Thinking back on it, charging all of the troops headlong into a pike line was a spectacularly bad idea. Superior training, numbers, and better equipment be damned; they were down by over three thousand points.
If Grand Marshall Mandelkubb hadn’t been busy cleaving enemy soldiers and directing the field of battle, he most certainly would have given his forehead a massive gauntleted palm in disappointment. Something had to be done, and fast, or else Vilante would lose by default.
In five minutes, Vilante had lost three thousand soldiers. In a twelve thousand point game, that was a clear fourth of their points slashed within the opening sally. Worse yet, while the gap wasn’t widening anymore, it also wasn’t closing at a rate where they would catch up and win. The Grand Marshall had to come up with a plan. Snapping three pikes with a heavy swing of his axe and using the momentum of his riding to maneuver himself forward, he charged down about five soldiers before falling back to avoid a counter-attack, all while continuing to keep himself searching the scapes of his mind for a strategy to snatch victory out of the mouth of defeat.
He continued to think while repeating a similar process of attack, retreat, attack. Ideally, what he himself was doing would have been excellent, but it just wouldn’t work in the grand scale…
WHOMP
That was when the world suddenly turned itself upside down.
“Yes! We just got their commander!”
Grand Marshall Mandelkubb’s body smashed into the ground with a loud thud and a report of dust and gravel whooshing out from beneath him, several crossbow bolts cruelly jutting out of his chest plate. Even with the protective forces of Frala, the pain of being completely dismounted from a horse running at full speed couldn’t be ignored. The warm, humid air intensified the aches, and a minor weariness tugged at a corner of his mind.
Following the haze brought about from a ridiculously heavily armored form smashing into the ground after being dismounted from a horse running at a full gallop, the Commander’s vision was filled with blue sky and the sun somewhere outside of his immediate field of view. The sounds of battle were muffled by his helmet and further by the detached sensation of having just been conked upside the head.
A shadow eclipsed the sun, followed by a glint of steel.
“He’s not down yet! I’m finishing him off!”
The Grand Marshall wouldn’t lose so easily. He quickly inhaled and gathered himself, rolling his armored form out of the way just in time for the rear end of a pike to stab into the ground where his neck used to be. There was a cascading sound of several crossbow bolts snapping around the tip as he rolled atop them, followed by the—inaudible with the current battle conditions—creaking of metal hinges on his armor and an inexplicable whoosh of air as he pushed himself off the ground with enough force to create hand shaped impressions in the grass. Launching his back at the enemy in a strange sort of flopping bodyslam that doubled as a method of standing himself up.
To hell with strategy!
The previously attacking Graelian transformed into an animal ball in a poof of smoke and landed on the ground as Vilante’s commander then bullrushed forward, uncaring of the pikes and crossbows and longbows that were aimed at him and his surrounding comrades.
♦♦♦
Vice-Commander Kisielia Paczki was in a bit of a pinch.
She let out a heaving breath after she smashed through three soldiers with a swing of her hammer, then inhaled sharply as she had to raise the weapon to defend against three more, blocking three blades with the shaft of her weapon before pushing against them and jumping back. Kisielia ducked down low to build up energy then sprung upward, smashing down on one soldier with her hammer and spinning around to take out the two besides him.
The ginger-haired vice-commander was surrounded and without allies around her. While this wasn’t much of a problem in itself for one of her rank, the fact that she was alone there meant that the battle line had been breached in that area.
Then there was the matter that she had been separated from the rest of the mounted Guard unit that Anisette was riding in. In itself, also not a problem, Kisielia was quite fine by herself, she just didn’t like being separated from her mentor, she didn’t enjoy not being able to be by the side of the woman that she looked up to.
With a tiny “crack, crack”, the bear-eared girl tilted her head side to side and rolled her shoulder and dipped down once more. She was surrounded, with soldiers at every minute of the imaginary clock around her, their swords glaring in the sunlight and their stances all poised to strike in unison. They looked apprehensive, and the bear couldn’t help but smile and let out a small cackle as she tightened the grip on her hammer.
“Here goes…” she whispered, her crest appearing behind her as she raised her hammer above her head with one hand.
For a moment, the air around her felt strangely stagnant. Crostignon was a province of plains, so there was almost always a breeze, so it was strange to the soldiers surrounding her that the air was suddenly at a standstill.
Well, that was the least of their worries.
CRACK!!!
Following the stillness, the humidity seemed to disappear completely, replaced by dryness and the static that seemed to come with dry air. There was a single loud snapping crack, followed by an odd crackling that resonated around the vice-commander
“Strike Arts~!!” yelled Kisielia excitedly as her Crest progressed into level three, the soldiers around her braced themselves for the incoming attack, “FRAGMENTARY ARROGANCE!!!”
Kisielia let out a short “Humph!” as she smashed her hammer into the ground while shouting out the attack’s name. There was a zapping sound and the unmistakable report of crackling high voltage as energy arced out from the point of impact, followed by a ring of electricity expanding and shocking all of the soldiers around her before a bright blue explosion bloomed outwards, electricity crackling all over the air, visibly dancing around and comically zapping a few of the animal balls that bounced and rolled away from ground zero, causing them to jump and yelp a little.
The wavy-haired bear girl let out a short sigh that sounded like “fuu…” and set her hammer down so that it balanced with the head down and handle in the air. Clapping her hands together once or twice, she looked about her. Some of the grass had been burnt away and the dirt had turned into glass from the extremely high voltages, making the ground around her shimmer a little, the “fragmentary” part of her attack.
Off in the distance, there were other explosions from what were presumably other special attacks, whether those were friendly or not was up to debate.
“Well, that plugs this hole in the line… I wonder where the Commander is now…”
She picked up her hammer once more.
With the immediate area clear, it was easy to be a little lax. Even if soldiers were still fighting within sight, most were far enough that she didn’t have to worry about being charged by some Captain.
That was right, she could focus on going on her way to find Anisette and the rest of the Knight Guard.
And then, she heard a rather uncanny buzzing sound.
♦♦♦
The Open Field Battle was essentially an all out brawl with few and simple to understand. It took two or more opposing sides, put them on a field of battle and assigned the sides points that would be deducted for every soldier lost, with some soldiers worth more than others. So that it was fair for smaller nations, the point pools were the same for both sides, and soldiers were worth a minimum of one point each.
While that meant that a smaller nation only had to take out its weight in numbers, it also made it easier for a larger nation as the battle raged on as they’d have a larger pool of soldiers to push with even when they’re close to defeat. At least in theory.
Vilante’s Grand Marshall let out a loud roar. From there, he made a mighty swing of his axe and produced a Crest Cannon at the close-knit formation of Graelians in front of him, wiping out a good hundred soldiers in a single blow.
While the amount that he had just taken out was quite good, the truly important thing was to exploit the breakthrough in the line.
“YOU THERE! Take your unit and charge! If we can surround them, they’re finished!!”
Mandelkubb swung his arm in an aggressive gesture and began to charge for the hole he had just made in the line while being followed by the units that he had just flagged. It would have been fair to mention that the only reason he was able to do that was because the Vilantans that had previously charged that point got obliterated. The Grand Marshall felt a little out of his normal depth, the current “casualty” figures were starting to weigh down on him.
DON DON.
A pair of drum beats sounded off in unison, followed by a series of varied beats, and suddenly the hole was closed.
How annoying… Those Drums, they had to go.
The Vilantan troops ground to a halt before they smacked face-first into a completely new wall of pikes. The heavily armored grand marshall staggered for a step but stopped short enough that he wouldn’t get charged. A nervous bead of sweat rolled down from his forehead and down his cheek and he clicked his tongue in frustration.
♦♦♦
The battle had been raging for just over an hour now. Graelian had maintained its lead the whole while, but it was now beginning to close on them as Vilante’s captains worked at the fringes to take out units at a time.
But, they knew it wasn’t going to be enough for the enemy nation to catch up in time to win.
On a battlefield where blood was shed and lives were lost, it was wholly impractical to maintain a full drumline just to guide troops. It was too easy of a target and a waste of men that could be given a sword or a pike and get told to contribute to the battle. But in Franlanthe, specifically Graelian, it was just another factor that added in to the sports-like environment and fun atmosphere of the battle.
So about a hundred meters behind the actual battle line was a long drumline that worked in sections of about 20 to guide the Graelian troops in coded tunes that they had been drilled to move to. Above them were a few sturdy wooden palisades to guard them from arrows.
Vilante’s archers were a rather unknown bunch of individuals, the nation being rather proud of its tank-like mounted knights and decently well armored line-soldiers more than anything else when it came to battle. But it still had a few units of archers here and there, taking the opportunities gifted to them by the entanglement of troops and Graelian’s own shortage of archers to try to take out the drumline and gain the advantage over the pikes.
There was a medium of effectiveness, and the occasional breakthrough and exploitation did create patches in the drumline and toss a few of the Graelians into disarray, but it wasn’t enough…
So when Anisette found that the area of the battlefield she was in was much too quiet, she couldn’t help but feel a little disturbed. A quick scan of her surroundings revealed that the drumline sections were almost entirely absent in that area of the battlefield.
In an open field battle on a bunch of plains, it shouldn’t have been possible to take out the drummers without excessive artillery or archer fire, or without taking out the infantry lines that were normally guarding them.
No strategy survives contact with the enemy, but this was a conundrum to the dog-eared knight-commander. She yelled here and there to snap some of the troops into their places, her commands echoed by the various unit commanders and their sub-commanders. But this was very odd. There was no sign of the enemy, but the drums had been destroyed and the people once beating on them were off in the various infirmaries outside of the battlefield.
She steadied herself on her horse and looked about again, surveying her surroundings.
There were Vilantans and Graelians fighting in front of her. Kisielia was missing, but most of her guard unit was still there to her flanks and rear. So… What?
“Oho! What’s this!? the speakers from the announcer had suddenly blared all over the battlefield, “It seems Vilante is catching up! And How! Let’s take a look at the battlefield footage as-”
Anisette raised her head to look at one of the floating magical screens that showed highlight reels, normally hidden from sight of the soldiers, there seemed to be some important event that had just happened…
Well, she would have given it a look.
CRACK!
A bit of numbness flushed itself with a deal of pain. Anisette couldn’t feel her hand for a moment and she clenched her teeth as she winced. Splinters of wood and a bit of metal bounced off her chest, face and legs as she looked down, her lance completely shattered near her hand.
There was even a little bit of sizzling as her gloves got singed by an attack.
“Archer?” she thought, shaking her hand of both the completely destroyed lance and the pain as her guard went on full alert. She looked in the supposed direction of the archer, noticing Kisielia off in the distance, fighting two captains.
A third was pointing a longbow at her. There was no one there before, not even Kisielia, so… an illusion? Another arrow whizzed towards her, coated in magical energies. This one she blocked with her shield.
PANG!!!
It was a completely unnatural sound for a steel and wood shield to make, and it was loud enough that Anisette and her guards winced from the church-bell like ring of the arrow impact, followed by a secondary bright flash of an explosion. Overall, it didn’t do any damage, so it had to be a distraction.
Then, there was another large flash, but this time it was the Guard unit being enveloped by a massive crest cannon.
♦♦♦
Again, Vice-Commander Kisielia Paczki was in a bit of a pinch.
She heaved a few heavy breaths as she leapt away from a pair of Captains, both armed with dual wielded short swords. In a standoff sort of way, the pair faced off with Kisielia, a glare on everyone’s faces.
“This kind of thing… Two on one isn’t fair, you know!” Kisielia shouted as she lunged forward from her position, closing the gap between them only to have her hammer strike deflected into the ground and her body put into an awkward position for her to dodge four blades. There was a whoosh of air as the blades passed overhead, the vice-commander ducking down just a hair away from being slashed on the neck.
She rolled forward before sweeping down at the pair’s legs, then activated her crest for a small arc of lightning to trail right behind her hammer, bolting into the pair’s blades and shocking them in the process.
This was a sort of attack and receive game that the trio had been playing at for some time now, so fatigue was truly starting to settle in.
“By the way,” started one of the captains, a black haired girl in red and gold armor, “The correct number would be three on one!”
The captain gave a small sinister sneer of a smile and jumped out of the way with her partner, leaving a somewhat confused Kisielia standing there with a beleaguered expression on her face, just as a huge beam approached her from behind. Now that she had time to look around herself, the bear-girl realized that there were suddenly soldiers around her. Not necessarily close by, but it wasn’t the almost empty battlefield that she had been fighting in a moment before… How odd.
Then she turned around to face the beam and jumped before bracing for the impact. Surely, this was probably going to hurt. Oh, and she would probably end up naked and on camera… Highlight of the battle.
♦♦♦
Make it in time…! Was Anisette’s only thought. Behind her, a third of her guard unit had been taken out by a crest cannon, and the rest were regrouping and trying to regain their bearings. It would, of course, take more than that to take out the Knight-Commander.
Despite having been dismounted, Anisette was running faster than most horses could even go to begin with. She completely ignored most of her surroundings, beelining straight for her Vice-Commander.
Thump, thump, thump. The footsteps of the dog-eared knight commander beat in rapid succession, there was a rush of wind in her wake and her footsteps—more like a series of leaps—left impressions in the ground. Bracing her shield and sheathing her sword, she held the large rectangular shield with both hands, particles of converted frala trailing behind her in her wake, and her crest beginning to form behind her.
“Uwoooooooooooh…!!! She roared in a drawn out fashion as she suddenly skidded to a halt right in front of Kisielia, between the Vice-Commander and the incoming crest cannon. She jammed her shield into the ground and took a kneeling position.
“METEORIC MIRROR!!!” she shouted, and half an orb of coruscating energy appeared right in front of her in time to block the large crest cannon. There was an odd sound similar to all the glass in a skyscraper breaking at the same time, and smaller beams of light flew out in different directions around Kisielia and Anisette, before being followed by an explosion, completely negating the crest cannon with the backblast.
The crest cannon that had enough power to take out five-hundred soldiers had been completely negated. Knight-Commander Anisette stood up and unsheathed her sword, glaring in the direction it had come from. Her shield gave off a superficial bit of what looked like steam, even if it hadn’t been directly touched, and dust floated in the air in small clouds around her, a huge crescent shaped gash formed in the ground in front of the Graelian commanders.
“Now, I’ll show you why I’m already being called the Unbridled Reaper of Graelian.” Anisette said, facing Grand Marshall Mandelkubb and several units of soldiers.
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