Portals of Infinity: Book Five: Demigods and Deities

by John Van Stry

  After that, they'd race around behind us and join back together on our left flank. The Barassan commander would have to be concerned about Eklin's troops attacking his left flank (our right) and so he'd have to reinforce that side of his army accordingly. This meant that the other side should be an easier target.

  But still it was going to be a tough battle. We'd dropped our estimates on the Barassan army to below ninety thousand troops, last night's escapades, along with Eklin's efforts, had done some damage. However, we were only seventy thousand, not counting the four thousand cavalry, and whatever Eklin managed to save.

  "I hate waiting," I growled and looked around the field at the rest of our deployed forces. The Holden troops were still coming, they were jogging rather quickly.

  "I don't think we'll have too much longer to go," Wyland said and pointed across the field where the troops emerging from the brush there were actually running now.

  "Finally," I said and put my helmet on, and fastened the straps.

  For about a minute, no one else emerged from the brush, but then we saw them, the Barassan army. They were double-timing it, chasing after the retreating Holden soldiers. When they saw us, some of their front line faltered a moment, causing those behind them to push into them, knocking them down and tripping them up.

  Unfortunately it was only a handful. Commands were shouted out, then a horn blew, and the army went from double time, to normal time.

  But they had entered our 'V' and would soon be making contact with the elements of our flanks before they could stop.

  "Troops!" I called out loudly, using my champion's powers to amplify my voice.

  "Ready!" I called again, and I heard all of their swords drawn as one, as I drew my own.

  "Charge!" And I took off, leading the charge and getting in front so that all eyes were on me, and as it had happened before, a beam of light found me in the field and I suddenly blazed brightly in the sunlight in the field and the Hilander's all cheered as I led them against the Barassan army.

  They were still in disarray when we hit them. They had been concentrating on trying to catch up with the retreating Holden forces, that they had not thought that they might face a counter-attack.

  And of course, it was their light infantry leading the chase, and no doubt, they had been running for some time, when they suddenly encountered our heavy infantry, all of whom were quite well-rested.

  And then I was in the middle of it and fighting for my life once more. I slowed a little as I plowed into their lines, to let the rest of my soldiers to catch up with me. The fight started off a lot easier than the battle with the Mulander army had, but then I wasn't facing fresh, well-rested, heavy infantry.

  I actually managed to fight for quite some time before I got my first wound, which I healed immediately. But I still took a step back to try and assess just where we were, and what was going on around us.

  I could see that we'd actually moved forward of the line where I had originally planned on halting. I could see there was a lot of fighting going on off of both flanks, but that the cavalry was still split in two groups. The group on the right flank was actively supporting that side of our formation, beating back a break in our lines by launching a direct assault into the company that had broken the line.

  On the left, I could see that Carso was leading his troops into the Barassan flank and trying to carry out the maneuver we had planned, with those riders and mounts that he had. Neither side appeared to be in too much trouble, so turning my focus back to the battle before me, I stepped forward and rejoined the fight.

  Suddenly I heard horns blowing, I didn't recognize the horn or the tune, and the Barassan army started to withdraw.

  We continued to fight with them, and we were doing a fair amount of damage still, but when I saw the brush line was getting near, I stopped, and using a cantrip, I raised my voice and waved my swords in the air.

  "Hold! Hold! Advance no further!!"

  Our commanders picked up the call, and our own trumpets signaled to our troops to stop advancing.

  I looked around, the enemy troops were retreating much faster now, I waved everyone back, and slowly we all started to move back to our positions. The recall played a moment later and all of our lines pulled back.

  I looked around at the other troops, they all had the same dazed expression on their face, but life was slowly creeping back in, now that the battle was over. That was when I stopped and surveyed the field.

  There were a lot of dead, a lot of dead, and among the heavy foot, the number of our bodies lying dead on the ground was fairly few, the enemy however had not faired so well.

  "Well, looks like we carried the day again, William," Wyland said walking over to me.

  "Yes, we won this round. Now we just need to see what it cost us, and how much of a force Barassa has left."

  "We lost close to ten thousand soldiers, about half of those were killed, the rest have been wounded enough to make them ineffective." General Weiss was giving us the run down, while we sat around the command table and ate.

  "On the positive side, we killed over ten thousand of their soldiers, and have taken another twelve thousand prisoner, though more than half of those are wounded."

  "We took how many prisoners?" First Young said rather surprised."

  "About twelve thousand, we're still counting." General Weiss said.

  "How did that happened?"

  General Weiss smiled, "Apparently First Carso was able to cut off a couple of companies from the main body of troops, and then drive them into a marsh. They either surrendered, or they drowned. Most surrendered, which almost doubled the numbers of soldiers we had captured."

  "What is the status of Eklin's troops?" I asked.

  "He lost almost another third before he could fight his way free. He's down to about twenty-five thousand effectives. But they're in need of food and rest. It will probably be several days before we can use them."

  I nodded, "What do we know about the Barassan troop dispositions?"

  "Reports are still coming in, but it appears that they have withdrawn back to Willet's Town."

  I looked at the map on the table and someone pointed to it.

  "What happened to their heavy foot?"

  "I'm guessing that they were either too tired to fight, or left in the rear from the start. The Barassan general must have felt that he had a good enough advantage, that he didn't need them."

  I nodded, "How did our right flank do? I noticed they got hit pretty heavy early on."

  "There were a lot more troops than we had expected, and they managed to break through our lines before we had them fully developed. However Second Charles, with the cavalry engaged them aggressively, and moved deep into their formation, and broke their attack."

  I nodded, "Is he still with us?" I asked.

  "Yes, but he's now among the wounded. First Carso is with him now."

  I nodded. I'd already gotten a note from Carso detailing the cavalry losses, Carso's group had lost a little over a hundred riders, and around seventy-five mounts. Charles's group had lost close to five hundred riders, and about as many mounts.

  "So, what's our next move?" I said sitting back and looking around the room.

  "Well, we go after them of course."

  "Are you sure that's wise?" I asked.

  Everyone looked at me, "How do you mean?" General Weiss asked.

  "They've withdrawn to a position that they believe they can hold against us, or at least have an advantage. If we go to them, we lose the advantage that we have here." I looked around the room at everyone, and then continued. "Now we did score a good victory against them today, but they probably still have the numbers on us. So if we attack now, we attack at a disadvantage."

  "But we need to drive them back to Barassa, if not wipe them out!" One of the junior officers said, and more than a few nodded.

  "I'm a big fan of the wiping them out option, I'll admit," I said with a smile and more than a few gave a snort of amusemen
t or smiled as well. "However, we have a lot more troops coming to join us, we have Eklin's troops that need to recover, and the simple fact of the matter is, Barassa has to come to us.

  "At this point, if we don't move to engage them, it costs us nothing. In fact, it gains us quite a bit in improving our numbers, and our ground. But Barassa? Remember, this is a war of conquest for them, if they just sit there, King Stivik will have their heads! They need to conquer us, they need to beat us, they must come back and fight us again. Until we are gone, they can not take Marland. They can not move on to Holden, or Hiland.

  "This is where we make our stand. Here is where we will destroy them!"

  General Weiss and First Young both looked thoughtfully at me, a couple of the other officers actually cheered.

  "But, but what if they don't attack?" General Weiss asked slowly.

  "Oh trust me," I smiled, "They will. Oh, I'm sure they'll do what they can to try and lure us out. I know I would. I'd burn all the villages and towns to the ground, and do anything else I could think of to try and break our resolve.

  "They will probably hold out a week, possibly even two. But their general's head will be on a pike and there will be a new commander if he tries to go a third one." I smiled, "Besides, it's not like we won't be making their lives difficult. Our cavalry is still effective and will be performing raiding operations on any exposed or isolated units. But once we make it clear that we're not moving, King Stivik himself will order the attack if their general does not."

  "I think he has a point, General," First Young said.

  General Weiss nodded slowly, "You do make a compelling argument, William, and you are in command after all."

  I nodded, "Yes, but I want you to understand my reasons, General. I need your advice, and the advice of the other officers here," I gestured to the room, "if you don't understand my tactics, and except my arguments, then I won't get very good advice, will I?"

  General Weiss smiled and nodded. "All too true, William, all too true. So I guess we need to start planning our defenses for when our friends the Barassan's decide to come visit us once more."

  I went looking for Jane next, and found her with the healers as they worked on the wounded.

  "How are you doing, Jane?" I asked her quietly after I pulled her away from one of the beds where a medic was working on one of the more seriously wounded soldiers while the priests recharged, or did whatever it was they did between healings.

  "I'm... I'm fine," she said turning away.

  "Save the brave act for the dying and the wounded," I told her, taking her arm and gently turning her back to face me. "Now, how are you really doing?"

  "What do you care?" She said shooting me a glare. "Why aren't you off with Miss Hotbody!"

  "Miss Hotbody?" I snickered, "Fordessa did tell you what she did to me, didn't she?"

  "Well, you sure forgave her pretty fast!"

  "Jane, she went against what her god was telling her to do, to help me get my child back! Of course I forgave her! You would have too."

  Jane sighed and looked down at her feet; I could see her tail was drooping.

  "So how are you doing, with all of this?" I asked again.

  "It's rough, it pretty rough. So many people died, and the killing, I don't know how many I killed when I ran up to help close the breech, just that it was a lot, many, too many."

  I nodded and hugged her, because she looked like she needed a hug, "The first time is always the worst."

  "So you're telling me this gets easier?" She said and tucked her head into my shoulder.

  "I don't know that it gets easier," I sighed, "It just gets easier to deal with. Go find a place to sleep for a while, talk to Fordessa, it helps, a lot."

  "Will, I," Jane looked up at me, "I really don't want to sleep by myself."

  I smiled at her and gave her a kiss on the forehead. "Fine, I have a tent around here somewhere, you can sleep with me. But I need to go talk to Miss 'Hotbody' first, before we do."

  "What do you want to talk to her for?" Jane said growling softly.

  "Because she's a lot smarter than she lets on, and hiding under that manipulative sexy exterior lurks an opportunist with a bit of a decent streak and a few morals." I said grinning at her.

  "You like her?"

  "When she's not turning on the charm, yeah, I do a bit. But it scares the hell out of me sometimes how hot she is."

  "It's just an act you know," Jane sighed.

  I shook my head, "I got to know her when she was helping me while I was carrying. I think she desperately wants men to like her, to desire her. I suspect that's why she's so good at it, because it's a part of her."

  "I'd much rather hear stories of you being pregnant," Jane teased.

  "Uh-huh, I'm sure you would. Well, let's go find her, then we can go get some sleep."

  It took us about an hour to find Evean, she was visiting with the most severely of the wounded, I watched as she finished with one and kissed him rather passionately on the lips, then moved to another, talked quietly with him a moment and did the same.

  Apparently she'd been at it for quite a while, because she was at the end of a rather long row.

  "Oh, hi, Will, Jane," she said and came over and gave each of us a hug, "No kissing," she warned me when I hugged her.

  "Why not?" Jane asked curious.

  "Lipstick, it's a pretty potent narcotic."

  "But I just saw you kissing each of those males," Jane said looking down the line of cots.

  Evean nodded, "They all served well, and fought with honor and distinction, sending them on with a last passionate kiss, and putting an end to their pain is one of the jobs I'm tasked to do."

  "You ... you killed them?" Jane said looking rather indignant, and the fur on her hackles and face started to rise. I had been looking at the soldiers in the tent; they all looked pretty badly wounded.

  "Jane," I said and put my hand on her shoulder, "Look at them."

  "Huh?" she said and looked back at the wounded.

  "They were the ones that couldn't be saved, aren't they?" I asked Evean.

  Evean nodded, "Yup. Normally one of the priestesses would ease them out, but I promised them all that I would do the service for any that fell today."

  "Promised them?" Jane looked a little confused.

  "Roden is also a god of warriors," Evean said to Jane. "Going to see Roden after valiantly falling in battle is to be celebrated, each warrior cherished." Evean sighed and smiled, "They fought so well, Roden is very pleased with all of them."

  "Doesn't it bother you?" Jane said looking at the unconscious bodies, many of which bore some rather horrendous wounds.

  "I've seen worse," Evean said.

  "Than this?" Jane motioned around.

  Evean nodded, "As a child. Now, what brings the two of you here?"

  Jane started to say something, but I put my hand on her arm again, and she quieted, I knew where Evean was from of course, and doing some quick mental math I suddenly realized just when she'd left her home. I also suspected that quite a few of the patients had died while we were talking.

  "Let's go outside," I said and taking Evean's arm as well, I steered us all out of the tent.

  "I wanted to find out if you saw anything worth sharing," I said to Evean as we walked. "I also wanted to let you know that we're going to be setting up camp here and defending against the Barassan army when it comes back.

  Evean nodded, "Okay." She stopped, causing Jane and I to stop as well, and looked around. "A word of caution, Will," she said in a soft voice. "Ruusolf's just sent orders to Eklin that went on quite a great deal about you, and about how handsomely Eklin would be rewarded if you should say, be cut down in battle or some such."

  "I'd just reincarnate," I said wearily.

  "But without you there to inspire and guide your troops, they'd suffer greatly, especially if the Barassan champion was to target them over the others."

  "You mean to tell me, that will all this crap that's going o
n, Ruusolf is trying to sell us out?" Jane growled, her eye's narrowing to slits.

  Evean shrugged, "I don't know, maybe, or maybe he just really hates Will. You know he does have that effect on people," Evean sniggered and gave me a wink.

  I sighed, "So what is Eklin going to do?"

  "Eklin is keeping a sharp eye on his officers, and any new troops that show up. As most of his officers worship Roden, I'm going around and having some discreet words with all of them. But still, be wary, Will."

  I nodded, "Thanks. Well, I'm going to go get some rest."

  "Me too," Jane purred and gave me a hug.

  Rather than looking jealous, Evean just laughed, "Well, good for you girl! Just don't do Ruusolf's job for him and kill him in bed!"

  I laughed as Jane actually blushed.

  "Not that kind of rest," I smirked at Evean, "Though we were a couple, once upon a time."

  Evean didn't look like she believed any of it, "Oh of course, sure you were. Well, I have an appointment with the still active members of Eklin's troops. Time to cheer up the soldiers!"

  "There must be twenty thousand of them," Jane said surprised.

  "Yeah, it's a bit less than I'm used to," Evean said pouting, "But I'll just have to make do. Bye!" She walked off then, with a wicked smile and a very exaggerated sway in her hips.

  "She can't be serious!" Jane said and looked at me.

  "I think your leg just came off in her hand," I said and tried not to laugh.

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Jane said looking at me.

  "It means we should go back to my tent and get some sleep."

  "Oh, well, if you insist," Jane smiled and took my arm.

  Seventeen

  Battlements East of Marland

  "Holse!" I said and came over and touched palms, then grabbed his forearm happily, "Am I glad to see you!"

  Holse smiled and looked around, "Been busy have you?"

  I nodded, General Weiss and First Young, and even General Eklin, had gotten their troops busy building a palisades all along our front lines. It had been a week since our last battle, and the Barassan troops still hadn't stirred from their position, but I had faith in my plans.