As General Brezveck bled out, the Gerheist army broke, the invisible will of the lion that had held the army together crumbled. Gerheist soldiers pushed past one another to flee the Carmine soldiers' onslaught. As the last Gerheist soldier was swept from the field, Lawrence ordered the severely injured but stablized Brezveck be loaded on a wagon and taken care of as a distinguished prisoner.

Gerheist casualties numbered in the thousands, while Lawrence's side had numbered a little more than a thousand. This was a thousand less men that could help with the harvest, a thousand less men that could attack and seize positions. Lawrence sighed as he surveyed the sea of corpses.

"Honestly... What are we even fighting for..." Lawrence grumbled as he began his slow trek back to Phoenix's Fall. He could see regular Carmine soldiers and Owl Shields carrying stretchers with both the injured and dead, intending to clear the field as soon as possible. Owl engineers have already begun digging new trenches in order to extend the frontline as far as possible.

Carmine soldiers carry shovels made from rusted metal, reluctantly lugging equipment after the Owl engineers who are staring at parchment in their hands, giving instructions to the exhausted looking soldiers. Tonight, at least, there will be rest.

Other soldiers lie around Gerheist corpses, stripping them of equipment.

Trudging his way through the mud, blood and dirt, Lawrence was greeted by a beaming Colonel Haussen, whose eyes were filled with tears and rosy cheeks like a maiden having seen her hero. The tired colonel seems to have seen the light after a long night.

"Very well done, Ser Lawrence! I must see that you are elevated to a national hero for this! You must have a statue of you in Capital Square!" Colonel Haussen cries out, giving Lawrence a pat on the shoulder.

"No, thank you, Colonel Haussen, I would like to rest for awhile, if that is okay. I don't want the attention."

==

Colonel Vava stared at the tactical map. Once Phoenix's Fall was taken by the Gerheist soldiers, he would pour all his troops into the valley, forcing the Gerheist soldiers to stay inside and that was probably the extent of their conquest. Anything else that came after would be someone else's problem.

His political opponents would be dead and his family could only scale to greater heights and in due time, his name will go down in the history books.

Smiling to himself, Colonel Vava leaned into his chair, pouring himself a glass of wine and sipping it. His forces had ample food seized from the peasants and could drag out the supply lines for as long as they could against the Gerheist army which had to seize food supplies from the places they captured.

The flap of his tent moves and his associate, a youth in his twenties step forward, with a sharp salute.

"Sir, news from the front. Phoenix's Fall is in fierce battle with Gerheist forces."

Colonel Vava nodded, dismissing the young adjutant.

In time, he will march to Phoenix's Fall and watch his enemies fall.