by Charles Dean
Darwin smiled. “That’s because this war won’t be won one-on-one. If our troops engage just the enemy that is in front of them, how many more will take their place? If they lust for blood and rampage, what will happen with the front lines? Even if they get a few kills, which they very well might if they were trained by you, the line will still be compromised eventually. Gaps and weak points will inevitably form given enough time. There are too many factors that can’t be controlled if the soldiers all have the freedom to act however they want. They need to learn--they must learn--to rely on their brothers and sisters in arms, a trust that has kept me alive a lot recently.”
“And the extra large shields and long spears will do that?” Alex continued his hunt for answers. When Darwin had first laid out the plan, and showed him the designs for how he would need a shield to be constructed, Alex and the others listening had been more than a little confused. They had been befuddled and bewildered. They were used to the idea of a long spear being taller than a man, but not almost taller than two men. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what Darwin needed--spears long enough to reach over several men and continuously stab at and push off the enemy. That’s why the dory, a kind of spear used by Greek hoplites, had been so long.
The second detail that had shocked those currently training with the new weapon was that the spears felt frail and flimsy, especially when compared to the ones they had held and wielded their whole life. The people of this area were used to thick and heavy spears capable of blocking or withstanding hits from the sides, spears that were built to be two handed. The dory, however, was designed specifically be much lighter, only weighing between two to five pounds each. The major differences that made such a feat possible were the type of wood and the fact that the shaft’s diameter was barely two inches wide. The differences left the soldiers feeling uncomfortable and insecure as they held a weapon they had trouble trusting to withstand even the first series of blows from the enemy.
“Yes, they will.” Darwin answered Alex’s question, looking over in the distance at the group's training. They were lined up in phalanx formation, five men deep and twenty men wide, practicing charging at each other with safety-tipped spears over and over again as they worked out how to get the dory spears to fall so that they hit their enemies square on. “The more they practice, the more they will understand exactly how important they are to each other. They will understand how important their comrade’s shield is and how little they are without it.” He nodded as he saw how much they had already improved. They were slowly starting to get it. The important part of the formation was the shield that protected everything from just above their ankles to over their heads. It was just like his reliance on Minx. It was like his need to have Kass and Kitchens at his back. They were his shields in the previous battle in the dungeon, and if the StormGuard Alliance was going to make it through the upcoming fight, each member would need to rely on more than just himself. They would all need to rely on the shields of their comrades.
“Very well, Lord Darwin. I shall trust you on these matters.” Alex nodded as well, both of them watching the training. “Though I still think you’re a bit crazy.”
Darwin let a big grin break out across his face. “See, even you are learning to trust me thanks to that spear and shield.” He started to laugh. Alex joined in on the chuckle after a moment.
“Lord Darwin, my apologies.” Alex bowed his head ever so slightly. “With the coming siege, I am sure you are very pressed for time, and I am sure I have taken up a great deal of it up by dawdling around here unproductively. Please excuse me,” he finished, and just like that he was gone.
Here I am bringing the technology of my world into his, and he hasn’t even bothered trying to teach me the most fundamental tricks. Am I just supposed to pretend like I’m the commissioner in a masked crusader movie?
“The disappearing thing, it’s crazy, isn’t it?” Kitchens said, walking up behind him. Unlike Alex’s, Darwin could hear the footsteps coming from a distance, a thing that somehow comforted him more and more as days passed.
“Yeah, it really is,” Darwin said, admiring the ability. Even if he were upset, Alex hadn’t offered to teach him the trick yet. “I wish I could do it,” he just blurted out what was on his mind. It was a thing he found himself doing more and more as time passed, being honest and straightforward with his friends.
“Disappear or be invisible?” Kitchens walked up to the spot where Alex had formerly stood.
“Both? I don’t know.” Darwin shrugged. He couldn’t really think of too many practical applications for either of the abilities as he searched through his mind.
“Disappearing can be tricky. Being invisible, not so much. We all are, all the time, to almost everyone.” Kitchens looked around then pointed to a random woman that was helping set up the pike-wall. “For instance, do you see that woman?”
“Yes?” Darwin said, looking at her, she looked like almost every other person in the camp. They all looked almost identical--the same black hair, the same red eyes, the same outfits--but her face was slightly different than the others. She had a mark on her left cheek like she had been cut just enough to leave a scar.
“Good. Now, close your eyes,” Kitchens instructed.
“Okay,” Darwin did as he was told.
“Can you tell me the gender of the two people next to her? Was there anyone in front of her?” He asked.
Darwin, searching his memory for a moment, found that all of those details were missing. He had been so focused on the girl with the scar that he hadn’t noticed anyone around her. He couldn’t even remember if there had even been other people there or not
“You see, we’re all invisible to almost everyone at any given time. It takes more effort to be noticed than it does to be unnoticed,” he said, wrapping up his short and impromptu lesson.
It wasn’t exactly the stealthy trick that Alex was using, but it was definitely useful to think about. “It hasn’t been that long. I thought you would be asleep still,” Darwin said when he remembered that it had barely been six or seven hours since Kitchens had logged off.
“A glass of water before bed serves as a great alarm clock when you start to get older,” Kitchens sighed and smiled at the same time. “Well, that is only the reason for why I am out of bed. The reason I’m up is a very highly caffeinated cup of tea and a nice coffee blend.”
“How old are you again?” Darwin poked fun at him, remembering full and well the rough age of both the old man and his daughter.
“Enough to know a whipper snapper shouldn’t worry about what year a bag of dust expired.” Kitchens’ grin spread wider. “That said, did you even sleep? It’s like you’ve been up all night working on the base.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that I never slept?”
“Maybe. Depends what type of demons you have crawling around in your head.” Kitchens’ smile flattened out and disappeared. “You don’t grow old without locking a few upstairs.”
“Or just ending up as one.” this time Darwin chuckled alone as Kitchens just looked at him funny.
“So what’s going on here? I expected town building, but it seems you skipped everything and went straight for defense,” Kitchens said, noting the surroundings.
“Kind of had to. ‘Bout to be attacked and all,” Darwin offered with a shrug.
“Do we have a rough idea of when?”
“No, nor do we even have a rough idea how many people are actually going to come at us.”
“I see. We don’t know when or how many people are going to attack us, but we do know we’ll be attacked. That’s good. It basically makes us like every country in every region of the world during the middle ages,” Kitchens laughed. “Well, if we’re going to play a simulation game, at least we picked one that hits the mark. After all, what fledgling nation isn’t birthed in blood?”
Darwin tried to think of one for a minute, but, after coming up short-handed, just admitted defeat. “I can’t think of one.�
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“Well, you’re in luck. There is still a chance we won’t be attacked. After all, it’s not written in stone that we are going to be sieged within the first twenty-four hours of being established, is it? There is still the possibility that the attacking forces will be beleaguered and show up unexpectedly late. If you push too hard you may lose your momentum.”
“Hmm.” Darwin didn’t know how to explain that he was a seasoned grinder. Getting burnt out just didn’t happen. He spent years pressing the same five keys in rotation as if he were a well-written code himself. “What happened to Miyamoto Musashi’s resolute acceptance of death speech?”
“Even I abandoned that thought when I had a daughter. A man will find that every year he spends on earth he inevitably sends down roots that make it harder for him to think of moving on, and some roots make it almost impossible,” Kitchens spoke slowly as if he were trying to imitate a fortune cookie.
“Like Minx?” Darwin asked, guessing at the root.
“Or video games. Definitely video games and bad television. Every year I think: ‘Welp, curse you, cliffhangers. Now I can’t be reckless for another year or else I might wind up tossing and turning in the grave, never knowing who really killed Kenny,” he chuckled.
“Hmm. I can definitely feel your pain. Even now I am plagued with uncertainty. Will Sherlock ever find out that Watson is the one secretly killing everyone and framing other people?”
“Would that be counted as Watson betraying Sherlock, or helping him?”
“Tough call. Either way, mind helping out around here? I need to get back to the work,” Darwin said, the topic about having too little time hitting too close to home.
“No problem. Mind running me through the basics of the plan?”
“Actually, it’s a really simple idea. I’m creating two walls on each side of the mountain to direct the incoming attackers into the central gap. To prevent them from just climbing up the walls and hitting us from any angle, we’re building a pike-wall in front of it.” He pointed to the ten- to twelve-foot tall wooden walls with pikes laid out at an angle to properly keep them from being scaled.
“I see you’ve done away with the idea of a gate though?” Kitchens noted the fact that where the walls should have turned inward to form a recession in which a gate would normally stand, they instead extended all the way back until they nearly touched the mountain, leaving a narrowing gap between the walls--and the gap wasn’t small either. The walls turned in toward the mountains at roughly 135 degree angles rather than 90, creating a funnel shape, although the walls eventually curved enough that they started running parallel as they got close to the dungeon’s entrance.
“Yeah, if we already know we’re going to be attacked, why not make sure we’ll know where they’ll focus their assault too? Even if they know it’s a trap and lay siege to one of the walls, we’ll be able to adjust and flank them through the central opening before they get past the wall. This way, we can likely lure them into one spot and still have the flexibility to hit them if they strike elsewhere.”
“If you plan to straighten out the corner and run a phalanx,” Kitchens said as he pointed at the training soldiers, “then why do you have a funnel at the front of your defense wall’s opening, with the wall being wider at the outside and narrowing as it approaches where you’re putting the phalanxes?”
“Ah, that’s just an idea I picked up from some real-time strategy games. The idea is to force the enemy to pressure himself instead of just us. As their force continuously tries to narrow and avoid the pikes on the side, they’ll end up squishing themselves and breaking their own order a bit, sometimes even forcing loose men into the pikes to die.” Darwin pause for a moment. “I’m actually taking quite a few gambles. For instance, I need the enemy to be disorganized. I’m betting they won’t match our front lines in numbers or go straight for the walls with any heavy siege equipment,” Darwin noted, drawing a nod from Kitchens. “But I’m not worried. I remember how disorganized Tiqpa’s NPC armies were on the beaches during the White-Wing battle.”
“They are all very feudal, and feudal societies tend to draw from untrained peasants just as much as they do real, trained soldiers. I wouldn’t be surprised if this Kingdom is no different.” Kitchens continued nodding as Darwin spoke, this time stroking his chin. Darwin knew that he was only nodding in agreement, but for some reason he couldn’t help but think of a bobble head sitting on a car dash when he looked over and saw Kitchens nodding his head with such a stiff body.
“That is what I’m hoping for. Although, I wouldn’t mind if they were also severely undertrained, never leveled, and had a commander who couldn’t figure out which direction was up,” Darwin added. “You know, while we are having wishful thoughts.”
“If you’re going to gamble, go big, right?”
“How about after we finish this up, the two of us find a casino, go to a roulette table, and bet it all on red?”
“Would our chances of winning be larger or smaller?” Kitchens actually chuckled. “Maybe afterwards, we can ask a waitress out and see if the number she gives is real or not.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, but I thought Minx was your daughter? Aren’t you married?” Darwin asked before realizing the nature of his question.
Kitchens went quiet. He didn’t even move for a moment, then just pretended Darwin had never even asked the question. “Well, your plan seems good enough. I’m going to go wake up Minx and tell her to log on. She’d kill me if she missed this. I figure the two of us can help out with wall reinforcements. Where are you going to want us when the battle starts??”
“Would it be shameful to say that I actually don’t know?”
“How about we take our Blue-Drakes and a squad of fighters and flank the enemy’s sides from above when the fight starts? It’ll let us keep working right until the last minute, and give us the mobility to quickly jump into the battle afterwards,” Kitchens suggested.
It made sense too. The soldiers in the phalanx would each be essentially no better or worse than any other. It wouldn’t be representative of their actual combat abilities. The entire formation was designed to rely on cohesion and coordination as part of a group effort. If the phalanx worked correctly, even the least trained fighter could be highly effective. If they were to use the dragons to cut into the enemy ranks, they could do a great deal of damage without having to sacrifice or modify the existing battle strategy or forcing the phalanx to break rank.
“That might be a good use for all of our best fighters. We have plenty of Blue-Drakes to get them into the battle with, and the drake’s flame breath could be used to protect their flanks if we do it right,” Darwin started thinking aloud.
“Always going with fire, are we? I noticed your men were collecting oil from the dead dragons and storing it in jars. Were you originally planning on forcing the enemy to fight even if he tried to escape? Throwing them into a panic with a surprise rear line or scattering them across the field for extra damage and shock effect when the fireballs rain down?”
“Something like that. I was going to pour it across the field and hope to split up the armies mid-fight,” Darwin said, drawing out the strategy on the ground with one of his Burriza’s. “Or, if they were a smaller group, it’d seal them in and let us finish them off before they could retreat and regroup with reinforcements.”
“So, basically, you wanted to use the fire to hedge your bets? As a safety mechanism?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Darwin said, “Got a better idea?”
“Well, water generally likes to have a cup. A force with no form will likely spill everywhere, losing both shape and efficiency.” Kitchens began drawing two big Cs in the middle of the area the enemy would walk over, both with their openings facing each other.
“So you want to use the fire for our backs, not theirs?”
“Indeed. This way, we can drop a force anywhere on the field inside one of those semicircles of fire, and the enemy won’t be ab
le to run, but they won’t be able to reach their backs either. They’ll still be able to press in on the sides, so the phalanx formation won’t work, but you will be able to send in a less organized, less formation-heavy units to wreak havoc and break up the enemy’s pressure on the phalanx.”
“That’s . . .” Darwin stared at it, his right eyebrow creeping towards his hairline as the whole thing began to put itself together in his head. “That’s not a bad idea at all. I wonder if we can build a parachute for Fuzzy Wuzzy. Maybe even get a top hat for him. Nothing would make this plan better than having a giant, ferocious, red-eyed bear parachuting off a Blue-Drake while wearing a monocle and top hat into the battlefield, with Minx shouts war cries down from above the entire time, of course.”
“I’ll tell Minx that if she can complete that outfit before the fight starts, I’ll let her off chores today and tomorrow,” Kitchens said. He had been pulling out a bottle of sake before Darwin told him the idea, but instead put the sake away, chuckled, and started moving his hands in the familiar ‘Log Off’ gesture that Darwin was getting used to seeing. “Let me go wake her up so she has enough time to actually get it done.”
“Sounds good, though you may want to give her a bit more time. She doesn’t have the same alarm clock as you,” Darwin joked, finally being able to tease someone else for being the old man.
“Easy there, upstart,” Kitchens snapped back with a light-hearted tone. “You need me around. If I leave, you’ll be the grandpa of the group again. Anyways, I need to go get my daughter. After seeing the setup, I can be sure that if she misses out on a fight like this, she’ll never forgive me. It’ll be worse than that time I just happened to accidentally spill an entire can of crushed ghost peppers into her boyfriend's meal when he came over for dinner. I thought watching an eighteen year old boy doing a sprinkler impression with his eyes at a dinner table was funny, but she didn’t forgive me for a year. Apparently after eating that much spicy food, his tastes suddenly changed.”