The White Army’s strength had always been its infantry , the iron core of Yarzat’s might.Every man who bore the black and white had earned it through pain. They were tempered by endless drills, taught to kill as one, and rewarded as heroes , not just with coin, but with reverence.
To be part of the White Army was a mark of pride. You had to bring down a gate, but it certainly opened up many doors.
It wasn’t arrogance to call them the finest army east of the Great Strait; it was fact.
Of course, that prestige ca at a cost.The archers, competent though they were , were never given the sa attention. Their bows were fine, their hands steady, but they were auxiliaries in a world that worshipped the blade. Resources went to the line troops, not the bowstrings. They were an afterthought, support for the true killers.
Still that did not an they were fodder
So when the first report arrived, Alpheo almost didn’t believe it.
A silence fell in the field, broken only by the distant thud of drums and the growing, unnatural howl that rolled across the field.
At the palisades, the White Archers stood firm , that was until the first wave hit.
"GODS HELP !" scread one man, his voice cracking as two of the enemy hurled themselves at him like beasts.
They weren’t soldiers. They had no shields, no formation, no sense. Just wild eyes and knives in their hands. The first slamd into the archer’s breastplate, stabbing again and again, blades glancing off the steel until sparks flew. The archer staggered back, cursing, his bow dropping into the dirt.
Then ca a hamr from the side — CRACK! — the first attacker’s skull caved in with a sound like wet wood splitting under an axe. He collapsed instantly, twitching in the dirt, his howls becoming whimpers. The second turned, knife raised, but another Yarzat man stepped in and ramd a short sword through his throat, twisting until the man’s gurgling stopped.
"Get him back! Get him back!" a voice shouted.
The wounded archer was hauled up by his arms, dragging a trail of blood coming from his thigh as two comrades passed him back toward the dical carrier who brought him to the rear.
Beyond the palisades, the nightmare only worsened.
The enemy ca in waves , dozens, then hundreds , shrieking, foaming, faces twisted with pain and frenzy. They took arrows to the chest and kept running. So had shafts sprouting from their necks, their sides, their faces , but still they ca as a tide.
The enemy numbers were triple theirs, still they had much better equipnt, and with the help of fortifications, they could have resisted for long.
But paper never bled.
At first, things seed almost routine. The first wave of those howling madn fell like wheat before the scythe , the Yarzat archers cutting them down in neat, disciplined volleys. Arrows hissed through the air in endless rhythm, and n , if they could still be called that , collapsed in droves.
But then ca the rest, far too close.
Within minutes, the archers’ triumph turned to panic. The line rippled, broke, and began to dissolve as the true weight of the enemy charge slamd into them.
Reports ca back fragnted, frantic , shouted over the roar of the wind, the clash of steel, the screams.Alpheo didn’t need clarity; the tone told him enough.
"Order the archers to fall back! Frontline forward, now!" he barked, the words leaving his mouth like stone. His aides moved instantly, spurring their horses before the sentence even finished.
He didn’t know what hell the enemy had unleashed, but he knew one truth, better his best n et it head-on than watch their line rot from the edge.
He turned to another rider, voice sharp enough to cut through whatever could have muffled the order ."Tell Lord Egil now! Begin the plan. No more waiting."
The courier galloped off, and within minutes, Alpheo saw the signal: a column of dust rising fast from the right flank, the telltale mark of the Hounds on the move.
anwhile, the First and the Fourth did the sa, each against the mighty point of the Whore Prince, one with the clibanarii and the other with a unit that made use of things that the civilized world had not witnessed in nearly two centuries since Vivrius the Red.
So yes , both wings of Yarzat’s might had drawn the short stick.
But if Alpheo knew his hounds and soldiers, they’d bite even with their throats cut.
Following the retreat of the bown, the madness ca running after them.
The enemy threw themselves forward like rabid dogs, clawing at the backs of the retreating archers.
Fingers snagged on chain links and torn tunics, pulling n down into the dirt. Daggers found faces, throats, armpits , any scrap of flesh they could reach. So kept stabbing long after their prey stopped screaming, their steel grinding against bone, while others simply left their work unfinished and charged again, their eyes vacant, their mouths foaming.
They ca on like a storm, unthinking, unfeeling , a mob made of shrieks and wet tal as they throwned themselves at their new prey.
But they were wrong.For what waited beyond the palisade was no prey. It was their death.
The field changed hands in a heartbeat, the bown slipping behind the trenches while the front ranks of the infantry stepped forward, locking shields with a thud that rolled down the line like thunder made into iron.
The enemy rushed in, uncoordinated, many tripping over corpses or stopping to hack apart already-dead n as if they feared , though the concept of thinking was now foreign to them, that they might rise again. Others didn’t even seem to notice , charging straight into Yarzat’s wall of shields, arrows still jutting from their flesh like hedgehog spines. So had shafts lodged deep in their necks or eyes when they t the enemy lines, yet they howled and attacked, uncaring of the blood pouring down their chins.
But the Black Stripes of the Primogenia and the Arditi were not n easily shaken. They’d seen it all and done it all. This wasn’t the first ti hell had opened its mouth.
So they t the madness with cold iron and a spit among the teeth.
The enemy slamd into their wall of shields with the sound of at on wood . Dozens broke their bones on impact, but still they pushed, screaming and gnawing and clawing. The Yarzat line didn’t budge an inch.
"Forward!" the command rippled down the ranks.And the wall moved as the bodies slurching against it were simply paper or the wind.
In perfect rhythm, the shields advanced ,a single iron beast grinding forward. Gaps opened just wide enough for the soldiers to swing, and in that instant, death was given form.
The clang of steel turned into crunching. Limbs split. Skulls cracked. The air filled with the hot stink of blood and bile.
"BWAAAAAHHH!" a man , or sothing that had been one , screeched as he tried to jam his filthy nails behind a shield.
"Shut the fuck up, you reek," the soldier behind it hissed, slamming his scutum forward and sending the thing sprawling. A boot followed , one heavy stomp , and the shrieking ended with a crunch.
"What the fuck are these things?" a soldier from the Primogenia barked, panting as he drove his axe into a chest and then tore it out again, half-expecting the bastard to keep moving.
It did.
The thing took three steps forward, face a pulped ruin, and only fell when the axe ca down again , this ti splitting its skull clean open.
No one could survive that.
"Sa thing they always were," another man grunted, smashing his hamr into a face so hard the jawbone tore free from the socket. He tried his best not to let the anxiety take over "Dead n walking."
"You know damn well that’s not what he ant!" shouted a third, parrying a blow from a bent sword before ramming his short sword in the gut of another screar. "What the fuck are they?"
The only answer ca from nearby, as two of the creatures began stabbing each other — one biting into the other’s shoulder even as he bled from half a dozen wounds.
"Must be demons..." soone muttered.
Thunk.
An axe took the demon’s head off.
"Never thought demons would be so easy to kill, then," another spat, already swinging again toward the limb of another.
"Keep your wits, soldiers!" a decurio barked, his voice like steel on stone as he cleaved a limb with one brutal swing and took the head the next, the howls and screams apparently not even bothering him.
"They die like n , so kill them like n!If they are demons, rejoice, for you are doing Gods’ work"
And so the White Army did just that , hamr, mace axe, and shield ,turning madness into at.
It was going well.
The first wave had broken like water on stone, the mindless tide of the enemy crashing against the disciplined wall of the White Army and shattering into ruin. The archers’ retreat had not shaken them; the line had not bent, nor faltered. The veterans of Yarzat moved with the calm of n who had seen a thousand mornings like this.
They fought the way bakers make bread: thodically, rhythmically, without emotion.Hack. Step. Shield. Push.Every motion a repetition learned through blood and years.
By the third minute of contact, the field before the First Legion looked less like a battlefield and more like a slaughterhouse. The trenches had filled with bodies , so still twitching, so already still , and the n fought on, unmoved. Alpheo could almost believe victory had chosen their flank first.
But war, like all cruel things, has a sense of balance.
If the left flank was holding strong, the sa could not be said for the others, for they did not have command over an army that could rival the legions of the Red.
And Alpheo would soon realise that there was nothing worse than to pair a tiger with a pig.
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