[X] "Staff-sergeant! I need another volley, now!"
Lanzerel stares at you in disbelief. "Sir?"
"We have stopped the enemy for a few moments, Staff. I mean to take advantage of that," you reply. "Will the men reload in time?"
"Saints above, I hope so," Lanzerel replies with a grim sparkle of amusement. "We're knacker's meat if they can't."
He turns to your men. "Dragoons!" he commands without a hint of hesitation or fear. "Load!"
Quickly, your men begin to reload. Whatever misgivings may have been held at bay by their own discipline, it is now dispelled entirely by their Staff-sergeant's confident air. Yet as the moments pass, it becomes clear that your men will not reload in time. Their movements are too slow, too unpractised. The first of the Antari horses are already finding purchase upon the crest of the hill, and your men are nowhere near ready.
It seems you shall have to fall back upon a more desperate contingency.
"Dragoons! Sabres out!" you command. "Prepare to receive cavalry!" In the space of a moment, carbines are set down, and blades are brought out. Your men step forward to the crest of the ridge to face the attack. When the first of the Antari finally spur their horses to the top of the ridge, they are greeted by a line of bared steel.
The first clash is sharp but short. Without the space to manoeuvre, the Hussars' huge lances are worse than useless against Dragoon sabres. Within moments, the few that manage to reach the top are driven back down, some with grievous wounds where Tierran steel was able to find the gaps in their armour. Your men give a ragged cheer at the sight of the vaunted Church Hussars on the retreat, but the Antari are not finished yet.
When the enemy charges up the slope again, they come not carrying their cumbersome lances but bane-runed sabres and battle axes. Again, you prepare yourself to meet them.
Your men seem to rally around you as you step forward, the glittering steel of your bane-hardened plate catching their eye. Unfortunately, it seems no less attractive to the eyes of the enemy. One of them shouts as his charger crests the ridge, pointing directly at you. Two more join him. Soon, you find yourself attacked on three sides.
The first Hussar swings for your head. Hastily, you duck under the blow before leaping forward in a desperate lunge, burying your burning longsword up to the hilt in the flank of your assailant's horse. Your head explodes in pain as a wildly flailing hoof from the Hussar's dying horse slams into your helm, sending you staggering back, your ears ringing.
Before you can even regain your balance, you find yourself beset on two sides. No sooner do you parry the blow of another sabre on your right does the frost-clad head of a war hatchet descend from your left.
Yet an instant before your enemy's weapon can strike home, your mind tugs hard as something wet sprays through the vision slit of your helm, running warm and coppery down your nose and into your mouth.
The hatchet-wielding Hussar is on the ground in two pieces, his legs pinned under the cleft-open ruin of his mount, his upper body a full pace away, connected only by a single strand of shredded gut. Lord Cassius stands over you, his sword dripping with blood as he heaves you back to your feet with his free hand.
Together, you turn to the last of your assailants, but he is already retreating along with the rest of his fellows, pushed back down the slope by your dragoons' valiant defence.
Yet the Hussars quickly rally and ride up the slope again. Once again, your men rise to meet them, now freshly reinforced by Reyes's reformed Experimental Corps. The addition of the green-jacketed skirmishers to your line gives your men heart, and your well-chosen ground means that only a few of the foe storm the ridge at a time, but not even numbers and the high ground can negate the advantage of bane-hardened plate and bane-runed weapons.
By the time you batter down the fifth attack, you are surrounded by the bodies of Tierran dead. Marion lies not three paces away from you, black blood still oozing from his mouth and the immense, grotesque sabre cut that defiles his stomach. Blaylock sits beside him in a pool of his own blood, pale and weak-eyed. Lanzerel is nowhere to be found.
Yet this time, the Antari do not rally to attack again. This time, the wail of the retreat, low and mournful, rises from the rear of their force. They wheel about, for good this time, retreating to the river crossing at last, leaving the field only to the victorious and the dead.
"Well, I cannot say I am sad to see their backsides," Major Reyes remarks as he limps his way towards you, blood dripping from the cut along his thigh and the slim blade of his infantry officer's sword. "I must thank you, sir, for coming when you did; you may have saved a great many of our lives. If there's anything I can do to repay you, just ask."
"There is one thing," you reply. "Your men are in better shape than mine. Would you mind covering the crossing while I put my dragoons to rights in case Khorobirit's forces launch another attack?"
To your surprise, the green-jacketed officer answers with a wide smile. "Turn around, sir," he replies, white teeth sparkling against his powder-stained face as he points over your shoulder to the Antari side of the river. "I do not think we shall have to worry about our dear Prince Khorobirit anymore."
You turn about just in time to behold a sight fit to make your heart leap, for the far side of the river is occupied not just by the fleeing remnants of Prince Khorobirit's army but the triumphant squadrons of Palliser's cavalry, sabres, and lances raised high as they drive the last of the Antari from the field or into capture.
In the distance, you see a small band of horsemen, Church Hussars all, as they ride hard from the field, hotly pursued by a troop of line cavalry. Even from so far away, you can see that the fleeing cavalrymen are in bad shape: the wings on their backs broken, their helms knocked askew, their cloaks ripped and tattered.
Yet above all else, you notice the great silken banner carried in the lead Hussar's hands, a brown bear rampant upon a cloth-of-silver field, a two-handed sword clasped in its hands: the personal flag of Prince Mikhail of Khorobirit, being carried off the field in ignominious flight.
Everywhere, The field is strewn not just with the bodies of the dead but vast mobs of prisoners, held in place by picquets of lancers and cuirassiers. To your left, entire battalions of orange-coated infantry storm across the Kharan, their minds occupied not with pursuit but with the loot that awaits them at the vast and abandoned Antari camp.
At long last: victory. Victory?
No, it is more than that; as the bodies are counted and the reports come through over the next two days, it becomes abundantly clear that the clash is already being called the Second Battle of Kharangia and was the greatest victory of the war.
The number of enemy losses alone justifies that claim: eight thousand Antari dead, an equal number left maimed, and nearly twenty-five thousand taken prisoner.
Yet those numbers alone do not begin to encompass the whole of the Tierran victory, for not only has Prince Khorobirit been deprived of his army and aura of invincibility, but most of his allies have as well. His brother-by-marriage, Prince Ivan of Jugashavil, is now a Tierran prisoner, as is his cousin, Andrei of Noribirit. Joining them are dozens of other, more minor Lords of the Congress and hundreds upon hundreds of Church Hussars. Most of Khorobirit's power base within the League Congress had followed him to war; now, they lie dead upon the banks of the Kharan or await ransom under the guard of the King's Army.
At a glance, only the narrow escape of Khorobirit himself could serve to tarnish the surface of what might seem like a near-perfect victory: Blogia avenged, Tierra's greatest enemy destroyed as a power both military and politically, the King's plans vindicated, and every officer in his army, from the lowliest ensign to the Duke of Havenport himself, hailed as joint-architects of the greatest feat of arms in the Unified Kingdom's one hundred and twenty-year history.
Yet even this near-perfect triumph has come at a terrible price. The King's Army has not escaped unscathed; it has lost nearly a tenth of its strength.
Corporal Marion died on the field, choking to death on his own blood. Staff-sergeant Lanzerel joined him upon the pyre before midnight, succumbing to the terrible wounds he had taken in the last moments of the battle.
Rest in peace, Sergeant Sideburns. We'll miss you.
Even Havenport has not come out unscathed. Lord Marcus is dead: swarmed, trampled, and bludgeoned to death by a mob of Antari peasants as he rallied his Highlanders into throwing back one last enemy attack. Already, there are plans to take him back to Tierra for a hero's cremation, to be done in a sealed casket; what remains of the young Kentauri aristocrat's body is not fit to be seen by eyes unaccustomed to horror.
Such was the price of victory.
