Schemes On Both Sides.

The clash of schemes….

Of strategies,

Of minds,

That is the essence of the battlefield.

When an army lacks a good general, it is like it lacks a brain.

It rushes into trap after trap,

Ambush after ambush,

Until the army leaves its own bodies behind in droves and disappears.

Bardornus Asharm General in the Kingdom of Pluerus.

….

While the Chavarians were slaughtering the orcs, Alden, second in command to Bardornus, was thinking over the instructions that he was given before going to take part in the ambush as he stared at the black-feathered arrow that was stuck into his shield, which was blue with a white lion emblazoned on it which was the coat of arms of the Plurian royal family before removing the arrow and throwing it onto the floor.

"Lucius has most likely sent out scouts to find out all of our positions and take advantage of our scattered forces to try to annihilate them one by one to lower our numbers and attack us while we cannot bring our superior numbers to bear."

"Your job is to lead our remaining horse archers and crossbows, who will be given horses to help them be more mobile to ambush the Chavarians and hopefully make them think that all the positions have changed and have them retreat so our armies can rest in peace."

"Look for the red flairs, which are used to tell us where the Chavrian raiding party was and send them up when you find them too! This will allow us to organise and trap the Chvarian force dealing a large amount of damage to them.

"As we will be working with the orcs, you can use them to aid in your escape, as the Chavarians are mainly aiming for them. On top of this, the orcs will likely not be mounted, making them much easier targets than our horsemen. In the last skirmish, the Chavarians should have learnt the price of trying to attack our cavalry, which is as good as theirs."

Alden could hear the raspy middle-aged voice resound through his head as he thought about his next move leading his cavalry silently in the dark night.

"Captain Allvar."

"Here, general, what can I do for you?"

A broad-shouldered 6ft man said on top of a black horse in black armour with a black eagle-shaped helmet covering his face making him almost invisible in the cloudy night.

"Why didn't you take part in the last attack?"

"Think about it for a second, general you have revealed yourself now, so the Chavarians will be on guard against you and most likely scout you out if I came out, then they would know about me too, but now I can help to intercept their scouts for you so they cannot confirm exactly where we are."

"Be careful just now; they had an especially sensitive person on their side. I imagine that he is an excellent scout and will be scouting us.

"Thank you for the warning, general, but I am confident in my abilities to stop their scouts, especially as I am in the dark while they are in the light."

The captain finished as he led his men to get rid of the few tracks not washed away by the torrential rain sweeping away crushed leaves and blades of grass which could be used to identify their passage.

'Thank God for the rain, or it would be impossible to cover the tracks of so many horses in such a short time.

The captain thought to himself.

…..

In the Plurian army camp, Bardornus was standing next to a map of the surrounding area in his golden plate armour, looking up at the sky with a smile seeing the 2 red flairs which had soared into the sky and called out to the remaining Plurian cavalry a mix of heavily armoured knights and lighter horsemen who were waiting on their horses in the rainy night.

'Time to go! I wonder how Alden is faring. I hope he followed my instructions and did not get arrogant just because we managed to ambush them once.'

The middle-aged man thought to himself as he left the tent and went to mount his horse waiting for him just outside his tent.

"Do we know where the nearest orc ambush position is from that flair?"

Bardornus asked one of his vice generals.

"Yes, general, it should be about 10 minutes from that flair. Why?"

The vice general asked though he got no answer.

'Because that will be where Lucius attacks next.'

The middle-aged man thought to himself as he fastened his helmet strap with his metal-encased hands.

"MOVE OUT!"

Bardornus shouted, his lion-like roar echoing through the silent camp giving energy to the slightly tired mounted soldiers who quickly followed him out of the camp; the trampling of their horse hooves made the ground shake as they thundered towards the direction of the red flairs.

'Let's hope the orcs make for good bait.'

Bardornus thought, a vicious smile gracing his usually calm and emotional face as he went around towards where the Chavrians were most likely to retreat to the man's eyes gleaming at the challenge which Lucius represented.

'Been a while since I had a worthy opponent! Time to have some fun!'

…..

"It appears some of them changed their ambush positions or never had any in the first place. How troublesome!"

Lucius said to himself as his raiding party approached him and Leon began to speak.

"My lord, maybe we should retreat. It is obvious that the enemy prepared for this night raid and knew what time we were coming! I think that it is inadvisable to continue our raid!"

"I agree with vice general Leon! With the ambush and defensive positions changed, combined with their integrated communication system, which makes this raid dangerous, we should be happy that we have done some damage and retreat, for we can't use the projectile protection array every time we come across an ambush or some enemies."

Archtorius added, trying to persuade Lucius to retreat as both he and Leon realised that the situation that they were in was problematic.

Hearing the requests of the two vice generals' Lucius' unchanging expression was stone-like and unmoving; Leon, who had been around Lucius for the longest time out of everyone present, knew that this meant that this was going to be a long night for all of them and sighed to himself.

"Do you really think they had the time to change their positions so quickly?"

Lucius asked as a slight scheming smile graced his worn and scarred face.

"General?"

Archtorius asked, his eyes widening slightly in surprise, visibly confused by the answer he had gotten from Lucius.

"Is the fact that we were ambushed not enough proof? Or the ambush they have prepared for us shows that we don't know where they are hiding in this dark cloud-filled night!"

Archtorius said, anger laced with his words.

"The allied army was completely exhausted when it made camp. Apart from a few people with exceptional constitutions, everyone else would be exhausted! Even the gods wouldn't be able to make those exhausted souls remember 2 positions and allow them to get the sleep they needed!"

Lucius said in a cold but casual tone.

"What about that ambush that happened just now, then general?"

"Well, there are two options for that happening. The first is that they never had a position in the first place and were left out, so we would assume they were in camp so the enemy could pull off that surprise attack. The second is that they really had positions, but that old fox of a Plurian general had one of his competent subordinates take them to harass us after we had scouted their positions though considering your surprise at their presence, I assume it would be the latter."

"You must have marked down their position when you came to scout, am I right?"

"That's right, general I took extra precautions to ensure that we would avoid all Plurian forces, as I know that you are mostly worried about the orcish infantry anyway due to our unfamiliarity with them and their superior physical strength."

"Seems that Plurian general…. Bardornus, was it…. will be more trouble than I thought! Why do I have to put in so much effort? Why can't they be simple to beat?"

Lucius mumbled to himself, sighing slightly, his lazy nature showing.

"Are you confident in your abilities to track them, Archtorius, so nothing like this happens again?"

Lucius asked the raven-helmeted man in front of him.

"Yes, general, I am and can ensure that an ambush like this never happens again in this night raid."

Archtorius replied, his young voice cold and confident.

"Good, because I haven't eaten enough yet! Although this appetiser was excellent, it's still not large enough to be the main course. "

Lucius said, a slight evil smile forming from his parched lips.

'Since when were enemy soldiers' food.'

Leon thought to himself as he heard his friend and general continue.

"We can attack another group then retreat as the enemies will need to keep track of our movements to successfully track us for a trap! I am confident that with Archtorius' scouting, we will be able to avoid danger, not to mention that we are all skilled riders, and this steppe makes it easier for us to escape due to its flat nature with few hills."

"We need to lower the enemies' numbers as much as possible before we meet them on the field to prevent them from forming a pincer on our main army, which is besieging the enemy capital with the troops inside."

"Especially those of the orcs, as we have experienced over the last few skirmishes; while the orcs are not the sharpest tool in the shed when it comes to strategy, their superior physical abilities still make them a force to be reckoned with, especially when it comes to infantry combat where their superior physiology will make a great impact and help them deal a significant amount of damage to our soldiers.

"Knowing this and the fact that the enemy has divided their troops to set up ambushes and defensive positions in an effort to kill more of us, giving us an opportunity to fight them with equal numbers…."

"Do you still want us to retreat?"

"To give up this God-given opportunity just on our own fears and overthinking!"

"Is this what you want and still advocate for?"

Lucius asked his two worried vice generals.

"General, are you not afraid of getting intergestion?"

Leon asked, unmoved by Lucius' speech; having listened to many of them over the years, this was something that he had seen his General do a lot over the years use logic and passion to rile up the men to go on dangerous missions like the one that they are about to go on.

"My stomach is quite large and resilient, Leon, do not worry about this. What are they going have some half-orc half-giant thing that can beat our cavalry away like baseballs."

Lucius said to his friend, who sighed, knowing that persuasion at this point would get him nowhere but still asked something that was on his mind.

"General, what is baseball?

The large man asked as he turned his head to the side slightly as Lucius looked surprised for a second, and beads of sweat fell down his cheek, hidden by his helmet, forgetting just how realistic this game was and reminding himself to be careful when around NPCs as they are far more human-like than other games picking up on even the slightest discrepancy.

"Nothing, don't worry about it, some sport that I saw in an ancient book in the library.

Lucius said, the lies coming out as naturally as grass grows on a fertile plain; not wanting to continue on the subject, he quickly changed it by giving Archtorius some orders.

"Archtorius, I will have to trouble you and your men to scout where those mounted Plurian crossbows are; I doubt they have gone far, considering they will want to ambush us again to try to kill off as many of our knights as they can."

"Don't worry, general! I swear on my life that nothing like this will happen again!"

Archtorius said, eyes blazing with anger and determination as, with a gesture, he led his scouts to begin tracking and scouting all around the Chavrian army to ensure that no more surprises happen.

As the Chavarians set out towards their next target in a script and disciplined, scouts rode through the darkness, trying to find even the faintest trace of their enemy while meticulously hiding their own tracks. Cawing crows can be heard throughout the step, their red eyes locking onto the bodies which were left strewed about as they hungrily eat the fatty flesh from the orc and human corpses which litter the ground. Those who were injured and left behind cry out for help into the void, their cries falling on deaf ears as they scream in pain as they are slowly ripped apart by hungry beaks, each trying to get the juiciest piece of meat for itself.