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"No! No please-!" The blackclad soldier's scream was cut short when his face met the edge of Averon's shield.
A sickening crunch, followed by a loud squelch, reached the Myrmidon's ears as he bashed the Nilfgaardian's head into a pulpy mess. He staggered back to regain his balance, surveying the battlefield one last time before regrouping.
The bastion didn't last very long against the repeated attacks of the Imperial Air Cavalry. The walls, blasted by lightning and dragonfire, molted away into slag. Dozens of gigabeisten dragons littered the ground and hung from the ramparts with arrows covering their scaly hides. Around them were mountains of dead men and horses from both Cintra, Temeria and Redania- butchered by the Nilfgaardian war machine. The hail of mangonel fire and sorcerous spells still rained from all the way across the battlefield, pausing in brief cessations only so that the blackclads could field more troops against the battered Northerners.
Averon turned to look at his fellow defenders. The mages looked exhausted, as did the soldiers who cowered behind the crumbling stones. Their stand upon Sodden Hill was gradually becoming a hopeless situation, but the Myrmidon dared not say it out loud. Morale was already low. And yet somehow, the beleaguered men and women of the North found the courage to fight on. Averon supposed he could attribute it to the fact that even if they surrendered, the Nilfgaardian horde would be far from merciful. The siege had been long and brutal.
Any measure of goodwill, if there was any at all, would've evaporated by then.
"Sir." Silas of Sodden saluted his commander. The sergeant's armor was missing a few pieces where he'd taken a couple of crossbow bolts to the body. He was saved by Triss Merigold's healing spells after Averon dragged him back to the safety of the rear.
"How are the men holding up?" Averon inquired.
"We're fresh and ready for battle, thanks to the mages." The younger man reported, "I gotta say, those magics sure have their uses."
"And you? How are you holding up?"
Silas swallowed uneasily, "Honestly, sir? I was afraid for the first few days. Never knew if I was going to get past the gigabeisten runs when they burned down the south wall. But now, I'm just surprised I lasted this long."
"And I admire your willingness to stand with me." Averon put a heavy hand on the sergeant's shoulder, "But you've done enough. I know you, Silas. You have no family, no relatives nor children to carry your name. If you fall here now, you will be forgotten."
"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but I don't believe that." Silas insisted, raising his chin and stiffening up his lip. "This here's a moment that will be forever etched in history. It's not a question of 'if I'll die'. It's what I want my final actions to define me when the ink dries. Am I gonna be remembered as the queensguard who ran before the battle's done? Or am I gonna be known as the brave Sergeant Silas of Sodden, who stood up to the blackclads and spat in their eyes?"
Averon nodded slowly, "Good answer."
He turned away, walking up to Marshal Vissegerd. The old soldier was giving orders to the last of his men and coordinating with the commanders of the Temerian and Redanian forces. The plan boiled down to a tactical withdraw, which was a fancier term for 'retreat'. The bastion was no longer a sound defensible structure. Fighting to keep it would only result in disaster. And so the defenders would have to withdraw to the Yarugan Crossing, to use the bridge to their advantage.
It was narrow, a good place as any to funnel infantry. The mages would have a better time protecting the men from aerial attacks or spellcraft, much better than having to be stretched thin over a fortress ring. Funneling the Nilfgaardians into a killzone of Temerian and Redanian arrows, while the Cintran vanguard held the bridge.
Naturally, the queensguard would be at the forefront of the shieldwall. They were equipped for situations like that, and trained just as well. But that also meant that not many of them would live past the day, if any would at all. The grim truth of their fate sank in only moments before the actual battle commenced. There was a lot of crying, a lot of murmuring and a lot of prayers. Reyncourt and the ascended lot of mercenaries did their best to encourage the Cintrans by promising to back them in the thick of it all.
As the men gathered their scuffed and dented tower-shields, Averon threw a glance at an approaching column of mages set to provide spellcraft protection from the safety of the opposite ridge. Among them were Lytta Neyd, Triss Merigold and the scarred woman in black- Yennefer of Vengerberg.
"My lady, are you alright?" Averon asked as she walked by.
Yennefer had a white bandage over her eyes. He didn't expect her to be happy at all, considering what she went through. But the sorceress' expression softened somewhat when she recognized his voice. She was curt in her reply, but she meant well. "Focus on your task. The worst is yet to come."
Averon let her go, taking a moment to wipe away the bloodstains on his shield where he bashed the Nilfgaardian soldier's head.
"Bov." Rey said as they marched together to take up positions at the bridge. "We will get through this. We've bested the Nilfgaardians before, and we will again."
"I don't care if we win or lose." The Myrmidon replied, "I just want to kill as many of those black bastards as I can before they realize how much this war is gonna cost them."
"Hear hear." The queensguard around them muttered in agreement.
"Any speech fer us, commander?" Someone in the faceless ranks asked Averon as the Nilfgaardian signal trumpet howled in the distance. "Would be nice fer the lads to hear something afore we all die."
"Same as always." He said gruffly, pulling his helmet over his face. "Do your job. That's all I will ever ask of you."
The Cintran Queensguard locked shields, forming a wall of steel in the middle of the Yarugan Crossing. Reyncourt and his men stood on the second ranks, forming the second wall with their mismatched shields and assorted weaponry. At the ridge stood hundreds of Northerner archers, obscured by the thick treelines and dense underbrush. They were ready. They had the blackclads ranged, and as soon as the Nilfgaardian vanguard was sighted- they loosed a flurry of whistling arrows from their longbows. These bodkin-tipped arrows did very well against Nilfgaardian armor, and the invaders' advance slowed to a crawl as dozens at a time were cut down in the volleys.
The archers shifted to staggered volleys, offering little to no chance of the Nilfgaardians breaking shield formation when they tried to weather the storm.
But advance, they surely did.
"Steady!" Vissegerd bellowed. The Nilfgaardians didn't risk using spellcraft or artillery, for fear of destroying the bridge. The Northerners used this to their advantage, although the battle was no less perilous when the Nilfgaardians fired their own volleys.
Triss Merigold handled the situation flawlessly by transforming the enemy arrows into butterflies, then imbuing the Northerner volleys with sorcerous fire, much to the dismay of the blackclad invaders. When they finally reached the assembled shieldwall, Nilfgaardian steel smashed against Northern iron with a horrid crash. Fourteen queensguard, including the ironclad Averon, strained against the tide of bodies threatening to wash them away. Through the gaps in their formation, the guardsmen thrust their spears forward and skewered the howling blackclad footmen. As the first line fell, the queensguard took advantage of the reeling Nilfgaardians and moved a step forward.
Then, they shoved them all back and thrust their spears forward. All the while, missiles and arrows screamed overhead. Averon's voice roared above the din of battle, driving the men to fight harder as the crush of bodies prevented them from pushing any further.
"Hold!" The Myrmidon shouted, "Let them stumble over their own dead!"
The Nilfgaardians awkwardly slogged through the piles of corpses left in the Northerners' wake. After an hour of getting nowhere, the invaders decided on a different strategy. They used the gigabeisten to perform a fire-run on the bridge to clear out the defenders. The winged beasts, their numbers culled from the attacks on the hill stronghold, were still enough of a threat to be taken seriously. They swooped in from the sky and bombarded Averon's queensguard. Again and again, the dragons descended. Their wrathful fire shattered the magical barriers Yennefer and the other mages put up over the shieldwall. Averon had to watch his men cook in their own armor, then fall away as ash.
He grabbed Silas when the gigabeisten went for another run, then pushed him back just as a massive green fireball struck the bridge and brought a sizable chunk of it down. The ancient structure buckled and with a loud crack, part of the bridge broke away and debris rained down upon the roaring current below. A small foot-wide speck of the underlying infrastructure remained connecting the two ends of the bridge.
On the other side of the river, Menno Coehoorn was on horseback with his subordinates, raging at the lost objective. He'd lost more than thirty thousand men over the course of the siege, which was an embarrassing loss to say the least. Losing the bridge at the Yarugan Crossing didn't mean much strategically, but symbolically it struck a blow to Nilfgaardian pride. If Coehoorn was to live to speak with the Emperor, he wouldn't last very long as his punishment for failure would be swift and merciless.
Reyncourt and the ascended mercenaries rose up from the glowing stone bridge, healing slowly from their injuries, and reformed the shieldwall. Averon's iron skin sizzled all over, matching the ire pumping hot oil through his veins. His glowing eyes peered through the narrow slits of his helmet and saw the Nilfgaardian field marshal. He grasped his spear and considered the distance of his target.
His helm was stifling, it narrowed his vision, and he must see far. His shield was heavy, it threw him off balance, and his target was far away.
The helm came off first, then the shield. A long black bolt sailed through the air with the grace of an eel through water. It struck Coehoorn in the chest, throwing him off his horse and impaling him into the ground. He was dead within seconds.
"Hah! Hahahaha!" Reyncourt's man, Vortiger, started to laugh.
Averon retrieved his helm and shield, then drew his sword from behind the shield. Killing Coehoorn had the desired effect of sowing chaos among the weary Nilfgaardians. The Myrmidon inadvertently struck the final blow against the invaders, marking the end of their advance into the North and the beginning of an even longer stalemate. Watching the Nilfgaardians withdraw from the fight, Averon slowly backed away and staggered towards the friendly lines of the mixed multitude of Northerners.
Those who have survived the brunt of the Nilfgaardian assault and held the bridge, numbering fourteen in all, were hailed as heroes. Averon and the few queensguard, Reyncourt and his ascended, Triss Merigold- they were named the Fourteen of the Hill. The First Nilfgaardian War ended as violently as it begun, with thousands of dead sowing the earth from the steppes of Marnadal to the banks of the Yaruga. The victory won at Sodden Hill and the Crossing was dearly paid, and didn't feel like much of a victory for Cintra. The people had lost their lands, their sovereign and their identity.
The territories that Nilfgaard seized were permanently marked by the black and gold sun. The names of their original peoples were kept as a mocking gesture of goodwill. These were the terms set by the truce signed by the North and South. They would sacrifice Cintra for the good of everyone else.
Averon, holding true to the final task set to him by Calanthe, spirited Ciri away and traveled a great distance from the frontlines. The last anyone's heard of him was that he was sighted somewhere close to the witcher bastion at Kaer Morhen.
Emperor Emhyr var Emreis, rider of the great imperia dragon Aladar, solidified his claim on Cintra by holding a marriage ceremony with a young girl thought to be the Princess Cirilla. In the act, he sealed the union between their two nations. It was, of course, a political ruse, an elaborate hoax to sway the people into agreeing with the blackclads' supposed legitimacy. Appalled by this disgraceful mockery of his country, Vissegerd refused to bend the knee to the new ruler of Cintra and continued the fight. He led a vicious campaign from the shadows as a guerilla fighting force, similar to the scoia'tael, to rally the people into fighting against the Nilfgaardians. Unfortunately, the Cintrans were quick to tire of the bloodshed and soon his support waned over time. Vissegerd hanged himself in despair, after having one too many drinks and suffering an infection due to a splinter.
As for Reyncourt, he gathered his small following of ascended ones and journeyed North. He created the Order of the Firesworn, welcoming both human and non-human as followers, which saw their numbers swell over the years. Driven by visions in the flame, he sought answers by questioning the faith of the Eternal Fire- sparking the beginnings of a religious schism that would engulf the entire North.
The peace wouldn't last, and the ever-opportunistic Nilfgaardians watched with leering intent as the North began to tear itself apart. They waited, with baited breath, for the day they could pounce once more.
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