Chương 62: Chapter 60 - Adaptation

Our march would begin tomorrow. Giving the enemy a head start wouldn't have been ideal - had they been running. They were not. The army was camped near the mouth of the Marnadal Pass instead. My scouts estimated their numbers to be around six thousand now, roughly double my own troops. A very manageable number. I had understood the flying sorceress's main trick, and illusions were something I was rather proficient in breaking.

With only a day to prepare, there was no way the enemy could have gotten more siege engines. All in all, not a large risk, though I couldn't shake an uneasy feeling. Despite my own thoughts about growing lax, sorcerers in this world were fundamentally different from the aerial mages of my past life. Both less and more powerful, if in different ways. Aerial mages largely utilised the same spells, the main difference being in their individual skill, raw power, and, of course, equipment.

Though even those differences could largely be accounted for. The sorcerers of this world were much more versatile, and while this did not generally translate into them being more lethal than the average aerial mage, it did make any encounter much more unpredictable, as you had no way of knowing what to expect from the enemy. From fire, illusions, and teleportation to the more exotic and conceptual spells like artifact compression or curses.

Defending yourself against a bullet or a laser was easy, especially if you knew that was all your enemy might manage. Dealing with a curse meant to turn you into a furred beast, broken only when you drank the blood of a loved one, was a whole other issue. Fortunately, curses tended be rather impractical for combat applications, but that did not diminish the sheer breadth and strangeness of what magic could do here. Even that barely scratched the surface.

I knew for a fact that spells and rituals involving human sacrifice existed, even if they were not favoured. In many ways, this went largely against the Imperial magical theory of my past life, yet it worked nonetheless. Underestimating sorcerers, especially those with their lives on the line, was the height of folly. Yet, I felt confident. Perhaps it was hubris, but while the magic of my past life might have been different, the fundamentals of combat were not.

And, while my time as an Ace of Aces was largely involuntary, it would be a lie to say I had not learnt a thing or two. The rest of the day, I spent finishing up the walls and meditating, gathering as much Power as my foci could hold. As I had planned, I had not really destroyed the walls, merely repositioned the earth into ditches below, so restoring them to their former state was not overly tricky - excluding the added-on structures.

Naturally, I had ordered my troops to remove what they could beforehand, but that didn't mean it wasn't a delay. Still, it was only a portion of the walls, a momentary weakpoint was an acceptable trade off. My army, unfortunately, was not that large. I could fix up everything important today. It was almost a shame that we wouldn't get to use all of the defensive preparations. The next morning, we marched. Well, the soldiers marched, while I rode my horse.

Overlooking the moving troops, I felt satisfaction at a job well done. The levies might not have been up to par yet, but the sight of the giant War Hounds walking amongst them inspired courage even in the most cowardly of them. The rest of my soldiers marched with confidence, eager for battle and ready to seize victory.

'So much potential, so many resources, heading straight to the slaughter,' I couldn't help but think. Even if I sought to minimise my own losses and maximise those of the enemy, the loss would still be enormous - largely because it had already occurred. Instead of being productive members of society, working to advance their country, they were here, marching towards death, if not their own.

Trained for a profession that could not, by its nature, generate value, merely prevent the loss of it, or seize it by force from others. And, of course, the latter was nearly always unnecessary, and always inefficient. There was little that conquest could achieve that societal reform and both industrial and technological development could not. Yet, humans were fundamentally irrational beings.

Children who could not stop themselves from reaching for the single cookie in the hands of another, rather than working to get three of their own. Uncountable deaths, for a couple of cookies. That was what war was, in the end. And the waste! The average twenty-year-old had something like thirty productive years ahead of them, which meant that a mere hundred dead resulted in three thousand lost years of labour.

While I didn't have an accurate count of the dead, they already ranged in the thousands, equaling tens of thousands of lost productive years. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Truly, war was an abhorrent waste of human resources. I shook my head, trying to get rid of the philosophy that had infected me on the eve of battle. If the enemy did not retreat further, it would take us barely a couple of hours to reach them. If they did, then things might get a bit tricky.

Following an enemy that still outnumbered us deep into Nazair was not an appealing proposition and one I was uncertain of pursuing. At the very least, they'd be forced to abandon their camp and the nicely fortifiable position they were in. My suspicions proved unfounded. When we arrived, the enemy was already arrayed in formation, ready to greet us. Phalanxes bristled like angry porcupines at the front, while their flanks were filled by heavy cavalry, undoubtedly eager to plunge their lances into my soldiers.

Behind their lines, a command post sat on a slightly raised part of the field, along with some reserve infantry and some scattered groups of archers. A rather standard arrangement, though the reserves seemed to be mostly composed of mercenaries if the lack of heraldry was any indication, their mismatched armour unified only by a black armband. The Black Company, I imagined. I had expected something more, considering their use of a mage-infiltrator. Oh well. I wasn't about to complain about my job being easier.

The pass ended a few hundred metres behind them, the land opening up. In theory, they could have hidden reinforcements there, out of sight beyond the pass. I'd keep the possibility in mind, but at the same time, there was no rational reason for them to do so. I smiled. I could see that the loss of their ballistae was total. Their hasty retreat did not allow them to salvage any of the engines, despite their smaller-than-standard size.

The sound of horns and barked orders reverberated amongst my own lines as my soldiers moved into position. I, too, did not have much room to arrange anything fancy, nor did I think that it was needed. The first two regiments formed the front, with the archers of the third in the back. Ortagor and his cavalry, together with a Warhound, held one flank, while I held the other. A second Warhound was in the centre, while the third was held in reserve, with the archers.

The same simple arrangement as last time, but there wasn't much reason to attempt any complicated manoeuvres. The War Hounds weren't invulnerable, but against conventional weaponry, they were close. They more than evened the odds here. I put my helmet on, the steel skull grinning at all who dared to look. My eyes were peeled, sharpened by Adda Invaerne, the icy clarity of my reflex enhancement letting me examine the enemy in detail as I searched for my targets. It was time to deal with Nazair once and for all.

I spotted her quickly. A black robed figure, with an iron mask, her position mirroring mine, near the flank of the enemy. I blinked, taking in the details. There was something in front of her, utterly covered in chains. Then it floated upwards, roughly spherical. I narrowed my eyes. Isengrim watched the battlefield with sharp eyes. His objective, and the objective of the more elite members of the men under his command, was simple. To support Degurechaff.

Without ballistae, the sorceress had reasoned, the enemy would likely focus most of their ranged capabilities against the War Hounds. Who, he was assured, could handle such attention just fine, leaving his regiment free to act. The plan, if it could even be called that, was simple. Degurechaff, with the support of the Third Regiment, would fight and hopefully kill the enemy sorcerers, or at the very least stalemate them.

In the meantime, the infantry and cavalry would attack the enemy force proper with the support of the War Hounds. He glanced at Rhiner, the giant beast patiently waiting next to him, dwarfing Isengrim and his horse utterly. If things did not go well, he was to exercise his best judgement on where to utilise the enormous beast most effectively. He blinked as a ball of chains crashed in front of the War Hound assigned to the center, kicking up dust. Matheus, if he was not mistaken.

Isengrim stared as the chains glowed and crackled, before shattering. He rubbed his eyes as the creature hidden inside the chains stood up. It was a horse. Not even a particularly menacing one, a regular old chestnut mare. The scarred elf, from his position, could not make out the hatefully intelligent red eyes of the creature. Nor could he, having not one iota of the Gift, spot the raging currents of the Power surrounding it. He could, however, spot the enemy sorceress levitating slightly above the enemy troops.

"Left flank, the floating witch!" He shouted, before swinging his sword down dramatically, "LOOSE!" Matheus sniffed the air, staring somewhat curiously at the horse in front of them. Roderic did not share the beast's curiosity. He stared at the horse, dumbfounded. Then the horse stared back, and he understood. This wasn't some poorly conceived stratagem, but an answer to Degurechaff's monsters. A golden missile struck the horse in the next moment, causing it to shatter like a dropped mirror. Roderic blinked.

The horse was still there, but a few paces to the right.

"Illusions," he muttered. Then the horse charged. It was almost comical. A lone herbivorous animal, barely half the size of the War Hound, running towards it. Like a pissed off mouse squeaking at a cat. Matheus was clearly confused, but Roderic wasn't.

"Kill, boy!"