A True Puppetmaster of His Time

"The Battle of Brunag, a battle involving 150,000 men, was over in three short days."

"A scheme concocted in the dark mind of Lucius Aurellion was the reason for this."

"He turned brother against brother."

"Ally against ally."

"Watching from afar and while they were fighting amongst themselves."

"Like death harvesting souls."

"He coldly harvested their lives."

"A true puppet master of his time."

Publius Pollius, a historian in the Empire of Chavaria

…..

"Dance, my puppets, dance!"

Lucius said, laughing and enjoying himself while the Chavarian soldiers around him looked on, shocked by their scheming general's childish antics as he held his two hands out in front of him as if he were manipulating real puppets.

Even Leon was surprised at his general's eccentric actions sighing and shaking his head from side to side as he wondered how he had befriended and come into the service of such an odd man who was somehow so skilled at war and breaking alliances.

In the distance, the Chavarian army was waiting and watching the Plurian camp burn, smoke rising from the charred and burning Plurian tents. Their supply tent, full of the food and other supplies needed for the Plurian army's war effort, was also burned to the ground by the rampaging orcs. The food not burned with the tent was scattered on the floor, now contaminated and useless.

Lucius then stopped his antics, turning serious in the blink of an eye, and began talking aloud to himself again, something Leon and his soldiers had already gotten used to.

"Should be about time now."

Lucius commented coldly, his eyes showing off a merciless looking like a devil who had just caught a particularly delectable soul as he asked the knight beside him a question.

"How long has it been since the orcs started their attack?"

"About 5 minutes, general."

The man said seriously, noticing that their general was no longer messing around and so quickly professionally replied to him.

"Good! Leon, you got that Plurian flair on you?"

Lucius called out to his friend who, unless ordered otherwise, was never far from his side, by now, Reginald, the player behind Lucius, felt a sense of safety when the large Chavarian vice general was nearby.

"Yes milord, I even got one that indicates a cry for help from our stores. I assume it will meet your requirements.

Leon said, grabbing the flair gun from his saddle and aiming it up to the heavens, only needing his general's order to pull the trigger and send the burst of light into the night sky.

"Excellent! Fire now, it looks like the camp has been burning long enough for it to be needed, can't have them making peace, or all of the effort I spent up until now would have gone to waste."

"And the one thing I hate the most is wasting my precious time, energy, and effort."

Lucius said calmly, but one with particularly acute hearing would be able to detect the traces of anger in the Chavarian generals voice as the flair rose into the night sky, setting the bloody conflict between the Otuians and the Plurians in stone, watching on as the night was consumed in the raging flames of war.

'Let's see how this night raid develops as it would take us about 30 minutes to gather and rush here to aid the Plurains. If we are going to deceive them, we might as well go all the way.'

…..

Plurian Camp.

Bardornus and Mulush continued their duel, the large orcs steel axe now being able to scrape against the Plurian general's armour from time to time as fatigue infiltrated itself into Bardornus' body, slowly sapping the ageing man's strength.

Mulush then felt a bad premonition from behind him, barely dodging the halberd that wanted to skewer him, the orc looked into the eyes of the young man who held its shaft, using the dodge to put himself between the wounded and exhausted Bardornus and the large orc in front of him.

"General, are you all right?"

Alden asked worriedly, keeping his eyes locked on Mulush, who continued his attacks forcing Alden to deflect them head-on so none would land on his wounded general.

"I'm fine! What the hell are you doing here? I already have Sindar coming to the rescue! You only regained consciousness a few hours ago, and now you want to fight against a monster like Mulush?"

"Are you out of your fucking mind? Compared to this old man who will be retiring soon, it is the young ones we need to protect so the pride and strength of Plurus never falters!"

"Leave now and get as many people as we can to retreat with you! This battle is lost."

Bardornus said dejectedly, feeling a bit of warmth enter his soul, knowing that someone cared enough about him to risk their life to save his, knowing that even if they and the orcs stopped killing each other that they no longer had the strength to be able to defeat the Chavarians. Alden rushing over reminded the ageing Plurian general of his younger days when he would do something similar.

'Back then, we at least had the power to compete with Chavaria for hegemony of the Alendel steppe. Why did they have to get a genius like Drusus?

Bardornus thought, reminiscing on his younger days for a second, slightly depressed as now his kingdom would come to an inevitable end.

After recovering from his wounds and resting for a bit, Alden had decided to get some fresh air and stargaze to relax himself before he went to sleep when he saw the suspicious movements of the orcs and, feeling that something was off, quickly donned his battered armour, which now had little gaps from where spears had pierced it and into his flesh during the battle fought during the day.

It was when he heard the familiar melody of war, the clashing of metal on metal and cries of pain and death that he sped up and grabbed his halberd before charging towards Bardornus, desperate to save his mentor and, like a god of war, Alden cut a bloody path towards the Plurian command tent, managing to get there in time to save and take some pressure off Bardornus.

From outside the tent, Bardornus could hear the steel boots of the Flameguard getting closer as they cut their way through the orcs and could even hear Sindars voice shouting commands deciding to leave now and retreat with what remained of his army, knowing that Alden was too stubborn to leave him behind he left the tent Alden covering him from behind using great skill to dodge and deflect Mulushs attacks which quickly threatened to overwhelm the young vice general.

"HOOOLLLDD!"

Sindar shouted in an authoritative voice, his men bracing for impact as a wave of orcs crashed against the Plurian shield wall trying to use their large muscled bodies to break the formation. The front line of the shield wall wielded short swords to cut down enemies who pushed against the shield wall while the rest of the lines wielded steel spears, poking them over the shoulders of their comrades and into the iron-armoured orcs who continued to crash against the Flameguard like a wave breaking against a cliff face as slowly they died one by one their strength being eroded by the large number of orcs who threw themselves at the Plurian formation.

"PUUSSHH!"

On his command, the frontline all worked together and shield bashed the green-skinned orc in front of them, using all their strength to stun for a second in this small timeframe while giving out a loud battle cry, the Flamegaurd stabbed the charging orcs with their swords, piercing through the orc's crude iron armour and into their green-skinned flesh, twisting the blade to rupture the insides of the orcs before retreating, the longsword in Sindars hand piercing through an orc in front of him as its lifeless corpse collapsed to the ground and the warriors blood dripped from the vice generals steel blade.

"SHEILDS!"

"HOOLLDD!"

"PUUSSHH!"

Sindar shouted again, his disciplined men responding immediately to his commands, quickly reforming the shield wall, then pushing and stabbing the enemy in front of them like they were killing machines, continuing to rinse and repeat the process until he and his men found themselves surrounding the outside of the Plurian command tent, hearing the sound of war as metal stuck metal in the command tent a fight raging on.

Just as he was about to finish his final sheildwall push and stab yet another orc who tried to attack their stout formation, an arrow silently streaked through the night, piercing the side of his ankle. The steel arrow cut through one of the leather straps that hold his greaves in place, the arrowhead cutting straight through his ankle as blood trickled from where the arrow had pierced straight through, making Sindar stumble, falling to the ground with a cry of pain the orc that he should have killed raising the axe over his head ready to finish him off.

"Protect our lord!"

"Protect the lord!"

The men around him shouted in alarm, noticing the injured state of their lord the spearmen behind Sindar tried to keep the orc at bay for a few seconds with their stabs which were skillfully blocked by the orc. The 3 different kinds of animal furs draped over his shoulders, creating a coat that flowed down his back, denoting him as an orc of some rank and high skill.

The Flameguard on either side of Sindar used their shields together to block the next strike doing their best to defend their lord as a crossbow bolt pierced the orc captain in the heart; the large green-skinned lump of muscles eyes went wide as blood stopped pumping round the orc captain's body crumpling to the bloodied ground a look of shock being the last image that would ever grace his face.

As the Flameguard created a new sheildwall under the direction of a captain to protect Sindar, another officer in the Flamegaurd helped to support the young nobleman who struggled to walk with the arrow through his ankle, having to limp slowly Sindar then looked towards where the bolt came from, already suspecting whom it was that saved him.

'Of course, it would be you.'

Sindar thought to himself, gazing at the figure of Atharid, who held a freshly fired crossbow in his hands, reloading it after giving a little salute to his friend. Atharid stood at 6ft tall with striking red hair, unlike Sindar's black, around him was his personal unit of 1000 crossbowmen skilled at both range and melee; their versatility made them a force to be reckoned with.

Taking a position on the slight slope where the Plurians had set up their camp allowed these crossbowmen to help out nearby areas of the camp. One of the main reasons the camp was still holding out and they were not completely overrun was because Atharid expertly commanded the crossbowmen giving just enough support to allow many pockets of resistance to survive as the Plurians slowly started to gather together, but many had fallen to the orc's surprise attack, the 20,000 muscled orc soldiers especially the wolf riders whose mounts who howled into the moonlit night charged around the camp largely uncontested killing and burning many Plurians in their tents or ambushing the disoriented soldiers who wondered out only to be ruthlessly cut down by the orcs.

Barodrnus clutched at his stomach wound, his second this day, one came from Mulush and one from Leon and walked glaive in hand out of the command tent, leaving a small trail of blood droplets to herald his passing heading towards Sindars Flameguard that were nearby. His face concentrated and cold, Bardornus appeared to be in a trance-like state as he cut down the orcs that tried to attack him with one accurate swing of his glaive while Alden struggled to hold off Mulush and covered for his injured general.

Zugbu, who stealthily hid in the ranks of the orcs, eyes glinted with desire when he saw Bardornus emerge from his tent, wanting to use this chance to gain merits for himself by killing the enemy's general. But just as he was about to fire at the Plurian general, his instincts which had saved the small orc time after time, screamed for him to move, and he barely dodged a crossbow bolt which stuck itself into the ground flying only a few centimetres away from piercing into Zugbus chest.

'Damn! Why does everyone have ranged specialists!'

The small orc cursed in his mind as he used a nearby orc as a human shield keeping a low profile as the orcs around him were killed one by one by a barrage of crossbow bolts shot from Atharids crossbows, and just when he was about to poke his head out to try to see if the opportunity to attack Bardornus was still available a crossbow bolt impaled itself into the heart of the orc Zugbu was hiding behind the lifeless muscled body slamming into the ground making it shake a little.

'Bloody crossbows! Why can't our enemies be straightforward? Let's see how you handle this.'

Zugbu thought his blood boiling as he shot an arrow towards Atharid, the eagle-eyed Plurian vice general who had quickly found the small orc and seeing the danger that he posed, being able to stealthily injure and kill officers to help collapse their army made it his mission to suppress him especially when he saw Bardornus clutching at his chest already wounded from the ambush that had just happened.

Atharid calmly sidestepped the arrow ordering his crossbows, whose numbers had doubled over the last 20-odd minutes of fighting to fire in groups to keep the dangerous small orc suppressed and cover their general and Sindar while they retreated as he saw hordes and hordes of orcs rush in and begin a slaughter in the camp.

By now, Bardornus had made it to Sindars men, who had been halved due to having to fight against the constant wave of armoured orcs who charged at them relentlessly and continued to hold out, the nearby knights and heavy infantry joining them and rallying to the Plurian general who ordered them to retreat knowing the battle was lost.

Because of the surprise attack, only 40% of the Plurian army managed to make it to this group, comprised of all the major surviving Plurian military officers, who were now the only organised resistance; the rest were cut off and killed by the orcs. The casualties that should have been more significant were lowered largely due to Bardornus warning his subordinates beforehand when the Plurian general felt something was off, which allowed them to gather enough men to create pockets of resistance and rallying points meaning that the Plurians were not completely leaderless or fleeing allowing them not to be annihilated by the orcs in short order.

As the Plurians not lucky enough to be near their leaders were cut down, the Plurians saw 2 large orcs approaching the Flameguard, recognising one as Mulush, the large orc who used his exceptional reaction speed to deflect a bolt that threatened to impale itself in his body he decided to wait for help before tackling the Plurian formation not wanting to push Alden and Bardornus too far as fighting 2 master level fighters at once is no easy feat even for someone with Mulushs vast experience in combat.

The other orc was 7 feet tall, wielding a 5-foot large two-handed cleaver like it was a regular greatsword, each swing cutting down multiple people. His strong armour and muscles helped to protect him from faster opponents who struggled to break through his muscular frame, the tense muscles helping to cushion blows, while larger and stronger opponents were overwhelmed by the orc's inhuman strength.

Looming behind them were over ten thousand orcs, and Wurgoth, on his large wolf, looked upon them with ruthless eyes deciding to send Grishnak, the 7-foot orc, Wurgoths own bodyguard who had been protecting him all this time to the front line to help break the Plurians as the ones who had managed to rally to Bardornus and his vice generals were the only ones left the other becoming bloodied corpses destined to rot on the steppe.

Letting out a warcry that boomed in the night, echoing over the steppe, the orc general watched on as his men matched his warcry charging towards the Plurian sheildwall that had nearly doubled, becoming nearly 2000 men strong, a mixture of heavy infantry and knights, creating an immovable rock as Bardornus ordered the surviving Plurians towards one of the entrances that a valiant captain had managed to keep under their control trying to find as many horses as possible to help in his men's evacuation from the battlefield.

"SLAUGHTER THEM ALL!"

Wurgoth roared as the battle continued, confident he was taking the right path as his quest still told him to kill the Plurians.