Chapter Six: The Battle of Carnac
I
A message arrived for Paul. The Independent Cavalry Regiment had succeeded in neutralizing a total of thirty thousand imperial troops stationed throughout the north, and called for the Seventh Legion to join them posthaste.
After dismissing the messenger, Paul delivered his orders, and the twenty-five-thousand-strong main force marched for Windsome Castle. After rendezvousing with the Independent Cavalry Regiment they continued their advance, doing away with all the imperial troops they encountered along the way.
“How do you think the enemy commander will respond, my lord?” Otto asked.
“I wonder...” Paul mused, stroking his horse’s neck. “I don’t think they want a siege. Windsome is a lowland castle—it has next to no value as a defensive position. Our enemy is far more dangerous when they’re on the offensive too.”
Otto nodded. “I agree. We can have the catapults we seized ready, but I doubt they’ll be of much use.” Otto was amazed by the catapults the Independent Cavalry Regiment had recovered. After conducting a study of their capabilities, he had concluded that their potency far outshone any of the catapults in the royal army’s arsenal. They were also around a quarter of the size of those catapults, which meant they could be operated by smaller teams. Such machines would revolutionize siege warfare. They were also proof that the empire’s technology was several steps ahead of Fernest’s. As far as Otto was concerned, however, technological superiority alone couldn’t turn the tide of a war. Throughout history, wars turned on the strength of will of those who fought in them. It did, however, point to the root of the empire’s current dominance.
“It might be better to send those back to the capital to have our engineers disassemble them and do a proper analysis. Besides,” Paul went on, in a rare bout of sentimentality, “that castle was the lifework of Count Tristan Windsome, hero of the kingdom. It might be in enemy hands now, but I don’t think I’ve got it in me to reduce it to rubble.”
Otto knew the story of Tristan Windsome and the Theodore Rebellion of the 800s. In only two days, Tristan had crushed the rebel army of twenty thousand with only two thousand soldiers. Even now, he was remembered as a hero. Otto expected that most people shared Paul’s sentimentality towards the castle. At the same time, the rules of the universe dictated that castles, like every other physical thing, would one day crumble. Knowing this, he himself found it hard to sympathize.
“Assuming, then, that the Crimson Knights go on the offensive, the question becomes where they will choose for their battlefield.”
“Yes. There’s no shortage of locations around here that could work. I honestly have no idea where they’ll go,” Paul said. Otto called up a mental image of the map he’d memorized, and thought through the options. In the vicinity of Windsome Castle alone, three locations occurred to him: the Plains of Salz, the Carnac Ravine, and the Toueffle Plateau. And Paul was right, there were plenty more candidates. It was simply too hard to predict the enemy army’s movements, and Otto decided that they were better off not to waste time in trying.
“There are too many possibilities to be able to narrow it down to one.”
“For now, send scouts out to the locations you think are most likely.”
“Yes, my lord,” Otto said. He summoned the scouts, then gave them their orders. They departed promptly, each in a different direction.
“Thanks to the Independent Cavalry Regiment, we’ll be evenly matched on numbers at least. I expect Major Olivia will play a key role in this battle too. Make sure you stay in close communication with her.”
“Understood, my lord,” Otto replied, seeing Olivia’s carefree smile in his mind’s eye.
Meanwhile, Rosenmarie and the Crimson Knights were on the move. Just as Paul had predicted, she planned to march out and meet the Seventh Legion in a head-on confrontation. The location Rosenmarie chose to station her forces at was a gorge to the southwest of Windsome Castle—the Carnac Ravine. The Bennum River flowed along the base of the gorge, and it was surrounded by low-lying mountains. The Crimson Knights knew the mountains well—it was where they trained. The ravine was an ideal position for them to mount an ambush.
From her command tent atop a low hill, Rosenmarie gazed serenely out over the land as it turned deep red in the light of the setting sun. A pleasant breeze rustled through the leaves, caressing her flaming red hair.
She’s beautiful, thought Guyel. He was struck, as he always was, by how Rosenmarie grew lovelier still when she stood on the battlefield. Then, remembering himself, he said, “Our forces are all in formation, my lady.”
Rosenmarie nodded. “The time has come at last,” she said. “All that’s left to do is wait for the Seventh Legion to arrive.”
“Yes, ser,” Guyel replied. “Here, at the hands of the Crimson Knights, the Seventh Legion will meet their doom.”
“Obviously,” she replied. “Oh, I can’t wait to see what our famous Death God Olivia does. She’d better give me her very best performance.” Rosenmarie spun around, her crimson cape emblazoned with the crossed swords of the empire billowing behind her, and returned to her tent.
The following day, just as the sun reached its zenith in the cloudy blue sky, the Seventh Legion made their long-awaited entrance. The rumble of drumbeats echoed from the two camps as though in acknowledgment of one another. A battle cry rose up from both sides. Twenty-eight thousand voices from the Seventh Legion. Twenty-five thousand from the Crimson Knights.
On one side, Paul, fighting to liberate the north from the empire’s tyranny. On the other, Rosenmarie, fighting to destroy the ones who had robbed her of Osvannes. Both commanders alike in their unyielding conviction.
Thus, the Battle of Carnac began.
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