At noon of another quiet day, birds sing, the sun shines, clouds drift through the skies.
And under the veil of the canvas ceiling of the Grand Army's Headquarters, I, Victor, was sitting on the same chair I used to sit on for the last few days. Beside me sat Arina, who was currently resting her head on my shoulder, napping like a small, cute little bear cub.
Meanwhile, in front of me, Elena and John were arguing with each other about our current situation, their hands taking turns moving the different pieces on the map, simulating battle like a haphazardly made Kriegsspiel game.
"We should slowly move our line forward, so that the artillery can reposition to support the troops," John said as his hand slowly pushed an artillery piece on the board forward.
"Slowly? Being slow in the middle of battle is basically a death sentence. We should have our cavalry constantly moving, charging the enemy on their flank, and our line shall surge forward like a tidal wave!" Elena said, grabbing her cavalry piece and moving it around the board in an erratic manner.
Their battle doctrines, when put into the simulation, turned out to be completely polar opposites to each other.
John preferred more of a rigid wall of infantry as the main battle element, supported with artillery and cavalry, while Elena preferred using an absolute elastic style of battle where cavalry were constantly on the move, crashing into the enemy's back like a hammer, while infantry held the line like an anvil.
They had been bickering for a while now, and I was cursed to sit here, having to listen to their simulated battlefield maneuvers and views on many different types of battlefield tactics utilizing various types of modern weaponry.
And as their bickering went on and on, Arina, who had previously been sleeping, now slowly woke up from her deep slumber, her emerald-colored eyes shining like dazzling gems.
"How long did I sleep, darling?" she asked as her eyes turned to meet mine.
"Not for long, just an hour." I answered, putting my hand to softly stroke her ginger-colored hair.
She yawned adorably before setting her head upon my lap, trying to use my thighs as a pillow.
In that moment, a small carved wooden figurine of cavalry was thrown at her head, causing her to wake up in confusion.
"Wake up, you stronza!" Elena irritably declared, her hand fixed in a throwing posture.
As Arina realized who had thrown the figurine at her, she immediately stood up and confronted Elena head-on.
"Cyka blyat! What's your problem, you brutish murderous bitch!" Arina exploded, completely losing her composure.
"I just wanted to ask if you could hand me your hussar for an upcoming battle, but you seem to be losing your mind. How shameful for such an elegant noble lady." Elena smugly responded, while fluttering her long deep scarlet hair.
"You physically assaulted me for no reason, you bitch! That was against the law of both our kingdom and the army!"
"It's called disciplinary action. While I'm planning for the battle to come, you slept. Irresponsible, as expected from a puffed-up spoiled noble brat."
"What did you just call me, you...
They fought each other for the third time today, amidst the tired sighs from both me and John, and also the glances from the HQ's signaler personnel, who were quite accustomed to their catfights already.
I know that they hate each other due to their past conflict, but I naively thought I could postpone their confrontation until the war ended.
But since Arina's incompetent inaction at the Battle of Vertenville became well known, their relation to each other fell through the roof, onto the ground, and delved straight into hell.
"Could you two just hug it out?" John frustratingly asked out of the blue.
"No!" they responded in unison, voices dripping with anger.
"At least keep it between you two until the war ends, Please." I said, crossing my arms in clear displeasure expression.
They immediately apologized and went back to their original positions, with one last disgruntled glance at each other, a while John stared at me with a grin as if he had just witness some melodrama.
"What are you smiling at, soldier?" I asked John with a serious tone.
"Nothing at all, Lord Playboy," he jokingly answered.
And I just sighed heavily in reply.
His behavior is quite infuriating to work with, but I have kind of grown accustomed to it since he has always been like this.
But in that moment of absolute nonsense, one of the signalers who had just decoded a message shouted loudly like a thunderous clamor.
"Sir! The enemy force has been spotted to the south by Captain Mikhail, estimated strength to be twenty thousand or more!" he shouted as he turned his head toward us.
With such information, I immediately pulled myself into action and shouted my command with an authoritative tone befitting my status as supreme leader,
"Assemble the council and draw up a backup battle plan immediately!" I shouted, my eyes filled to the brim with determination to fight.
-----
Upon the plain far to the north of the capital city, a massive army of twenty thousand levies, ten thousand modestly armed men-at-arms, and also a thousand knights led by one of the great marquises of eastern Middenland was marching through the wide green field under the twinkling starlight and illuminating twin full moons. They had been marching for a couple of days now, but the size of their army kept them ill-organized, and their lack of supplies and pack animals kept them slow and sluggish.
"My lord, our scouts say we've been shadowed by an enemy force. What should we do?" the Marquis's right-hand man asked, as the entire army marched in somewhat steady step behind them.
"Just ignore it. What's that guy going to do to us? Throw a couple of men at us or something? Pfftt," he laughed, as the Prince himself had informed him that the army guarding the northern area was just some random lowly baron from some backwater impoverished city to the north.
That meant they were no threat at all. In fact, slaughtering them would be easy and would basically be free training for his troops and free loot to line his pockets.
And so, they continued to march forward without giving much thought to the danger that lay ahead, awaiting them like an ambushing predator.
Step after step passed by, and they began to see somewhat strange anomalies among the plain that lay ahead, which came in the form of many lines of tall and thick wooden poles painted in bright red, poking out of the ground in a sequence of one pole per hundred meters which spread out from a long line of dirt mounds that were placed like a small ridge far, far away from here.
There were almost a hundred poles per line in total, putting the distance between them and that line of dirt, which might possibly house their enemy, at around eight to ten kilometers. This clearly was not a distance measurement tool, for there were no bows nor siege weapons whose range could possibly reach this far.
This must be just a ploy used by that baron to divert their attention from directly attacking his weak army.
The Marquis smiled, "This is going to be easy!" he thought, and thus simply waved his hand, gesturing his massive army to continue forward without pause.
Tens of thousands of footsteps marched forward into the wide field ahead, weapons in hand, ready for the battle to come.
Yet, the atmosphere itself seemed to shift into an eerie silence. There was nothing but the sound of footsteps and shifting ground, no noise of insects or animals, and even the wind itself seemed to stagnate into stillness.
And as they marched halfway through the field, some strange phenomena began to happen.
A slew of earth-shakingly loud sounds, like a series of thunderous roars, rang out from far behind the dirt mound, followed by radiant orbs shedding brilliant white light that appeared in the night sky like newborn stars pulled down from the heavens and onto the earth below.
Everyone in the army, including the Marquis himself, stared at the radiant lights in bewilderment, not knowing what they were.
The air itself seemed to rupture at the seams with a barrage of fiery arrows raining down from the skies, wheezing through the air like a meteor storm.
Those who witnessed such a scene were stunned yet terrified. Some began to reel and run in fear of such calamity falling toward them like a volley of fiery shooting stars carving their way down from the night sky.
Then came the impact, blasts of blaze and brimstone that charred the earth and turned those unfortunate enough to be in the impact area into fine red mist, their bodies disappearing into dust and ash. Hundreds of men perished in an instant, while uncountable more were injured and traumatized by the fiery hell brought down from the heaven above.
But after that, it all came to an abrupt stop. There were no more arrows of fire, only the scene of dying men groaning in agony amidst the illuminating starlight.
A sane commander, after witnessing such a scene, might retreat to recuperate and reorganize. But not this Marquis.
His pride filled his heart with pure determination, as his mind burned with indescribable anger to the point where he shouted for his troops to charge the mound head-on, with such recklessness that it stunned even his own right-hand man.
His logic was that if they had such destructive magic bestowed upon them by the Princess, it must be their trump card, which they had already expended. Therefore, they were now just a pathetic army of poorly trained levies led by a foolish baron who had wasted his advantage before the real battle even started.
And so, his now battered and discouraged army surged forward in hesitation and fear, unknowingly marching straight to their own death.