Lore/Story <ø> The Battle, A Short Story By Orient <ø>

The Battle
By Orient Gamer


Somewhere in the Savannah of Almuj...

General Farrne had chosen his position carefully. His several thousand man regiment had been harassed, ambushed, and all out attacked several times too many, he was taking no chances this time.

For miles in every direction, he sent scouts on the lookout for enemy cavalry or footmen. At any sign of an enemy approach, they were to report. Within a closer radius, Farrne had set up archers and sharpshooters in the wide savannah trees with the intent of disrupting a charge or killing lone enemy scouts if they happened to make it past the outer defenses.

And of course, Farrne's base itself. Covered on two sides by river, one side by an obscuring promontory of rocks, and the other by far extending lightly forested grasslands, the position itself was already well defended. The middle of all these terrains was wide and flat, allowing a large number of tents to be set up, and a number of trees could be found in the area that provided wood for fire or defense.

To reinforce the one end of the camp that was open to attack, Farrne had a number of wood stakes driven into the ground, then set up a series of wooden barriers between each. This, "wall," spanned the entire length between the river and the high rocks.

By now, Farrne and his commanders were feeling pretty secure. This camp would serve as an efficient command center for his 5th Detlas army for further attacks against the army of rebels in the region. The king of Detlas had long predicted that the rebellion could be put down with ease, and Farrne was there in the savannah to test that theory.

He brought with himself a veteran army primarily consisting of infantry, with a couple hundred cavalry and more than three times that number of archers. The cavalry were a fairly unnecessary component in his own opinion, but he kept this to himself mostly. His infantry were the core group, and the archers were the support, formed together to make an efficient fighting force.

"How are our food supplies coming along?" Farrne asked one of his lieutenants. So far, food had been their main concern, as bone dry plains provided little nourishment for a large army. At first, they tried fishing. No luck. At the moment, they were still living off the rations that had supplied them on the journey from Detlas.

"As of now, each soldier we asked has enough food to last, say, a good three weeks rationed. New supplies have been sent from Detlas to resupply our stores, approximately enough to last another month before we move out again." the man replied.

Farrne sat there for a moment in his command tent, pondering this new piece of information. "3 weeks eh? So if a journey from Detlas to our camp takes around 2 weeks in a slow moving fleet of carriages... what if say, that convoy is intercepted? We'll run out of food until hopefully, another, can arrive."

"Well then sir, we just hope then that it doesn't."

The calculating general frowned, "I don't like these odds. Isn't there any way we can add to the escort? If that food is lost, this camp will starve, some might even die."

"We could send our eight hundred or so cavalry, any other escort would be simply to slow. But then we'd be out of cavalry."

"Send them, send them all. I am not risking the loss of our supply. Either way, we have no use for cavalry now, not when we're entrenched."

The lieutenant nodded and left the general in privacy. Farrne sighed a little and stood over a sharply drawn map of the savannah. A small triangular wood block with the Detlan coat of arms carved into it marked his campsite on the river, another block in the shape of a blade marked his entrenched army. There were no pieces representing his enemy, for not a single individual in the camp had the slightest clue where they were. The rebels they fought were shadows in the fields, assassins, bandits, mercenaries.

The general shook his head sadly, this was too hard.

-=-

Days later...

A rattled looking messenger burst into the generals room, scaring him out of what had started off as a quiet day. Farrne was so startled, he almost punched the young man out. When he did realize he was not an enemy, he cursed. "Dammit fool! Didn't your mother teach you to knock..."

"General! The scouts are dead! The scouts are-"

Farrne sat up and grabbed the man, shaking him. "Stop talking gibberish son! What scouts?"

The messenger gulped, "A recent patrol was checking up on our north perimeter, and all they found were our scouts, dead scouts. Each was laid up against a tree, arrows in their stomach. We think enemy rangers got to them before we did. Worst of all, we found a note tied to one of the arrows."

The scout handed him a bloodstained note, which Farrne grabbed viciously.

Expect us soon. The rangers who... displaced the organs of your scouts are just the advance squad. Enjoy your time and look to the North. Please do prepare to fight, I would hate an easy massacre of your men.

Signed,
The viper

The general cursed some more, "Who the nexus hell is... never mind... I knew it was inevitable, but why now..." Farrne looked the messenger in the eye, and said, "Tell the other commanders, of this, I call for an emergency meeting. Now."

-=-

By dusk, the camp had been fully readied for an assault. Food and arrows were stockpiled, and hundreds of soldiers lined up behind the wooden wall. The defensive power of Farrne's base was to be put to the test.

Farrne himself sat waiting with his field commanders atop the rock hill, accompanied by archers and guards. Even in the night, they could see miles into the distance.

Four hours they waited, and for hours they saw nothing but the swaying grass and trees.

No one fell asleep. The atmosphere was so tense the slightest movement spooked everyone, so when another messenger arrived, he was almost skewered by an agitated guard.

"General! I bring news from Detlas. The king authorized the arming of 5,000 cavalry to help clear out rebel encampments, and your cavalry have successfully connected to the convoy delivering food."

The tension broke for a moment, but it became obvious quickly that food would most obviously be useless if they all died that night.

He commanded these thoughts out of his brain and stared coldly into the infinitely rolling savannah for a moment, imagining a cloud of hostile soldiers marching his way.

-=-

It was around midnight when the first signal came that signaled an attack. Farrne struggled to see it, but one of his best spotters assured him it was there. A mass of movement in the grass in the far distance.

"Nexus, thats a lot of men..."

"Sir! There are ships too!"

Farrne looked to the river and squinted his eyes. "No way could they have ships..."

The general was slightly taken by the vastness of the enemy army. Before that moment, he had never really seen any of the rebels forces from a good vantage point, and now, seeing the spread of the movement in the tall grass, he was shaken. And that was before he learned the spotter was indeed correct! Ships, several of them, sail galleys full of men. His base was not built to fight off an assault from land and water. He had never deemed it possible that the apparently disorganized rebels might own ships.

"General, what do we do?" Asked a commander, who was quite clearly having a breakdown in his head.

"We attack them in the field. They will not be expecting an attack."

"But sir..."

"We attack, is that clear?"

"Yes... sir..."

"Good." Farrne turned to his lieutenants, who were awaiting his orders. "Alright, proud men of the province, to arms! We shall put these disorganized bandits to the sword and crush them under boots of metal, molten metal. Commander Hawks, you take the left flank. Commander Pine, take the right. I will command the middle. For the province we march!"

-=-

At first, all went according to plan. Four thirds of the camp were rallied to fight, while the rest stayed to fight off a waterborne threat. The provincial legions marched north. In the distance, they could already hear the sounds of battle. Farrne's skirmishers had created a temporary distraction for the approaching army, but only just that. In less than a minute, the sounds died out, and the sounds of marching resumed, louder now.

Then, in the dark of the nights fields came flooding out hundreds of cloaked swordsmen, suited in unorthodox armor with dark shields emblazoned with a purple V like shape. These were no rebels... Farrne realized in disbelief. They were an army.

The two forces met, and immediately flashes lit up the night from the spells of elite warriors on both sides. Loud screams could be heard, as well as other less pleasant sounds.

"Archers! Fire!" shouted the general. Immediately, hundreds of arrows were flung at great speeds into the dark sky, vanishing in the night. He repeated the order, and another volley of arrows was fired into the sky.

Somewhere in the distance, the general heard a distinctive shout, but he took no notice of it. He turned to his right and yelled for Commander Pine to advance.

Suddenly, Farrne felt a roaring pain in his shoulder. An arrow. He held back the pain as he held it and tore it out of his arm, and he fell off his horse, which ran off in terror. All around the fallen general, arrows rained down, and man after man fell victim.

"What a damned way to die."

And then the battle hardened General blacked out.

-=-

"Are you alright?"

Farrne shook the spots out of his eyes and sat up with a jolt. Immediately he found his sword, and tried to seize it, but he felt a fire in his sword arm and he dropped it in pain before he could even pick it up.

He turned his gaze to the man who had just spoke to him. A rider, most likely from Detlas, who almost fell off his horse when he saw who it was that he had startled. "General? Goodness!"

"Indeed, now who are you, and where am I?"

The rider's face was unreadable now. "You might want to see for yourself."

With some effort, the general managed to stand, and his gaze turned to the fields in which some horrific event had taken place. Corpses were strewn and piled in every direction, somewhere in the distance behind a scattered cluster of fallen rocks, smoke rose as if something had been recently burning. Something stank.

The land was dry and flat, the Savannah. What was he doing here?

Oh… yes. The battle.



Authors note: Hey! Its Orient! About the lore, I used to do stuff like this all the time until, of course, 9/7, when I lost a crazy large amount of lore, approximately 2 books, nearly 30 chapters, and perhaps over 1 and a half hundred thousand words! So I made this thing just for fun, related in some ways to my previous stories (fans of my previous lore might recognize some references), kind of a predecessor.

Advanced Description and Summary: In case anyone got mindF***ed while reading due to my crazy weird uses of certain grammatical terms and odd descriptions, here is a break down of what happens in the story with context:

Basically in my Wynn timeline (by no means official), this story comes after the war of Corruption, when the province is in the process of healing. These "rebels" spoken of in the story are a rogue army of rebellious fighters known in my previous books as the Vals (short for, "valiants") of the East, who attempted to seize the opportunity of a weakened province to invade and spread. Their leader, 'the viper' (fans might recognize this name from ToS II), is a vicious ruler and an even more vicious killer, but also a smart one. He lays low initially, even though his forces are great in number, to draw the province into a false sense of security, raiding small villages and capturing relatively unimportant locations.

The story itself is from the perspective of a Detlan general, Farrne (pronounced Far-en), who was ordered to occupy the town of Ternaves, a hotspot for "rebel" activity. He sets up his base as a temporary command center from which he can dispatch fighting forces to deal with wandering enemy patrols before he makes his move on the town itself. As mentioned in the story, his main concern is food, which he puts above everything else, even above combat needs, which is why he dispatches his cavalry to guard the food convoys.

At first, he is confident that any enemy force might be disorganized and unable to lay direct attack to his base, but he soon grows fairly unsettled by the death of his scouts, which leads to him making the terrible decision of leading his men to battle in the field, during which he is wounded and many of his men slaughtered. The unseen end result of the battle, was a crushing provincial defeat, and his men were scattered and his base destroyed. Even though he led at the back, a good volley of arrows from the enemy was enough to effect even the apparently most safe part of his army, a thought which he would've easily dismissed earlier.

Idk, thanks for reading!

 

Quite descriptive for a doge

 

The master --
HAS RETURNED!​

Lol idk what I did that for

 

As I was reading, I thought that the rebels were just a disorganized group of patriots that decided to join the Viper's army to stop the rulers.


Is good! When will there be more?

 

writer doge is good doge
*pets orient*

 

lol, thanks!

Might take a while, but I do plan on making a full series that revolves on a similar topic, so yes!

 

*Drags thread out of the deepest parts of the Your Work open section*

Orient > "Hello only quality thread of mine!"

Thread > "uwotm8, skrub ill rek u"

Orient > "Almost lost yah! Good thing I remembered to bump at the last minute!"

Thread > "Fk off mom ur being werd now m9"

Orient > "Ok then, off you go! Make me more PR before your older brother Tales of Sorrow is ready!"

Thread > "K den shrek"





...What am I doing?

 

"short"

(10char)

 

You should've seen my old lore. Added up, it was around 30 chapters, aka 30 times this one story. And that is just a rough estimate...