It’s a reasonable question, and a point that’s been on my mind. I can see us advancing blindly over the top of a hill right into a regiment of Orcish phalanxes, concealed by a grand hiding spell, ready to assault us from both sides. If that happens, and our army isn’t fully prepared - which we won’t be - then disaster will overwhelm us. Our War Leader will listen to no arguments. She quietens the generals and the politicians, and instructs them to get ready. “We advance in battle formation in fifteen minutes. I expect your units to be ready. If they’re not, I’ll be appointing new officers. Dismissed.”
The commanders troop out of the tent. None of them look that enthusiastic. Lisutaris lights a thazis stick.
“Are we advancing with the troops?” asks Makri.
“We are,” says Lisutaris. “I don’t have time to fully deploy the Sorcerers Regiment among the rest of the army so they’ll all be following me in the middle.” Makri looks pleased. As for me, I don’t mind that I’m going to be in the thick of things. Gurd will probably be pleased too: the Sorcerers Auxiliary Regiment will be marching right in front of Lisutaris, so he’ll be close to the action.
“Are the sorcerers here?” says Lisutaris. Her aide-de-camp Julius tells her they’re gathering outside.
“Show them in. The Sorcerers Regiment is in for some front-line fighting, earlier than expected.”
Chapter Twenty
Twenty five minutes later I’m marching up a hill in almost complete darkness. The rain is pouring down, the wind is picking up, and I’ve no idea where I’m going. Over a hill, obviously, but what we’ll meet on the other side, I don’t know. Lisutaris sent Hanama and her team on ahead with orders to report back if they find anything. As they haven’t been particularly successful in finding anything up till now, I don’t expect this time will be any different. Either the Orcish army is miles away, or Deeziz the Unseen has managed to hide them so efficiently that we won’t notice anything till they’re crashing into us. I don’t even know if our troops are marching in proper formation. The newly-arrived Niojan army is meant to be on our left flank, but I can’t see them. All torches have been extinguished by order of our War Leader, and she’s instructed the army to march in silence. No trumpets sound, and no one shouts orders. The wind and rain muffle our footsteps as we advance.
I’m not altogether impressed with this development. Our army is not yet prepared for complicated manoeuvres in the dark. If we end up with huge gaps between the Niojans on the left, the Samsarinans in the middle and the Elves and Simnians on the right, no one will be surprised. Not too far ahead of us is Gurd, and I know he’ll have his doubts too. Both of us have advanced in uncertain conditions in the past, and we’re both experienced enough to know that things can easily go wrong. If we’re ambushed in the dark we’ll be massacred. Some sorcerers from the Guild have been sent to the front, using their powers to mask our advance, but whether they can hide us from the powerful Orcish sorcerers remains to be seen.
Before we reach the top of the hill I feel the temperature drop and the air turn colder. Visibility drops to almost zero. Advance into the clouds, as the High Priestess said. I notice that Droo is looking nervous. She’s never been in action before. As an Elvish scout, I doubt she’d have been expecting to find herself in the midst of a full-scale battle. It will be the same all over the army. We left camp so quickly that there was no time to organise ourselves properly. The leading phalanxes are all more-or-less in position but elsewhere, units have just had to fit in where they can. Samsarinan armoured troops march alongside Elvish bowmen while lightly-armoured skirmishers, more used to being on the flanks, find themselves beside heavily-armoured troops with bronze breastplates and shields. Neither are our Sorcerers as well distributed as they should be. Normally there would be more on the flanks, and some assigned to the rear, but that doesn’t seem to have been done. Most of them are close to Lisutaris, just ahead of me. It’s not the organised advance one would have wished for. I hope we don’t come to regret it.
Despite her nerves, Droo is bearing up well enough, aided by the flask of klee she produces from beneath her dull green tunic. She takes a sip and passes it to me. I gulp some down. It burns my throat.
“Good klee,” I whisper.
“Stole it from the Niojans,” she whispers back.
I pass the flask to Anumaris Thunderbolt. I doubt she’d normally drink klee, but she sips a little of the fiery spirit, wincing as it trickles down her throat, then passes it to Rinderan. The young sorcerer from the Southern Hills seems to be bearing up well enough, given that he’s never been in military action before. The ground levels off. We’re at the top of the hill, in the clouds. I’m suddenly gripped by a strong feeling of doom. Deeziz the Unseen has fooled us, tricked Lisutaris somehow. We’re going to march down the hill and find Orcish battalions waiting for us right and left. We’ll be encircled, caught in the middle and massacred, half our troops crushed to death without ever landing a blow. I shake my head. I suppose a final battle with the Orcs isn’t such a bad way to go. It’s what I’ve been expecting for the past fifteen years. I’d have liked better weather. I’m already as wet as a mermaid’s blanket, and walking through the low-lying clouds isn’t helping.
We start to descend, advancing in tense silence through the gloom. The wind and rain still mask our presence. The slope becomes steeper. The cloud thins a little. I can just make out two shadowy figures ahead, approaching Lisutaris. Hanama and her Elvish assassin companion. They whisper something in our War Leader’s ear then disappear again. Lisutaris mutters something to her young messengers. They hurry off. I notice that Makri is drawing her swords. Seconds later, our trumpets sound the charge. The army responds immediately. There’s a great roar as we run down the hill, through the darkness, with no idea what awaits us.
It suddenly strikes me what the High Priestess meant when she said new shoes can hide old shoes. Of course. Now I know who Deeziz is. I wonder if I’ll survive to tell anyone.
As the army cascades downwards we pick up a lot of momentum. We burst out of the cloud cover as the first, faint streaks of dawn appear in the sky. Just ahead of us there’s a long string of flickering torches, like a procession. Carrying the torches are thousands of Orcs. Unfortunately for them, they’re not in battle formation. They’re not even facing us. They’re marching round the foot of the hill, and we’ve caught them side-on, unprepared for our assault. The Samsarinan and Turanian phalanxes at the head of our army plough straight into their unprotected flank. The Orcs, with no time to get in formation, are cut down by the spears of our phalanxes, then trampled underfoot as we surge over them. Their line crumples with almost no resistance. Orcs scream and flee, only to be caught up in the confused mass of Orcs behind them. None of them has enough time or space to organise any sort of defence. Our phalanxes sweep them away. By the time I reach the foot of the hill, there’s not a living Orc in sight, though plenty of dead are strewn around. As far as the eye can see, to right and left, the same thing has happened. The Orcish army was in the very process of mounting a sneak attack on our army. Unfortunately for them, we got our sneak attack in first. We’ve broken them in pieces. My mind flashes back to the time Prince Amrag’s forces smashed into the unprepared Turanian army. We crumpled like a sheet of parchment, with heavy casualties. This time, we’ve done it to them.
The sky is now lit up with the brilliant illumination of sorcerous fire, as our Sorcerers Guild presses home our advantage. I catch sight of a few Eastern Sorcerers, fighting back desperately, but they’re as unprepared as every other Orc, and they’re cut down quickly by the massed ranks around Lisutaris. We’ve cut the Orcish line in multiple places. Each part of their broken army is in full retreat, surrounded on three sides by the encircling attackers as the Niojans sweep in from the left and the Simnians and Elves from the right. Many Orcs die without even being able to draw their weapons, crushed by weight of their panicking comrades. It’s common in battle to have little idea of what’s going on, but here, even in the dim light of the approaching dawn, it’s plain to see that Lisutaris has scored a stunning victory over the previously invincible Prince Amrag. His army has been routed, with great slaughter. Casualties among our troops are very few.