“If people dying in large quantities bother you, the military’s probably not the right place to be.” - Old military saying.

“How are the casualties amongst your troops, Captain Edelstein?” asked Nestor after the various unit commanders were gathered later that evening to discuss the battle they fought.

“Negligible,” replied Reinhardt with an appreciative nod. “Our third strike platoon took the brunt when that second group of enemy elites came our way, but not for too long, and they held the line. Many injured, but the majority should be fit for fighting by the morrow, and the few that needed a while longer to recuperate were only in the dozens. Actual losses are not worth mentioning.”

“Good to hear. Today went well for us since we caught them off-guard. I expect that they would have measures in place to prevent a repeat of what happened today by the time we fight them tomorrow,” noted Nestor. “Naturally, we have our own preparations to counter the ones we expected them to enact tomorrow.”

The losses taken by both armies were by no means light. The Coalition army took around ten thousand casualties, of which a good half would likely be able to fight again by the next day, while of the rest, two-thirds needed longer periods of recuperation, while the rest had the misfortune to lose their lives. Despite those losses, the battle could be considered a minor victory for their side.

After all, it was approximated that their enemies took around triple the casualties. A good fifteen thousand were killed or captured – the portion of the enemy’s right wing that were isolated by the wedge formed by Barnaby’s Brewers and the Free Lances – while at least as many again were injured or worse during the fighting.

Out of those, most were chaff. Soldiers of a lower grade wearing ramshackle gear salvaged from the invaders’ prior victories. Reinhardt could confirm that they took down at least five hundred or so of the enemy elites permanently and injured many times that number, though. In contrast, on the Coalition side, their elites – including the mercenaries – only took around five hundred casualties in total.

The enemy army still held a numerical advantage over the coalition, but that advantage had reduced quite a bit. More troublesome was how the invaders were more cautious with how they used their elites, and so far managed to preserve the vast majority of their best soldiers as well. Both sides knew that it was those elite soldiers that would most likely decide the fate of the battle, not the rank and file that made up the rest of their number.

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Most of the elite casualties came from Barnaby’s Brewers, the Free Lances, and the dwarven heavies that engaged the enemy during the first clash. Barnaby’s men took the worst blow, with around a third of their number in the infirmaries, though the majority of those would be able to fight again after the Coalition’s healers got to them. Reinhardt’s men and the dwarves had about equal casualties, fortunately all with minimal actual losses.

The way the Free Lances set up a system to rotate away their injured soldiers from the frontlines swiftly and efficiently helped them keep their casualty count limited, while the dwarves had their unparalleled heavy armor to thank for their survivability. Other than those who were supremely unlucky most of the dwarven casualties were just lightly injured.

“Will the cavalry join us in the field at last, then?” asked Duke Banitu of Kolitschei from the side of the table they were gathered around.

“Yes, Duke Banitu. We will strike when the time is right tomorrow. We are hoping that the enemy would devote a significant portion of their elites to prevent a repeat of today. If they do so, then it will present openings that our cavalry can then take advantage of,” replied Grafin Siobhan Harscape. “We plan to hurt them even more than today.”

“Keep in mind that our aim here is to win this battle while minimizing our own casualties. We still have a second enemy detachment down in the south to tackle, one roughly as large as the one we are facing now,” added Nestor. “With many more to come, if the information we received from our collaborators prove true. We can’t afford to enter a battle of attrition with this kind of enemy.”

“Any chance we could rush through towards Serda in Wanarua or that other port down south? If we can deny them the ports, they would not be able to land and we’d have a much easier time holding them off,” queried one of the mercenary captains newer to the Coalition.

“That has been considered, but given how the enemy will doggedly defend those ports and chase after any troops we sent that way with all their might, we deemed such an operation unfeasible. Too risky, as even if the force we sent could take the port, the best they could do is to render the port unusable temporarily at the cost of their own survival,” replied Nestor with a shake of his head. “Perhaps worth considering as a desperate maneuver, but I assure you that we are nowhere near that desperate as of yet.”

A series of chuckles and laughter – some of them uneasy – greeted his words, but Nestor did not take it to heart. He knew that fighting against a numerically superior opponent had its difficulties, amongst which was convincing his allies that they stood a good chance to win. Fortunately so far only the leader of some small units showed any signs of uneasiness.

“Either way, inform your respective people to expect hard fighting tomorrow. If we manage to gain an advantage, we will push it as hard as we could in a bid to end this fighting as soon as possible,” he added, mostly to the benefit of those who were wavering. “There are plenty of rewards awaiting those who fought alongside us in triumph. None will be disappointed.”