Under Avandra’s Eyes LI: Counter

Marcus leads the counter attack. Thank you to @canyouhearthelight for her beta-reading and a truly awesome line, and thank you to everyone who’s tuned in.

Thomas’s attack on the tunnel had come out a rousing success and crippled that angle of the siege by the time the probe arrived at the city, and Iris’s archers were in position to repel it. Infantry had continued to drill, becoming at least competent to hold a line with spears and shields, which was all they really needed to be for what Marcus was planning. Baldor had insisted on staying with the infantry - apparently the older knight was determined that his presence would be a morale boost amongst the scared sweepings troops, and ultimately Marcus couldn’t really dispute him. One thousand actual soldiers, three thousand half-trained amatuers. Marcus didn’t love his odds, but he couldn’t deny they could be much worse. 

Two thousand of the soldiers he’d been training were with him, nervous and grim-faced, and they were already moving to draw more soldiers into a trap - to try to probe one of Agammemnon’s siege camps, the one that the probe had come from. Hacking apart the palisade would open it up for cavalry strikes, and the fact that the gates themselves were being probed by a decent body of infantry - even if those were being pretty well met by Iris’s archers and the two battalions of veterans supporting the last two of sweepings troops, as commanded by both their captains and Baldor - meant that that this camp would be vulnerable to a hard counterattack that could break one of the points of pressure that Aegir’s forces was bringing to bear on the city. 

    He had to trust that they’d hold the gate - there had been an impressive force moving on it, but between the forces in the city they should be able to hold reasonably well. It seemed mostly an effort to see what kind of defense the city could put up - to determine if the city could hold against a real push on multiple fronts, meaning that Marcus needed to make this counterstrike count. If Thomas could collapse the sapper tunnel, and Marcus could break one of the camps, in addition to the probe being decisively repelled, Agammemnon might well come to the conclusion that he was best served by pulling back further out still from the city  and trying to re-concentrate his forces - at which point Marcus could hit his separate elements in concentration and try to destroy him in detail while they moved, ideally starting with the Margrave himself and sending his head back to the traitorous Elector-Prince he had thrown in for.

    One of his captains held up a hand and the men came to a halt. Not quite as cleanly as the Eisenblud Corps -  his fathers prized elite in the West - would have, but then those were the best damned infantry in the Empire and possibly the world. The captains were experienced soldiers, at least. “Didn’t entrench as well as they could have - and they don’t seem to have expected us coming. Where do you think their screeners are?”

    Marcus shook his head. “At a guess, they’re looking for Iris’s rangers. Either that, or this is a trap. Either way, I want us to be through those palisades as quickly as we can be, ideally without damaging the stakes too badly. I’d like to have something to stop their cavalry if we need it.” With infantry in the open it would be all to easy to catch them unawares with cavalry and maul them, from a fixed position with the wooden fortifications that could halt the charging horses, Marcus liked their chances much better.

    The other camp was mostly deserted - some four thousand had attacked the gate, very clearly expecting to be able to cause some casualties and inflict some losses before withdrawing in good order. It was pretty clear that Agammemnon was preparing for a drawn-out affair of shuffling his forces around until he could get reinforcements to break Justanlia while Marcus’s numbers were only going to dwindle. Marcus had no intentions of letting it get that far. He signaled and his troops abruptly began moving forward - to his satisfaction, keeping the ranks relatively even, forcing their way through the palisade. The enemy soldiers hadn’t bothered to set a watch - clearly not anticipating an attack of any real force, and their cavalry obviously committed elsewhere, possibly preventing some sort of reinforcement. Marcus’s sweepings troops were through the palisade and formed up before the enemy had finished gathering - and one of the Justanlian battalions was already moving to attack, Marcus leading it personally. 

    Marcus swept a sword low, trying to weave around a hedge of spears and swords - quickly ducking back as his men pressed forward as a relatively disciplined block and pushed, close weapons in front rank, spears plying from the two behind, thrusting over shields and shoulders and finding flesh. The enemy might not have had the numbers where they were - they were trying to pile in, add into the blocks of troops that were already trying to rally to defend the camp. Marcus took a pause, hacking at spear hafts as he attempted to help his troops push forward, trying to let them push forward and let them breach the opposing line. 

    Men fell, dying, screaming, wounded, and kicking, begging for mercy and clutching their wounds with every few steps as the battle ground forward. Marcus took a breath, trying to rally his forces, and then shook his head. That line had to fold quickly to give them the time to do what he wanted to do. He dove forward, low, under the legs and line of spears against him, and came up at a roll, sweeping his legs in a scissor at one unfortunate man with a mace of some kind and coming up as an ax impacted the ground next to where he’d been, slashing savagely amongst his enemy’s ranks, and lunging left and right, flickering his blades free, khym barely allowing him to dodge the flurry of blows that were coming for him. Slash, parry, weave, thrust, open a throat, take that hand, that spear barely caught in his mail rather than driving clean through him and that axe came close to splitting his head, that sword took rings from his mail, even if all three men swinging died rapidly he was losing ground. 

The men were pressing in behind him, even as he began heaving with exhaustion beneath his mail, flinging himself out of the press of bodies and rolling as the line crumbled ever so slightly, his chest heaving beneath the armor. Khym-fueled attacks like that might be spectacular, but they didn’t make one invincible. Just feeling that an attack was coming meant you didn’t get blindsided - you still had to manage to evade it for yourself, and for all Marcus’s skill, in a press like that he could only manage that for a few seconds at a time without running into exhaustion. Even has his soldiers surged forward, spears surging and chanting as the enemy’s cracked line started truly folding and breaking, a few men began rushing him specifically, and Marcus rolled to his feet, barely parrying one downward spear thrust in time to drop its wielder, and decapitate the second man even as the third managed to swipe at him before Marcus hamstrung him and cut his throat. 

The main body of Aegir troops - some six hundred out of the thousand that had met them - began routing as quickly as they could, throwing down their weapons and running for their lives.

He wheeled to his men and told them to begin tearing down the camp as quickly as possible and set as much of it on fire as they could, even as the panicked Aegir troops started routing. A handful of men grabbed wagons and began loading the wounded onto them, and Marcus began helping load as fast as he can, throwing torches and burning as much of the camp as he could, even as the wounded were pushed onto carts - even the Aegir wounded. He shot a quizzical look at one of his men.

“You said you didn’t want throw men like us away, my lord. These men aren’t any more professional troops ‘n we are.” One of the older soldiers was speaking - a man who’d seen too many winters, and clearly didn’t expect to see too many more. Maybe one who’d joined with that expectation to try to feed children, maybe one who’d joined because he didn’t have much time left and wanted to try to hold his city to do something meaningful with it. The old man grunted, gesturing at one young man, clad in Aegir’s gold and black, whimpering and clutching a wound in his side. “That one can’t be older than fifteen. His only enemies are pimples and gettin’ tongue tied around girls. That and bein’ too stupid or too poor to wash.”

Marcus paused, then nodded. “Get them into the carts. Try to keep them spaced enough to keep their blood from washing into each other’s wounds.” 

The old man spat. “I know what blood poisoning is, boy.”

Marcus grinned. “Margrave, but as you will. Let me give you a hand with that.” He lifted the boy on the ground, trying not to take too much note that the wound matched his own saber a little too well, and put him into one of the carts. “Hey. I had one like that, once. Try not to talk. It’ll make it worse, okay?” Marcus shuddered at the thought. “Get a burial detail together to work on -”

A horn blast sounded. From the city. Something was happening. Enemy troops at the city? “Scrap that. Recover the wounded, then fall back to the city. We’ll get the dead later. If the gates are being pressed hard, Agammemnon is trying something bold, and we may be able to cut him off and kill him, end the siege early.” He glanced at the men he had with him - and those lying on the ground.

Of the bodies lying motionless on the field, a little under a hundred and fifty wore the violet of Justanlia. Men he’d led to their deaths. The Aegir dead outnumbered them - greatly - but the victory he’d seized, even as the Aegir camp burned, along with the ram, dozens of ladders and two under-construction siege towers, had been paid for in too much blood.

The soldiers began marching back towards the city, keeping careful formation, Marcus keeping pace at their head. The tread of almost 3600 feet should have made more noise. People were too quiet. The captains of his battalions would signal when they were close enough - he wanted to catch Agamemnon by surprise when he was caught. 

But as the soldiers came back into sight of the city, and saw Alexander’s loyalist cavalry be quickly repelled, even as they spotted hundreds of Aegir dead at the foot of the walls, shot through with arrows, Marcus realized what had happened. Agammemnon had anticipated a counter-attack but not its timing after Thomas had stolen the letter and was looking to come in enough force that he could force the defenders into an open confrontation that would allow him to directly devastate their strength.

Marcus was stuck on the wrong side of the wall with seventeen hundred inexperienced soldiers capable of fighting - and a small army between him and the gates. Even as Iris’s archers continued raining devastation on the Aegir forces, Marcus realized that the only way in was going to be either to swing his force wide - too great a risk of being outflanked and completely crushed if the remaining Aegir cavalry, who all seemed to be concentrated here, hit him in concentration - or try to push through and hope to Bahamut that his forces came to back him up and maybe they’d be able to catch Agammemnon between them. 

He turned to his men. “You see what’s ahead of us, right?” His voice wasn’t loud. “Whatever reason you took the money to fight, this is the time to think on it. If it was food or survival, I know that the official thing I’m supposed to say is that I’ll hang you for desertion. But I won’t. If you joined up to take care of yourself, this is the time to run. I won’t pursue you. If you joined up because there’s someone you care about behind those walls - that’s your gates Agmemmnon is ramming. Your friends and family he’s going to slaughter if he breaks through. He’s going to do his best to catch the lion’s share of our troops out in the open and crush them - but he’s given us a golden opportunity to do the same to him. It’s dangerous, but he doesn’t know we’re here yet. Victory or defeat, I will find whoever you leave behind. You and those we already left behind back at that camp. But if you need to run, I won’t hold it against you. If you want to fight - money isn’t it. Feeding yourself isn’t…after this battle there’s a real chance you won’t need it. If you’re fighting for people, or to avenge people, this is the time. You have five minutes, throw off your colors if you’re leaving. Everyone else, stay in the ranks.”

A few men did. Not as many as he thought. Marcus let them go. He did, however, insist they left their weapons - those were not easy to mass produce. “Alright. The rest of you.” he drew in a breath. “FORM RANKS! ADVANCE ON ME! BUGLER! SIGNAL THE GATES! WE’RE COMING BACK AND WE’RE GOING TO CRUSH AGAMEMNON BETWEEN US!” 

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Doodle Collection of the Monster Hunting Babies I’ve been working on over the last few months

Some more messy concepts of my oc Layla…

She’s a monster hunter that specializes in hunting down the undead.

kieraelieson:

Making a Magic Harp 2 is finished!

Making a Magic Harp 2

https://ko-fi.com/post/Making-a-Magic-Harp-2-F1F441P0E

It’s already a rather hectic day. One of the students was messing with potions and it did not go well.

Though thankfully, enough people were helping that all Elora had to do was clean up the library from the mess they’d made searching for a cure. And then Asha invited her to a picnic dinner!

Elora was excited, and very happy, until she got back to the library to find that more students were now trying to recreate that terrible experience the one had already had.

Obviously, she needs to report this. Except that they don’t want to be found out, and try to chase her down to stop her.

kieraelieson:

This is an original story exclusively for monthly subscribers! Help support me and you can read it here!

https://ko-fi.com/post/Making-a-Magic-Harp-Z8Z63QRGA

Making a Magic Harp

Elora, who’s been blessed (or perhaps cursed) with wings, works in a library at a school teaching magic. Though the magic is Very dangerous, and she Certainly doesn’t have any training, she’s trying to make a magical harp.

Though her creating is hindered by her job, and also by meeting an extremely pretty woman named Asha.

You may be interested to know that this story is set in the same universe as the one Fanfiction I’m turning original, though about a hundred miles northwest.