6 Black Banner

Amygdal ordered the men into their five squares at the point where the main road branched into three. Retreating legionaries filed past them in some semblance of orderly lines as he arranged his men into formation, careful not to disrupt it. He counts that some three hundred has passed him since they've left the citadel. Too few. But there are still more heading this way, although the Arvendi lines have been reformed and time is now pressing hard against them. He convinces himself to hold onto hope, for their sake.

As he was drawing up his reserves into their formation, another lieutenant marches up towards him.

"Amygdal, did the captain tell you when he'd be back?" He asked, "I've drawn up the swordsmen and I want to know if he'd be leading them himself."

Then a blast of horns and trumpets sounded, and the stamp of angry feet resumed from a short rest. The Arvendi lines formed ahead of them began moving. Shaking, unsteady, but forwards they moved regardless. They drove the retreating defenders down and killed them when they caught up. Both sides knew that no mercy would be given to the other. Shout and fury drowned out all other noises as the thicket of pikes and lances advanced on the first company.

"If you can hear anything over this din," Amygdal shouted to his colleague, "Then I think our captain has arrived."

The Arvendi had drawn up their battle-lines to cover the entirety of the three roads so that the first line of men presented a wall of spear-points as they advanced. Amygdal hesitates to call them soldiers. He notices that they are dressed in different liveries. Some were dressed in the wrought iron of the Arvendi warbands, others seemed to have purchased armour of finer steel. Some still wore the crowned helmets of legionaries, likely taken from the defenders on the outer walls. Many more had practically no armour protecting them and had only their peasant's garbs covering their frail frames.

In their shaky lines, only their gaunt and malnourished faces seemed uniform. Some marched under a lion banner, Amygdal knows it belongs to some prince, but could not remember who. Others flew a banner of an eagle or a stag, dispersed between them was the icon of the divine spark; a white bolt of lightning shaped like an arrow. Most walked under no such glamour but only the tattered rags they wear, corralled off to battle by bishops and clergymen dressed in white frock and gown.

"Conscripts." His colleague called out, "See the yellow banner in the back? That's the one the newly-raised forces fly."

"Pick off the priests and the sergeants, hold off the rest for as long as we can." Amygdal replied, "Wait for them to get closer, we can't waste bolts."

The colleague nodded and rushed back to arrange the crossbowmen into smaller squares so that they could fit between the gaps in the frontline. He took care to conceal them behind the swordsmen and waited for Amygdal's signal to move forwards.

The Arvendi paused their march just shy of the first company, rearranging their lines so that the poorly armed conscripts were at the front. They were armed with little more than a spear and light shield, Amygdal wonders if they know that they have been ordered to die. The first company did not move. Then with another blast of trumpets, the Arvendi resumed their march.

As the two forces approached each other they traded insults. First, an Arvendi cleric launched a red arrow as their lines advanced. Then the first company's centurions threw a shower of black javelins as an answer to the challenge, striking down clerics and captains in their opposing ranks. As the two lines came within reach of one another the Arvendi let out an animal roar as they lowered their spears and lunged towards the first company.

The Elemeri line was silent as they lowered their pikes and braced. A forest of steel spikes three ranks deep met the Arvendi spears and held them back. With rapacious efficiency, they struck down man after man as the conscripts attempted to wade through the killing field. If a legionary failed to kill his foe with a disciplined blow, then his comrade to his right would strike down the injured foe.

Still on pushed the Arvendi, dashing themselves against the first company like the tide against the unmoving stone. Pushed forwards by their comrades behind, goaded forwards by leashes made of promise and salvation. Thrown away by their commanders to buy time for his more precious assets. Amygdal does not pity them.

Despoiler of cities, destroyer of men and women, young or old. He does not pity them, neither does the rest of the first company. Many of them, like himself and the captain, are sons of the Rhuni people, who once called this land home. They had been reduced to abject poverty and slavery in the hands of their conquerors as the Empire's frontiers collapsed. Most of his men enlisted all those years ago to avenge a lost family member or right a horrific wrong dealt against them.

His time as a prisoner to the Arvendi has done little but instil a terrible vengeance in his heart. Amygdal pauses his thought. Perhaps it was more accurate, rather than he does not pity, to simply say that he cared not for his foes. He knows that his captain is much like him, only the insults he had suffered were far, far worse. And his anger against his former captors deeper and darker, and buried beneath a perpetual frown.

So in the face of the slaughter that is his handiwork, he felt a perverse sense of pride. The spilling of blood and gore has become a measure of success he has drowned himself in. Yet, he has been reduced to the murderer of murderers. His bloodied hands once only knew how to grasp books, and not his butcher's knives. But here he was wreaking his cold vengeance. Amygdal could not pity himself, he had this battle to win.

The Arvendi line began to buckle once the momentum of their assault had been rebuked. Once the back lines could see the slaughter ahead, they wavered, only grudgingly trudged forwards under whip and the threat of eternal damnation. Like an overburdened dam, they were close to breaking. Amygdal seized upon this and ordered his men to advance.

The five squares of pikemen moved in formation, marching forwards in unison and kept their pikes fixed against their foes as they did. They marched with such bloodlust that even the centurions did not need to give orders for them to charge the enemy. Driven from behind by uncaring generals, and driven from in front by vengeful men, the dam finally broke under pressure.

Yet even as his foes routed from the field, Amygdal was hesitant to pursue. He remained badly outnumbered; besides he is only here to buy time for the rest to retreat. He ordered the company to pause just shy of the split in the main road and allowed his foes to break and fly. Confusion bought him time as well, he reasoned.

The rout lasted nearly twelve minutes by his reckoning, ample time for his men to rest and reorganise. He looked behind him and saw that most of the retreating defenders had reached the citadel, it was time for them to fall back as well. He ordered the swordsmen to advance and form a screen as the rest of the company fell back but the sound of a rolling drum changed his plans quickly. He quickly barked at his pikes to pause and form ranks, and for the swordsmen to fall back.

He knows this sound well. As does his veterans, whose faces fell grim and dark. The newer recruits look on in confusion to the officers as they hastily rearrange battle-lines, dividing the five squares of men into twelve and widening the gap between them. Soon the clap of hooves and the ringing of chimes and bells approached. The retreating Arvendi lines paused and parted, and from the billowing clouds of dust and snow emerged a dreaded banner.