“Keep the artillery going. Move the cannons up parallel to our press.”
Rapp kept his eyes forward as he talked. He heard the horses of aides galloping away to relay the first order to the artillery.
“Press the Fourth and Sixth forward. Turn their retreat to the east and use Neipperg’s attack to envelop them.”
More aides left. Another artillery barrage ripped through the ridgeline. The Kurakin now cowered behind it.
“I want cavalry to scout east. Follow their retreat and make sure we know where they cross the river. We’ll attack them as they try to retreat south and capture as many as we can.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The last of the aides dispersed and King Rapp was left alone on the hilltop. He couldn’t see Neipperg’s attack in the far west, but he knew the general would be aggressive. Rapp knew that flank was forcing the entire left portion of the enemy to retreat.
The Wahrian division in front of Rapp now would break the enemy center. The eastern flank, on the left, didn’t matter. They would break too once the rest of the Kurakin fled south back towards the crossings of the Vitha River.
This was Rapp’s day. This was a day for the king. The southern Horde never stood a chance against him.
It had almost been too easy. Rapp shook his head and watched another round of cannon fire rip through a group of Kurakin cannons trying to find cover in the distant trees.
He could already imagine the feeling of leading the victorious army back into Citiva to cheers from his people.
Rapp looked up and closed his eyes and felt the midday sun beat down on his face. It was a warm contrast to the cold fall breeze that swept over the land.
Rapp didn’t need a direct conversation with the god. The king may have failed the initial task, but he was now winning the war the god had called “unwinnable.” He was free from his mother’s peace summit. He was gaining glory through warfare and would bring victory back to Wahring in a way his father never could.
“Sir, the artillery is pressing forward to the tree line.”
Rapp turned his horse to face the aide who brought the message. The king’s mount snorted jealously as the aide’s horse breathed heavily from his recent gallop.
“Good, have them keep the pressure on. Any word from Neipperg?”
“Nothing yet. I’ll go see what I can find out.”
“Thank you.”
The aide bowed his head quickly and whipped his horse back around and returned east. Rapp’s mount stamped a hoof in the mud, longing to run after the other horse.
Rapp patted the side of the beast’s neck. “It’s okay, we’ll ride soon enough.”
Rapp wanted to be at the front of the attack. He wanted to lead a column of men into the broken Kurakin lines, but a king had to protect himself. He had to lead and coordinate from the back.
Rapp pulled the horse around to face back towards the south and watched the last of the Kurakin retreat into the woods. The day was won.
Rapp had to smile at the images of Leberecht running with the Kurakin somewhere in those woods. The king hoped Leberecht would be captured alive. He’d like to see the look on his former mentor’s face while rotting in a jail cell and waiting to be executed on the plateau’s cliff.
Today was a good day. Rapp kicked his horse into a trot and followed the road down the other side of his hill. He would go and oversee the final push to ensure the Kurakin retreated south. The battle was over, this part of the war was a success.
Rapp took a final look south and the remains of the battlefield with the earth torn to pieces and the bodies of the enemy strewn about. Somewhere beyond the distant tree line was the traitor Leberecht. Rapp would get revenge for his country soon enough.
Leberecht
The sounds of the battle were distant and rumbled like a storm far out to sea that would never reach the coastline. Leberecht imagined if he could get high enough, he’d be able to see the flashes of the cannons like lightning illuminating the ocean’s horizon from the coast of Morada.
He closed his eyes and imagined what each of the rumbles meant. It was a calming feeling somehow. The deep and distant sounds of war meant death and destruction.
But not to Leberecht’s army.
King Rapp would think he’d won. He would assume he was attacking the main Kurakin force, but Leberecht and Mikhail and the Kurakin generals had never wanted to defeat Rapp’s army in open combat at this stage in the war.
They had only ever wanted to outsmart it.
There was a larger goal for this campaign. The Wahrian army could be defeated in other ways besides direct confrontation.
The Kurakin were famous for prowess and ferocity on the battlefield, but they excelled at strategic warfare as well.
Leberecht smiled and climbed back up into his carriage. “Back to the headquarters,” he called up to the driver.
The main Kurakin force now sat east of the Wahrian king’s forces. They were north of the Vitha River and hunkered down in the dense woods that stretched over the land like a woolen blanket.
They had more men than Rapp and were between the king and his precious capital.
The land around Vith and the far western provinces of Wahring wouldn’t support an army of Rapp’s size. He would need the farmland on the other side of the western woods. Leberecht’s carriage now traveled through that farmland. The Kurakin and Moradan armies now controlled the crops Rapp would need to survive.
Leberecht smiled and shook his head. His cheeks no longer cramped; his muscles had grown strong enough to handle the constant joy of this victory.
It’d been too easy. Leberecht wasn’t a warrior, and yet he would bring down a warrior king and his realm with one simple campaign. All it had taken was a strong army with intelligent generals and Leberecht’s reading of historic battles and his knowledge of how rash King Rapp would be in his first battle.
The carriage bumped down the road back towards the Kurakin headquarters in their new camp. The thunder of the far-off battle still grumbled behind Leberecht. Fields of wheat flickered by outside the window.
It wasn’t glorious to win a war this way. But glory wasn’t what Leberecht sought.
He strove for power and would take it any way he could.
Citiva was that power. Leberecht now stood on the doorstep of the city he coveted. He’d grown up with the plateau on his horizon and was told it was too distant and that he would never reach its height. He was about to prove everyone wrong.
The army would fend off the feeble attacks Rapp would launch once he realized where the real Kurakin army was. The Wahrian army would slowly drain its resources and become bogged down in the west.
Leberecht chuckled to himself in the carriage. It was a wonderful day. A wonderful time to be alive.
Once the Kurakin ensured Rapp was trapped with the army in Vith, Leberecht would turn and march east. They would besiege Citiva and take the palace on the plateau.
The Wahrian royals were done. They were the first of many royal families to fall. Leberecht shook his head and couldn’t believe he was so close to the power he’d dreamed about for so long. In just a few short days he would march towards Citiva and besiege the plateau he’d wanted to rule from since he was a little boy.
Rapp
Rapp sat on a log and stared at the mud. His aides built up his tent around him. The camp was quiet as the soldiers nursed wounds and recovered from the day’s fighting.
None of anything made sense. The Kurakin army they’d attacked had been a small force. There hadn’t been more regiments waiting deeper in the woods. Leberecht or Mikhail or any Kurakin generals weren’t leading the army they’d faced.
It had been a decoy. King Rapp had been fooled.
He’d called for his generals to give their report on what they’d found after the battle. They sent out scouts to the south and east to find the rest of the Kurakin. Rapp would demand answers tonight but knew that he wouldn’t get any.
The next steps in
the war would take days to parse out. In real war, there is no climax. There was no single great moment of victory.
Rapp knew deep down that he was learning something. He was being taught a lesson by the Kurakin. War was drawn out. It was long and one battle didn’t always lead to glory.
It was months of planning. Weeks of marching and establishing supply lines. A battle occurred in a day, but it was won long before.
That first night staring at the mud was the worst for Rapp. The following days didn’t bring relief. The army took control of the Vith region and sent out more scouts. The next evening, a column of cavalry found the main Kurakin force.
The Horde was east of Vith.
Between Rapp and Citiva.
Even as his officers told him the news, King Rapp could feel the war slipping away from him. They were trapped in the west. They would have to attack the Kurakin position in the forest from a weaker position.
The days passed by in a blur. The attack never came.
Rapp tried to move his army back east, but every time they tried to press up a road or through the forest, they were turned back by the Kurakin.
The Horde were experts at harassing. They sent units of Kurakin cavalry with short muskets who could fire on the Wahrian column and ride away without slowing down. They crouched in the underbrush and sprang up to ambush the king’s supply lines.
Any pitched battle was small and never allowed the Wahrians to gain anything. Everything was a defeat, and Rapp blew through his army’s supplies early.
The campaign was over. Rapp couldn’t break through. He wanted another chance at battle, but Leberecht and the Kurakin weren’t going to give it to him.
They had the upper hand. There was no big moment that swung the tide of this war. There was no opportunity for glory. There was only the slow, long slog towards defeat.
Rapp had failed.
He’d failed the Ascended One first and then his realm. He was now trapped in Vith, far from home, and powerless to stop Leberecht from attacking his mother and his capital city.
Chapter 24
A great general must have luck on his side.
Quote attributed to Marshal Lauriston
Year 1112 Post-Abandonment, during the Moradan Campaigns
Andrei
Andrei watched through a gap in the trees as the hawk circled over the valley. He closed his eyes and let them roll into the back of his head. His next view was high above the forest with the wind rushing past his head.
The Scythes moved around their prey. They stalked silently and kept the girl’s group within view but never gave away the chase. They would cut the Erlonians off and would soon trap them in the hills.
The night before, Andrei had placed men throughout the forest at various places he thought the Erlonians could be hiding. But the waterfall had always stuck out the most in his mind. He’d chosen to stake that location out himself.
The Erlonians had proven fast and crafty. They were easy to track but harder to catch.
Today, Andrei wanted to stalk them slowly and lull the prey into a false sense of safety. They thought their waterfall ruse had worked and Andrei wanted them to keep thinking they were almost safe. He would wait to strike until the moment was perfect and his men could not fail.
It took patience from his men, but they could feel the attack coming. They would lay the trap soon and finally end the prolonged chase. Andrei nudged his wolverine forward down the hill.
“What are you thinking on, Commander?” Jerkal rode beside Andrei. Both men shifted back and forth as their wolverines moved beneath them. “You’ve been quiet today.”
“The end of this, friend.” Andrei kept his eyes forward on the trail ahead.
A message came back from the scouts. The Erlonians were moving where Andrei had predicted, along the valley’s curve between two hills. They were traveling right into good land for a trap.
“Soon, Jerkal. We attack soon.”
Lauriston
Lauriston ran a whetstone along the edge of his bayonet and listened to the steel and stone scraping against each other. He’d sleep little during the coming night. The silence of the approaching danger would be too much. Most of his men would be the same way.
Lauriston glanced around the campsite in front of him. Mon measured out powder for everyone’s pouches. Lodi sharpened his two short swords, three daggers, and the tip of his spear. Quatre cleaned and loaded his pistols and stared off towards the west.
The Princess Elisa sat and cleaned her pistols next to Lauriston. He wondered what she was feeling. It had to be obvious that the camp was nervous.
The soldiers here were veterans. They would be nervous but ready. Lauriston couldn’t imagine what a girl of only fourteen would be thinking, though.
Lauriston had to get her to safety. His promise to her father still echoed in his mind. He would keep it. He wouldn’t fail Lannes.
“I hear we’re not far from your army.” Pitt joined Lauriston by the fire and placed his saber across his lap to use his own whetstone on it.
Lauriston only grunted in response.
Pitt began sharpening his cavalry sword. Long, smooth strokes along the length of the curved blade. “You think your army is still by the lake?” Pitt said.
“It’s where we agreed to hide,” Lauriston said. “But things may have changed for the general I left in charge. We can only hope this crazy war hasn’t pushed them somewhere else.”
Pitt didn’t say anything. For a long while there were only the sounds of the fire and their whetstones sharpening their weapons.
“How many men does a Scythe party usually travel with?”
“Fifteen, give or take,” Quatre said before Lauriston could answer. The general walked around them and dropped his pistol-cleaning pack next to his bag behind Lauriston.
Both men turned and looked at Quatre. “You do the math,” he said as he marched back the way he came.
“He’s right.” Lauriston shrugged and went back to his sword. He didn’t want to think about being outnumbered against enemies on wolverines right now.
“And you’ve fought them before?”
Lauriston paused before answering. He wasn’t sure he wanted to relive these memories the night before a potential fight. “Yes. They plagued our cavalry during scouting on our campaigns in the south. They kept us blind and afraid.”
“And they’re in bands of fifteen?”
“Usually more with a large army like that.” Lauriston shrugged again. “Fifteen is the standard scouting unit, though. I’d assume that’s what’s after us.”
Pitt didn’t ask more questions. Lauriston was thankful. The Brunian finished sharpening his sword and bid Lauriston good night.
The rest of the camp slowly retired as well. Elisa went to her tent early. Lauriston took first watch and stayed up as the soldiers rolled into their sleeping bags against the chill of late fall.
It would be a long night. Tomorrow would be a long and dangerous day.
* * *
Low clouds hung over the hills to start the next morning. Lauriston wanted the group to move efficiently and he kept scouting to a minimum in the rear.
“Only a half day’s ride to Lake Brodeur, I’d say.” Quatre helped Lauriston strap down a pack on the back of his horse.
“Let’s hope so.” Lauriston’s throat was sore after a night of fitful sleep and the chill in the night. He looked up at the specks of sky visible through the trees.
Hope was all they had now. Lauriston wasn’t naive enough to believe they’d escaped the Scythes completely. Their trick with the waterfall had maybe bought them some extra time. They hadn’t seen the Scythes behind them in a while, but Lauriston knew they were there.
He fully expected another attack to come before they reached the lake and the army that hopefully waited for them there.
“We’ll be ready if they come.” Quatre slapped a hand on Lauriston’s shoulder and went off to help some of the others load up.
The woo
ds were quiet around the camp. Mon and Lodi helped Elisa pack up her tent. Desaix checked the muskets of his scouts one last time.
At last they were all ready and they set off as the sun appeared fully over the hills in front of them. The world glowed and the trees around them turned golden. Lauriston felt exposed in the bright and open air.
Lauriston spurred his horse and waved for the group to follow. He led them down into the valley and rode at the front with Quatre close behind. Elisa was in the center with two Jinetes stationed on either side of her. Mon and Desaix brought up the rear.
No attack came through the first part of the morning. Quatre even made a joke about all their preparation being for nothing.
But Lauriston knew better.
Something felt wrong. Things were too quiet.
The group came around a curve in the hills and the trees thinned slightly. He caught a glimpse of sky and finally saw the dark speck floating towards them that signaled the coming end to the quiet.
A hawk circled lazily on the wind.
“Hawk sighted,” he called back to the group.
Quatre’s joking stopped. The men checked weapons and readied muskets. A horse snorted.
“Where will they attack from?” Lauriston heard Lodi ask Elisa.
“The rear, hoping to make us fly forward into a trap,” Elisa said in response.
Lauriston nodded to himself. That’s where he expected the attack to come from as well.
The marshal saw the curve of the path and the narrowness of the space between two hills in front of them. A steep incline rose on their left. A rock terrace sat farther ahead on the right.
The hawk still circled above them.
Lauriston sensed the attack before it happened.
Lodi whistled a signal. The forest was still quiet, but Lauriston could feel the Scythes about to make their move.
He saw the ambush through the land in front of them. He also saw a way around it, but it would be tight. He flicked a hand signal behind him and drew his pistol. He spurred his horse faster and the group followed.
The Fall of Erlon Page 27
