Mark meticulously reviewed his army’s formation and orders, selecting points to distribute his best warriors.

The idea was to have veteran mercenaries and the most competent commoners dotted around the formation’s center and flanks, hopefully ensuring that there were no obvious weak points that could collapse their ranks in battle.

At the rear of his force, Mark organized the archers into rows, ordering them to fire volleys in intervals designed to keep constant pressure on the enemy. This, combined with flaming arrows and Mark’s homebrew Greek fire, was interwoven into the volleys to create a devastating barrage that would hopefully force their enemy into a rushed attack.

To confront a rushed attack from the enemy, Mark armed the formation's front line with heavy shields, swords or axes, and armor; behind them, light infantry carried spears. With any luck, the enemy would charge straight into the spears and find themself pressed against an unbreakable line of shields.

With this formation, he hoped to trap his enemy against a powerful frontline and rely on arrows and spears to thin their numbers before overwhelming them with infantry.

Unfortunately, they didn’t have the means to provide cavalry support since the horses they had were too valuable for maintaining the trade routes Mark had been setting up. Even though he could enlist the horses temporarily, the cost of losing them and damaging what little trade they had managed to build up was too risky.

He placed himself and Callum on opposite flanks as risk mitigators and to manage the battlefield. Their job was to tactically use their lightning blasts to hit weak points in their enemy’s formation and, with any luck, fold their enemy’s flanks. To support this goal, he had a new force of light infantry that was to hide in the surrounding forest and charge the enemy flanks once they were weakened. These were men trained mainly by Trumus and led by the brow-raising guard captain.

Mark was still wary of Trumus, and if he and his men fought in the battle he was planning on throwing them into, they would no doubt take the chance to loot whatever they killed, which in turn would only work for Trumus wealthier. However, not only could they not afford to lose a battle at this point, but they were already outnumbered and needed to avoid casualties as best they could.

There was a secondary benefit to this plan. Everyone knew the war for the Frontier couldn’t be won hiding behind walls, and as impressive as his defense against the cultists was, it didn’t prove that he could beat back their enemy. If the western clans wanted to hide behind walls, they could stay in the west to do that. Knowing this, Mark figured that it would likely be hard to convince them to send their warriors east to fight beneath his banner unless he had proven success on an open battlefield, leading him to believe that winning this battle was vitally important for gaining the allies he needed.

However, having the right army for the job was only part of Mark’s plan; the second half was finding the right place to fight. Since he didn’t have time to spend weeks or months skirmishing until they found the perfect position to confront the enemy, Mark selected several potential battlefields with the requirements he needed, which were essentially flat, open terrain with a sloping advantage and thick tree coverage on either side. Luckily, that wasn’t particularly hard to find in the Frontier.

Since Mark had figured out where they would fight, his scouts had been probing the enemy, trying to draw them out of their camp.

The warg army was split into different camps and stretched over a rather large area, likely to make Imperial ariel raids less effective if they chose to conduct them. But this worked perfectly into Mark’s plans, allowing him to pick a camp to attack that would play into his strengths. After all, this battle was as much for show as it was for long-term strategy. Weakening the warg forces was a benefit, but strengthening his own at this vital point was far more important.

**Two Brothers**

“Been questioning the wargs, have ye?” A broad, hairy man said, picking at this nose and circling a feral who sat on his knees in the snow.

“Answer, brother,” an identically hairy man said, circling opposite his clone.

The two men carried spiked clubs and were dressed in dark, heavy plate covering most of their bodies, save their bare feet, which looked gangrenous in the snow.

“I swear, I didn’t! Whoever said that is lying. Please, trust me,” the man on his knees begged.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“Why would we trust you, maggot?”

“Yeah, tell him, brother. Why should we, the Kings of the Foulblooded, trust a maggot like ye?”

Hundreds of poorly dressed and equipped warriors cheered around them, their bodies deformed in various ways, some with third arms, others cyclopean, and some even hunchbacked to the point of walking on all fours.

“They’re jealous, I swear. The schemers are jealous I can hide my deformities,” the man said, pulling off his gloves to reveal clawed hands that resembled the claws of a bird.

“Ye believe this maggot’s story, do you, brother?”

“Not in the slightest, brother,” the furry man shook his Neanderthal head.

“Insurrection can only be punished one way,” the other furry man said as he paced around the man. “Death,” he added, leaping toward the kneeled man in a flash and bursting his head open like watermelon with a single strike of his heavy club, sending the crowd into a frenzy as blood reddened the snow.

“Brother lords!” A voice shouted, drowned out by the ecstatic crowd as a slender, rat-like man tried to push through to the front. “Brother lords!” He shouted again as he flew out from the crowd and stumbled to the ground at the center of the gathering.

“Oh?”

“It’s little Festy,” one of the brothers said, pointing a stubby, hair-covered finger.

“What have you to say, interrupting our blood-gorging, little Festy?” the other said.

“News from the scouts,” Festy said, climbing back to his feet and dusting snow away. “Many missing. We spotted clanless through the forest. And just yesterday, we skirmished with them. Many of Festy’s men lost. Killed by the clanless.”

“What disrespect,” one of the brothers spat. “Clanless killing our maggots, brother.”

“Utter disrespect. Deserving of punishment, it is.”

“Brother lords,” another man stepped forth, breaking free from the cheering crowd. He was an old man with white hair over his pale, wrinkled skin that ran down to his hips. “Temper your anger. Our orders from the wargs are clear. Hold this position and wait for further instructions. We’re not to engage the enemy on our own.”

“The old man speaks again, brother.”

“Bah. Words, words, words. Wake me up when he finishes.”

The crowd broke into hysterical laughter at the brothers’ antics.

“I don’t mean to interrupt your blood-gorge, Brother Lords, but this is important.”

“Silly old man thinks his words are smart.”

“Silly indeed, brother. Why little men always think they so smart?”

“Dunno, brother. But it is annoying.”

“Shall we then, brother?”

“Yous thinking what mes thinking?”

“We crush them disrespectful little clanless, bother?”

“Yes, brother. We not fight battles in days now. Leave weak in camp. Us strong, smart ones can deal with them disrespectors”

**King**

Two scouts came running into Mark's little makeshift camp hidden deep within the forest.

Reaching Mark’s tent, they fell to their knees and awaited his word.

“At ease. You’re free to speak.”

The two men rose to their feet. “My lord, it seems our probing attacks have been successful. We’ve spotted the enemy preparing to move out. They travel east, along the route b.”

When organizing the plan, Mark distinguished different routes the enemy might take and labeled them. Each route was connected to a preplanned battlefield, and his men had already been drilled on where they were to take up positions.

“Good. You hear that, Elowen?”

“I did, my lord. I’ll have the troops move into position.”

It’s all going to plan.

Mark had spent a couple of days surveying their enemy. He’d have spent longer, but the wedding and their request for allies from the West were growing near, and he needed to get this done first.

The camp he had chosen to provoke was seemingly an army of mutant humans who served the wargs. He had chosen them because they were primarily an infantry army with light armor and melee weapons, the perfect enemy to test his new battle formation on.

Being so fast and physically imposing, the wargs posed a great risk of outmaneuvering Mark’s army, even if he managed to lure them into a favorable position. Their speed and flexibility alone meant they could disengage and reattack from another angle, and there wouldn’t be much his troops could do about it, so avoiding a direct battle with a warg army was his primary concern for now.

The other camps he had spotted all had tools that had the potential to cause him issues, like giants, trolls, or mammoths. Mark just didn’t have enough experience to know whether or not these powerful creatures would break straight through his lines, especially since he had decided to keep his own troll allies away from the frontline for now.

For now, he needed an easy win to solidify himself. Once more warriors were under his banner, he could figure out how to deal with the more challenging foes.

For now, Mark’s decision not to use his trolls in the battle was drawn from their low numbers. Not only were they essentially building his keep alone, which he wanted to be finished as soon as possible, but he also wanted to keep them on standby for diplomatic reasons.

Mark had learned how the trolls had been betrayed by their own kind and forced to pray to the Seven-Head Wolf God, and he figured that having the troll tribe would make it easier to negotiate with other troll tribes in the future, which would be a lot harder if his trolls were killed in battle. After all, defeating the wargs was only the tip of the iceberg. If he wanted to be able to stand against the pressure of the Imperium—which would no doubt come bearing down on them once the wargs were defeated—then he couldn’t just slaughter everyone who stood against him.

Mark needed allies, as many as he could find. If the Frontier was going to earn its independence, it would need to find a way to be united.

It was rough, fractured, poor, and unstable, but Mark saw the potential in this land to stand on its own, and he wanted to use this to his advantage.

He just had to figure out how to split the Warg army now and show them that he was the leader they needed to stand with if they wanted to unite this land.

Exiting his tent, Mark watched the rows of men marching out from the forest toward their preplanned positions.

It's time to make a show of it.