The room explodes in panic, but I shout, “SILENCE!” Which hushes the voices and panic within the room.
Looking towards the messenger, I say, “Are you certain of this?”
He nods, and I look back towards the map, then I say, “This makes no sense. Right now, the Laochs should be sending a massive army straight into their territory, and they have decided to come and meet us, a far smaller force?”
Cillian coming towards me, puts his hands on the map and says, “We are the group that has pushed the furthest into their territory, so maybe they want to try and push us back out.”
“Even if they wanted to do that, the Laochs would simply turn around and take back all of the land they would take from pushing us back, and this time they would be stuck in the heart of our territory, with a massive army coming from them behind, especially with their leader in the said army.”
I look over at Bricriu to get his reaction, but then on his face I see an elated smile which he quickly removes as I take notice.
This plan would be utterly idiotic, so maybe it is. Maybe this battle isn’t for militaristic gain, if so we now have a weapon to use.
Looking at him, I say, “Bricriu, we need to get started with forming a plan.”
“Don’t worry I already have one, though it will depend entirely on the strength of your soldiers.”
“Fine, let’s get to it.”
-Break-
Φ Standing beside Bricriu, Ronald looks on into the distance, and at the same time beastkin moves in the dead of night throughout the forest.
“The first thing the humans did when attacking us, was set a perimeter around the area to keep us locked in, and then they took to rest for the night, and do you know what both those things led us to know?”
“The encirclement is to keep us locked in, and then resting for the night is because they know it is far easier for beastkin to move through the night which would give their enemies the advantage.
If I combine this with my earlier assumptions, I can conclude they are looking to either kill me as one of the strongest warriors in the empire or end you due to your depraved antics.”
“Depraved? Well, I believe the both of us are depraved considering the torture you can dish out to humans.”
“I do it for integration and punishment, you do it for pleasure.”
“My fierce warrior, understand that no man can do something to such a high skill level and take no pleasure in it.
But moving on, now that we know they are looking for someone the best option would be to send a bunch of false escapees out to trick the human.”
Through the dead of night groups of beastkin travel on horses through the forest, and one in each group stays in the centre and wears a black cloak covering them. The paths they move make it so that they are spotted by human encampment watchmen.
And upon seeing them the humans blow their horns and alert all the others that the beastkin are trying to escape. The humans rush out from their encampments, and the beastkin who see this still try to break out, but after engaging with the humans they are overwhelmed and rush back into the forest, and each one of them has lost their horses before they go back into the forest.
“My little escapees were sent to encampments a good distance from each other so none of them should be able to cross-check the fact that I had sent someone who could have been me towards each encampment. Now the little humans should be willing to chase those fakes right into the forest.
Normally, I would have sent a bigger force to attack the camps alongside with the smaller force for the shake of increasing the believability, but it is unnecessary due to the fact that these humans seem to want to hunt me.”
In the human encampment, one of the soldiers who wears the same type of mantle as Charles over her shoulder walks out, and with a smirk says, “Everyone split into groups and move out into the forest, don’t let our target get away.”
She wears a uniform that looks royal white with pink designs throughout it, and a veil over her head. She lets out a little prayer, then says, “The time is coming soon.”
Ronald then says, “Now that they have entered the forest, my men lay in wait for the humans who will foolishly charge headfirst into the forest in hopes of catching you.”
Bricriu says, “Then when they appear, we will divide them up into small groups and kill them. A group of five beastkin can kill fifty humans, so we will gain quite a few confirmed kills tonight.”
Within the forest beastkin lies in wait with the eyes of predators towards the small groups of humans that try to look for them, and the moment they see the human guards drop, they smile and pounce.
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But as they attack, each and every single one of them sees a glowing pink butterfly in front of their faces, and then moments later a sword appears in front of their faces.
Throughout the forest, this phenomenon happens again and again, until all of the beastkin hiding within the trees have been cut down and killed.
Then moments later the woman with a veil over her head, puts her light great sword back in its scabbard and says, “Let’s return.”
As Ronald and Bricriu lookout in the forest waiting for their men to return, their happiness soon turns to worry as not a single soldier they had sent out had come back to base.
Ronald says, “It has been two hours after the return time, I will head out.”
Bricriu puts his tail around my leg, and says, “No. We will call it a defeat. Right now our enemies have a factor unknown to us, and we can’t risk you dying today.”
“But my soldiers-,”
With an uncharacteristic, focused look Bricriu says, “I apologise, but I assure you that leaving here right now will be of the benefit to no one. We must go in and prepare for tomorrow.”
“Fine,” I say gripping my fist tight.
-Break-
Φ Fort Niall is a fortress that used to be a castle for minor nobility. Quickly modified from a castle to a fort to watch over the area. Its back is towards the base of a cliff, making escape from it hard for the beastkin to do.
In front of the fort, is a large army of 70,000 has wrapped itself completely around Fort Niall with the only exception being the back. Around 5,000 members of the army are calvary, and 15,000 are archers with the remaining all being infantry.
On the other end are the beastkin, who have a military force of around 30,000 with 0 archers; 20,000 soldiers, and 10,000 cavalry. Along with both wonderbeasts and some artillery.
The beastkin army forms up in front of the fort with all the infantry formed up into tight rectangles with the weaker members in front and reserves filled with the more experienced members behind.
On the flanks of the army are two squads of calvary, both of which include horse riders, chariots, and beastkin riding the wonderbeast Merark.
While the human army wraps around the entirety of the area blocking all points of escape. From the humans' perspective, their formation looks like a giant U that stops at the mountain.
The U is made up of a formation of humans structured in multiple rectangles of infantry behind one another to reinforce their strength. Their archers are hidden, and their cavalry are behind the infantry at the minimum point of their U formation.
On this battlefield, Ronald moves to Cillian who is riding on the back of a Merark along with the other members of the cavalry, and says, “Our calvary will most likely be the source of our victory in this battle. But despite all the work you will have to do, remain safe my brother.”
“I promise I will.”
Soon Bricriu standing behind the infantry, gestures his hand, and then a lion Fanalis lets out a roar sending the infantry forward.
First, the chariots run forward towards all of the different human armies, and as they move they release a powdery substance from what looks to be a modified plant, that makes a white smoke in front of the human armies.
At the same time as this, the catapults fire off bombs made from plants towards the human armies, and when they explode, they release the same white smoke.
The humans try to reconfigure their armies, but the chariots ram into them messing up their efforts.
The chariots rip their way through the human forces upon first impact, but then certain soldiers step up.
In the army of humans, some wear some form of leather armour, or chain mail with few having any form of armour at all, but every here and there some of the humans have scarves around their necks.
These humans move towards the chariots, and even at the high speed they are faced with, these humans easily move to the sides of the chariots and throw spears in between the wheels messing them up.
As this keeps happening, one of the beastkin who falls looks at the humans with scarves around their necks, and says, “Spirit energy!” But his attention is quickly taken by the humans who surround and look down on him.
The beastkin who fall to the ground, are surrounded by a dense amount of humans that manage to pick them off, but not without casualties. A single beastkin can cut the heads of a dozen humans of this normal unarmoured human before they fall themselves, yet the numbers are still not being traded in an equal ratio as the humans still hold an advantage.
Soon the chariots in all the different battlefields fell, but the humans noticed a loud sound kept moving through the area. They look around with eyes of panic, and one of the scarfed humans says, “The chariots are gone so why is there still large sounds!”
Soon the human squadrons are hit with a giant force that blows away their lives and the smoke. As the smoke clears, they can see the source of this attack, and in the distance in front of each of the squadrons are vanir mammoths, along with squadrons of beastkin around defending them.
The wonderbeasts pull in air through their trunks and shoot them at the human decimating their dense formations.
Through the battlefield the human generals send word to loosen up their formations and also move forward towards the vanir mammoths which starts to break down the encirclement.
In this same moment, the Merark riders, and the rest of the calvary on the beastkin side move up to take advantage of the chaos, but the human calvary moves forward the counter this as well.
The humans are blown to pieces are they head towards the mammoths, but they eventually manage to get close enough where the shots stop, but then the beastkin who are riding the mammoths send them forward with the soldiers.
But as they do they release these boxes on the side of the mammoths that drop more of the white smoke obscuring the humans' vision of the battlefield.
Soon the lines clash, and the scarfed humans move out to attack the mammoth. But in that same moment, a bat Fanalis beside Bricriu receives a transmission from the battlefield at a high frequency.
Then it says, “Humans with spirit energy. The ones with scarves.”
Bricriu then instructs another beastkin, a Dolphin Fanalis to let out a high frequency, that a series of Fanalis in the area pick up, and transfer to each squadron on the battlefield.
Then the beastkin start commanders to target the humans with the scarfs, keeping them away from the mammoths that rip through the rest of the infantry.
At the same time, this beastkin dressed in human clothing used the smoke as a screen to move through the human armies, towards the commanders and captains of each squadron and cut their heads off.
Then they move into the battlefield sowing chaos among the humans.
Soon Bricriu receives another transmission that the humans have lost enough leaders, and then he sends four more mammoth squadrons toward the corner in the left-hand side of his vision, and says, “It’s time to break through.”
As the mammoths appear using the smoke as a cover they smash into the humans, and start to completely destroy anything in their way pushing forward.
“Looks like I made a break Charles. I won’t be dying today.”
In his base camp, Charles Animus and the rest of the strategists look towards him, and with awe, they say, “My king it really is going according to your plan.”
Charles smiles and says, “Now my men get ready for our counterattack to begin!”