Battles

The first battle had been mostly about retreating and forming a proper defensive line, after which Marcus had employed every tactic he had ever heard of, in order to drive the attackers back. That battle had ended up being much easier than could be expected, as they had the advantage as the defender. They had also been lucky to find a fairly defensible piece of road just a kilometer back, which they had been able to use as a bottleneck in order to make defending easier.
The real battle had started when he had sent a bunch of his best caster to take up positions on the hills around the bottleneck, a position for which they had had to fight, but when they had won that battle, and they were in position, it had been the enemies turn to retreat.
Now, they were attacking the first fortification on the road. They couldn’t risk leaving them, and letting themselves be surrounded, so this was their first real objective.
They needed to make some gains, so their forces would be able to link up with them in the right place, if they stayed here, they mountain pass forces would have to trek south through the forest for far too long, and the surprise would undoubtedly be ruined.

“So, how is it looking in there, Bob?” Marcus asked, sitting down in the observation tent at the rear of their forces. They could easily see the fortification from here, but were still outside the range of any potential defenders.
Naea wasn’t here, even though she had been invited, last he had seen, she was strolling about with Izzy, Emina only knowing what they were discussing now.
Bob was hunched over a map of the region, and was currently scribbling a new one, one which was focused on the fortification, as well as the field around it, and their army, which was camped just out of sight of the fortification, around a hill.
“There are not actually that many men inside, to me it looks like a regular border post,” he said while pointing at his newly drawn, but still in progress map. “These defenses are tough tho.”
“Perhaps this fort is just meant to keep us here,” Marcus said, “We can’t afford to siege this place down for a couple of weeks, we need to move on, and fast.”
Bob nodded, in agreement, “we can’t just blow the walls, they are far too thick, how do you suppose we get inside?”
Marcus thought for a moment, “Do we have anyone who can fly?” He asked.
“Fly?” Bob looked at him with a confused expression on his face. “What do you mean, fly?”
“Well, you know, like a beast fusion mage that can turn into a bird, like you,” he said, smiling, and it was then that the old mans face brightened up with a wide grin.
“Ahaha,” he chuckled, “I might have a few, but they are all messengers and scribes, not unlike me, if we encounter much resistance, I’m not sure we will be successful.”
“Well,” Marcus shrugged, “Then you will just have to be stealthy.”
“Stealth isn’t exactly my strong suit,” the old man said, “There is a reason most assassins are built like rats, makes it easier for them to hide.”
“Thats true,” Marcus said, even though he wasn’t sure all assassins were built like rats, “Did we have the insight to liberate any of our fallen enemies of their uniforms after the last battle?”

“Bloody hells yeah I have a couple of those, figure they would come in handy, I’m surprised you didn’t think of it yourself.” Claith explained proudly.
He was positively covered in clay and paint, and next to him, in the middle of Claith’s tent, was a statue of Marcus taking shape.
“Well, I’m very grateful of your forward thinking and incredible ingenuity, Claith.” Marcus said, doing his best to hind the tone of sarcasm.
“You’re welcome bossman, you would be lost without me, but don’t you worry, uncle Claith is here!” the man said, slapping his shoulder.
“How many of the things do you have anyway?”
Upon asking that question, Claith adopted a facial expression that almost made it seem he was ablaze with light, shining from behind him, the the light of Emina’s realm itself.
“Oh, how glad I am you asked that, Markyboy,” Claith started, “I managed to recover three hundred and thirty-seven of the damn things, before you insisted we move on. I had a hundred or so more, but they were too damaged to be repaired.”
“What?” Marcus exclaimed in utter shock, “When did you have time to do that? When did you have time to clean and repair them?” He had about fifty more questions, but Claith made a pacifying hand gesture.
“I have my ways bossman.” He grinned, “What else are my men supposed to do, you barely had them do anything last battle, and I didn’t want them to feel left out.”
“So you had them strip corpses for uniforms?”
“Not just uniforms, but also literally everything else then had on them! You never known when you need more swords, or leather scraps, or even better: Money!”
Marcus put his hand to his forehead, but decided this was not worth his exasperation. He just shook his head.
“I only need about a dozen, make it the best preserved ones, please.”
“You got it boss!”

“The uniforms have been arranged,” Marcus told Bob when he got back to the observation tent. 
“Excellent, I suppose it’s useful having a lunatic around sometimes, Goddess only knows why he decided to bring enemy uniforms along.” Bob said, scratching his chin.
“You have no idea,” Marcus whispered. “So, you need anything else?”
“Well, now that we have to uniforms, we still need a way of getting them with us, most of the birds aren’t exactly strong enough to fly wit them, most of them are smaller kinds of birds.”
“Can’t fusion mages also transform their clothing and weapons and stuff?” Izzy asked, confused. She had joined him in the observation tent, after she saw him coming out of Claith’s tent, and he had told her what had happened, to her utmost delight.
“Well, yeah, but only if its ours, you know, those uniforms not only belong to other people, they died in them, so their essence is in the afterlife with their previous owner, it will be very hard for a spirit to transform them.” Bob explained.
Marcus nodded, he hadn’t thought of that, and this was news to him, so they would have to find another solution.
“Don’t we also have giant monkey?” Marcus mused, “Maybe he can climb the wall with the uniforms, and drop them on the other side.”
“That might work, but there are always guards patrolling the top, they would either need to be taken care of, or be distracted.”
“That shouldn’t be too difficult to take care of,” Marcus though out loud, “We can just pretend to be assaulting the fort normally, and in the chaos, they won’t take the time to check if all the faces are familiar, or notice one monkey climbing the wall somewhere else, especially if its in the dark. Then our men open the gate, we rush in, already being nearby, and at that point, we will basically have won already.”

“So, Bob” Marcus started, “Are you ready for the mission?” The time had come, and everything was ready.
Bob nodded, confidently. “It’s been a few years since I’ve been in the field, so I might be a little rusty, but im sure my sword arm still remembers how its done, there is a place where they call me a true sword master, you know.” He said, with a wink.
“Eredan really always kept you away from the battle? I would assume someone of your stature would perform quite well on the battlefield.”
Bob smiled, “Thanks, my liege, and I’m sure Eredan knew that too, I wasn’t just supposed to be his second, but also his body guard, and in emergencies, there are few who could easily carry him.” He said with a meaningful expression.
“Yeah, I can believe that.” Marcus chuckled.
Bob nodded, and turned, heading to his men.
None of them looked very soldierly, but they all packed their weapons, and got ready to go. They all knew how to fight of course, no one who couldn’t swing a blade, or some other kind of weapon, would ever be found on a battlefield, not if they were smart, and the commander capable.
He did worry for them though, he had no idea of the mages inside those walls, and how strong they might be, but it would have to go right.
He watched them take flight one after another, thirteen men, and five women, in total. 
It was strange seeing men jump into the air, and fly off, having shrunk to the size of a bird. They were all different, although there were several eagles, two falcons and, obviously, one owl. Surprisingly to Marcus, the rest were tiny songbirds, he wasn’t sure why those kinds of spirits bonded humans, if they couldn’t fight. Obviously there was Arthur’s hummingbird, but that was a familiar, and as Marcus knew well, it was very good at fighting.
The last was a short woman, Marcus frowned as he saw her bulk up, and turn into a large black haired beast of a monkey. He had seen monkey familiars and even some fusion ones before, but never such a big one. The black figure quickly disappeared in the dark of the night, the uniforms strapped to her belly.

“They arrived safely, my liege” The woman who was the monkey said with a bow, when she had gotten back, “No one saw me, and they uniforms have been delivered.”
“Good, it is time then,” Marcus said, and the small contingent moved into position. He had picked his longest range attackers to assault the fort on side that was furthest away from the gate, hoping to draw attention away from it.
Fire, rocks, and debris flew through the air, and the people on the fort walls started running around, and shouting things to each other. Before long, fire was returned.
All the while, Marcus moved his melee troops in position, ready to strike as soon as the gates were lifted open.
What was taking them so long? He thought after a good thirty minutes, he hadn’t planned for this assault to last this long, and his trooped were suffering, as they were at a disadvantage down here.
No, they had to keep trying. He ordered more troops to join the offense, and ordered protective measures to be put in place.
However, nothing they did worked, it was an hour and a half of his men casting spells at the walls, and more deaths than he could suffer, when Marcus made the call. Enough was enough, and his infiltration had failed.
Why? He wondered, what had happened. His troops retreated, and he readied himself to try formulating a new plan.
At last, when he had given up all hope, the gate started to lift.
Marcus could make out a figure standing on the wall, a very large figure, with a very large sword.
Bob! He thought. He was still alive!
“Now, charge!” he shouted to the melee forces, who had started to turn around. There were some murmurs, but when they noticed the gate, there were shouts, and jeers, and his men started moving, and Marcus moved with them.
It was a short charge to the gate, and when they got there he found all eighteen of his infiltrators still alive and well protecting the gate control system from a horde of enemy soldiers who had realized what was going on.
He could clearly see Bob swinging his sword around, defending his troops, who were protecting his flanks.
He swung that blade like a true master indeed, it was like a blur, as fast as it was moving, and it almost looked like it was on fire. Bob himself seemed calm, concentrated, answering every attack with one of his own, even against many opponents.

“What happened, Bob?” He asked, as soon as the fort had surrendered.
Bob laughed, “We were caught going towards the gate,” he explained, “They thought we were regular troops, so they sent us to the wall, where your troops were chucking all kinds of spells in our direction. I thought you were never going to give up, and I almost got hit myself.” He laughed.
Marcus bit his lip, he hadn’t considered that they would actually be deployed at the wall.
“And when finally you retreated, we were able to slip away, and open the gate.”
Well, that was it then, this victory had cost him much more men that he had liked, but they had won, and they could now move on.
“Well, you certainly looked as though your years away from battle haven’t effected your swordsmanship, you were a demon out there, we should spar sometime!” Marcus said, and he was certainly curious to see how a man moved so fast, and so well, without the aid of a spirit, perhaps there was more to this man, perhaps in a good way, or perhaps in a bad way, as Naea had hinted at.
“Of course, my liege, I would love that!” The large man said, smiling. “You don’t think I could lead the battle on field a bit more often, what do you think?” he asked. “I am a warrior, my liege, I belong out there, not in some tent.”
Marcus nodded, “Sure, whatever you want, but not until we get Arthur back to do the overseeing, alright?”
“Of course, my liege.” He said, making a modest bow.
This is it then, Marcus thought, he had sent yet another man to the battlefield. But how could he deny him? He had remembered how badly he had wanted to fight, there was no way he could tell him no. He just hoped this wouldn’t be the death of the man.

“Come here, give me that!” Claith said, jerking at Marcus nicest cloak.
Is this really necessary? Cant you just use one of my other ones, the traveling cloak maybe? That one is old and dirty anyway.”
“No,” Claith said flatly, as he draped Marcus’ beautiful grey, fur coat on the clay statue. “If you look like a drifter, no one is going to believe it’s actually you, there is a reason you haven’t worn that thing since we met, it makes you look like a pleb.”
“Right,” Marcus said with resignation. “Fine then.”
“Look, do you want a functioning decoy or what?” Claith rolled his eyes, but Marcus didn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought,” he said, as the ambers on his head dress lit up, and the fake Marcus started to move. It looked rigid at first, but it quickly smoothed out, and started walking circles around them.
“Wow,” Izzy Exclaimed. She had insisted on coming along, when she heard that Marcus was going to see Claith. “It looks really realistic.”
“Thats right.” Claith said proudly, “Look what he can do.” As he was walking, the fake Marcus started dancing unlike anyone Marcus had ever seen, it spun on one foot, jumped, twisted in the air, rolled across the floor, and whipped back up.
“Hahah wow!” Izzy shouted, clapping her hands.
“Well, great, it works,” Marcus said, still upset about his coat. “Can it also walk normally?”
Claith sighed exaggeratedly, “Fine, boring.” And the fake Marcus started walking normally again, adopting Marcus’ walking gate, almost to an unnervingly accurate degree.
“Yeah, now it just needs pants,” Izzy noted, pointing at the fake Marcus.
“And a shirt,” Claith added.
“And shoes,” Izzy pointed at the trail of half dried clay that the decoy was currently leaving behind.

Now that there was a working decoy, Marcus decided that he should not wear his normal clothes again, because it would raise suspicion if there were two Marcus’ walking around.
He felt much better in his normal clothes, they made him feel a little more normal, like the old days, when he had been a regular chiefs son, at least, as long as people weren’t bowing to him.
“You should really dress like a regular noblemen,” Naea said, looking disapprovingly at his outfit. “That should be incognito enough.”
“Better be safe than sorry,” Marcus said, even if he didn’t believe it himself, he didn’t care about Naea’s sense of propriety, and kingly customs, or whatever she called it.
“I think you look very noble, and super handsome,” Izzy assured him, giving him a kind smile, “You would look noble in any outfit,” She added.
Naea shook her head, but made no further point of it, realizing her defeat.
“You even look noble naked, my husband,” Izzy said, and he could swear she winked to Naea, who was seemingly trying to ignore the comment.

Their continuing march north through the forest proved easier, now that there were cleared roads, that had been used by the twins, and they made good progress, only taking a few days to make it to their next field of battle.
Their scouts reported that their enemy had been informed of their breach through the tribes outer defenses, and were now preparing a new battlefield. There was no fort here, there was just a giant army, perhaps all of the southern twins troops, or a large portion of them, and now, Marcus was doing his best to calculate the right time to attack. The enemy wasn’t aware that they were near, not yet, but it wouldn’t take them long to figure it out, however, if the battle started too soon, they would suffer serious losses before the ambush forces showed up.
He had agreed two weeks with Arthur, which were up, so if everything had gone to plan, Arthur would get here in a couple of hours.

The enemy had the advantage, they had chosen this place of battle,  and they had clearly chosen a battlefield in which they could feign equality. But Marcus wasn’t fooled, there were many trees here, and there was a slight slope, the terrain was not very uneven, but the curves in the landscape benefited their enemy.
It was no matter, Arthur would soon be here, and they did not need to win, in fact, seeming to lose would aid them, and make the ambush work better.
As the battle started, and spells started flying around them, filling the sky with bright lights, and magical shields started popping up in different places, Marcus felt a sense of dread approaching. What if they lost? What if it all went wrong? What if in the process of following his visions, he lost everyone he cared about? He had already been forced to marry, even if Izzy was by no means a bad wife, their bed was still filled with Naea’s presence, even if Izzy didn’t notice.
He missed his old life, the times when he had been free to do what he wanted and whatever suited him best, he wished to return to times where he, and the world, had been at peace.
Alas, he was now moving towards battle once again. He heard the shouts of fighting men, as the two armies charged towards each other in perfect unison, making sure to keep their formations tight, to push the enemy back, and as soon as the two forces met, shouts turned to screams, the rush turned to turmoil, and he was fighting.
Marcus didn’t start out in the front, he started in the center, with the irregulars, but the battle drew him towards the front lines, the part of the battlefield that acted as a meat grinder, absorbing men, and spitting out bags of flesh and bone deprived of all life and future potential.
He swung his blade at first, grinding the meat as best he could, but it took too long, it was too inefficient, so he switched to the boomerang blade, which allowed him to mow down rows of enemies at once.
Their eyes formed rainbows of color, mostly shades of red, with some white and black mixed in, as his blade sliced them apart.
But no matter how many times he threw, no matter how many corpses piled up on the battlefield, there were always more, it was only then, when he looked to the field, up the slope on which they fought, that they were hopelessly outnumbered, there must be at twice as many troops here as he had been able to bring, where did they all come from?
Marcus had expected to fight only the southern twins troops, and then fight the northern twin later, in the north, but there were so many people here, this couldn’t possibly be from one tribe, especially considering the red rivers armed forces were supposed to be the largest of them all.
They had to send in all of Claith’s troops, some of whom had already been deployed among them, or risk losing the battle.
He shouted the order, but he wasn’t sure anyone could hear him, he could barely hear himself, the noise of battle proved too loud.
In a last effort to make a difference, Marcus split his blade, not in two, not in three, but into five pieces, each a rounded blade soaring through the air, mowing down dozens of enemies at a time. As he watched the ground become soaked with blood, and felt the soil under his feet turn muddy, he felt the need to vomit.
And he did, in the midst of a blade cycle, his stomach gave out, and his breakfast spilled over the bodies laying in front of him. His vision went blurry, but he had to keep going.
The enemy lines in front of him were closing back in, climbing over piles of bodies, and spilling towards him.
He commanded his blades to soar forward, and as one, they hacked into the enemies, they fell, and rose, and fell again, more and more people came and came.
At some point, Marcus took the time to look around him, and he realized that all the soldiers standing next to him, were now either laying on the ground, or had moved away from him.
Both friend and foe stayed in a wide circle away from him, afraid to fall victim to his vicious blades.
Marcus retched, but nothing other than acid made it to the dirt this time, the circle closed in, he felt his whole body weakening under the pressure of a thousand deaths, he convulsed, his whole body refusing to go on.
His blades had fallen now, and men rushed towards him, but allies, and enemies, it was then that he felt a numbing of his left side, and noticed a gaping hole roughly where the kidneys were located. His men pulled him, by his clothes, his arms, and even his hair, and they dragged him away.
The last thing he saw was a feminine figure standing over him, her features obscured by two bright lights coming from either side of her head, and he felt warmth return to him, a soothing feeling that crept up his body as water covered his wounds, and he passed out.