Chapter 52: March on Heston

POV Smith

Several weeks had passed since the battle of Lodi, and with the passing weeks the heat of summer began to fade. With my army all but shattered I'd decided to wait for reinforcements, and slowly they trickled in. Slowly the ranks of the weary battalions were refilled with fresh blood.

But this past month I had not been idle. I trained the troops, retrained the regiments that Rena had brought and reorganized my own regiments. I sourced what cavalry I could, but it was a pitiful number, barely two companies strong. But the army as a whole had never been larger. Between the reinforcements and the… prisoners that my brother had convinced to switch sides my little 'Army of the Lobau' swelled to over fourteen thousand strong.

My brother… he'd changed a lot since that night. Becoming a lot like his former self. Though his hard work had seen thousands of prisoners switch sides. He'd been in near constant communication with her majesty as well, organizing the war effort and politicking like a mad man. His efforts led to baroness Visher being granted the 69th regiment from among those that had surrendered. She 'graciously' allowed me to add it to my army and train them like my own troops.

I grumbled, for quite some time I'd slowly been moving up the ranks as I found suitable commanders to take over the position and the army grew in size. I could easily appoint two of the brigadiers to divisional command and give them two brigades, but I only trusted Ponatoski with that level of command, Isser was promising… as was Tullio…

No, none of them were ready for that jump in command yet. I wasn't ready to relinquish that level of control to them yet. So though I taught them divisional and corps level drill and maneuvers, I left them in their brigades.

So it was then that after almost four weeks to the day of the battle that my army began its march on Heston. For the past two weeks Golmor had been fighting several delaying battles as her majesty marched on Heston from the northeast. Now I marched from the southeast with my brigades in separate columns, screened by my almost nonexistent cavalry.

I had decided on an aggressive march on Heston, thus most of the supply wagons were left behind with an escort to catch up. My army swept forward, buying its provisions from the locals and living off the land. My advance covered a blistering twenty four miles a day and by my correspondence with her majesty, I would likely surpass her own advance within the next three days.

The speed of my advance forced Golmor to redeploy to face me. It was barely a battle, Golmor had been forced to rush tired troops into battle, 4th and 1st brigades easily cleared the few mercenary companies. Then I decided to wait, to mirror something else from history. Her majesty continued her own advance and Golmor was forced to turn around again to face her.

So it was that the advance proceeded. Golmor won most of her battles against her majesty's army employing the tricks i'd taught her the hard way. But her attempts to stop me only bleed her army white. She fought thirteen battles in nine days, yet we still advanced. Golmor was an attentive student of my school of warfare, trying to counter and even destroy my strategies… Yet each battle was merely another nail in Golmor's coffin.

After nine days of marching and counter marching we'd finally driven Golmor to the last patch of ground she could muster an effective resistance. Before the walls of Heston itself Golmor made her stand at Triple creek. I almost gave her deployments a begrudging pass. The only way onwards was through her lines, and she'd done what she could to prepare it.

It would be a costly affair to launch a frontal assault on even these poorly made fortifications. Her flanks were anchored by expansive swamps, the was another road eleven miles south that was theoretically passable, if Golmor hadn't sent a blocking force there as well.

I examined the battlefield. Stakes had been driven into the creeks, trees and brush had been cleared. It was amateurish, but still something I didn't want to waste my men on, not when her majesty's army could soften the enemy for me. Besides, David said something about the Queen 'needing a victory'.

I snorted derisively as my brigades began to set up camp. I could already see three flaws in Golmor's deployments. I could carry the day as it is without the Queen. Stupid politics, ruining good generals with stupid decisions.