Ch 22: the 52nd battle of the Ardeiser-Valdari fortresses
As they were speaking the war was going on, of course. And on the northern side of the Valdari river, a series of forts held back the Mewnian. Rowley Turning peeked out of the viewing hole, getting a peek of the battlefield. What was once the Ardeiser forest was now burned down to the ground, with occasional craters littering the landscape. This hellish view was the best he could hope for today, for he hoped nothing would change. That no battle would take place.
Of course, this was wishful thinking. There were about 3 battles every day, although no battles on the fort he was assigned to. He took part in all of them though, all 51 of them across the Valdari forts. He then heard metal creaking next to him. He was alone, so sound inside the fort could mean two things: A new message in the nesting box or he was going crazy. Thankfully, it was the former. A pigeon flew in through the pigeon door and into the nesting cage.
Turning opened the cage door and retrieved the message from the bird's leg. It was the same message he had seen 51 times: "The Glory of a Strong Soldier!" Turning recognized the handwriting. It was Joseph's, assigned to fort 18. That was a major advantage the defenders had, there were so few of them that they had no need to send risky communications. Joseph was likely also alone in his own fort. Turning flipped the paper over on the back and wrote: "Resist and Bite!" He then released the pigeon back out, confirming that he would be there.
Turning picked up his Bellumnum, which is a magical wand used specifically for war. He then opened a trapdoor near the back of the fort and found himself in the rudimentary tunnels again. These tunnels connected each and every fort to each other so that people can be redistributed with ease. This made it seem like each and every fort was manned with 100 people when in reality there would only be 100 people across the entire Valdari line.
Turning made his way across the tunnels, feeling the occasional rock hit his dirty uniform. It was worse a few days ago, cramped and almost alive with everything crawling in the tunnels. It got better because of extensive use, though. The tunnels were made surprisingly quickly in the first place, there were only 6 days of warning when high command said they couldn't supply reinforcements. Then someone proposed the tunnels.
Turning ran into one of his comrades, but he made no greeting. Both of them were too morose at what was to come. He ran into more and more, and he sensed a universal feeling of dread. He understood, and this was not the first time the universal dread happened.
He heard sounds of battle as he neared his destination. Rumble of the ceiling from footsteps and magical explosions, then clanking of metal, then muffled screams and war chants. War chants in his own language, and war chants in Mewni's language. Shame he didn't choose English as a language to master, his other two languages seemed non-important now.
Turning reached his destination. The sounds of battle were clear now, with a ladder coming down from a trapdoor that led up to fort 18. He climbed up it. And ran to the front.
Turning got a clear view of the battlefield and took it in for a moment. Columns of the Mewnian elite, or what he assumed were the Mewnian elite, struggled to hold together as they marched onto the fort. A storm the day before had turned the dirt into mud, explosions from Bellumnum made this mud almost deadly, as explosions would displace mud on top of Mewnians and trap them. And the explosions themselves could make columns of Mewnians scatter. But they always seemed to reorganize no matter how many had drowned in the mud.
Turning made his contribution over the course of two hours, casting explosion spells that made the battlefield into more of a hell than it previously was. He observed Mewnians trying to flee the battle, and he wouldn't let that happen. The weather changed during that time into a light shower. This seemed to be the last straw for the Mewnians, as the formations devolved from tight columns to loose groups to all-out scatter. This actually made it harder to get a two-in-one hit. Then, he heard metal creak behind him.
"YO YOU WERE RIGHT!" Turning looked back and saw a Mewnian poking his head out of the trapdoor. He hesitated in casting an explosion, as that would destroy the fort. That hesitation was enough for the Mewnian to pop back down.
It didn't take long after that. Turning told the soldiers what he just saw but it was too late. The Mewnians had infested the tunnels, and they couldn't hold off a two-front war. They were quickly overrun.
Turning was disarmed and forced on his knees in a row with his fellow soldiers. He saw their uniforms mud-stained from the tunnels. He saw their eyes, sunken from 18 days of battle. Then he saw some of them smiling, which confused him but when he thought of the battles from the Mewnian's point of view, he understood. And he gave a small smirk.
He envisioned the flag of their nation, which is the head of a boar, and smirked some more. The boar was a powerful beast, and to defeat it there had to be ten fallen men before the boar's head would be triumphantly shown. And the word 'triumphantly' is used very loosely.