Runt 11


Subcommander Ulfrik Eilifsson

What a glorious day for a battle, there's nothing else to say really. The last 10 minutes I have been chopping heads and breaking shields with my massive ax as the Trucebreaker's forces broke themselves on our shield wall.

The wolf witch had experimented with several ways to use my brawlers and I thought this one was the best. When the battle had started an hour ago only three formations had been in position.

My own, the dark blue commander's Jon Alfgeirsson troops and the Russ's forces.

We were well aware of where the enemy was, our scouts had been keeping a tab on them and sending back information but Larlsson's forces had simply taken a wrong turn and ended up running into a large formation of enemy flanker units.

Exact number of the enemy unit was unknown but Tanya had elected to take her Wolf Cavalry to find out if it was a real problem or something that could be handled by the red and green of Commander Nikolas Larlsson.

But she had not left before giving direct orders on how we were to handle the enemy formation in front of us, which was relatively equal to ours. I think we even had a few more troops than them.

It was a simple plan, an easy plan, and that's why it was working. We had let the enemy move their shield wall directly into contact with ours at the shallow end of the valley with heavy forest on all sides, especially behind us. Thankfully our scouts had managed to keep the exact numbers of our men hidden and the enemy had assumed that there were only the two formations, shield walls and archers, to their flanks so they'd only stretched their shield wall out as far as necessary. At the last moment our shield wall had opened up, making room for my formation of heavy ax Men to take the center.

Granted my heavy Ax Men were not doing as much damage as I would prefer, they would need to get onto a flank to do that, but this particular method had allowed us to wedge into their center, which had generally led to their formation backing up as we pushed forward. We couldn't push too hard because their own archer formations were firing into anyone who exposed themselves too much but counterfire was evenly returned and we appeared to be winning.

Unless some other formation came out of the woods behind them to support I think we're not going to lose this fight. If anything I believe we're going to push them all the livelong day until they break.

Of course that would not be the fate of this formation as whatever aid they may have been calling for seemed to have not made it in time. I had taken a step back to let some of my men get a chance to get some hits and catch my breath for another spot in the front line when I saw the Wolf Witch herself appear on the hill behind the enemy. Waving her sword about, several other wolves of common variety appeared around her as well as some Blackmaned with Russ troops riding their backs.

I expected her to charge down and slaughter the enemy from behind but apparently that was not the plan as her wolves let out a howl. The surprise attack was replaced with a stunning amount of wolf howls echoing throughout the valley that we had chosen for our little fight.

This got several of the enemies facing us to turn to see what was going on and realize their new predicament. The enemy commander seemed to realize his predicament as well and started to holler for his men to turn their back ranks around to face this new threat, which would severely weaken their whole formation.

Their attempt to turtle up and protect themselves resulted in an opening for my man to fight their way through. After all, there was now only two ranks of men between them and the center of the newly formed square.

My ax man had seen the opportunity and immediately began chopping their way through the shield wall, battering it down and trying to force their way in. This resulted in the enemy formation giving more ground and I had to call my men back a bit as there was a risk for them to be encircled by accident if they got too far forward.

This brief break in the battle resulted in the lines falling away from each other as the now much smaller force tried to compact itself and help the archers, who were being pummeled by our own scouts, retreat into their formation.

I wondered what Tanya was doing since she was up there watching this. She could definitely see the opportunity, laid bare for everyone, of a chance to unleash her wolves and butcher the enemy formation but she seemed content to let them compact themselves.

after a bit though she got off her wolf and reached into a saddlebag before pulling out a white shield. She waved it over, most likely trying to get the enemy to see that she was holding up the standard signal for a ceasefire.

Curious, I called for our archers to stop firing. This had not been in the plan but I wanted to see what she was doing.

Their own archers soon stopped firing and a silence, besides the wails of the wounded, overtook the field. Carefully the Wolf Witch walked down from where her wolves were watching and headed towards the enemy formation.

Part of me was worried as, at the angle I was at, we couldn't exactly see what was going on but she was tall enough that I could see the banner of her blonde hair above them. If she was in danger we would know and I'd get us attacking right away. Actually the wolves would howl and start charging right away if she came under direct threat, which would be a better indication than just seeing if her head went down.

What happened there I wasn't sure. After all it was quite a distance away but, by the looks of it, she was parlaying with the enemy commander. And by the fact that the conversation went on for about half an hour I assumed it was a very lengthy parlay.

After a while Tanya came around the side of the formation and walked up to me. The other commanders had gathered to my side while we waited and I could see the green and red formation had taken up the hill behind the wolves so the enemy was truly encircled at this point, there was no way they were getting out of it.

In her hand she was holding a sword and looked rather pleased with herself.

"Good news! The enemy Commander has seen reason."

"When you say 'see reason', what do you mean?" Jon Alfgeirsson asked, curious.

"In exchange for letting him and his men go, he has promised to never take up swords against us for the rest of the campaign season."

"Sounds risky. How do we know he's going to stick to the deal?" my counterpart asked, pointing out the obvious.

"Greed! It's a wonderful thing when you know how to use it to your advantage. I simply said that we have no interest in occupying the Trucebreaker's territory after this conflict. Which means that, with severely depleted forces, whoever takes over after him will not be able to hold on to that territory. I simply brought up the fact that if he gets out now there's a better chance that he will secure himself a larger piece of the pie after the conflict. He was more than willing to hand over his sword after that."

"That's a bit underhanded." I brought up, not particularly enjoying the fact that I had been prevented from some glory in battle.

"Underhanded, yes. But better for everyone in the long run; wasting resources fighting the Trucebreaker's minions will just tire us out before we get the chance to break into his fortress. So if we can find ways to get them to either side with us or flip out of the conflict entirely I'm going to take it." Tanya said, tightening her newly captured sword to her belt.

There was some sort of wisdom in what she said and, though it pained me to admit it, she was probably right.

"Fine, then can you explain what happened with the other formation that Larlsson's men ran into? I thought the only other formation in the area was being handled by the scouts we sent out earlier to keep them busy."

"As far as I can tell? That is still happening. Our scouts are keeping that next army busy chasing its tail. This formation appears to have been an advanced force that was sent to link up with our recently defeated foes from the second formation. Apparently there have been rumors of giant wolves in our army and the enemy commander of the second formation had great axes designed for fighting wolves so he thought he'd send them along ahead. Was a bit of trouble dealing with them but, well, they were mainly pointing their great axes at the shield wall of Larlsson's red and green men which meant it was easier to flank them than it would have been."

Of course the axes they brought were for normal giant wolves, not Blackmaned. They would have been much less effective than they should have been.

"Must have been a slaughter,". Jon Alfgeirsson surmised.

"Unfortunately. I would have preferred to offer them a surrender but the situation did not allow the opportunity, so I had to deal with them the old-fashioned way."

"So, we've dealt with this advance formation of the enemy there. I assume our next move is to move on to the enemy you have currently chasing your scout Cavalry ?"

"Better than that. Our Cavalry will be coming into an area to the north of here, great ground for a little bit of an ambush. We can rest up there and wait for them to show up then we'll destroy them or get them to capitulate. Either way leaves our goals accomplished for today."

"Take 20 minutes for our men to scavenge any resources from the dead or wounded. What they can't take will probably be taken by the enemy formation that has surrendered. We'll be moving out in 30'." She ordered casually, expecting us to obey without a question by her simple decree.

And frankly I saw no reason not to. Oh, the men would grouch up about not being able to fully divest the dead of their valuables. But 20 minutes was more than enough time to find anything of worth, and anything that you left behind was basically a bribe to the enemy formation to not change sides back on them.

And, well, she was right on about one thing. Greed has its ways and a bribe to stay out of the conflict was going to work a lot better than an offer to stay out of the conflict so you might get something afterwards.

Nodding my head I said "let's get to work. We've got another enemy formation to beat the hell out of and not a lot of time."


Tanya

Organizing men came rather easy to me. You would think that trying to get a formation of men to fight a battle the way you wanted to would be a complex and hard process for someone who'd never done it before. As far as I was aware the closest I'd ever come to this sort of situation would be organizing the firing of individuals who had failed so spectacularly that caution required several people to tell them to leave. A very rare and minimal occurrence.

But I was beginning to think I was familiar with giving orders. The headaches had been killer when I first started marching men around, they left over time but they were still there. Either whatever mental wall that kept my memories of whatever had come before locked away was weakening or I was deadening the nerves responsible for transmitting the pain about it. Both were supposedly an option so it was hard to say and I was no doctor or anyone with a degree in how the brain works.

And frankly I don't think even they would have any idea what was going on with a person who had memories from their previous life. Last time I had checked such discussions had always been about crackpot fools claiming they were Nefertiti in the last life or maybe Caesar. Yes, reincarnation was part of Buddhism but I was not a follower of that religion, wasn't a follower of most religions. Yes, Patton had claimed to be the reincarnation of several military figures throughout history, but I had always put that down to him being very eccentric and being more about soldiers and generals being of the same stuff throughout history.

That being said I was fairly certain at this point that my last life had been in the military. At first I had thought that maybe this was more of that other instinctive guide I felt when I first arrived on this planet, providing knowledge of how things could be created that I could not explain. But there was definitely something else going on; the way I gave orders felt comfortable not in an 'I know how to give orders' kind of way but more with the feeling that I had done this before.

And because I seemed to be able to exude confidence at a high enough level that the men who ultimately led the forces I controlled tended to believe my statements. After our battle with the first enemy force we had been able to quickly maneuver to the next position and ambush the second enemy force. That force had not been as large as the first one, thanks to our early crushing of their advanced units, but they did give a good little fight for a while.

They even refused to surrender when I offered it, which had been a stupid and foolhardy thing. With their rejection I had been left with no other efficient way to defeat them than unleashing the wolves.

Casualties from that fight had been minimal; catching an enemy unaware and then grinding them down from all sides till they broke tended to result in that way.

By my estimate about a third of the army I defeated was still in action, another third dead, and another my prisoners either as wounded or in better shape.

That was the position I did not want to be in, holding captives, so I had paroled them as quickly as I could after giving them basic medical care.

That's for the enemy army that had been still in the field but I did not believe it had maintained that number. It looked like half was under control of their commanding officers but the other half looked like they were just running, which meant it was probably more like a sixth of the army was still in functioning capability. And a sixth was small enough that my wolf scouts could pummel them with arrows till they were either nothing or broke completely, which is what they were currently doing. I hoped that, in the morning, I'd hear a report that they were completely wiped out or at least out of the fight, but I wouldn't know till though the wolf scouts returned.

As for myself I was preparing for the next day of combat. There was a third force moving towards us, this one was a combined elements of two of the forces we were already preparing to fight so it was on par with our own formation. I really did not want to have to fight them at parity, that would just grind both forces down to nothing. Which would mean the end of the whole campaign as there would be no way I'd be able to defeat the Trucebreaker's main army inside his castle.

Which meant I would need to think of some way of defeating this Force piecemeal. Maybe have them chase us and string them out? That was an option but not a good one, that would just tire out my own forces if done improperly and there was not a lot of room to maneuver in this area. The roads were few and a lot of the trail was tough, the scouts could get around with my wolves fine enough but moving the entire formation of the army? That would turn anything under our feet into mud and bog us down. Which is why I had taken to moving my men in three columns on separate roads, less mud buildup. Of course it opened me up to the possibility of also being defeated in detail but so far they didn't have the forces in the region to do that, or weren't employing the scouts which I assumed they had in an effective way.

Never assume your enemy is dumber than you, this is something all militaries must grapple with and I understood that well enough. Just because I was making great use of my scouts didn't mean they weren't. The only way they could possibly be screwing that up is some sort of humorous and as far as I'd seen they didn't have much hubris.

But that was a problem for morning Tanya! Right now I was tired, it had been a long day and I just wanted to get a little bit of a rest. Laying against Fierce's side so we could share warmth I closed my eyes and prepared to get some sleep.

Then a clattering of bangs and noises broke that attempt. Sitting up, confused, I quickly got up and stepped out of my tent, looking around and trying to figure out what was the racket about.

That racket turned out to be one of my wolf scouts who apparently rode his wolf into a rack of weapons that had been put aside for a cleaning crew to make sure they were in good condition for tomorrow.

"Lady Tanya!" The man in question said, jumping off the wolf and landing in the light layer of mud that spring had brought in before running in my general direction. If he had not called my name I might have gone back into the tent but I assumed that if he was calling for me there was some important reason for it. So I folded my hands across my chest and waited for him to arrive.

The scout in question was on the shorter side so I was forced to look down on him as he ran up to me, stopping as he did and leaning over to catch his breath.

"Good evening, Mr?" I fished for his name as I was not familiar with this particular scout.

"Trygve, of second wolf scout company. I bring news of grave importance." He apparently was dead tired from whatever spurred his charge to me so I let him catch his breath, even if I was fairly worried that I was about to hear news that the enemy had encircled my position and we were about to be besieged.

If that happened we weren't in the worst position we had taken ownership of one of the Hill forts my scouts had found in the days after arrival in this region.

"Go on." I said after he took just a moment too long.

"Yes, ma'am! Styr reports the enemy formation we fought today has surrendered 5 miles from here, the prisoners were paroled as advised and their Commander's sword was confiscated. Apparently he took an arrow earlier in the battle and was not in control of the formation this entire time, he finally passed after the battle and the force's subcommanders offered the sword as proof that they will stick to their word."

I blinked a couple times, a bit stunned by this. I had assumed toughness and gritty stubbornness had been the inspiration for their holding out as long as they did, finding out it was simply that their Commander was near death and no one knew what to do was a bit saddening really. If they had taken a moment to try and communicate with us instead of shooting at me when I raised the white shield a lot more of them would be alive right now.

"But that's not all, Lady Tanya. Third company reports making contact with the new enemy formation. They're coming down the road from the east."

"What happened? What are the losses like?" I asked, trying to determine how bad the situation was. Moving our formation at night was not something I had expected but then again night and day were relative this far up in the longitudes. So it was possible there were night fighters amongst this formation that could help their unit move when it got too dark.

"They requested a parlay with, I quote, the 'wolf priestess'."

I blinked again then took a calming breath and said "They want to have a parlay?". This was not what I had expected, this was in fact the opposite of what I expected. But then again I had defeated two enemy forces the day before, even with a larger force maybe the commanders of this formation had realized that it would be better to try diplomacy.

And that was something I was willing to give them, a chance to stop the waste of human resources over a trucebreaker was worth a little risk of them trying to assassinate me. Which, considering the superhuman abilities my body had displayed, I did not believe would be successful.

Looking down at the scout, noting that he was trying to figure out if I was asking him what a parlay was, I brushed that off and asked "When do they want to have this meeting?"

"Tomorrow, at midday. There's a river with an island in the middle of it, 3 miles from here, and they want to meet on the island."

Nodding my agreement I said "All right. Find a scout to send back to your formation to let them know we agreed to this, then find a place to sleep."

"Yes, ma'am!" The man replied, giving a variant on their local salute before wandering off. I shrugged and turned back towards the main command tent around the corner. I would need to track down the subcommanders and let them know the situation. Thank goodness I could operate on just a little sleep, I would probably only be getting a couple hours at this point.


Tanya

I had expected many possible things when I had heard they wanted to meet: a trap, perhaps demands for surrender. All of those things had been based on the preparatory idea that I would be facing Noble Lords wanting to suck up to their boss by handling a situation for him.

Well, one of them was a noble Lord and his forces were equipped as heavily as Russ's, their armors and weapons not too dissimilar from the housecarls that followed me besides having an orange tint to their clothing.

The other however was not a noble Lord. From the top down it was a priest of some kind and, judging by all the fur that looks suspiciously like it had come from a wolf, I was thinking it was some sort of wolf priest.

His men were no different, though with less wolf fur and claws strapped to them. They appeared to be more of a masonic order of light infantry.

Why were the wolf priests leading an army against me? I did not know, did I piss off some local deity? Was it a Tuesday? I really wish I understood more of the stuff I ended up getting myself involved in.

As for where we were meeting the island in the river was barely 10 yards wide. My enemies had arrived first and set up a table, with chairs for people to sit at.

At least, most people. I, being unfortunately of larger height than most, was afraid that the campaign chairs they had brought might snap under my weight so I was standing.

We had just gone through the pleasantries of good morning take a seat oh you can't because you're too tall no problem and were moving on to the meat of the conversation.

The noble started us off with a simple statement, "all right Russ dog witch! As Geir Bretakollrsson, Jarl under Lord Farthegn; I ask you quite clearly: what are your intentions in this attack on our lands."

Didn't even bother to ask my name? Not a lot of respect coming from these people, but then again I was the enemy so that was to be expected. "I, Tanya, champion of the king of Russ, have been given a simple mission: deal with Lord Farthegn who has attempted to destabilize the other side of the mountains by assassinating the king of the Russ. How I will go about doing this is up to me, though I would prefer minimal casualties to all sides and no dead children if I can help it."

"So you don't wish you put yourself as the new king of this territory?" Jarl Geir Bretakollrsson asked, as a servant of his handed him a goblet of mead. There were several servants running around and one was handing one to the priest. One was even heading towards me though I waved them off. I doubted that they would try and poison me but I wanted a clear and sharp mind for whatever this conversation provided and I had already been screwed once by drinking a little bit too much.

"I have no need for the land, I raise wolves and hunt monsters for sport. Lord Farthegn broke the truce with that assassination attempt, he is a monster that needs to be dealt with but no one else needs to die for his crimes."

The Jarl Geir Bretakollrsson nodded as he listened and then finally he just put the cup down on the table.

"And if I were to offer to join your little mission against Lord Farthegn in exchange for his castle? Would you be willing to accept this alliance?"

I blinked a couple times as I had not expected outright treason. It should have been something to consider, those were cruel times and I'd already proven that, given the right situation, the enemy"s smaller forces were willing to bow out of the fight.

Treason that was a bit more than I expected. "Why do you want his castle dearly enough that you'd be willing to commit treason?" I asked it outright, there was no reason to not dance around the central question.

"The castle is a family heirloom, Lord Farthegn took it when he rose the power 10 great years ago. I've been waiting for an opportunity to get it back for a long time and considering you've already defeated two of the enemy forces I would have had to fight… Siding with you seems like a good opportunity to accomplish my overarching goals of retrieving the castle."

Regional politics? Figures that an a****** willing to attempt politics by other means in the region next door would have quite a few enemies at home.

"I would be willing to accept this alliance though, let me make this clear if you were to break this alliance you would be no better than the trucebreaker to me. So unless you are willing to stick by this alliance and fight Lord Farthegn with me it would be better for you to just pull out of the war completely. I would rather you safe at home with your troops than at my back preparing to stab it."

The Jarl Geir Bretakollrsson nodded then said "There's a lot of bad blood between his family and mine. And no bad blood between you and me. I wish to see Lord Farthegn removed from power. If you will have my forces we will pay him back for the humiliation he put on my family 10 years ago."

He put his hand out and I took it, giving it a shake. Having a few hundred extra men to throw at an enemy force would be worthwhile. I would just have to be careful about how to use them and make sure that they didn't degrade the work ethic of my original forces.

Turning to the wolf priest I said "Are you also a victim of Farthegn wishing for a little bit of vengeance?"

"Oh goodness, no," the elderly man said as he sipped his Mead.

"No, no. I'm but a simple priest and follower of the Allfather, I simply came to see if the rumors were true that the enemy force was led by a warrior marked by wolves." He continued, looking directly at my right eye where the scars from the fight with the wolves still cut across my face.

"Well, the rumors are true," I answered, folding my arms in front of me. "I also lead packs wolves, what does it matter to your priesthood?"

"Oh, Legends. Nothing too serious, just that the chosen one will be marked by wolves and have them come at their Beck and call. The old stuff I've always believed was simply allegory."

"Chosen one?" I said, sounding a bit more dumbstruck than I wanted to. I was really hoping this was not going where it was looked like it was going.

"Ye,s yes, a wolf master who would unite the continent through deed and merit to bring honor and trade across the world of Fenris."

"Those are some very specific old Legends," I said, taking a moment to consider my options. 500 more light infantry would help in the coming campaign, there was still a good number of forces to hit and there was a chance they would reach a large enough number that my forces could not take them out piecemeal as we had done the first few. But on the other hand allowing the religious types to believe me some sort of Chosen One… Well, that could be bad in the long run. Not that I would abuse the power, more that the people would expect you to do things. Things such as uniting the continent and bringing trade and honor. I just wanted to raise wolves and have as good a retirement as I could get on a medieval world.

"Yes, very specific, the final proof in fact is foretold that they will call the thunder wolves to them in their moment of need. And in order to find this event someone needs to be there and witness it," He stood up and bowed. "The wolf priesthood offers our services to your campaign. Lord Farthegn has been demanding more taxes from us either way so an opportunity to remind him that he is not the chosen one is something we would greatly enjoy doing."

Ah, so that's the game. In order to prove someone was the chosen one they needed to call the thunder wolves which is something I could not do, but they also had problems with Lord Farthegn and simply wanted to piss him off. Well, enemy of my enemy is convenient

Holding out my hand, I said "I accept your services, wolf priest…" I said it in a way that I indicated I was fishing for his name

"Nafni of the Wolf order," he said with a smile, taking the hand and shaking it.


I had feared the enemy would be able to piece together some sort of better operation, after all I had a large area of territory to cover before meeting the next enemies on my list.

Even with a stable pace of march we were only 1/3 of the distance to Lord Farthegn's Castle in 2 weeks. Those two weeks helped me integrate the new formations of troops into my own, not as well as I would have liked but having more manpower was better than having no manpower.

Over those two weeks though the land turned to mud as spring went into full effect and slowed us down to a pace that was insulting the very idea of speed. In that time the other three formations raised under the enemy Lord had managed to come together and had taken position between my Target and myself. The lowlands we traveled through were mostly trees and mud but the particular area they had chosen to set up camp was a river with only two possible points of crossing. With an amount of troops similar to my own there was no real way for me to just bully my way through either point. If I tried to they would simply pull the troops from one Target location to the other and I would be stuck at a chokepoint, sending my men into an unstable battleground whichever any Ford we tried to cross.

This was not a good position to be in, but at least we weren't starving. Our allies were able to convince local villages to supply us with food to feed my man in walls and thankfully the game around here was plentiful. And rivers, so our source of fresh water was covered.

Figuring out how we were going to get across was the big issue of the day. Part of me wished I could just fly over that River. If we could just get men on the other side and the situation maybe we could force a crossing. But trying to force our way across another Ford, even against a destabilized force, was not likely to succeed. Unless it was a big stabilization.

We needed some sort of distraction, some massive upheaval that could change the rules of the field.

What that would be I had no idea yet. Being mad at myself I decided I need to clear my head and I took Fierce out for a ride. I didn't fear an ambush so I didn't bring anyone along with me, better to leave the scouts in their place to make sure the enemy didn't hold some third secret forwarding location and attempted to hit us in our side when we weren't looking.

In other words, I just traveled alone upriver towards the North and the mountains. I had come across a few maps during the planning of this campaign so I had a better understanding of how this world, at least the main continent of Asaheim, locked; it was basically divided up into three or four zones with mountains making up the central area and lowlands being split up between mountain ranges that ran to the coast. Around the coast were icefields for the most part. Oh there were breaks in those, warm water currents that allowed natural harbors to be used during spring and summer, but even they were somewhat surrounded by icebergs till full-on summer hit and the ice was destroyed in the season of Fire.

Granted I wanted to see that from my residence, and not on this Coast. Because if that happened we were pretty much trapped in an area with people who probably would turn on us eventually. Which is why I needed to come up with some way to get us through that blockade and onto the other side. But how was I going to do it? Oh, if only i had some expl... That hurt. Pain, utter pain. I nearly fell off Fierce as a headache ripped through me but it was almost worth it as an answer to the question finally came to my mind. Though it raised about a dozen more. Explosive spell, how did I know that? Was I a wizard in my last life? what the hell…


Writers note: this one more balanced the last chapter and I feel better about it, besides that, I would like to thank SuperiorFreak from fanfiction for providing cover art. If you like to see all the possible covers fine the space battles or SV thread as I provided a link to them there. I was honored that someone was interested enough to make something based on my work so that is all that really matters to me.


Edited by: Preier, M.G. ,

Support: M.G.


reviews
Green Espada: thank you! and yeah was a bit over dramatic... but it fits...
Kevin Bakeland: thank you!
Chronolocked: i would assume so but i need to track down when he shows up in the time line.
MidKnightMoonglow99:will have to wait and see how things play out
Modify the Lifestream: thank you!
skrapsynneh:thank you!
Guest: it is!
e10620ac: i'm trying!
SuperiorFreak:you will get that at some point as i said last week was not great
SomePervyGuy: hahaha yeah... playing in to the meme of it all means that going to be a thing on and off
unseenw0lf: here here i can't wait eather, but have to get lore of fenris down or started in soem cases.