much faster pace.
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Clearly the mercenaries there didn’t share his gut feeling that something felt a bit off about the enemies that day, or if they did, had not cared anywhere as much about it. Reinhardt himself would be hard pressed to describe the gut feeling he had, but he was experienced enough to know that he should take precautions based on it regardless.
Missing out on some rewards was better than risking his people, in his mind.
His caution was proven to be the correct course of action a little later in the day, however. Sometime in the afternoon, the Coalition army’s left flank pushed harder and deeper into the Imperial army’s center, and it was then when Reinhardt’s bad feelings manifested. From the bird’s eye view he received through Hannah and his artifact’s help, he noticed how a unit around ten thousand strong that had until then stationed themselves near the back of the enemy lines – one that he took as reserves – started moving.
Said unit moved with greater cohesion and discipline compared to the rest of the Imperials they faced, even if they too wore the same salvaged armor as everyone else. The Imperial army parted before the unit’s advance and they clashed head-on with the left flank of the Coalition army that was making their push, rapidly halting their offense and even turning the tables on them before much time had passed.
By that point of time Reinhardt had an inkling on what had happened. The Imperial snuck in some of their elite soldiers amongst the chaff and disguised them by having them don the same salvaged armor as the rest. It was naturally impossible to pick them out from afar until the elite soldiers sprung into action and showed their mettle.
They probably intended to decisively crush one of the Coalition army’s flanks and push further to force a rout or something similar. A guess that was further validated by how additional cavalry forces were moving out from the enemy’s reserve troops. Reinhardt naturally warned Nestor of the development and before long he noticed some of the dwarven cavalry moving forward to meet and turn away the enemy’s cavalry.
As for Reinhardt himself, he took the matters on the battlefield into his own hands as he immediately ordered all his platoon members to push ahead as fast and hard as they could. The Imperial elites were trying to devour the Coalition army’s left flank, so if he pushed hard on the right flank, they might well manage to turn the tables once more and catch the Imperials in a pincer assault instead.
Reinhardt had messengers sent to inform Barnaby and the other mercenary commanders on his flank about the maneuver, and told Erycea to do the same on her side. Even as the messengers went out, the Free Lances pushed hard against the Imperial army’s lines, their three strike platoons directly breaking through the enemy lines and creating gaps for the other platoons to exploit as they followed.
Almost immediately the relatively orderly battle turned rather chaotic due to the rapid changes on the situation from both sides.