Chương 13: Chapter 11: The Battle of Starpike - Conclusion
As the battle raged on, Quentyn was distracted by a different set of chimes, as opposed to the pre-set tones he had arranged. As he recalled what this set of sounds were for, his eyes narrowed as he considered the ramifications.
"My Lord, that is the signal for …"
"I know! Stop bringing up every last thing!" he snapped, mostly at the irritation of the fact that Manfrey Martell had fallen. Another of his father's relatives was now dead. This would not go unanswered.
So, we have an idiot that is actually targeting the enemy commander without even scouting his defences first. They probably hope to use this smoke to catch us off guard. Too obvious. Far too obvious. Even my sound teams are equipped with fast defensive measures. Tyrell's, learn this lesson well … Warfare is not so simple that you can rely on mere momentum alone!
"Have all archers aim at the ground in front of the smoke two thousand yards ahead! Defensive teams to the front!" he ordered, even as his men stepped forward and assumed positions.
Sure enough, with a roar, a Tyrell cavalry unit burst out of the smoke. As soon as they burst out, he gave the order and his archers launched a volley of arrows that fell right into the heart of the enemy formation.
The initial volley of arrows broke the momentum of the cavalry charge splendidly. Men and horses alike fell in vast numbers, and the chief casualty among them was Merrel Florent who had been leading the charge. He had been hit by more than 20 arrows and there was no saving him.
Recognizing the threat, Baelor Hightower warned Alester Florent, "Our surprise attack has failed! We should withdraw and regroup ourselves and then –"
"Ngh!" Alester grunted in anger even as he beheld the corpse of his nephew. "No! We have to keep charging! Look! The enemy does not have a large number of infantry with him, and half of what he has are holding up those flimsy palisades! One charge and we will break them!"
"Understood! Then Lord Florent, please fall back two or three ranks, let the men take the front!"
"Don't be stupid! It's only because I am at the very front that everyone is able to keep running forward!" he roared, even as his men grinned and followed him.
"ONWARD! MEN OF THE REACH! Hoooah!" he roared, even as his men rearranged themselves into a wedge-shaped formation, to better breach the enemy fortifications, with Alester leading the front and Baelor bringing up the rear-guard.
As he looked at the incoming formation, Quentyn frowned and upon recognizing the sigil on the leader's armour, he calmly ordered, "Aim for the man leading at the front."
"Yes, My Lord!"
Recognizing the threat, from the other end, Baelor ordered two his men, "Gwynn and Gwen, go ahead and guard Lord Florent! Now!"
At that, two burly soldiers from the Hightower guards raced forward and placed themselves in front of Alester Florent.
"Quit doing this unnecessary shit, you idiots!" Lord Florent growled, even as the two men brought out two huge iron shields and held them in front creating a miniature barricade in front of them, even as their horses charged forward.
"It seems you do not understand your own position, My Lord," Gwynn, the man on the left smirked, even as the other Gwen, continued, "If we lose you here, our army dies!"
"That's right!" Gwynn roared even as he charged forward.
"If you understand that much, then use us as your shields and move forward!"
"Ha-ha! It looks it was worth spending all that money on these armoured shields, eh, Gwen? Now, come and shoot as many arrows as you can at us, you Dornish bastards!"
On the opposite side, the commander of the archers noticed the new additions to the forefront of the approaching charge and issued a new order.
"Concentrate all arrows on those three horsemen in the front!"
Six thousand bowmen now trained their sights on the very forefront of the approaching cavalrymen.
"Fire!"
On the opposite side, the two huge tower shields held by the men Gwen and Gwynn were peppered with so many arrows that the shields did not have a single empty spot upon them. But, they had done their job. Lord Alester Florent was unharmed.
The same could not be said of the two men who held those shields however. Gwen and Gwyn, each had been hit by arrows, even though their bodies were covered by the shields, Gwen had been hit in his left eye, and had died instantly, his body still atop his horse, and his hand holding his shield limply, about to fall any moment. Gwyn had an arrow in his neck and was bleeding out rapidly.
"Go, My Lord! We are counting on you take the enemy commander's head!" and with these parting words, the man Gwyn, passed away.
After sparing a glance tinged with respect at their sacrifice, Alester Florent moved ahead without respite.
The distance had been closed. Recognizing that, Dornish spearmen stepped forward.
"Archers! Fall back! Spearmen to the front!"
"Enemy spearmen have approached the front!" one of the Florent cavalrymen shouted out in warning.
"WHO CARES ABOUT THEM! BLOW THEM AWAY!" Alester roared in anger as his men charged.
As the enemy cavalry approached, the soldiers surrounding Quentyn were calmly preparing to receive the charge head-on.
"They're almost here!"
"Are we ready?"
"Idiots to the extreme!" Quentyn sighed in disappointment as he looked at the advancing cavalrymen.
At his signal, all the spearmen who had come to the forefront of the formation dropped their spears and knelt down and yanked upon a set of ropes lying on the ground in front of them, and at once, an entire array of wooden stakes rose up from the ground to form a wooden picket(AN: Imagine the scene from Braveheart where the enemy cavalry crashes into the wooden picket, this is something like that) with the sharp wooden stakes pointing towards the incoming cavalry charge.
With a thunderous crash, the Tyrell cavalry forces crashed headlong into that death trap, before they could even realize what was happening. Lord Alester Florent was literally thrown into the air from his horse, and tumbled down roughly into the ground, breaking his left arm in the process.
The entire front wave of the cavalry, more than 400 men and horses had run headlong into the wooden picket and had perished. The sight made a gruesome scene with men and horses impaled with extreme prejudice upon the wooden stakes. The air was rife with the sound of men and horses screaming in pain.
Even as his ears ringed, Alester Florent could only watch helplessly as his men were massacred.
What … what just happened?
What … what the hell is that?
At the rear guard, Baelor had barely managed to stop the rear half from running into the same blockade with a herculean effort. With his eyes wide with terror, the Hightower looked at the gory scene, and barely managed to push down the bile that had risen in his throat.
They had … something like that hidden in the ground!?
Monster … Prince Quentyn Martell … he…he is a monster!
Needless to say, the reason why Quentyn's command unit had so little defenders was because he had already prepared numerous defensive mechanisms beforehand. An anti-cavalry picket trap was laid out in front of his position. Thanks to this trap, The Tyrell cavalry's vanguard was completely wiped out, leaving only a handful of survivors.
Furthermore, they were also cut off from the rest of their comrades in the rear guard. Ultimately, this resulted in the situation where Lord Alester Florent and thirty of his surviving men, were left trapped inside the enemy formation of two thousand spearmen.
Despite this tremendous setback, Alester Florent's determination did not die, "Don't waver! The enemy commander has come into sight!" he roared and tried to stand up, despite having his left arm broken, while Quentyn Martell looked at him dispassionately.
"You men just don't understand at all," he spoke, his tone piercing in intensity as he addressed Lord Florent and his men, who were looking at him, with hatred and fear mixed in their eyes.
"It is true that hot blooded types like you are easily able to reach the peak of their morale, but, on the other hand, the moment your confidence is broken," here he paused and looked at the enemies, who were truly on their last legs, with despair beginning to cloud their faces.
"You will fall into the absolute pit of despair and are unable to quickly rally yourself once again. That is the fatal weakness of soldiers who only rely on momentum, ever since ancient times. This has gone long enough, FINISH THEM!" he ordered, as his men stepped forward.
The Dornish spearmen began to advance in a line, with their spears pointed forward, and slowly Alester Florent's party began to dwindle as his men were slaughtered with methodical precision.
Lord Alester was in deep shock, the pain of his injuries, the loss of his men, all of them were taking their toll on his body at last.
How… how can this be?
Is this place going to be our …?
And at this moment, the one thing which even Quentyn had not counted upon occurred. For just the smallest of moments, the shifting winds caused the smoke to envelope the area to rear of Alester Florent and his men. And what was surprising, was the fact that out of the smoke rode out Ser Aerys Oakheart, with 500 fresh cavalrymen to the rescue of his comrades.
"WHAT!?"
"Whoa…who are they?"
"Stop them …"
The Dornish infantry line was completely taken aback, as the new forces began to systematically fall upon them, and they began to take casualties. Using this reprieve, Baelor Hightower and the rear guard of the 1st wave rode in and picked up the survivors and carried out them to safety.
"Pay no heed to our fellows in the first wave!" Aerys Oakheart roared, as he pointed his lance at Quentyn himself. "Our target, Quentyn Martell himself is right in front of us," he roared, even as his men shouted out in agreement and fell behind him as they moved forward.
"Impossible! We did not receive any signal announcing their arrival!" the infantry commander at the bottom of the siege tower complained, at which Quentyn narrowed his eyes at the new arrival.
Hoh, so they decided to thoroughly exterminate all sound teams before heading over here? And to do it silently, in such a short frame of time, a slightly promising enemy has shown up this time.
Meanwhile, Alester Florent had bandaged his arm, and after getting a fresh mount was returning to the field, with the remnants of his men. Even a broken arm would not dissuade him from returning to the field. Not that anyone would dare to attempt it in the first place at that point.
"Damn it, to be saved by that young stripling of an Oakheart! How humiliating!" he cursed out, even as he rode ahead, rallying his men forth.
"Baelor!" he called out, as he noticed the rear guard coming up, "You are all right?"
"The same to you, Lord Florent!"
"We imitated Aerys Oakheart's men and rode atop the corpses of friend and foe alike, to reach here!"
"All right!" Alester roared, "We did not sacrifice so much, only to let Oakheart steal all the glory! We are chasing after Quentyn Martell, we will be the ones to take his head!" he charged ahead, as all his men began to follow him.
Suddenly, new sounds began to permeate the battlefield, and before they could recover, the catapults from the walls of Starpike began a fresh round of bombardment. New jars began to burst on the ground, and a fresh haze of smoke enveloped the field again.
"Damn it! Those Dornish cowards are doing this again!"
"Is that sound trick of ours working?"
"No! they have changed everything!"
"Do not move! Wait for the smoke to settle, or you may hit our own men instead of the enemy!"
With their teeth grit, the companies of Aerys Oakheart and Alester Florent paused, as they could not take the risk of attacking in the thick haze of the smoke.
Once the smoke cleared a bit, the Tyrell forces were gobsmacked. The entire Dornish force had again retreated behind the wooden palisades, with the thousands of archers again manning the lines. A clear boundary had once again been established between the two forces.
The two Tyrell cavalry forces advanced a few hundred paces in tandem, in parallel columns, preparing for a fresh charge.
Atop his siege tower, Quentyn took stock of the situation.
"Didn't I already tell those fools! If they think that battles can be won just by relying on momentum alone, it is sheer folly."
Below his men were getting into position.
"5th and 6th squads, advance!"
"7th and 8th squads, fan out!"
More and more infantry streamed out and took up a guarding position in front of the palisades.
A cry went out among the Tyrell forces.
"Enemy reinforcements have arrived!"
"Doesn't matter! Get ready!"
"The enemy commander is within our sight!"
At that moment, Quentyn would splendidly betray the expectations of all men upon the battlefield with his next move.
"Are the preparations complete?" he asked his men below.
"Yes, My Lord."
"VERY GOOD. GIVE THE ORDER. LET US RETREAT."
As one, the Dornish force made an about turn and began a steady retreat, with the 6000 archers acting as rear guards.
As expected, this threw the Tyrell side's reactions completely aside.
"What!"
"Whoa …"
"Huh?"
"They … are running away?"
What is going on? He still has thousands of soldiers defending him and yet he is running away? Is this a new trap?
On the other side, Quentyn issued a new order. "Ring the gongs, ordering all forces to withdraw. This battle is over."
Having received the signal, all the Dornish forces over the entire battlefield began to withdraw.
"L-Look, all the Dornish forces are withdrawing!"
"We…we managed to drive them back, after all!"
"Ha-ha, yeah … we forced Quentyn Martell to run away!"
Despite all this jubilation, Alester Florent's eyes were riveted upon the back of the young prince of Dorne. He, and perhaps young Oakheart and Baelor were the only three men who had realized what was going on.
Meanwhile, atop the walls of the castle, William Dayne who had returned earlier was observing the battle below.
"As a strategist, the young prince does not act as befitting a warrior. If the enemy draws near, he will retreat. That is all, however, he will retreat only after the task is accomplished, and that is the mentality of a warrior. As befitting someone, who is both a strategist and a warrior, a conundrum if I have ever seen it," he mused, even as the army began to stream back to the castle.
Below on the field, Quentyn was quietly musing to himself.
Speaking honestly, I would have preferred to devastate them for another hour. But I suppose this is acceptable to, having exterminated around 80% of their forces. One must not be too greedy after all. A desperate animal fights the hardest. Letting them escape is the best thing to do at this point.
"MY LORD!" one of his men screamed suddenly, and Quentyn turned around, only to see a lone horseman riding towards them, with a lance in hand. With a desperate heave, the man threw his lance, but it was obvious that he was too heavily injured, and the aim was wide off the mark. It harmlessly flew through the air, and fell a few hundred yards in front of Quentyn, who calmly gazed at the man.
It was Alester Florent.
He gave a short bow of respect to the man, acknowledging the effort and then, he was gone from sight.
On the field, Baelor Hightower had ridden up to the man.
"My Lord! Let it go! You cannot be so reckless with your life! You can no longer reach the Prince of Dorne. More importantly, we have already done enough by forcing him to retreat!"
"IT'S NOT ENOUGH AT ALL! DAMN IT MAN! WHAT FORCED HIM TO RETREAT? HAVE NONE OF YOU REALIZED IT YET? WE HAVE BEEN COMPLETELY CRUSHED BY THAT ACCURSED BRAT!"
The reality was just as Alester Florent had said.
The moment the smoke covering the battlefield had lifted, the Tyrell army was left dumbstruck at the sight of the catastrophic number of casualties they had taken. They had suffered an enormous defeat without even realizing it. From the very first clash, the Reach had been dealt a death blow.
The Tyrell army which suffered a devastating loss in the opening battle, set up Alester Florent, Baelor Hightower and Aerys Oakheart as the heroes of the battle in order to preserve morale. Word was endlessly repeated that the three of them had forced Quentyn Martell to retreat. Though the troops themselves had realized that they had been defeated thoroughly, they still cheered in a desperate attempt to rouse themselves.
As they walked through the lines of cheering soldiers, Alester Florent was beyond himself, "Damn, this is more like a walk of shame! The idiots who let the enemy commander escape! We will become the laughing stocks of the world!"
"It cannot be helped! The enemy we are up against is not an ordinary human being!" Baelor groused in disgust.
"At any rate, this war is going to become far uglier before it ends," Aerys concluded with a grim tone, as the three commanders made their way back to their tents to commiserate upon their failure.
Later, when the Maesters of the citadel would record the results of the battle, which would forever be immortalized, even they for a moment were stunned at the carnage that had resulted. The total results were tabulated thus.
The Tyrell Army
Supreme Commander: Lord Leyton Hightower
Notable commanders
Lord Alester Florent (Wounded in Battle)
Lord Branston Cuy (Killed in Battle)
Ser Emmon Cuy (Killed in Battle)
Ser Aerys Oakheart (Wounded in Battle)
Ser Baelor Hightower (Wounded in Battle)
Ser Colin Florent (Killed in Battle)
Ser Merrel Florent (Killed in Battle)
Total casualties
12,217 men out of 15,000
9,643 infantries out of 10,000 killed (Absolute destruction)
2,574 cavalries out of 5,000 killed (Half destroyed)
The Dornish Army
Supreme Commander: Prince Quentyn Martell
Notable commanders
Prince Quentyn Martell
Lord William Dayne
Ser Manfrey Martell (Killed in Battle)
Total casualties
936 men out of 15,000
621 cavalries out of 2,000 (A third lost)
315 infantries lost
In his notations, Archmaester Ebrose would record thus, "The battle of Starpike would forever change the landscape of the entire world once its results were known. Gone were the memories of the legendary battles fought between the forces of Rhaegar Targaryen and the Rebellion. Even the Blackfyre rebellions had not wrought such devastation. The last time such devastation had been inflicted in Westeros was when the dragons of the Targaryen's still flew in the skies.
This was the most lopsided victory in the history of Westerosi warfare ever recorded, when considering the fact that it was a battle fought purely between humans on both sides. For a force of 15,000 soldiers to lose nearly 12,500 men and kill only 900 men out of an equal number of enemy soldiers was unprecedented and frankly, beggared belief. Indeed, Lord Mace Tyrell, the Lord Paramount of the Reach refused to believe that his forces could have been so decisively defeated. No matter the evidence presented, he obstinately refused to accept the result. It took the combined efforts of the entire nobility of the Reach to make him realize that indeed the Reach had suffered the greatest military defeat in the history of warfare, and that it had become a laughing stock in the eyes of the entire world.
These were summarized by the now iconic words of Lord Alester Florent who would forever be called 'The Relentless' for his dogged pursuit of Prince Quentyn Martell during the ill-fated battle, which forced him to realize the gravity of the situation.
"Go and fight that monster yourself, you fat fool, and you will see the truth of it!"
They nearly came to blows at that point, and only the intervention of Lady Olenna Tyrell defused that situation.
On the other hand, Quentyn Martell had shot up in fame world wide over his stupendous victory. Envoys and spies from every city in Essos were dispatched to Dorne in haste to gather as much information as they could about the young Prince of Dorne.
This battle also finally alerted the Rebellion that they now faced a new foe, one who perhaps was a greater threat than the now dead Rhaegar Targaryen himself. The other events that later happened and soured the chances of any possibilities of peace between all parties ensured that it would be the Rebellion who would challenge the young Prince of Dorne next.
This would result in the legendary Battle of Bitterbridge where the Dornish Army would come up against the Lannister Army commanded by Ser Tygett Lannister. The events surrounding to the build-up, the actual battle, and its aftermath warrant a book in itself, and will be discussed in depth over there.
Author's note: Next Chapter! The World reacts!
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