Chapter 19: The Art of War

Approximately 6 kilometres from Alnus Hill, Saderan Empire, Falmart

2207 hrs

Marquis Calasta sat heavily, dropping to the ground as he leaned against a tree. His mind was spinning from the massacre, and from the amount of oxygen as he panted away. His legions, or what was left of them, was doing the same, resting in the forest just short of their previous rally camp. He was just astonished at how he had been able to survive. The explosion that had knocked him from his horse came from behind, his tribune commanders had been eviscerated, but their bodies had sapped all the lethality from the shell. Of course, that meant Calasta was covered in bodies and body parts, but alive was alive. He had crawled, shoved, and sprinted alongside his men, escaping the same fate as the tribunes.

{ But now what? I can't return to the empire, not with this failure to my name. Not even the Crown Idiot would take me back.}

He raised his head to the dying sun, light waning away as thoughts continued to pile into his head.

{ If this failure is heard, my name will be a curse to my family back in Sadera, I must get them.}

The ideas began to form quickly as self-preservation soon kicked in.

{ Yes, I can use these legions that are loyal to me and not the crown, capture…hmm…ah the Western gateway of the empire will do nicely, yes Italica. With the gateway, I can negotiate with the empire while I have that whelp Myui at my feet.}

A smile graced his face as thoughts of grandeur and women filled his mind, stomping out his previous fears.

{I have an entire corp, O'le Molty conscripted any defense left from the vassals, I can take any city state I want. If the mongrel on the throne wants to give me such an opportunity, who am I to refuse?}

He chuckled as he pictured an old senile hound lazing around on a throne. With that, the marquis heaved himself to his feet.

" ANY REMAINING TRIBUNES, COME TO ME!"

No one in ornate armour nor togas stepped forth, instead a couple of centurions stood up from the crowd, some limping while others helped the injured move.

A clear leader stood forward, head held high and right hand resting on the pommel of his gladius, angry fire in his eyes.

Of course, this went unnoticed by the noble, whose thoughts were still flying high in the clouds.

" Tribunes, where are they?"

The leader spoke up, the others just following the conversation.

" Dead."

" Well then, I guess you will have to do," Calasta threw out, his eyes showing disdain for the lower ranks that he had never stooped low enough to speak to, " we shall head to Italica and capture it."

The centurion's answer was less than satisfactory, " the men need food and rest, we will eat and rest before we move."

The other centurions nodded at this, knowing of the fickle minds of the weary men who outnumbered them.

" You will DO as I say. If I say move, you move. If I say jump, you jump. Now get the men moving," Calasta ordered, his hands scrambling in the air in frustration.

He only received one word, " No."

The young man's face reddened with rage as he pointed at each of the officer's faces, his arms trembling with fury, " must I remind you whom you serve? You are nothing but my hunting hound, you FAILED to take Alnus when I ordered you to. This is your final chance to make up for YOUR failures."

He raised his voice, this time addressing all the legionaries in shouting range, " ALL OF YOU HAVE FAILED, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE GIVEN BY ME TO ATONE FOR THEM! YOU WILL TAKE ITALICA FOR ME!"

Once again, the answer given was , "no," this time supplemented by the cold glares of the men around them. Quiet, yet resounding agreements echoed out in the rank and file, the men eager for the impending mutiny.

" WHAT! You will answer for this!"

Calasta drew his gladius, the gleaming blade reflecting what little light remained from the falling sun. His blade was beautifully crafted, the iron blade supremely sharpened and adorned with the Calasta family motto, " Semper Alta". The thin guard held the wolf crest of his family and the pommel held one of the many gems that the family was famous for.

The centurions all reached to pull their own blades from scabbards, halted by their leader's raised hand. His eyes were closed as he slowly pulled his gladius from its spot on his left hip, slowly creeping open as he readied himself.

" What I will do is this. I will let the men rest. I will take Italica as payment for the Empire's betrayal of our corp. Hell, I may even re-enter imperial service afterwards. However," he took a breath, loosening calmly as he raised the short sword into a guard position.

" I, Scipio Africanus, nor any in the corps will ever serve under you."

The marquis' nerve snapped as the sentence ended, his arm wrenching back before shooting forward, the tip of his blade aimed at the impudent centurion's heart. A dilapidated, dull blade intercepted it's ornate cousin, defecting the stabbing angle, the attacking tip crashing into the sheet armour protecting the abdomen. It pierced the armour, sliding into flesh, but halted as the body twisted away. The gem pommel cut into the young man's wrist as it was wrenched from his hands, the centurion's own sword gently tapped onto the marquis' plate armour, catching against the seam of two plates. Prying upwards, almost gracefully, Calasta watched as the standard issued blade lined itself perpendicularly with his chest before sliding in.

He fell onto his back as Scipio released his blade, smashing into the ground with a clank as the useless armour crashed against itself. A searing pain filled his chest, spreading from where the blade had entered from.

Scipio Africanus left him lying there, bending to pick up the dying man's sword, silently examining the intricate designs now painted with his blood. He wiped it off with a bloody cloth handed to him by an equally bloodied centurion, nodding thanks to the man as he stepped back to the young legate.

The sky grew black as Calasta stared at the sky with his tear filled eyes, his thoughts now filled with the torturing of his family in the capital. But his vision soon filled with a helmeted face. Pressure pushed his lungs closed as a foot planted itself on his chest. Hobnails screeched as the centurion's sandals made purchase against the iron breastplate, pushing the marquis down as the gladius was pulled free. Blood oozed from the wound, the liquid frothing as air from the punctured lung bubbled out, Calasta soon wheezing for breath. The face was then replaced once again with a starry night, slowly yet surely fading to darkness.

The leading centurion barely gave the dead man a second glance, marching for the centre of the resting soldiers.

" MEN," he started, addressing all those that could hear him, " MEN, THE EMPIRE SENT US OFF TO DIE."

He paused as the men muttered frantically among themselves, continuing again as silence filled the air soon after.

" WE WERE SENT AGAINST AN IMPOSSIBLE FOE, AT THE VAN WITH THE ALLIED KINGDOMS BEHIND US, WHY? WHY WERE WE, AN UNBLED CORP, SENT TO LEAD VASSALS INTO BATTLE ONLY TO DIE?"

This pause greatly raised the tension in the air, as the man had planned.

" I SHALL TELL YOU WHY. THE EMPEROR HAS ABANDONED US, SENDING US OFF TO DIE ALONGSIDE THE VASSAL KINGDOMS WITH AN IDIOT TO LEAD US."

He pointed down at the dead man before gesturing his arms to the legion that surrounded him.

" WE SHALL NOT DIE SO EASILY, WE SHALL NOT GO OUT WITHOUT A FIGHT. LET US MARCH ON THE EMPIRE ITSELF. WE SHALL CAPTURE ITALICA, THE GATEWAY TO THE EMPIRE, ENJOY OURSELVES WITH FEAST, GOLD, AND WOMEN AS THE CAPITAL SHITS ITSELF. THEN WE SHALL RAID AND PILLAGE TO OUR HEART'S CONTENT!"

This was met with mass approval from the crowd, a "huzzah" ringing out as the men cheered.

" NOW LET US RETURN TO CAMP AND EAT!"

This cheer was even louder than the last, the legionaries eager for food, their woes forgotten.

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Allied Kingdom's Rally Camp, Salderan Empire, Falmart

1527 hrs

The Elbian king sat back into his seat in the command tent, the wood creaking before giving out, dropping the man to the dirt. He looked up, staring out into the light blue sky through the massive tears in the cloth walls and ceiling.

Shambles, everything was in shambles. It had taken him an entire day to re-organizing every force that formed the Kingdom's armies. None of his men had been injured, but mass formations were missing from some of the other forces. The Algunan cavalry was also intact, their casualties negligible. There were the humanoid forces, orcs and goblins, completely unharmed and ready. But that was all the good grace the Gods would give him.

The remnant hoplites of the League Principality stood by his side, the troops who had lost their liege now stood by the old Lion King, their full trust now rested on the man to get them home alive. The militias that formed the armies of the Mudwan kingdom and smaller vassals only existed in name, mass desertions plagued what units Duran was able to re-form, the rest had run for their lives and dispersed. He would not be too surprised if bandit bands would soon form from the more youthful militia men, but that would be an imperial problem.

Then there were the Etna and Dumas legions. Upon returning to their camp, he found dead guards who had attempted to protect the supplies stored there and the tents ransacked. A few bodies of the attackers were discovered, donning imperial armour and imperial standards. The standards of the newly formed imperial corp. And now he sat in the dirt and the ruins of his chair, exhausted and depressed, his armies depleted and undersupplied.

Yet what was to be done?

He pulled himself up, hands clenched to the remains of the war table. On it stood an emerald bascinet, leaning lopsided as a chunk of the left check was missing, the hole above the temple allowed the map to peek from in between the jagged edges. Assembled around the table were the commanders that remained of the army.

" Duran, the battle is lost. Let us return to our lands."

" We have lost over half our forces!"

" Sir, what are your orders?"

" There is no more that can be done, we must retreat."

The leading king crossed his arms as he loosened yet another breath, his eye closed in contemplation. The kings and officers that filled the tent quieted as they watched the man think.

" We can not return yet, we have lost too much," his eye creeped open, determination filling his chest as battle plans began to form. He laid a hand onto Ligu's helmet, resting his palm against the only item recovered from his friend.

" If we can not pull them into battle during the day, perhaps a night raid may give us the advantage."

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UN HQ Building, UN Fortress Alnus, Alnus Hill, Falmart

0121 hrs

The electronic glow of screens lit the dark walls, an eerie glow of green and white lights from the monitors casting their colours onto the faces of American airmen and women. They were on tight shifts of 3 hours, watching through the FLIR and night vision cameras, as they eyed the activities within the enemy camp. A new shift had just taken over as mass movements shifted pixels as they lit or changed colours.

Reports of a column of troops once again marching from the camp towards the fortress raced its way up the ranks, waking commanders from their slumber. The first reports noted a couple hundred men departing the torn wooden gates, that number soon growing to a thousand, then tens of thousands. By the time the entire Allied kingdoms' column had sallied forth, nearly 70,000 sandals marched off.

Immediately, multiple units were mobilized, tracks grinding up the ground and boots soon echoing their counterparts kilometres away. The American 4th "ivy" infantry division was pulled through the Gate, the men and women taken off guard duty due to the immediacy of the situation. The previously mauled Garwhal Rifles, the Indian unit defending POC Unity back in July, was flown in once again. They had been shipped back to India for some R&R, now they replaced the greener mechanized infantry elements of the 33rd Armoured. Vehicle modifications were quickly put in place for night operations while the UN command put together operational plans of a decisive victory to ensure this army would no longer bother them again.

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Approximately 2 kilometres from Alnus Hill, Saderan Empire, Falmart

0302 hrs

King Duran deeply regretted bringing the remaining Allied Kingdoms army. His officers dashed back and forth, constantly whisper-shouting for the men to pick up their feet and not to shuffle about. His own hoplites and the remaining League hoplites had held discipline at the vanguard, this he knew they would. The two brother states had fought together before, the regular League troops learning quickly from their elite Elbian comrades. However, this could not be said for the irregular forces and the cavalry.

He had twenty thousand of his veteran heavy infantry and another twenty thousand from the League Principality, who had lost a third of their forces. They were following the monster detachment that stalked at the front of the column, their night vision allowing them to lead the army. Duran knew that the five thousand orcs and goblins would be silent as they marched, their padded feet and nocturnal instincts screening his better forces. It was the Mudwan and Alguna forces that may have blown the entire operation. Ten thousand militia fighters were rallied back into formation after the rout, the entire Mudwan having numbered forty-five thousand before the first battle of Alnus. These farmers and hunters were far from anything that could be called soldiers, their exhausted feet scraping trenches through the dirt, their gear jostling and bumping against one another. And then there was the Algunan cavalry, the whinny of horses and the snorts of the elephants cut through the quiet rumbles of human feet, causing officers and commanders to wince at every beastly noise.

Duran turned back to the front after watching some of the Mudwan officers shaking awake some of the militia soldiers. Peering down the road, he noticed movements of shadows and silhouettes shifting on the road itself. He just began waving to his aide when the forest poured light onto the army.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Large circles of unholy white illumination slammed to life, beams of concentrated electric light blinded the archaic eyes of the Falmarti forces. Duran's eye watered in pain as darkness flashed with lights as the small unholy suns swept back and forth, bathing the men over and over again. The forest surrounding the narrow road, just moments ago a pitch black wall, was now inundated with the enemy. The iron elephants roared to life, each had a small sun mounted on their squat heads, watching patiently as their handlers eyed their enemies from their backs. Other animals or constructs stood side by side with them, short, tall, or awkwardly wide, all snarled from the tree line. But the animals were not the most shocking, the shadow men were. Soldiers peered out from behind trees or bushes, or crawled out of the darkness of the ground, each with a blinding beam of sunray in their hands.

Falmarti horses panicked, throwing riders to the ground or taking them with them as they fled, the Algunan elephants trampling trees and men as they too fled. Some of the less cohesive units shattered immediately, escaping into the forest as they routed. Others fell to their knees, begging to the Gods for mercy. The mass majority, however, stood to. The element of surprise had turned against them and now they held, unsure of what to do and what they could do. Yet they knew one thing as they looked to the one man who had still controlled their horse and the one man who commanded them, King Duran of the Elbian Kingdom.

The Elbian king was absolutely terrified.

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Jack Ryan blinked the spots out of his eyes after catching a gleam of the floodlights from one of the Indian tanks on the other flanks. His Bradley was posted near the front of the ambush, his turret mounted floodlight flashed against the orcs and goblins, the monsters screeching and clawing at their faces as the LEDs caught them fully in the face. The men further in the column were doing the same, either writhing in pain or struck paralyzed, fully in the deer-in-the-headlights mode. Translators mixed into the infantry who had now disengaged themselves from their hidden positions or from behind vehicles, took full advantage of the shock, screaming out orders to lay down arms and to surrender. Flashlights shook and gleamed everywhere as the rifles were pointed and gestured to the ground as the UN soldiers attempted to intimidate the enemy to surrender.

The monsters began to recover as eyes adjusted to the light, minutes ticking by as only engine noises and Latin shouting could be heard.

" Alright guys, get ready this might get hot! Make sure we only fire inside our firezone, we don't want to hit friendlies."

Hutch replied quickly with a " yup".

Ryan looked out his commander's sight, double checking their turret traverse limits against the staggered friendly forces across the road. As he scanned the opposite treeline, he noticed an orc that was eyeing the road block angrily, the humanoid monster's chest inflating and deflating hard and fast. He spoke up quickly to the gunner, just as the orc took a step forward.

" Gunner, target-"

BOOM!

One of the Russian tank gunners, seeing the orc start moving aggressively, had swiveled the gun outside of his traverse limit and fired. In his excitement, he had not swapped from the main gun to coaxial, a sabot round leaving his gun barrel. The blinding flash in combination with the shock of decibels shook different reactions from the men in the surrounding area. Shouts of fear and panic murmuring echoed in the Falmarti forces as United Nations soldiers only groaned in annoyance before recovering. The orc was slashed into two pieces, both of which were picked up and tossed into the air, orc bits painting the area in between it and the M3 Bradley. The 125mm APFSDS-T round then continued and penetrated completely through the American IFV, obliterating the engine and exiting the back door, shrapnel flying everywhere. A swath of hoplites laid slumped over in front of the cannon, an overpressure cone of fifty feet killing and severely injuring the heavy infantry.

Of course Jack didn't see any of this. All he saw was a large smoke plume, heard a resounding bang of kinetic force, and felt an extremely violent jolt that bashed his helmet against the cupola. His legs screamed at him that they thought he had been stabbed a great many times, warm liquid soon running along his skin. His blast seat had caught most of the shrapnel, his lower legs catching what it had not. He knew the vehicle was hit, and now all he wanted to do was to leave the claustrophobic space. Jack looked to his left, his ears ringing from the kinetic impact, to see Hutch also shifting to face him. His head spun just from looking to the left at the man, he had to shout to hear himself over the ringing.

" BAIL OUT, BAIL OUT! WE'RE FINISHED!"

Hutch only somewhat nodded as he lifted himself from the turret, disorientated from the impact. Jack followed suit, gingerly kicking his feet out and leaving the turret, blood dripping from his calves. He was exhausted just pulling his upper body out of the vehicle, stopping to rest as he laid prone with his legs still in the turret. The floodlights that lit the area with their white beams put burning needles into his skull from his eyes as he peered left and right, a throbbing ache in his temple increasing tenfold. Looking around he saw wounded infantry to his right, laying in the grass and bushes as medics ran forward to tend to them. He turned back to his vehicle, Hutch had slid off the turret and crouched on the hull, working the driver's hatch. The front upper glacis plate of the IFV had a large hole to the right that stared back at him as he stared at where the engine had been. The dizziness furthered as he felt himself being lifted from his spot, gloved hands pulling him up from the turret and off the Bradley, trying to get him as far as possible from the wreckage. Dragged backwards away from the destroyed IFV, he saw that his legs were shredded, his fatigues torn apart alongside his boots. Raising his head once again, he saw medics tending to Hutch as another pair of soldiers pulled the bloody mess of Mike out of the hull.

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The tank cannon finally broke the remaining Allied Kingdom's morale, weapons clanging against themselves as they hit the ground. Duran himself knew it was over as he drew his xiphos from its scabbard and threw it to the ground, his remaining defiant men following suit. The monsters at the front had already hurled themselves to the ground, cowering in the dirt after seeing one of their own removed from existence.

UN infantry surged forward, quickly separating the enemy soldiers into easily handled groups as they processed their new prisoners. Medics followed after, trying to treat the wounded and handing out light foodstuff and water in an attempt to placate any chances of riots. The monsters were corralled into lines with the help of reluctant handlers, however their numbers continued to dwindle as they continued to disappear into the forest, not even the screening UN infantry or vehicles could halt the fleeing humanoids.

Any officers found were collected into Russian Ural-4320s and driven ahead of the POWs.

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Extremely quick chapter, therefore back to the usual length. This chapter ends the Battles of Alnus story arc, hopefully it isn't too long til I get working on the next one. Remember, leave reviews because it helps me keep running up ideas on how to continue the story and try to enjoy the world as it continues to spin into madness.