With due haste, General Taides and several of the Legates at his command mounted their horses and rode along the stream of marching soldiers, many of whom were still unaware of the situation. Legate Gilles, who rode alongside the General, barked a makeshift speech from horseback to the men.

“Stay alert! Soldiers of the Condor Legion! Your brothers at the front are experiencing hell! You shall soon join them!”

Several of the shuffling soldiers were snapped out of their daydreams. Others, who had only been woken by the sound of horses approaching moments before, rolled their eyes at them. The soldiers raised their polearms and pikes and yelled in unison.

“Hoorah!”

The Legate shared a nod with the General. It was not the most rousing speech the Legate could give to a group of soldiers who were about to enter a bloody match of life and death, but that wasn’t what they needed.

The journey through the Deadlands was anything but kind, and attempting to comfort soldiers who they had just put through hell, and who would be put through it again, would only be offensive to them.

General Taides turned back to a man on another horse.

“Legate Tinsula, see to it that your men are prepared for the fight ahead. You have my permission to use your warministers should you see it fitting.”

“It will be done, sir.”

Several horses peeled off from the pack surrounding Taides. He repeated those kind of orders several more times before only Legate Gilles and a few members of his cavalrymen–trusted honor guards–were with him. By now, they could see the fighting occurring at the mouth of the canyon.

“Bastards! They want to cut us off right at the entrance into the forest! We won’t be able to resupply if we don’t get past this canyon.”

The strained voice of Legate Gilles reasoned. The motive of the enemy was clear, to starve them with a surprise attack right before they could resupply. It was an obvious play, but no less effective. The men had been marching for weeks, and were underfed at this point. It was not that General Taides had been unprepared, rather the opposite actually. However, in the Deadlands there was no use in preparation, and his legion had run into problem after problem that had drained them of their supplies. They needed this resupply.

The General replied to his Legate advisor in an apathetic voice, one that was confident after coming to a conclusion.

“The men will starve.”

“Yes, they will, sir. Unless we win this battle, our part in this war will be over. A court-martial not even needed.”

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The General gave him a side-eye but moved on. Reaching into his satchel he pulled out a device with the appearance of a necklace. A large green crystal the length of an index finger coiled by a dark brown string of beads. A transducer.

The General slipped the device over his head and held the transducer to his mouth. Speaking into the now glowing crystal he gave out orders to several of his legates across the battlefield, each holding similar devices of their own designed to receive his transmissions.

“Tinsula, take your hoplites to the west wall and form a staggered column there to press forward. Hermann, take yours to the east wall of the canyon and form a left echelon in retreat. I will be taking my own troops and Gilles’ along with the cavalrymen to the center in arrowhead to push forward after the situation stabilizes. We will be performing a false retreat with Hermann leading. On my command.”

The General closed his eyes, still gripping the crystal but letting it dim a little.

The battle raged on.

Everyone could hear it.

Taides breathed in through his nose. A calm, serene breath. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken such a breath. It threatened to put a smile on his face.

“Alright…”

The crystal buzzed back to full luminescence. The General held it close to his face and shouted.

“Now!”

…

The Condor Legion of the Kingdom of Mont Ryoux did exactly as they planned in the battle, and executed each step of General Taides’ plan flawlessly.

Unfortunately for them however, so did their adversaries, the Kingdom of Pytheonia. The ambushers in this scenario had not come in merely with the hope that the approaching army would be tired and weary from their long and difficult trek through the Deadlands. No, once they got word that the Condor Legion was approaching they had worked tirelessly to set up what would be one of the most spectacularly crushing ambushes to happen yet in the history of warfare.

“What do you think the look on that poor sod’s face is right now?”

The commander of the Pytheonian army spoke with his attendant.

“Well, I reckon Taides is probably flush with anger.”

“Oh yeah? Why’s that? They say the man’s like a statue. Not easily shakeable.”

“Well, once he sees the ambush actually consists of five times the number of his own men, I think he’ll realize he’s going to suffer the first defeat of his career. That’s enough to make any man mad, if I were to venture a guess.”

“Haha! That’s true! Hell, I wish I could see the look on that poor bastard's face…”

…

The plan of a false retreat was not going well. While the legion had initially broken up and surrounded their enemy’s armies in the jagged terrain of the canyon, at the last minute reinforcements had come pouring through the mouth of the canyon.

Taides stared at the thickening stream of bodies armed with a forest’s worth of spears. The woodlands behind the reinforcements had done a magnificent job at hiding them. Even now as they poured out of the gaps, it looked as if there were no end to their adversaries. The General and his Legates knew that morale was dropping sharply.

Taides gritted his teeth. Speaking frustratedly in a grimace.

“God damn it!”

He held the transducer to his mouth.

“Legates, retreat your men. Follow the central phalanx south on my command.”