by Dean Henegar
“Agreed, we can do what you wish. We will protect your flanks and crush the enemy lines when they least expect it,” Nergui said after considering my expectations.
“Excellent, I will also require that you inform me before you leave the field, if it becomes necessary,” I added.
“This we will agree to, Colonel Raytak. I look forward to working with you,” Nergui said before trotting off to see to his soldiers.
“Quite an odd bunch we’ve gathered for the fight this time, sir,” Wrend said as he reported in.
“That it is, Sergeant Wrend, but if you think our force is a strange mix, wait till you see what the enemy brought to the party,” I said and handed over the recon report on enemy strength.
“Sure seems there are a lot of them, sir, but don’t worry. We’ll whittle their numbers down to size in no time. Where will you want Ignominia in the coming fight?” Wrend asked.
“I think for the initial fight we’ll hold Ignominia in reserve. With the strange composition of the enemy force, I want some flexibility in how we can respond to them. Your men have the most experience in dealing with unusual situations and opponents,” I said. Having led Ignominia in the arena, I knew that the unit had plenty of experience in dealing with monsters and unusual combat styles.
“Roger that, sir. I take it we’ll form up with the siege engines until we’re needed?” Wrend asked, anticipating I would use him to cover the vulnerable engines until they were needed on the line. I nodded, and the sergeant moved off to get his men settled inside our fortified camp.
“Where did you want the 14th?” Landry asked. I explained to the captain that we would essentially add his infantry companies to my own in order to extend and strengthen our line. The 14th was an experienced formation and knew how to execute the plan I had in mind. His archers I would place just behind the main line, adding their fire to the mix once the battle was joined. They were less suited to skirmishing than my scouts or the Drebix and would perform better where the lines were static and they could pour fire into large blocks of enemies. Our army would move out several hours before dawn, giving the troops who had just arrived some time to rest. Most of the newcomers were showing stamina debuffs, letting me know they had pushed hard to make it here before the battle started.
The plan was set. Tomorrow, we would march to meet our foe and defeat him in the field.
Chapter 14
“Hey, boss, it looks like our pal Raytak has taken the bait and is marching here to meet our army,” Zipp said after reading the report that one of the Ikbose had brought in. Narbos was glad to find that things were going according to plan as he took the small scroll and reviewed the Ikbose warrior’s report.
Hayden’s Knoll Forces:
Soldiers: 1200–1500.
Drebix Tribesmen: 300–400.
Ogres: 50–100.
Centaurs: 100–200.
“What’s this about centaurs, and why are there way more soldiers than you thought there were going to be?” Narbos asked. The numbers were worse than Zipp had led him to believe. Either that or the Ikbose scout stunk at his job.
“Ahh, you gotta figure they have been calling in favors to bring in more troops. Still, if that’s all he has, we’ll roll right over him. Not to mention, I have a plan that will let us kill two birds with one brick,” Zipp advised, pausing to look at Narbos and Darkfallow before continuing. “Okay, so we have this big ol’ army just waiting to swat Raytak and Delling down. We don’t need everyone for that. We don’t even need half our force to beat the pitiful army Raytak has mustered. So in the interest of kicking this invasion into high gear, we’ll continue with a variant of our two-pronged strategy. You and dorky boy will stay here with most of your army and a few of my specialized troops. Instead of hitting Raytak from the rear, I’ll take my forces and loop around Raytak and capture Goreaxe Peak, leaving our enemy cut off from resupply. Once I’ve taken out the ogre mountain, my force will move in and help you clean up whatever’s left of Raytak’s army.”
“Why don’t we just fight him here like we already planned to and then go take over the ogre mountain?” Darkfallow asked. It was a good question as far as Narbos was concerned.
“Ugh, why did you have to team up with this moron, Narbos? Let me ask you this, Dorkyfellow. You want to win the war quick, right? Well, I’ll assume you’re going to say yes to that since even you aren’t that big of an idiot. If we take out Goreaxe Peak, Raytak’s army will be weakened from lack of supply and therefore easier to beat and less able to cause us casualties that take too long to replace. We’ll then be able to gobble up the rest of the critical locations as quick as you please without an army opposing us,” Zipp explained.
Narbos put his hand on Darkfallow’s shoulder to keep the hothead from attacking Zipp in retaliation for the insults. Thankfully, Darkfallow relented, knowing that an opportunity to blast the necromancer was exactly what Zipp wanted. Narbos wasn’t sure that Zipp’s explanation made a whole lot of sense, but it was close to their original plan, and Narbos did put the little red guy in charge of the army. He really didn’t care to stand around discussing strategy; he wanted to get the conquest kicked into overdrive. If Zipp thought this was going to get things done, he was fine with the plan.
“Fine, but what happens if I beat Raytak’s army before you grab Goreaxe Peak?” Narbos asked. He had such a numerical advantage that he didn’t think Raytak would be able to do much against them.
“In that case, move as fast as you can toward Holdfast. If you can take it, do so. If they’re too well dug in, wait for my army to join you, and in the meantime, send a force to take that ruins of the Gul Dorg place and the Drebix lands. Neither location can have much in the way of a garrison,” Zipp replied.
“When are you going to leave, and what forces of mine are you taking with you?” Narbos asked.
“I’ll take all the Hypogean forces except for one of the tunnel wurms, a hundred lurkers, and a pair of painweavers I’ll leave behind for you. I’m going to take the kobolds, the scallywags, five hundred of your reavers, a hundred executioners, and all the town guards with me. I plan to leave immediately and should be able to take the mountain in at most two days. The main thing I need for you to do is hit Raytak hard when he arrives. Don’t let up. Ignore casualties and keep him focused on you and not on Goreaxe Peak,” Zipp ordered.
Narbos watched as Zipp led his forces away. He realized too late that the imp had taken Snuggles with him as a mount, depriving him of his favorite pet. Putting aside thoughts of his abducted dire rat, he focused on the coming battle. Dawn was just starting to break, and Raytak would arrive soon after. It was strange that his “general” didn’t leave any detailed instructions for how he was to fight the battle, but Narbos figured it wouldn’t be too hard. He would just throw his army at Raytak, surround him, and crush him with overwhelming numbers.
“Narbos, what do you want me to do in the battle? I can help out with support spells, and my giants are going to wreck whatever I point them at,” Darkfallow said.
Narbos thought for a moment, coming up with a plan that should work and make the most efficient use of his forces. “I think we’ll have our conscripts up front, then have my reavers try to surround the enemy. Your giants can wade in with the conscripts to keep the enemy focused on the chaff. The lurkers, militia, and executioners will be kept back as a reserve. I’m not sure what the best use of the tunnel wurm would be.”
“Why don’t we use the wurm to set a trap for them?” Darkfallow offered. “Have the thing burrow under the ground and spring out when the enemy approaches. That way, we can kill a bunch of them before the main army starts the fight. I bet that half their army runs away screaming once they see the wurm and my giants,” Darkfallow said with confidence.
“Okay, we’ll give that a try. This is going to be fun,” Narbos said with a grin. Large battles weren’t his favorite type of gameplay, but this one should be epic.
It took longer than he wanted, but Narbos had the army
up and moving shortly after daybreak. His forces didn’t look pretty, but everyone and everything was at least headed in the right direction. After only two hours of marching, Narbos could begin making out the other army approaching. From this distance, it appeared as a collection of small dots.
“Get everyone in formation,” Narbos ordered. He and Darkfallow had gone over the plan with each of the groups during the march. The conscripts were essentially a large mob covering a long front. The giants strode among them, sadly stepping on a few conscripts before the rest learned how much room to leave around each of the monsters. His reavers were divided into two groups of two thousand, one on each flank. Once the conscripts and giants engaged, they would move around to flank the enemy force. The rest of the reavers and the other troops were kept behind the line of conscripts, ready to react to any threats or exploit any opportunities.
“Time to send out the wurm?” Darkfallow asked, excited like a kid who couldn’t wait to play with a new toy. The enemy continued to close the distance, approaching in what looked like three columns of troops with several wagons full of supplies and siege equipment placed toward the back of the army.
“Sounds good. The army out there must look like a buffet to the thing,” Narbos replied.
Darkfallow signaled the wurm, which they had limited control over. The AI allowed them to command the monstrous units with only simple commands such as attack, run, follow, etcetera. Based on a variety of factors, there was also a chance that orders would be ignored and even the outside chance of a creature going berserk and attacking the nearest target, whether it was friend or foe. His other formations had a few more options as far as orders went, and each group had a bar showing something called “fighting spirit.” When the fighting spirit dropped below a certain point, the unit would break and run. Narbos wasn’t sure what drained or filled it exactly, but there were a few indicators when he focused on each unit’s bar. Apparently, losses to friendly forces, enemy strength, and the quality of the unit itself all came into play. When the battle was joined, he would have to keep an eye on this to see how much effect the system had on his army.
The tunnel wurm lunged headfirst into the earth, teeth and clawed feet digging in and propelling it toward the enemy army. The ground wasn’t too hard, save for a few boulders the wurm was bound to run into as it followed a fairly straight line toward the enemy. Small disturbances rippled along the surface as the wurm moved. Narbos wished he could have ordered the creature to go deeper, but he didn’t have that much control over it.
The enemy must have noticed something; their formation spread apart as the wurm drew close. The little carts with giant crossbow things mounted on them moved around in groups, and Narbos could see the larger figures of the ogres breaking up into squads and dispersing around the formation.
With a crunch of wood that Narbos could hear all the way back where he stood, the wurm emerged. It had come up under one of the large supply wagons, obliterating the wooden frame and grinding up the mukok and drivers in its tooth-lined maw. The wurm moved to another of the large wagons and attacked it as well, devouring the mukok and driver while smashing the wagon itself to splinters.
“Woah, look at that thing go. We should have had Zipp leave them all here and they could have eaten Raytak’s whole army,” Darkfallow cheered as the wurm drove toward one of the blocks of soldiers approaching it. Instead of breaking and fleeing, the soldiers presented shields and unleashed a volley of javelins at the wurm. Most of the javelins hit, and a few even penetrated the monster’s thick hide. The wurm’s health bar barely moved at first but then began to drop at a rapid pace as other groups of soldiers threw javelins, fired crossbows, or hacked with melee weapons.
His hopes that the wurm would destroy Raytak’s army all on its own were dashed as small carts unleashed bolts from their giant crossbow-looking things, which the AI identified as something called a scorpion. The bolts easily slammed through the monster’s tough hide, and several of them even exploded with magical energy when they hit, tearing chunks of flesh from the wurm. Squeals of pain emerged from the beast as it went into a frenzy, killing dozens of soldiers before finally succumbing to its wounds.
“It did some damage, but I kind of thought it would get more done than that,” Darkfallow said with disappointment.
“Yeah, should have probably waited to launch the thing until after the main fight started,” Narbos agreed, angry at himself for the missed opportunity. Still, two of the enemy’s large wagons were destroyed, and the monster killed at least fifty soldiers.
With surprising coordination, the soldiers reformed their three columns and continued their advance toward Narbos. When they reached a range well out of bowshot, the columns began to turn, and the force formed into a long battle line made up of fifty-man blocks. There were three rows of blocks, and the gaps between them allowed scores of soldiers and blue-painted Drebix tribesmen through their lines. The approaching soldiers and Drebix were armed with crossbows and throwing spears.
“Attack!” Narbos ordered as he watched Raytak’s skirmishers unleash a volley of bolts and spears at his massed conscripts. The sheer number of his troops made it hard for the soldiers to miss, and dozens of conscripts died in the first volley. His army began to advance, bone giants striding in their midst. Once again, the giants stomped a few of the conscripts into the ground, but it was only a drop in the bucket as far as their total numbers were concerned.
The skirmishers fell back as his forces approached. With each of their long strides, the bone giants began to pull away from the conscripts. Missiles flew from the scorpion things as they fired on his giants. Most of the bolts glanced off, having only chipped the bones a bit. Like with the tunnel wurm, a few of the bolts exploded with magical energy and did some serious damage to the giants when they hit.
The skirmishers and the groups of blue-painted warriors that had accompanied them filtered through the line of legion defenders and disappeared. Once the skirmishers were clear, the whole enemy formation then turned and began to retreat, only to turn around every few minutes so the ranged troops could fire a volley. The whole time, the scorpion carts pelted his bone giants, chipping away at their enormous health pools.
“Check out those elite ogres, Narbos,” Darkfallow said as groups of twenty ogres left the safety of Raytak’s line and attacked his bone giants, which had outpaced the mass of conscripts with their huge strides and were well in front of the rest of the army. The ogres showed no fear, hacking their oversized weapons into their giant foes with immense strength while trying to dodge the slow attacks from the bony hands reaching down at them. Some of the ogres proved too slow or were too focused on attacking to avoid their foes’ grasping claws. Ogres were snatched up and crushed in the giants’ grip. One giant raised the squirming ogre to its mouth and tried to bite down. A squeal of metal on bone split the air as the giant bit the ogre in two, both halves and several of the giant’s teeth falling to the ground.
Ten of the ogres had been killed by the time the first giant was brought down. Once the giant was down, the rest of the ogres fled into the retreating lines of Raytak’s army. Narbos continued forward with his army and pursued the retreating enemy, his troops taking continuous damage from enemy fire yet unable to close the distance.
“What are those clowns doing?” Darkfallow asked as a half dozen legion soldiers bearing no weapons or shields walked in front of their line. The soldiers just stood there with their heads down and eyes closed as the wave of conscripts approached.
“What’s going on with our men?” Darkfallow said as the lead dozen or so conscripts turned around and began to attack each other. The confusion went on for some time and inflicted scores of casualties before the six legionnaires raised their heads and walked back into the enemy formation.
“They must have been some kind of mage or priest type of soldier with a mind-control spell,” Narbos guessed.
“Yeah, and having their own people turn on them has really taken a chunk out o
f the conscripts’ fighting spirit,” Darkfallow added. Narbos could see that their fighting spirit was nearly empty. He hoped they could run down the enemy before his men broke.
Hours passed and his losses mounted. Another of the giants fell to the annoying scorpions before Narbos ordered the others to withdraw out of range. He was willing to take losses with his conscripts but didn’t want to lose the last pair of powerful giants for no reason. Darkfallow stayed by his side. Both were becoming frustrated and angry over an enemy that refused to stand and fight.
“Dude, why don’t they just fight and get it over with? This stupid chase is getting boring,” Darkfallow whined.
“I know. We’re getting closer to Goreaxe Peak, though, and Zipp should take that over before too long. If their resupply gets cut off, they won’t be able to fire at us anymore,” Narbos replied. In fact, the pursuit of Raytak’s army had drawn both forces closer and closer to Goreaxe Peak. He began to wonder why Zipp said it would take so long to work his way around and take the mountain. Perhaps he was including the time it would take to clear out all the defenders. The ogres likely had hidden tunnels and other surprises for Zipp’s force, surprises that would take time to overcome.
“Let’s see if we can run the reavers past their army and cut them off from retreat. Maybe the lurker things could get behind them. Those guys are as fast as they are ugly,” Darkfallow offered.
It wasn’t a bad suggestion, and they needed to stop Raytak’s army sooner rather than later. His pursuit by the conscripts was becoming more and more ragged as exhaustion debuffs began to pop up, reducing their speed and combat ability. Whereas they had once been a single blob, the formation of conscripts now was spread out over a quarter-mile. The more fit were in the lead, and those conscripted citizens used to more sedentary work were falling farther behind; farmers and craftsmen had more stamina than shopkeepers and bartenders. Still, in the back of his mind, Narbos kept thinking about how many of his citizens were being killed off during this war. Bharga’s Crossing was going to take a huge productivity hit if things continued this way.