“Yes, one formation, if you can call it that. There didn’t seem to be any real order to their ranks, sir.”
“Alright. Are they marching south on the main road?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, that’s very good. Get your horse and get back out there,” Prince Wilam said. “I want regular reports. I’m sending other scouts to help you.”
The scout nodded and hurried away. Wilam turned to his generals.
“Well, if they’re half a day out, that means they’ll be in sight by sundown. I want our troops ready. Let’s get every man into position and then make sure they have food, enough for tonight and tomorrow. We aren’t leaving the field and I’ll be damned if I’m going to be out maneuvered.”
“Aye, sir,” the generals said before moving away to carry out their orders.
Prince Wilam went to his command tent, which was merely an awning with a table full of maps and wooden pieces carved to resemble troops. He used the wooden pieces to demonstrate the maneuvers he planned. He gathered the maps and hurried back up the tower platform. There was enough room on the square-shaped platform for twenty archers. They had large quivers of arrows hanging from the guardrail that ran around the edges of the platform. Wilam had a small pedestal on the center of the platform where he could see over the archers. There was a sturdy roof over the top of the tower so that volley’s of arrows could not rain down on Wilam or the archers. It was where he planned to stay until the battle was over.
Adrenaline was pumping through his veins now and he had to fight the urge to go down and join his men on the front lines of battle. He knew that strategy was best made from a position of cool detachment. He couldn’t send men into harm’s way if he was worried about them. Nor could he make good decisions if he was too emotionally tied to the outcome of the battle. He had to rise above his baser instincts and lead.
He neatly rolled every map and made sure they were all easy to reach. Then he waited. The scouts returned in ones and twos. He had men spread out in every direction from the camp to ensure they weren’t taken unaware. None reported any signs of the enemy, so he sent them to help scout the large force that was moving toward them down the main road toward the Grand City. Prince Wilam had guessed that the invading army would take the easiest and most direct route to Olsa’s capital. Whoever held the Grand City ruled Osla, and the invaders would obviously want to hold what was arguably the most important city in the Five Kingdoms.
They hadn’t spread out or divided their forces yet either. It would make sense to come at the capital from different directions, but they were almost a full week’s march from the Grand City and probably weren’t expecting resistance. The most obvious approach to defending Osla was to take refuge inside the city walls. Even if those walls were breached at one point, the defenders could fall back to the next set of walls, since the city had been built over the centuries in carefully planned parcels with massive walls around each new addition. There were good wells within the city, but food would be an issue-especially when you factored in the number of troops that Wilam commanded. He had left two full legions to defend the city, while he marched with four. There were large storehouses full of grain, but fruit, vegetables, and livestock were brought in from outside the city on a daily basis. Prince Wilam didn’t like the idea of sustaining an army on bread and water, which is exactly what a siege would force him to do. The invaders would grow strong while the defenders grew weak. It would still be an incredibly difficult feat to breach the Grand City’s walls, but not impossible.
Wilam also knew that in a confined space with fear and hunger rampant, the tempers of his men would break easily and they would fall to fighting each other. He had seen it among Queen Gwendolyn’s army. It was better to keep the men busy, even with false promises of the queen’s favor, than to let them sit idle day after day.
So, Prince Wilam had proposed a plan to catch the invaders off guard. He proposed to march out and meet them on the field of battle. He could pick the ground and meet the opposing army with fresh troops who were eager for battle. King Zorlan’s forces would be tired, more anxious to pillage and burn than to fight. And hopefully they would be surprised as well. All the intangibles would be in Wilam’s favor, and he calculated that it was enough of an edge to drive the invaders back into Falxis at the very least, although he hoped that he could wipe out King Zorlan’s forces completely. Then, nothing would stop Prince Wilam from taking Ortis and Falxis for Gwendolyn. He could hand over Yelsia to his queen without war once his father was dead. Then, only Baskla, the smallest of the Five Kingdoms, would remain. Wilam respected King Ricard, but he doubted if Baskla would even resist the might of the other four kingdoms unified against him.
The afternoon seemed to crawl by so slowly that Wilam was forced to sit and wait just to keep from giving the false impression that he was nervous. He wasn’t worried-just anxious to see his plans come to fruition. He had considered every variable and he was prepared for anything that King Zorlan might try. He had divided his small cavalry so that there was a century of horsemen on either flank. A century was a rather small number of light horses, but Wilam knew the cavalry could outmaneuver any force sent to attack from the rear.
All he had to do now as wait. The archers waited at their posts and the soldiers lounged across the field of battle as they waited. Servants worked tirelessly to ensure that every man had plenty of food and water as the sun began to set. Finally, as the sky turned red and a steward set about preparing a table for Wilam’s own supper, he saw the dust cloud in the distance. The troops themselves were hard to see, but Wilam saw the evidence he had been waiting for. They would meet in battle shortly after dawn the next day. His destiny awaited.
“Sir, your supper is ready,” the steward said.
Wilam sat and ate with gusto. There was a steady stream of scouts coming up to give reports. The enemy had spread out and made camp. There were even reports of skirmishes among the scouts. Exact numbers were sketchy, but the enemy was reported to number around 4,000 with a full legion of cavalry. The horse breeders in Falxis were renowned among the Five Kingdoms for producing excellent horses, but they were not warriors. Falxis alone among the Five Kingdoms had no enemies. Yelsia, Baskla, and Ortis were forced to guard their borders from violent neighbors, and Osla dealt with pirates and raiders on a regular basis, but Falxis was surrounded and protected by the other kingdoms. The closest other nations were the small, indigenous tribes of Tooga Island, but they were not seafaring people and did not cross the ocean to raid the shores of Falxis.
In Wilam’s mind, Falxis’ years of peace and prosperity had made them soft. King Zorlan was marching to war, but Wilam doubted the weak willed king was really prepared for it. He had been driven from Yelsia, and now he would be driven from Osla.
The night came with a thousand stars in the heavens and thousands of small fires in the camps below Wilam and across the plain. He knew sleep was not an option, and so he waited until late into the night and then sent for General Trevis.
“You sent for me, sir?” said Trevis. The man had not been sleeping, but his eyes were sunken and his face lined with fatigue.
“Yes,” said Wilam. “I’m making a slight adjustment to our plan. Pick the best leader you have in your legion and send him with three centuries to the east. I want them to circle around the enemy, just out of sight. Tell them to watch for a flaming arrow, which will be their signal to harass the enemy. I don’t want them to fully engage. I want them to attack and withdraw, over and over. Have them hit any weak spots they see, but tell them not to worry about causing serious harm.”
“Are you certain, sir?”