7- The Battle of Tannya
The campsites around the White Castle were composed by hundreds of white military tents, campfires here and there, horses transporting ammunitions and supplies and soldiers of the Southern Isles everywhere.
All of them were wearing their red uniforms, and they talked to each other to clear their minds and discuss the future of their invasion.
Most of them were very confident that their victory would be fast and easy, that Queen Elsa would do nothing and Arendelle would not offer great resistance after all…
Hans had promised them all riches and glory, the morale was very high and that cold and windy morning of July a group of twenty soldiers, all of them friends, were grouped together around a campfire.
"King Hans says that the war is already won" a young man said, drinking hot tea from a metallic mug- "What do you think?"
"Yeah, Arendellians are cowards!" an older soldier replied beside him, and all of his friends laughed as they prepared a simple breakfast by means of the campfire.
Everything was peaceful, nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary that day...
"I wonder why they have not showed up here yet…" the young one said, and at that moment he turned his head and looked at the distant hills around the valley- "Hey, everyone… What is that?"
The group stood up in a hurry, alarmed at those searing and powerful flashes of white light coming from the forest and the hills… They could not hear anything because the shells traveled faster than sound, and when they realized what was happening it was already too late:
"Watch out!"
The first shell came like a demon of death, it scored a direct hit and the explosion shook the ground like a powerful earthquake. There was a great ball of fire and sparks, and the horses ran away in madness between the cries and screams of terrified men…
Seventy soldiers had been virtually vaporized by the very first hit, twice as many others had fallen in agony with arms and legs missing and then two more shells came from the Arendelle positions and caused even more devastation everywhere.
"Get out of here!" a General cried out in the middle of the fires, his voice drowned by the thunderous artillery blasts- "Go back to the coast! Go back! Go back!"
Then a piece of shrapnel came and blew his head up like a pumpkin, blood and body parts flying everywhere as far as you could see...
The burning men and mauled horses were trying to escape from the main campsite as fast as possible, and meanwhile at the forest, their comrades suddenly found themselves under a nightmare of artillery fire as well:
Explosions so hard that hundreds of soldiers were deafened instantly, trees blown apart like they were toothpicks, people torn to shreds by a storm of shrapnel, violent fires out of control and entire divisions running around in panic as they tried to escape…
The Arendelle guns stopped firing a few minutes after the first shell had hit the campsite, there were a few moments of precious calm and then the hills began to shake once again as the Cavalry divisions charged to attack.