Capítulo 36: The Pro Gamer Move
The two sides continued to clash against one another, the bandits taking an offensive stance while the guards took a defensive one. The bandits tried to push their enemies from both sides attempting to squeeze them as much as possible.
Now that the marquess was surrounded, the bandits could have just blocked the entrances and turned this whole thing into a siege so as to starve their enemies to submission.
Unfortunately for them, things were more complicated than that; first of all this was still the marquess's territory which meant that reinforcements could come in a day or two if one guard managed to slip through at night if he were to go and ask for help from a local noble.
They had to also consider a desperate offensive that could be attempted during the siege by the guards on one of the entrances, putting their whole weight behind only one entrance could give them a reasonable chance to break out, rendering Night's planing useless.
So, in the end, they would have to achieve their objective today or retreat otherwise things would get risky.
William watched the fighting from the center of the encirclement, as the guards held the line firmly, cutting down their enemies far more frequently than they themselves were felled.
It was gruesome to see, yet he did not shy away from it, he watched knowing full well that this is the real face of war.
"We tend to look at war as awesome and cool sometimes, we are desensitized to it through movies and games. Only when seeing the real deal first hand do we get why it's so messed up ." he thought to himself.
As he was thinking deeply, an arrow flew right past him, almost puncturing his shoulder. "Woken" by this sudden event William quickly got down on the floor, looking around to see if this was just a random stray arrow or if he was being targeted.
Before he could finish his examination another arrow almost hit Maric who was on his horse a few meters away from himself.
Seeing this, William immediately screamed for his brother to get down, who was already in the process of doing so at this point.
"The enemy is targeting us!!!" Marek exclaimed after coming closer to William's position, making sure that he stayed low the entire time.
"That's obvious, we need to take care of the enemy archers, father would probably be a target as well. Go inform him, Marek, make sure he is not shot dead."
Before Marek could even respond William got up and ran straight towards the few archers they had on their side dodging one more arrow.
"ARACHEERS, focus on the enemy's ranged units, they are targeting us at the moments so you should be able to spot their location when they fire. FOLLOW THE SOURCE OF THE ARROWS!!!"
William shouted towards the men making sure to keep himself as low as possible while presenting just enough of his body to entice the enemy archers to keep firing at him.
Soon this risky strategy started to bear some fruits, by presenting himself as the target he kept some of the enemy's ranged units' attention off their own men, allowing them to pick them off one by one.
Soon, the arrows flying towards William reduced in number substantially, enough for him to move freely around the battlefield.
After being done with one side he moved to the other to do the same as well as check on his father and brother. Thankfully none of them was hurt, in fact, lord Ulric has come to the same conclusion long ago and had already dealt with enemy ranged units on his side and was about to check on the other.
Seeing that William was fine and after learning that the enemy's ability to pick them off from a distance had been nullified to some extent, the marquess smiled at his son as well as patted his shoulder before returning his attention to the battle taking place.
From a glance, William could estimate that the casualties on their side so far had been relatively light, in warfare the defending side usually suffers far fewer casualties than the attacker does.
The more fortifications there are, the more casualties are to be expected to assault them, this holds true for virtually any era, whether ancient or modern.
Though the guards had no defensive fortifications in place, the fact that the pass was just a few meters wide made it so that no encirclements were possible, basically denying the enemy's advantage in numbers.
The clash continued for some time, by five o'clock the sun was already close to setting and considering that they were in a pass surrounded by cliffs meant that the visibility was already going down as the cliffs obstructed the sun's rays from reaching the men fighting below.
Seeing this, the marquess gave his eldest son Marek a nod and charged to the front, shouting orders to his men, making sure to do so as loudly as possible to attract the enemy's attention.
Marek on the other hand, seeing his father's "signal" went to one of the carriages, pulled a large red flag and started waving it as much as he could. The bandits seeing this did not know what to make of it so they just continued the assault.
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At the bandit's side, behind the front lines.
Olivia and Night were having a discussion about what to make of their situation.
" We need to retreat, it's going to be dark soon and we can't go on like this for much longer" Olivia stated.
"No!! we must continue, we won't get another chance like this in the future." Night retorted.
"But we already lost most of the archers, our casualties are mounting and we have not made much progress since the start of the battle, we need to cut our losses now" Olivia argued.
"It's not up to you Olivia, I did not want this but we will siege them tonight if we have to, I am sure that tired and sleep-deprived, they well put up much less of a fight." Night counter-argued.
"BUT..."
"There is no but Olivia!!!! now go and lead the men on the front, make sure their morale is high, I have already sent a messenger to Talos on the other side to do the same. We can not allow the marquess to slip through our hands."
Seeing that there was no room for arguing, Olivia begrudgingly did as she was told and went to the front to command her men.
The fighting continued on, as Night observed that lord Ulric was making sure to attend to any developing situation so as to not let it spill into a disaster, he also rotated his men from the front whenever the situation allow him to, bringing fresh troops from the rear to keep the fight going and the perimeter holding.
Night did not like this, not one bit, but then again Lord Ulric was known to be if not a brilliant commander then at least a very competent one.
As time went on, he realized that it had been some time since they had last received a report about the situation at the pass's entrance, in an attempt to remedy that he ordered one of his close guards to go and check on the situation at the entrance of their side of the pass.
No longer than five minutes later, that very same guard came back in a full gallop, a look of horror and distress on his face.
Seeing this, Night knew that something might have gone horribly wrong so he asked as soon as the guard drew close.
"What is it, what's the situation outside?"
"Sire a group of soldiers has blocked our way out of the pass, I think they are wearing house Blackwell's insignia on their armor." The guard reported.
"WHATTTT, HOWWWW?????"
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