>
>
>
> ‘I don’t believe you’ve solved the riddle, for the danger remains unnamed and even Elderbloods don’t understand it. You can’t read what’s yet to come. The future is a tricky maze, the path to it, a mummer’s road.’
>
>
>
> -
>
> The Second Sibyl of the Coven (also referred to as ‘Ice Lady’)
>
> addressing the King of Kings Ninthalor of Wetull sometime in the First Era.
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Decanus Lucas Kato
Half a bridge
Part III
-Mentioned in the Dailies-
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[https://i.postimg.cc/9FrP23Cg/battle-of-Half-Bridge.jpg]
> Decanus Brevis surprised the Iron Fists getting out of the birch woods on the northernmost side of battlefield. The mercenaries had pushed their war machines forward in order to demolish the fortifications Kato had set up and were caught flat-footed as they were mostly focused on the happenings on the south flank near the river peninsula bridge. There Kaeso despite being heavily outnumbered initially kept getting reinforcements from Durio, who managed to build a small pontoon bridge over the easternmost tributary and funnel supplies over the wilderness.
>
> With the wooden bridge secure Kaeso split his rangers into smaller groups and set ambush after ambush against the Iron Fists second division’s battle groups present, a force of about four hundred. Helped by the terrain and the weather and fighting in the dead of night, the rangers’ constant murderous attacks prevented the mercenaries from crushing Tarsus small force and kept Baron Hermon’s eyes on them. The Baron knew he needed to get control on one of the two bridges to be able to control the field.
>
> Thinking he was facing part, or most of the Third Legion initially, he had opted for a conservative approach in the center. His intentions were to prolong the battle for as long as possible, as he had control of his retreating lines even through the mountains and expected to receive reinforcements from Oras Navel.
>
> Brevis penetrated deep and mauled the engineers of the Iron Fists that broke and run away towards their main camp. Hermon who was holding the First Division in reserve reacted to protect his center and together with the soldiers holding the lines they attacked Brevis from all sides. The Decanus retreated towards the tree line, but he quickly found himself cut off and surrounded by superior forces.
>
> Kato advanced his whole line out of their fortifications to bail him out and crashed on the Iron Fists' center in a brutal struggle. The already mentioned in the Legion’s Dailies the previous day for acts of valor Decanus wanted to open a corridor so Brevis could retreat to relative safety, afore Tarsus broke or lost control of the south flank, which would cause his own much larger force to in turn get trapped in no man’s land.
>
>
“PUSH!” Mede boomed, his helm resting behind his shield, thick neck swollen from the effort to help his left arm and hobnailed boots digging in the mud. A line of eighty legionnaires mimicking him extending far into Kato’s right.
Heave, half a step and then stab with the sword through the gap. Another half a step put forward. Another hard shove, then a thrust of the blade. Rinse and repeat.
Bang.
Clang.
Men grunting unintelligibly, all clenched teeth and gnarly faces.
The sharpened steel tips finding ringmail half the time. The edge of shields some of the rest and one time out of four digging into mostly soft flesh, or exposed thighs. The blade tearing guts out on the return, slicing through muscle and tendons. Severing arteries and opening veins. Blood and viscera gushing out, mixing in shallow watery pools with mud, turning it a rusty copper color. Excrement and urine under their boots, pieces of skin, fingers and partially slayed people.
Ye stepped over, or on them and you could feel them still stirring under you.
Kato caught a blade on the shield, several civilians with spears behind him extending their weak flank, growled feeling the stitches holding on his chest, but his skin failing and leaking anew. He lunged with his straight Legio sword, found cloth and yanked it back to go at it again. Kato’s opponent barely visible, half his own head behind the Scutum, his helm limiting his vision. Something clang on his left shoulder and he realized it was a broken arrow shaft. The scouts now out of the woods firing pot shots into their ranks, not every arrow finding legionnaires.
Kato stooped, put his shoulder on the inner part of his shield and thrust his arm forward, helping out with his neck muscles and legs. His opponent stumbled back, another rushed to take his place, but spears plunged into the gap and Mede with Baldock found the crack in the line and widened it with timely cuts.
Three more mercenaries went down, the gap widening as more and more became exposed to the penetrating legionnaires. Kato twisted under a spear, the blade denting his helm and stabbed a mercenary in the ribs, blade plunging flat between the thin bones, but then cranking vertical when Kato turned his wrist with a manic grunt.
The man groaned miserably, ribs snapping at their base and got stabbed multiple times in the chest and face by the civilians with the protruding spears. Kato could see red cloth, amidst all the yellow. The roar of battle so otherworldly for a moment the Decanus thought he was dreaming.
A great shadow flying over them. The cloudy day turning darker.
The colors waning and the sounds of battle lowering.
The ringing in his ears increasing in volume.
A piercing otherworldly shriek.
You won’t fall today, he thought and glanced at the collapsing mercenaries trying to get out of the way of the slow-moving approaching testudo and the advancing legionnaires of the main line.
“BREVIS YOU CUNT!” Mede growled breaking through his haze and snapping Kato back to the present. “GET MOVING FUCK’S SAKE!”
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“Let them through!” Kato barked, ducking under another arrow whistling over his head and trotted back out of the line to check on their flank.
“Pull back sir?” Ardas asked as he pivoted so Kato could pass through.
“Slow does it Ardas!” Kato ordered him.
“ONE STEP BACK!” Mede bellowed, as he read his lips from five meters away. “ONE!” He warned them as the line stopped and then detached from their opponents.
Kato stopped breathing heavy and tried to find a runner. He grabbed an advancing civilian by the arm and shoved him the other way.
“Get to the wall and find a way to contact the Prefect, or Tarsus. Tell them we are falling back!” He barked in his face.
He could see the large block of mercenaries coming to reinforce the center. Late to prevent Brevis from escaping with most of his men, but close enough to overwhelm them in the open. The Iron Fists must have over six-seven hundred men in the field at this point, he thought. If that nasty cunt has kept a reserve on top of that, we’ll be dead afore the day is over.
Eh.
No. That’s not how this shit will go.
“You!” He grunted at another of the retreating civilians, as the legionnaires were keeping the front from disintegrating into a rout. “Find Sid Toma, the Centurion, or Karson! They are behind them cattails near the bridge. Tell them to push the Scorpios forward!”
“You want me to walk all the way—”
Kato whacked abruptly the flat of his blade on his shoulder, the man losing the spear and almost going down on a knee. The long shafted weapon rattling down between them.
“You’ll run,” Kato rustled warningly correcting him, steel in his voice and eyes glaring. “Fast as a roused hare.”
And the man did.
> Kato managed to break out a hapless Brevis saving his command and then retreated the whole front behind their fortifications, which was mostly a short stone rampart of sorts, just as Hermon’s reinforcements entered the fight.
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> The Iron Fists officers called for the engineers to return, but it was difficult to restore order and some of the machines had been damaged or overturned in the tumult, so in order not to lose the momentum, the officers present ordered the men after the retreating legionnaires.
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> Hermon who had fought for a week under minimum light, cloudy skies and mist caught the first break in the battle at the same time a mini catastrophe touched his attacking force.
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> The mercenaries assaulted the barricade en masse pushing the thin line of defenders back at places, in a wide front over two hundred men long. Then his southernmost flank got mauled by Centurion Toma’s Scorpios, Durio had ferried another one over realizing they were on the verge of losing the battle. Toma fired four times in quick succession killing, or maiming almost forty men in five minutes. Hermon’s flank cracked and the mercenaries holding there retreated in disarray. They were winning in the center though and it was difficult to disengage, but luckily Toma couldn’t fire so close to their lines and didn’t.
>
> The sun came out of the clouds for the first time in days and the mist retreated, just as the officers gave the order for the Iron Fists to retreat. Hermon watching through a spyglass from afar realized he wasn’t fighting a legion, or even part of it. Viceroy who had a swollen face from the abuse he’d received earlier realized the same thing and verbally assaulted the High Baron, who almost had him executed on the spot, but for calmer heads getting in the way. Thoroughly humiliated Hermon ordered his reserve to march down the slopes and caught the second break of the day.
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> Stolen novel; please report.
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> Suddenly all the luck seemed to swing in favor of the mercenaries.
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> Tarsus weakened and heavy fighting for days force holding the road to the Groin blocked had cracked under severe pressure and with casualties mounting, the Decanus retreated towards the Half Bridge, leaving Kaeso cut off again. The Iron Fists of the second division marched after him through the woods, with Kaeso forced to pull back in turn towards the bridge at the peninsula under pressure from Leys Boars that had regrouped in the meantime.
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> Tarsus got out of the woods and marched up the shore towards Kato, but quickly realized, or was informed that he couldn’t bring more trouble on their main line. The Decanus ordered a halt and turned the tired men around deciding to block the advancing after them mercenaries whatever the cost and save the center.
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> Hermon who had ridden his warhorse nearer to the field to scold his scattered engineers saw the unfolding scene and ordered a large block of two hundred to attack obliquely between Tarsus shieldwall and Toma’s Scorpions and peel Kato’s whole south flank wide open.
>
> It was still late morning, the best day of the month. The Baron turned to his second in command, the Marquise Leroy Drumo who had just arrived with a cavalry force of the Baron’s knights and told him they’ll have Durio’s bridge in two hours at the most.
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> ‘Gods above, we’ve won this Leroy,’ Hermon had declared, much relieved.
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> The Baron was correct.
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> Had they finished off Kato in a couple of hours they would have.
>
> But when one gets one break too many in a day, he should be wary of Luthos’ depraved sense of humor on the morrow.
Operation Day 156
Battle of the Half Bridge
Center
Five hours later, late afternoon
“ARC LEFT YE CUNTS!” Mede barked hoarsely, seeing Tarsus line pushed back and about ten soldiers pouring in the gap. Kato had rushed there with thirty civilians (a couple of adventurers in them) clashing with the Iron Fists heavy infantry for every meter.
The arriving Kato kicked a shield and shoved the man holding it back, chopped a piece of elbow off, bone marrow sticking to his armour and had a blade split his own shield down to the vambrace. A yank and it came apart, the leaping sword glancing at his cheekguard. He felt his left temple cracking from the rattle. The Decanus stumbled back, another mercenary stepped forward to cut him down but got his blade blocked from a civilian’s chest and lungs, blood spraying everyone in a two meter radius.
Turd in soup! Kato cursed and parried the sword away, then hurled the shield on his opponent’s face catching him on the shoulder. The mercenary standing next to him tried to take advantage of the opening, but Ardas kicked his knee in and the man dived forward head first, Kato’s savage chop splitting his ‘bucket helm’ down the middle. The blade lodged deep in the man’s forehead, but the men coming behind him dislodged it, hurling their mauled friend down.
A spear plunged in an eye socket, the fight turning vicious as the light diminished all about them, Kato chopped another arm off, cut piece tumbling in a bloody arc over their heads. An ear, several fingers, gory pieces of flesh and two whole heads. Kato kicked one of them afore it touched the ground on a mercenary’s face and the man swatted it away not even flinching. Their thin line was pushed towards the abutment and Kato realized their center was about to get cut off from its retreat.
“Mede!” He barked ducking under a slash, the legionnaire holding the edge of the side that had moved to cover the space between Tarsus front, the machines and their main fortification. “Pluck some men out and get here!”
Tarsus had been hit hard, but he retreated slowly towards them, before getting overwhelmed. Kato had moved thirty legionnaires there earlier to deter the maneuvering Iron Fists, but the disparity in numbers made it difficult to keep them away.
Kato glanced towards the river shore where Toma’s engineers were fighting a group of scouts that had sneaked up closer to them in the chaos. Hours in it most men were but shells of themselves more dead than alive. But very few people will settle and accept they are dead afore they get killed proper.
He rushed there, just as Mede arrived with a small group of friendlies, the center holding in the distance under Brevis, but their lines now paper thin, the number of casualties mounting as tired limbs made more and more mistakes.
Kato tweaked his knee stepping on a mutilated corpse, grunted stumbling forward and a scout swung his head around and spotted him. The mercenary, a silver boar stitched at the front of his light armour, reached for a hatchet, but Kato bulldozed into him afore he could use it proper. The two men crashed down together, but the hatchet plunged deep in the scout’s chest and his arm broken in two places, ensured that only Kato rolled away in the mud.
A grunt and he hacked off a leg above the ankle, hoping it wasn’t an engineer looking the wrong way. The scout went down, a gory Kato rising at the same time and saw an injured Toma opening and closing his mouth inaudibly a dozen meters away hand on the lever of his Scorpio, the other missing.
Wood splinter in the gonads!
A deaf Kato dived for the ground, found a knelt scout at the end of it, the man flinching in panic seeing the Decanus gliding between his legs. He jumped upwards intending to land with both feet on the officer’s face, but Kato twisted his sword and stabbed him in the gap finding the groin, just as a bolt whooshed over them the next second. The scout impaled himself on Kato’s blade like a harlot sitting on a client’s cock, the bolt ripping through the bunched up Iron Fists gathered to squash a frantic Mede’s thin line.
Half a dozen of them killed in an instant.
Gods darn it, he cursed, the ringing in his ears subsiding and Toma’s voice reaching him along the cacophony of the raging battle.
“Tarsus is down,” the engineer told him gravely, stooped over his machine and bleeding out. “Tell Durio to finish the cursed road.”
Kato had no idea what the fuck he was talking about, but since there was a bridge at the near he chucked it to blood loss and didn’t dwell on it further. He kind of had his plate full anyway.
“Ardas!” he yelled moving away from the overrun machines waving for Mede to retreat as well. “Move to the bridge, Tarsus is dead!”
“Fuck. Ye sure?”
“Ain’t discussing it right plaguin’ now Ardas!”
“Right away boss. Back!” Ardas barked and an arrow stabbed him on the shoulder. Shite! Kato cursed. “Gods damnit. Sneaky little bitches,” the stunned legionnaire cussed in turn and went to remove it, but another ripped through his forearm. It shoved him back and Kato rushed to drag him away, as more and more scouts had jumped out of the woods, streams of Iron Fists infantry mixed in their ranks. The flank had disintegrated.
Not a panicked retreat, most had just died where they stood.
The sun dipped behind the mountains in the distance, but still enough light was there.
“Decanus!” Mede grunted running towards them, the mercenaries pausing to stare at their officers for instructions.
Go for the Half Bridge, or attack Brevis’ cut off center?
That's Hermon's fancy dilemma.
“Roll that beam forward!” Kato barked to him. “Block their way! Get everyone on it!”
The mercenaries grouped up and turned towards them again. The gap widening as Brevis’ flank was pushed inwards and to the north woods. Numbers were gonna do it, unless the night came fast enough.
“They won’t have time to do it,” Mede rustled looking at the injured Ardas making a brace for his arm from a dead man’s tunic, the arrow still stuck in it.
“They don’t need much time,” Kato grunted and shoved a couple of armed civilians into the line. Not much of a shield wall. He counted nine legionnaires amongst them. His head hurting something fierce forcing him on his knees.
“Sir?” Mede asked, worry in his voice.
“I ain’t dying today,” Kato told him brusquely and grabbed his shoulder to stand up again.
But most of you boys, I ain’t so sure about.
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The mercenary grabbed the spear and dragged the man out, his blade bursting out the back. Mede hacked him brutally caving his chest in, the blade cracking and broken rings raining everywhere.
Kato pushed a sword aside, kicked a shield back, but he slipped in the mud and landed on his back, head banging on the bridge’s ramp. He coughed and rolled to the side, a boot landing with a thud where his head had been and slashed parallel catching the boot on the retreat.
A hefty piece of leather and wood detached, some of the foot still in it, his blade striking the ramp next. Kato grunted and pushed himself upright, a blade piercing his sides, in and out. He swung wide with a cry of pain and caught the mercenary in the eyes, the sharp tip gouging both of them out.
Ardas got another one, fighting with one arm, but a third chopped him at the clavicle and send him sprawling down. Mede stomped the mercenary in the face with the hilt and broke his nose, but caught a blade with his on the return and was hurled backwards covered in gore.
Kato stooped to grab a spear, slotted it under his armpit pointed the right way and walked on dead legs towards the dazed enemy soldier. The mercenary shook his head, the waters of the river turning a sinister red color right before dusk, but spotted a scowling Kato approaching covered in gore. He squinted his eyes and changed his stance, left arm unsheathing a long dagger, a sword in his right. Then he saw the spear leading two meters from the Decanus and recoiled, but it was too late. The blade pierced him slowly, while he tried to back away, boots sliding in the sludge and a fast feinting Kato ever pressing forward. A crunch and he felt it entering his chest, butchering his lungs. Another crunch and it came out of his back, stopping at the inside of his armour.
The mercenary gasped, blood in his mouth, hopeful as he felt the spear loose from Kato’s grip, but his wound was lethal and he died upright stooped over the shaft like a grotesque crooked scarecrow.
Kato saw none of that as he’d collapsed on his back. All he could see was the sky above him and a bit of the fields in the distance, where torches had appeared as the armies pulled away for the night. Torches on Brevis’s side as well, their center pushed to the trees almost, half the wall brought down or abandoned.
Fuck.
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“Chief,” Baldock grunted some time later whilst pouring water on his face. “Ye live?”
“Arggh,” Kato grunted, everything a blur and his eyes smarting. “Bloody… idiot!”
“Ardas is bad, Mede too,” Baldock started sadly, trying to wipe his face with a cloth.
“Mede will make it, some-fucking-how,” Kato assured him hoarsely, a numbness spreading on his body. A weird one, more warm than cold.
“Right,” Baldock murmured and removed his helm.
You won’t.
“We’re just prolonging the inevitable here Decanus.”
“We’ll see about that. We still hold the bridge,” Kato rustled and tried to move but failed, which was alarming.
That’s a barrel of stale piss down the gullet.
Fuck’s sake.
“How do you know?” the legionnaire asked him and Kato watched the two moons silvery-blue light coming over the battlefield. Shadows and fires mixed in, cries of agony and despair still coming from all sides, the river flowing unstopped behind him, but the gore on the ground drying up and the frozen dead watching in contemplating silence.
There was a lone figure standing at the edge of the ruined stone wall. Tall and elegant, but more exaggerated than proportional. Extremely long white hair blowing in the soft breeze, shapely body outlined under her long dark tunic. She used her staff to climb down from the wall, moving slow but surely, a grace in her gait deliberate and alien.
Damn, Kato thought awed when she came close enough to show him her face. Which goddess are you?
She smiled at his words and stooped, long fingers wrapped on her engraved staff, the metal on it silvery, crystalized with sparkling blue quartz and arching at the top.
“He would have lost on the east side of the river brave Kato,” she told him in her archaic accent. “The future is a tricky maze, so many roads for the ignorant soul to navigate. Not all leading to the same place. Now, he’ll have his chance,” the exotic female paused with a small frown as if unsure, then her eyes turned on him again. Sparkling pools of blue and silver, the colors twirling and clearing up, the gleam behind them unnatural, her voice a sad, but lovely song biding him farewell.
Fucking beautiful.
“Decanus?” Baldock queried haunted seeing Kato’s eyes glowing for a moment and the breeze turning chillier, the night whispers turning into a howl that came and went. The other survivors near the Half Bridge gathered slowly around the Northern Legionnaire and the staring at the nether expired Decanus, no one paying attention to the myriad of lights seen stretching out on the river’s distant east shores across from them, from the opposing abutment and as far as the Groin.
“I’m truly saddened I won’t get to meet you,” the witch had told him in her mourning voice. “You should have sent Brevis to help here.”