Chapter 6: A Great Bloodied Grass Sea

The grassy field of Lower Sodden was a sight to behold as the two armies of the continent stood tall and wide. Banners of all colours and symbols fluttered in the heavy wind blowing from the west, while the clear sky overhead promised a warm and beautiful day. But beneath this picturesque scene, a grim and tense start of the battle brewed.

Blaidd stood now in the very front line of the Northern army, taking in the sight of the leaders of the two armies, King Vizimir II and Field Marshal Menno Couhoorn, meeting in the middle of the battlefield to parley for even the slightest chance that this battle would not happen.

Despite the size of the two armies being equal, there was a stark difference in equipment and weaponry between them. Blaidd's enhanced sight allowed him to notice one significant advantage the Northern army possessed: their mages. Compared to the Nilfgaardian mages, who appeared weary and unprepared, the Northern sorcerers and sorceresses looked significantly more robust, except for one who was dressed in all black and seemed to be commanding the rest.

It was clear to Blaidd that sorcerers had it hard in the south. In the Northern Realms, sorcerers controlled kings, but in Nilfgaard, they were treated as mere weapons and tools, leashed like dogs by the empire.

Blaidd then could see that Vizimir and his retinues turned back from the location of parley, Field Marshal Coehoorn soon after. Not a minute later, a deep sound of the horns sounded throughout the vast field, a signal for a battle to come. It was clear this battle was going to start, with no one to stop it until one of the army got decimated or routed.

"Alright, my comrades in arms! The moment we have been preparing for is now upon us!" Tomas declared, his voice ringing out over the ranks of soldiers as the signal to advance reverberated throughout the northern army. Blaidd and his fellow soldiers marched forward, their shields raised in a stance of vigilance. The sound of the enemy's approach pounded like the thundering of war drums, and the tension in the air was palpable.

"My skills as an orator are lacking, so let's make this brief!" Tomas joked self-deprecatingly, eliciting smiles from Blaidd and his companions. "Our northern lands are in peril, and we have been hired to defend them! Some of you hail from Redania, Temeria, Kaedwen, Aedirn, Kovir, or Povis like myself. Others of you may have come from Nilfgaard, yet here you stand in our ranks, displaying your insatiable greed for coins! But let us not forget the benefits of this mission, my friends. We shall protect our whores and harlots, and earn the orens and crowns for their services!"

The men chuckled softly, loosening up their tense muscles and preparing for the coming battle. "Our task is clear," Tomas continued, his voice growing stronger. "We must hold our position and prevent the enemy from reaching our mages on the hill. If we succeed, the kings will reward us greatly! And who knows, perhaps some of you may even have the good fortune to bed one of the sorceresses!" The ranks erupted in a thunderous roar, their adrenaline surging to new heights. They beat their shields against their weapons, a show of readiness and intimidation.

Suddenly, another signal from the command centre sounded, halting the army's advance. The soldiers tightened their grip on their shields, watching as the enemy soldiers, dressed in thick black plate armour, advanced toward them with ferocious cries of war.

Without warning, a loud and long sound of a horn came from the opposite side, and upon hearing that, the men that wore thick black plate armour ran towards the northern lines, shouting their war cries like madmen.

"Shield wall!" shouted Tomas, also raising his shield. The formation quickly turned tight, shields deployed next to each other, with almost no openings to exploit. In between the small gaps of the shield, Blaidd could see the infantry of the black ones quickly approaching, around forty metres of distance till contact.

But then, the ranks could hear a faint and small sound of whistling coming from above. They looked at the sky, only to see that a huge boulder was coming towards them dead on, either from artillery or one of the mages of the Nilfgaardians.

"Disperse!" Tomas commanded nervously. But, before the ranks could split up, as the boulder was about to hit them, a mist of blue and white covered it, and the artillery ammunition quickly turned to dust. Without waiting, the mages of Sodden hill threw a counter attack, a powerful fireball launched through the air from their position, slamming itself towards the infantry lines of the black ones that stood just right in front of Blaidd.

The tall and bulky man could see the destruction it entails. The wet grass turned to ash in an instant, parts of humans scattered everywhere where the fireball hits, sounds of wailing and screaming echoed near his position, yet they're still told to push, to make contact with the mercenary.

"It's the mages!" a shout came from one of the mercenaries, cheering in excitement from the support. The ranks of the band tighten once again to a shield wall formation.

Blaidd took a deep breath and tightened his grip on his shield, feeling surprisingly calm. He wasn't sure if it was because of the experience this body had or simply his werewolf blood that made him fear nothing, knowing that few could kill a creature like him. The black-armored soldiers closed in quickly, narrowing the gap between them. In a matter of seconds, the two armies collided, shields slamming into each other.

"WRAAA!!" A Nilfgaardian soldier jumped into the air and swung his mace at Blaidd's shield with great force. The shield moved back a few inches, but Blaidd held on and it didn't break. He looked through the gaps in the shields and saw an opening. In one swift movement, he thrust his sword forward, piercing the soldier's neck guard and sending the blade through his head. Blaidd quickly pulled the sword back and used his shield to push the soldier's body, causing it to fall towards his comrades.

Amidst the blocks and stabs, Blaidd could make out the curses of his fellow soldiers, particularly those of the dwarven mercenary. Despite his diminutive stature, Brouver was a fierce fighter, wielding a thick shield on his left arm and a lethal axe in his right hand.

"Take that, you little shites!" he bellowed, swinging his axe with a vertical motion towards a soldier's head. The blow struck its mark, the axe embedding itself in the skull. With a swift pull, Brouver retrieved his weapon, causing brains and blood to spill out and stain the once-pristine grass beneath them.

As the battle raged on, Blaidd and his comrades in the front line continued with their simple moves of stabs and swings, their shields raised to conserve energy. After several minutes, Tomas whistled to signal a switch, and Blaidd stepped back to be replaced by the next line of soldiers. As he walked slowly towards the back of the line, his shield still raised and his eyes scanning the enemy, he could hear the soldiers around him sigh in relief.

But their respite was short-lived as another whistling sound was heard from above, and Blaidd turned his gaze to the sky to see an invisible magical bolt heading towards them. Despite their nerves, the soldiers trusted the mages to protect them as they had done before.

But, that protection never came.

The bolt slammed into the middle of the line, exploding with electricity visible in the air, killing twenty soldiers and injuring fifty more. The area was filled with the sound of wails and groans, and blood mist temporarily lingered.

Despite the shock and dismay, the soldiers quickly went to work, including Blaidd. They rushed towards the site of the attack and pulled the injured soldiers back to the medical tent at the back of the army. As for the dead, there was no time to mourn as their bodies were trampled by the ongoing battle.

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On top of the Hill of Sodden, Triss Merigold and her fellow mages waved their hands endlessly, creating barriers to defend themselves from the onslaught of fireballs, lightning bolts, boulders, and arrows that the Nilfgaardians hurled at them. The attack was relentless, and in addition to their defensive duties, they had to support the army by counterattacking with their own spells.

Although it had only been a couple of hours since the battle began, many sorcerers and sorceresses already looked haggard. The magic wore down their bodies, causing their hands to tremble and their breaths to become short.

"This is getting overwhelming!" Triss's fellow sorceress Lytta Neyd complained nervously, her makeup ruined and her eye shadow smudged from tears. She waved her hands flawlessly in the air, creating a strong wind to push back the arrows aimed at the hill.

"I knew this was a stupid idea!" Triss cursed, raising her hands as high as possible and gathering orange mist around them. She then slammed her hands to the ground, and a gigantic fireball appeared far away, decimating the ranks of the Nilfgaardian soldiers and killing hundreds of them at once. "The mercenaries won't hold out much longer, and we'll be overrun by the cavalry by the end of the day!"

"Don't let your morale falter, Merigold!" Vilgefortz warned, who was also part of the group. "Focus on attacking, our least priority is defending the army right now."

Triss wanted to retort with "safe my ass," but held it back. She knew this battle would end tragically.