Chapter 81 - Step by Step

Notes : Chapters 82 and 83 have been written and added to the queue !

I'm HOME ! At long freaking last.

It feels so good to be sleeping inside my own damned bed. And it feels like a weight's been lifted from my shoulders.

Unfortunately, construction is still ongoing, with the workers screaming endlessly throughout the day (seriously, the ENTIRE daytime is just a solid wall of people yelling right next to my window). Though they don't seem to be doing a whole lot.

They're supposed to be finishing up, and I will be VERY glad to see them leave.

Anyway, wrote a couple of chapters, really liked them. I hope you will as well !

Chapter 81

Starborn Mountains, Starfire Valley

Settlement of Astralis

Kalia looked at the message, then up at Gregor, relief clear on her face.

"So she'll be back soon and she found mana crystals?"

"That's what it says. Though gathering them is going to delay her."

The mage-magistrate smiled.

"I'll take a day's delay for crystals. I was worried about this expedition taking forever to find more and losing its way or getting trapped. If they already have any...it should be worth the time." She winced. "I hope."

"So do I."

Kalia took a deep breath.

"Alright. Salvation's underway, we just need to make sure we're still here when Sapphi arrives."

"Sapphi?" Said Malry, and Kalia coughed, blushing.

"I-I mean Sapphiria."

"Riiiight. Nicknaming already, uh?"

The mage-magistrate glared at the alchemist.

"Don't patronize me, Ramina calls you sugarbuns."

Malry's face went red suddenly while Gregor did his best to fade into the background.

"Truce?" Offered the alchemist.

"Truce." Kalia looked at Gregor. "As I was saying. We need to make sure we're still there to save. Any plans?"

The skeleton grimaced. Or at least the arcane holding him together projected the impression despite his physical form being incapable of it.

"I've drawn up what I can, but I'll be honest. If they get through the plan, it'll be a small delaying action followed by a last stand."

"Delaying action?"

"I don't know how many there are out there. If there's a legion, they just need to deploy and we're dead. If it's smaller..." He shrugged. "The Hand had a full cohort after taking the pass from us. Five hundred legionnaires. We, and by that I mean mostly Sapphiria, destroyed two maniples, leaving two to three hundred, depending on how many got out from the ones who attacked her in the tunnels with the Hand. A legion would have ten thousand."

"If they had that many, they'd have overrun the Hand instantly."

"Probably. Certainly there'd have been another wave. If I had to take a guess, I'd say two cohorts, and a mass of disposable meatshields. A thousand legionnaires, give or take a couple of specialist maniples like scout cavalry or skirmishers. It's a five to one advantage on the Hand's remaining forces, but I wouldn't want to take on a fortified position in such a narrow pass without less. Actually, I'd argue for twice as many troops again."

Malry scoffed.

"You'd want a ten to one superiority? This is hardly a fortress."

Gregor grinned. Or at least gave the impression to.

"No, but it's the greatest killzone I could ask for. A straight run, no cover, through three layers of fortifications, with towers, gun emplacements and a parapet for ranged troops at the end? A thousand men with modern guns and artillery could hold it indefinitely."

"None of which the Hand has." Pointed out Kalia, and Gregor dipped his head.

"A fair point. Which is exactly why the others would want the numerical superiority. If the initial rush attack fails, the only option is to grind through via sheer attrition. At which point, it's a simple question of how many bodies they're willing to throw away for how fast they can get through."

There was a resounding silence after that.

Because that was the Bane. Throwing bodies at the problem was what they did.

Or...was it?

Because if there was something the battle in the pass had just showcased, it was that they knew so very little of their opponent.

"So we're assuming...if they have a thousand legionnaires, they must have already lost a bunch, right?" Said Kalia.

Gregor nodded.

"I'd estimate they just got two solid maniples obliterated. Two hundred, two hundred and fifty down, depending on how they're organized. Plus the chaff of course."

"Of course. Let's be generous and say the Hand can take that many again with them. That leaves a full cohort and chaff. Can we take that?"

Gregor hesitated.

"Mage-magistrate...Kalia, a single maniple almost overran us, and sent almost all of our combat ready troops to Malry's infirmary. Most of them haven't fully recovered yet. That's what the Hand had to begin with, but they kept the bulk of their forces back to protect the pass." He shook his head. "Yes, they might be worried about the Hand's reinforcements, but they might not either. Plus, their attack was clearly with mages and under active command. This isn't just a small war party with a Hand. There's Risen like me out there." He spat on the floor. "And those bastards will turn their troops ten times as deadly. The maniple that came to us was walking along the road like a bunch of big, fat happy idiots, basically behaving like automata. With someone to actually take charge and not just using premade maneuvers? They'll roll right over us."

"So...there's nothing that we can do?"

"I didn't say that." Gregor leaned forward, and tapped the maps on the council table. "As I did say however, I can run a short delaying action. I've visited Myrtran, the terrain was fairly broken up before, but after Sapphiria's, err, reconnaissance, it is completely fucked." He traced a path from the pass to the ruins of the town. "I can take my scouts, and draw them here. If nothing else, they're probably interested in the mines as well, and will want to take a look. With the more mobile of our fighters there, we give their own forward elements a serious bloodying in there. It should slow them down, make them more cautious. They might even try to fully take the town and set up shop there, before they realize the tunnels aren't being reopened any time soon."

"Then?"

"Then we fall back to Astralis and the guns Sapphiria has set up around us. Evacuate as many as possible to the tunnels, and hold out as long as we can."

Kalia grimaced.

"Not a great plan."

"Best we're going to get. At least there's one consolation. Hands are tough bastards, and given how much of a pain in the arse they've been to us, they'll at least be as much of a pain to these bastards."

The mage-magistrate leaned back into her seat.

"I hope so. I really hope so. Because otherwise...we're going to get massacred."

*****

Click click click click, stop.

"Well." The Hand gazed at the pass as they pocketed the coin, their toothmarks still visible on it. "That didn't take long."

Though, to be fair...it had taken long enough.

Scouts were probing the pass, sweeping it and trying to establish how far they could get before eliciting a reaction.

Interestingly enough, they were mounted. Zombies sloughing on decaying horses, clearly from the so called 'Western Confederation'.

There were more the Hand could see, at the very end of the pass, moving as they redeployed.

Which was...puzzling. Why bring cavalry here, of all places? They would be worse than useless to attack a defensive line like this, which couldn't be flanked or bypassed.

Had they expected the line to break, and to harry the retreat into the valley? The other side wasn't stupid, they'd have to know the valley was a thick, overgrown forest. Chasing infantry with cavalry in those conditions was a recipe for disaster.

Nor would they expect a Hand to just run with their tail between their legs.

The only possible use for that cavalry was outside the valley, and unless they wanted Icerend-

The Hand froze.

The strange traces they'd seen in the forest, like a bone Tyrant had powered its way through. The ones they'd been distracted from investigating.

They went due North.

Surely, even rebels wouldn't be that insane.

Or could they? Backed up against a wall...

Suicidal. But at this point, they weren't even a problem.

The Nineteenth Legion and its masters wouldn't care about Icerend. There was nothing there they could possibly want. They had two Convergences. Tamed and transformed. Close to their ports and excavations. A third, far from anything, was pointless.

No, if they had brought cavalry, either they had nothing else to bring...or they had another purpose.

Like harrying the convoys resupplying the siege at Exacor.

So, not just hoping to take the valley then. Ambitious, but if that didn't define the Age of Expansion, the Hand didn't know what did.

Perhaps 'foolish'. Or 'arrogant'.

Overconfident would be perfect, actually.

Clearly they'd been burnt by their failure last night, and were in no hurry to test if that was all their adversary had in story.

...Which was good. Because despite having a fair bag of tricks, the Hand didn't have that many forces remaining. The maniples had fared far better than they could have asked for, but they had still been pretty badly mauled.

And the horde was effectively nonexistent. Just the ones working on completing the wall, and whom they hadn't sent forward to keep them on task and preserve their tools. There were a handful of stragglers as well, but not nearly enough to serve any kind of purpose in combat.

They could try another rush attack, but that would be a gamble the Nineteenth's officers clearly weren't willing to take. So, that left a grim battle of attrition, until the defenders were ground into dust.

That would buy them some time. Not nearly enough, but some.

The question was how to acquire the rest.

The Hand took out the coin, and absent mindedly began knuckle rolling it again as the zombified cavalry crossed an invisible threshold, and the archers on the wall opened fire, downing the handful of corpses, though their mounts kept going, before being taken out as well.

The rest came to a halt. Then, horns sounded throughout the pass again, and the cavalry retreated.

They'd found what they wanted. No need risking more troops, even zombified chaff.

Of course, the Hand had given instructions to fire well into the archers' range, but the other side would probably guess that. What was important was the range at which they were comfortable to engage.

Trying to gauge how close they could push forward fieldworks before they got counter attacked, would be the Hand's guess. The Age of Prosperity had been the age of sieges and fortifications. The Age of Expansion didn't have the time to properly take fortresses, preferring to rely on duplicity and treachery to take strongholds, even bribery. They didn't know the slow, masterful dance of siege warfare like the Hand did, but they weren't ignorant in it either.

Not that the Hand was an expert by any means. Their specialty had more been to keep the sieges operating, making sure they would get what they needed to do so, cutting the red tape and expediting whatever needed to be. Which is why their failure to secure the mines stung so greatly.

They gazed at the devastation before them. The equipment had been recovered of course, the greatest advantage of holding the battlegrounds was always the ability to salvage everything. But the bodies weren't useful to remove. Except the ones in the trenches before the abatises. Those had been removed. No reason to make it any easier for the enemy. The Hand had also ordered the rotting cadavers of the zombies incinerated.

There wasn't any real reason to do so, but old habits died hard, and some of the creatures were still animate, weakly trying to free themselves of the corpse piles as they burned.

The next attack wouldn't have easy terrain to get through, but that had always been a given. The first defensive line wasn't manned, not anymore. The second however...

The palisade wasn't fixed per se, a full reconstruction would be too manpower intensive, but a respectable barricade had been erected from the remains, hopefully further slowing down any attacks.

Some legionnaires guarded it. At least they'd be more perceptive than the Horde, who only noticed foes when they were right on top of them. Hence the surprise attack. Though the Hand wondered if there had been some concealment magic involved as well.

The mage that had cast it was almost certainly ashes, but they'd better prepare for it, just in case. Normally this would be solved with some totems and maybe even shimmer crystals, but that wasn't a good idea. They couldn't afford to waste mana on constantly running defenses the enemy would immediately see, and thus know not to use that tactic again. If they even had to begin with.

But preparing was all they could do.

Preparing for the worst and waiting, desperately hoping for the best.

Such was service to the Throne. Duty Eternal.