Stronger Together chapter 197

The palace was in an uproar. The Wallachians were at the gates and  they were looking formidable. I stared down out of the window of the  throne room at the writhing mass of soldiers laying siege to the capital  of my empire with a frown. He shouldn't have this many people.  Wallachia wasn't this big. I was guessing he swing through some of the  neighboring countries and convinced them to lend men so he could take us  down. The biggest bully on the playground rarely makes friends.

My  own forces were split, with only half my men garrisoned in the city,  but at least I'd been smart enough not to dispatch them all to the war  front. I called for...well someone. Luckily Khamal, my highest ranked  general, had long since seen the siege and was headed for the throne  room at a brisk clip. "Your excellency! The enemy is at the gates! Our  forces are marshaling to repel the assault but you should retreat to  your bunker until the siege has been extinguished!" His face was red and  his breathing was heavy as he searched frantically for any sign of  enemies.

Khamal  was good people. Very loyal, and I had to give fictional past me credit  for inspiring this kind of emotion in one of his generals. I was  touched by how afraid he seemed for my safety. Despite that I had to  shake my head. I shot Khamal a sad smile "Sorry Khamal, I can't. I have  to stay here and oversee our forces. This is my army, and I will live or  die with my men. If this city falls there will be no point in my escape  or survival." Of course I actually didn't care that much about  fictional dream people, but if I left and this place fell it would make  completing the Arbitration impossible.

Khamal's  face went slack in shock and his eyes began to tear up, which made me  feel like the biggest asshole in the world honestly but I held my poker  face. My general dropped to one knee, bowing his head to me in  supplication "Your excellency, you honor us with your commitment to our  people. I am proud to serve such a wise and benevolent ruler. But I  beseech you, please follow me to the bunker, should we lose you our  empire will be in chaos. Your magnificent personage is worth and number  of common soldiers."

That  made me feel even worse, but I stepped up and clapped him on the  shoulder. "Rise my friend. I will see this through to the end. The  Emperor and his land are one. I will rise or fall with my people, and I  will hear not another word about it." At this point I was just ripping  off high minded rhetoric from movies where I'd seen kings stand tall or  captains going down with their ships. Hell, if nothing else it would at  least mean morale should be higher. My books said morale was key in any  battle.

Khamal  stood with an expression of pride and resolve that actually made me  pretty uncomfortable, but I persevered. I gestured outside "Now, tell me  out situation, and leave nothing out. I'm going to be directing this  battle personally so I must be informed of even the slightest detail." I  turned grimly to stare out into the middle distance, figuring it would  be much easier to fake competence when I was sternly gazing off into the  jaws or the enemy. I had been memorizing information for this battle  for weeks but I'd been expecting it to take place elsewhere.

I  had originally wanted to dispatch my forces to meet Drakul's army in  the field so I would have the city as a backup force in case I failed.  Having my first engagement with the bastard be in my own front yard was  pretty much the opposite of ideal. Clearly the old monster knew a thing  or two about how to deploy troops and the best way to travel with an  army. Based on my calculations he wasn't supposed to arrive for another  month, not to mention with so many extra people. Slippery old monster  must have turned on the charm for the people along the way.

Khamal  gave me the run down on the situation, and when I said every detail he  really took that to heart. He told me about the distribution of our  forces, the composition of our units, the composition of the enemy, our  available weapons, logistics, the sleeping arrangements of our soldiers  and the housing we had arranged for their families. Every tiny detail  was laid out in stark relief exactly as I asked with not a second of  hesitation or uncertainty. Khamal was a first class general he had all  the info I needed and gave it to me succinctly and with no wasted time.

As  he spoke I mentally reviewed all of the information I'd been  memorizing, slotting every detail into the structure I'd been putting  together in my head to hold all the knowledge from the tactical books  and the journals of military leaders. It was like doing math, punching  in numbers and calculations and applying logistics to the model I built  in my brain. But it was also like art, I didn't want to be too rigid  during planning and do the predictable thing. My biggest advantage was  lateral thinking and a twenty first century mindset.

I  started dispatching the nearby servants to my military commanders to  get them where I wanted them. I needed to reinforce the most vulnerable  areas of the capital and set my armies in the paths of where the enemy  would break through. Luckily this city was designed to survive an  attack. Lots of natural choke points and roofs where my soldiers could  take up position and rain down pain and death on the enemy. I called for  a map of the city and began marking spots where I wanted my troops,  trying to anticipate every possible way things could go wrong.

Honestly  I felt like I was playing Civ five or EU4. I was literally watching my  forces move around the city at my order from my window overlooking  Constantinople, I was super tempted to do something ridiculous like  disperse them in a mhappy face or make them do a flash mob, but now  didn't seem like the time. Still it was unbelievably fun to play what  was basically a real world strategy game with an actual army against the  dad or Dracula. If I wasn't in danger of being eradicated from  existence this would be the coolest thing to ever happen to me.

Finally  everything was in place. It was so tempting to just let it end there.  To say "to hell with it" and just sit up here and watch the battle, but  with my klurkor training and my mental faculties I was a dangerous  warrior, and if we lost this I was dead anyway. The best use of my  resources was fighting on the front lines to inspire my people and kill  as many of the enemy as humanly possible. I wasn't sure if getting  killed in this vision would constitute a loss (though I suspected it  would) or if it would just actually kill me in real life before I had a  chance to have my soul rendered into spiritual paste.

Either  way I needed to make an appearance. Hiding back here was liable to get  me killed even faster than not going out. I was betting with my klurkor  skills I could put up at least a fight against Drakul in a human body.  With no guns or anything even without supernatural powers he was going  to curb stomp and ten soldiers in my army, maybe any twenty. Besides  something about this made me think we were supposed to face off, like  this world was pushing us towards a climactic final battle. It annoyed  me that they called this an Arbitration, this was basically trial by  combat albeit on a larger scale.

But  despite the fact that it would have probably been easier to just fight  him in real life, this was what I had. I needed to make it count. I  stood up and strapped on my armor, finding a sword that worked for me (a  very odd blade called a kilij which reminded me of a mix between a long  sword that someone put on its hilt wrong and a shamshir) and called for  my guards to follow me as I lead them out of the palace. Adding the  thirty plus men Khamal insisted I have attending me to the battle wasn't  a game changer but every little bet helps.

By  the time got outside the enemy forces had broken through the gate to  the city. Their main army was being cut off by my strategically placed  interception squads, but they had spread out enough for a few dozen  stragglers from the Wallachian forces to get through the nets and end up  here. Luckily klurkor had sword katas included in it, so when we came  up against them I knew exactly what to do. I darted past my guards,  sword drawn and flowed in between the enemy soldiers. My blade flashed  out, deflecting where needed and scything through flesh where it could.

Without  my increased strength or my aspects it wasn't the domination I was used  to, but my brain was still fast and my skills were burned into me so I  more than held my own. I deflected a few strokes at me and managed to  gut one of them and cripple another before my guards crashed over the  melee like an angry tide of ringing steel and furious soldiery. They  tore the enemy apart and drove them back from me, clearing the area  around me within seconds with their overwhelming numbers.

Sadly  after that encounter I was surrounded by a swarm of men who wouldn't  let me out of their sight. circling me like planetary bodies around a  very sheltered and heavily protected sun. I tried to break out a few  times but apparently they were hip to my tricks now and just moved with  me. Eventually I gave up and just started deploying my forces in the  best possible formations around me, using them to bust up small groups  that had slipped through our lines as we headed to the main battle  field.

My  forces on the roof tops provided support from above, sniping anyone who  came at us from an unexpected angle with a big ass bolt from their  crossbows. The Ottomans did have crossbows at this point in history  though they were never very popular. I had requisitioned a few hundred  of them for my forces for versatility. Archers were tough to train but  point and shoot is something most people can manage. A few weeks of  mandatory crossbow drills patched up most of the holes and I'd  reorganized my best archers into their own battalions, which was who I'd  put on the roof tops.

Finally  after an hour of crushing pockets of resistance and advancing along the  clearest routes as relayed with hand signs by my roof top guards we  made it to main battle field. My people circled around me, reinforcing  their lines so no one and nothing would get through and closing in to  provide the best protection. That didn't last long though, as we hit the  main battle the enemy noticed us and some of them started to break off  so they could test my men.

I  left that to them because they wouldn't have it any other way and tried  to spot my opponent in the crowd. The sea of armored figures was a  chaotic mishmash of color and light glinting off metal so it took me a  minute but when I finally spotted him I just knew. Not only by his  clothes and appearance which were classic Dracula from this time period  based on paintings I'd seen, but because the world almost screamed it at  me. Something deep down in my gut just told me this was my enemy. As I  spotted him his ice blue eyes flicked up and met mine. He knew, I could  see it. The final battle was here.