Fallone can't find out why the Rykz stopped focusing entirely on them because of the dust and cacophony produced by battle. Still, he knows enough to postulate that either Princesses arrived and are getting ready to end them or their reinforcements made it.

He deduces that, if it is the former, then they are dead but if it is the latter then they still have a chance. Yet, he is also aware that cavalry alone will be unable to extract them from the tide of drones so the Phalanx needs to hold for another couple of hours.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Duke Fallone decides that, to buy time, they must use every auxiliary they have in reserve but that by itself won't be enough. He turns to the red-haired officer and pauses because the man has a dreadful expression.

He is staring at a phalangite being dragged back to the center of the camp with the other injured, the woman has had her belly perforated and one of her arms torn off by the hack of a saber. Her comrade refused to leave her behind to the drones despite the fact she will still die.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

The Duke knows they would have broken if not for being surrounded and hates the insects even more for this because it is clear they intend to wipe them out completely rather than merely cripple the Twelfth out of the war by giving them a way out.

“What's your name, son?” Fallone croaks.

“Costas.” He mutters.

“We'll make it but we need to act now.” The General utters despite the raging pain speak with his burnt throat causes.

“What do we need to do?” Costas asks.

“Tell the Majors to slow retreat and our lieutenants to fan out.” Fallone orders.

Costas blinks, baffled by the order which will condemn the auxiliaries from taking the full brunt of the Rykz while the Twelfth rests. His eyes don't leave the butchered phalangite as he assembles the messaging construct to be sent out.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Fallone blinks and feels a daze overcoming him but manages to use the energy he's regenerated to assemble a nourishing construct to keep himself going. Costas hands over several messaging constructs to couriers who run off.

--- --- ---

An Exemplar leads a long wedge of three thousand heavily armored Templars deployed in two ranks to charge into the Rykz, conscious that once in they will be unable to extricate themselves but faithful in his belief that they can hold long enough to save the Twelfth located behind a thick dusty veil.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

The Templars use their thick lances to pierce through the carapaces of those directly in front of them so as to clear their warhorse's path. The mounts, wearing chain-mails, crash into the ranks of scouts raising their pikes.

The result is dreadful for the Rykz as their arms break as a result of failing to break through the steel mail and many are directly killed by the weapons. The few that survive are trampled by the horses.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

A small amount of these riders fall atop the dead Rykz from their mount tripping on the dead drones but they quickly draw the two-handed swords strapped to their luggage to gather and march after their brethren.

The ground is bare, every strand of grass was shredded by the Rykz' thousands pointy legs. There are torn drones and there is viscous brown blood everywhere but the Order keeps forging ahead.

The charge soon encounters lines of warriors with their shields help up. They slow the Templars' advance down to a crawl and then force them to stop entirely when the Rykz' ranks have been so compressed their lower abdomens stacked to the point they can be no more pushed back.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

The Templars keep up the pressure with their mounts while using armor-piercing constructs on their lances to get through Vuskyt shield as well as armor in one stab.

Unfortunately for them, the drones never stopped swinging their sabers which hurt many of the warhorses and damaged their chain-mails. With the charge stopped, the warriors can now focus on hacking their enemies to pieces.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Their natural strength, comparable to that of a human using a strengthening construct, allows them to kill many of the Order's horses. The Exemplar raises his visor, revealing a blond beard.

“Dismount! Leap and strike as lions!” He bellows.

The Templars stab at the Rykz one last time and let go of their steel-tipped lances regardless of the strike's success. They draw their two-handed swords from the sides of their mounts as they pull their greaves out of their stirrups.

The Order moves as one, the temple guards lift a leg to place it on the rump of their warhorse and propel themselves with the help of runic constructs engrave in their armors.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

A little under three thousand Templars land in the midst of tens of thousands of Rykz while stabbing down with their weapons to start hacking away, tearing through Vuskyt and carapace as if butter to clear the area.

They immediately find themselves crawling through grit and bodies but the spikes at the soles of their greaves allow them to maintain a decent foothold as they push through the drones who are too tightly packed to counter-maneuver them, slaughtering thousands upon thousands.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Those who lost their mounts early on soon join in to help expand the field of battle and keep advancing. Within minutes, the Templars start taking breaks recovering their flow with their gourds and stop using armor-piercing constructs to switch to lion strikes.

At that point, their swords are being used more as heavy battering rods than sharp tools of war and they almost completely stop moving, bogged down in close combat with the Rykz whose horde managed to reorganize at the back to alleviate the pressure.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

The Exemplar turns and witnesses a troop of a two thousand Semplars in mail arrive on horseback. He flicks his hand at them, giving the order to split in three groups.

One will have the role to gather and guide the warhorses back to the Thirteenth while the other two will hold their wings to ensure they won't be flanked until the infantry arrives.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Then, the man lowers his visor and gives a short prayer to the Lake and the Emperor, its Chosen representative on this earth. He leaps into the center of the battlefield and launches forth to take the lead, leading his brethren to break through the crawling insects to rescue the Twelfth.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

--- --- ---

A well-built farmer with messy black hair trails along a path with a pit in his stomach and luggage upon his back. He has nowhere to go yet keeps walking, leaving behind the life he bet everything on just as it was bearing fruit.

He's lost it all, the coin he worked blood and sweat to gather for a year to obtain a plot of land to cultivate. He spent weeks giving aid to the Baron's manor and the Temple to win his place only to be chased away by both his Lord as well as the temple guard.

The boon-day he received news from his home, which he heard was occupied by the Rykz, he got so excited he opened the letter in the field in the presence of half the town only to realize too late that there was a golden construct anchored to it, a construct that should never have found its way in his hands.

Worst of all is that his sister not only announced his father's death but that she held responsibility for it. He immediately thought of the construct and felt fear, for himself but mostly for his sister who must be in real trouble.

Luckily, he thought, the Baron was magnanimous and understanding. The Lord offered to give her a place to stay here and help them resolve their troubles. He thought of seeking out his sister but the messenger said he came from Meiridin so he had no idea where to begin.

He couldn't leave so he keep the hope she would find him instead, not to mention he had hoped to give her a home since her self-blame was evident from the content of the letter.

“It was her in the end. Emperor, how could it have come to this?” The man mutters at the sky. “How did my sister become a rebel? She was faithful and hardworking with a plow, but now believes not in the Kingdom or Empire and wields a weapon.”

--- --- ---

Fallone sits down on a pack of supplies with rips to the side indicating the soldier barely managed to drag it out of the ruins, feeling exhausted by the weight of both his plate armor and his responsibilities.

“Duke!”

A Count of Steso stomps towards him in bloody clothes. Fallone turns a flat glare at the man who flinches at the sight of his burnt face. Behind the Noble is a Countess and three Baronesses looking angry.

“General.” The Count corrects himself to regain composure and avoid being reprimanded by the Noble reputed to be a stickler for protocol. “Why is the Twelfth retreating!? We can barely hold the insects back on our own, we'll never be able to hold their flank as well.”

“The losses we've already taken are...” The Countess starts.

“Acceptable.” Fallone croaks. “The Phalanx needs rest if we are to last until dusk.”

“They can rotate their people, why put all of ours at risk?!” The Count blows up.

“Ours, theirs.” Fallone scoffs, causing him to launch into a coughing fit. “Kh, kh, kh, krrhrk. Glahrk, pth.” He spits a globule of blood on the ground. “We are together, what matters now is who is capable and who is not.”

“At least explain why Steso must bleed so that they save a breath!” The Countess blows up with a tragic expression from the recent loss of a dear friend on the battlefield.

“They fought desperately for two days straight to hold the Rykz while we opened the retreat with help from the Order.” Fallone rebukes. A wave of pain shreds through his lungs. “They must rest so that, at dusk when reinforcements arrive, they may make a breakthrough for us to escape the encirclement. This is an order, obey it or I'll have Costas hang you.”

As he says these last words, Fallone feels himself falling. He feels his thoughts fade away and falls backward into the arms of the injured Exemplar he attempted to stop from entering the command tent a mere few days ago.

The Nobles stare but, before they can even discuss ignoring the order, the Exemplar's piercing glare shuts them up. They turn and depart as the woman picks up the General in her arms to carry him to the Alemplar who may be able to bandage him even if they have no flow to spare.

--- --- ---

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Fallone hears the distant and rather weak breathing cry. He rises wrapped in bandages to find the hard visage of an Exemplar with short brown hair and straight eyebrows facing him. She is making him drink a cool liquid that feels like torture when it passes through his scorched throat.

“Kh-gl.” He coughs.

“Drink and stand, General, the battle nears the end.” She instructs.

The Duke forces himself to swallow. The potion is making him feel numb all over but that's exactly what he needs. He rises as soon as he empties the wooden goblet to find a field of death.

Of the thousands of injured they protected at the center of their formation, perhaps only a third remain now and he knows not enough time has elapsed for so many to have passed away. It is likely those able were sent back to the battlefield as the number of apt fighters dwindled.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

He moves through the dust cloud towards the loudest sounds of battle while supported by the injured Exemplar whose armor now has four more dents including a nasty rip at her thigh.

He soon runs into a back-line of retreating auxiliaries in pitiful state. Not a single one has a shield left and none have a complete hard leather armor or chain-mail to rely on.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Most of them are coated in dried Rykz brown blood while a minority are covered in red human blood. At least half their weapons are broken and more than a few wield a broken wooden handle their hands remain clasped around on the retreat.

Their faces are harrowing to witness, even those without injuries, and their eyes haunted. Fallone feels guilt towards these auxiliaries he was meant to command to victory but who he failed in the end.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

Yet some survived and he believes, he has to believe, that his orders led to this result over annihilation. After passing by this column of soldiers, he arrives at a back-line of phalangites fighting shoulder to shoulder with those Templars and auxiliaries who are still capable of fighting.

The sun is setting and its rays are beautifully piercing the cloud of dust covering the field of battle yet all Fallone can think of is the pungent smell of guts, dried urine, shit, and rot filling his nostrils.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

He drags himself forward to follow the ranks of warriors as they slowly push back the tide of Rykz, often at the cost of their lives. From afar, he can hear carapaces being shattered by heavy blows and sharp orders being shouted.

Within an hour, he witnesses the tide of Rykz being peeled away with disbelief as more and more rows of Templars in banged up heavy plate armor begin showing up crushing their way towards them.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

The temple guards are sustaining their assault by rotating in and out of the front-line with Semplars guarding their back-line. Their flanks are trailing behind in two wings of three regiments of phalangites wielding runic steel short spears.

Fallone faints in relief at the sight, at the fact that his decision to pull back a third of their combat strength allowed them to, in the end, survive the encirclement.

The Exemplar catches the General and picks him up to carry him towards the Thirteenth and receive help from their Alemplars. For herself as well, she was taken out of the fight when a warrior's saber broke its tip in her thigh after piercing between two plates of her armor weakened by multiple impacts.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

As she makes her way she witnesses the Rykz pull away with rousing disbelief at first and then dismay followed by terror. The tide of insects, following instructions given to them before the battle even began, break out in full retreat.

Rh-hyyyyy, kszz.

It splits in a few armies of a hundred thousands and then in dozens of groups of ten thousand to leave the battlefield. What horrifies her is that the insects are leaving for the west that the Twelfth's cavalry can no longer guard because it fought to exhaustion to flank the encirclement until the Thirteenth made it.

Some are also headed to the north-west to take advantage of the hole the Thirteenth left to support the Twelfth. Only auxiliaries remain there to stop them and it is unlikely they'll be enough to safeguard Steso.

Some of these groups head east, it doesn't escape the Exemplar's notice that those are made up of the least injured of the drones. She pales, hatred in her heart. The insects not only shattered the Twelfth as a Phalanx for years to come but are going to set Steso's countryside in flames.

--- --- ---

Duke Fallone rides in the hilly lands surrounding Grastle, the capital of Steso, at the head of the Twelfth's remnants. He is bandaged all over and under influence of a narcotic given to him by an Alemplar to manage the pain.

Over the rolls of greasy cloth covering him, he is wearing a black uniform he chose to grieve the losses of those who fought under his command. He swore to never take it off.

The lands he is traversing has signs of battle, or rather raiding. They came across dead Rykz scouts lying in ditches to be burnt on their journey. Far more of drones died than they killed low born but that is because their goal was to burn fields and attempt to poison wells with their dying bodies.

The Duke bears this on his shoulders but refuses to let them droop because they carry the dignity of those that died to safeguard Steso and he knows deep within that things would have been much worse if he didn't insist to hold the Rykz back.

Still, as he leads the survivors, auxiliaries and phalangites alike, he cannot help but blame himself for not doing better, for underestimating the Rykz to the point where they didn't realize the ruins were a gigantic trap.

Their column, composed of the mere few thousand soldiers still fit to travel, arrives in sight of the Grastle humongous walls of twenty-five meters tall and fifteen meters wide.

A wave of relief courses through the column as they witness it still standing tall. They had known it did not fall but, after what they went through, none dared believe it before seeing it with their own eyes.

The stakes protruding from the stone walls, meant to make it difficult to place ladders, have had Rykz drones impaled on them as a show of victory and pride to all visitors.

The Twelfth, phalangites and auxiliaries alike, cares not for the sight as their memories are still fresh of those who fell at their sides and of the few bodies of dead peasants they came across to have their spirits risen at the sight of a truly insignificant number of dead drones.

They cross the portcullis and go through the barbican to engage on a large avenue. Once the entire column has entered, Fallone calls for a halt and climbs down his horse.

The Duke kneels on the pavement with difficulty and kisses the stone. He is imitated by all the soldiers. Many of them, including the Noble, start shedding tears at having returned home.

“Duke Fallone, this is for you.” A courier in dark green garb speaks up.

The Lord rises and, finally, witnesses the deserted avenue he is standing in. He knows the fortified city is safe, there are soldiers and archers on the rampart, so it can only mean that it was ordered the Twelfth not be welcomed.

In a daze, the Noble in black seizes the roll of parchment sealed by a mere few drops of wax and the seal of his Ruler. He opens it and stares with disbelief at the Royal Act stripping him of his titles for his egregious failure in defending Steso and the horrifying losses his auxiliaries incurred.

Many among the Nobles accompanying him have had their titled rescinded as well. A cold sweat falls on the Duke's back followed by hot blood rushing to his head that causes him to lose consciousness on the spot as he feels his world falling apart around him.