The division train was already moving, trying to put some distance between them and the enemy. Edwin’s banner jogged up to the units in the rear where Bordan pointed out the unit flags of their second cohort. Major Gerrack saw them coming and waved, walking up to meet them.

“Anything on your end?” the officer asked.

“Nothing,” Bordan replied. The coals of his anger had cooled substantially over the twenty minutes they had spent making their way back, but his displeasure was still easily discernible. “Think you could get the general to actually let us take part in the fighting next time?”

“I’ll try,” Gerrack sighed, taking off his helmet and running a gloved hand through his sweat-slick hair. “His original idea was to have us do camp security; did I tell you that? It took me the entire way from the fort to Pel Mahavir to convince him to send us to the battlefield. I didn’t know that flank defense was what he had envisioned though.”

“Camp security?” Bordan asked, incredulous. “With two full cohorts of fighters? So, what, he’d rather have the engineers in the fight than us?”

“Look, I’ll try, okay?” Gerrack said, signaling his flag bearer to get his cohort moving. “Maybe after today he will realize that he needs us.”

The other soldiers had cleared out, and the adventurers began marching after them. This time they weren’t in the rearguard, as two cohorts of light infantry were tasked with making sure the enemy didn’t nip at their heels.

“What’s even his problem?” Leodin asked. “Doesn’t he trust us?”

“That’s not the impression I got,” Gerrack said, “but I’m not sure myself. The orders regarding you adventurers were very sternly worded, I think he might be worried about sending us into danger.”

“What?” Leodin blurted out. “That’s ridiculous! Are you telling me we got dragged all the way out here and now we don’t even get to fight?”

Gerrack grimaced. “Please, keep your voice down. Again, I don’t know what his reasoning is, but that is the only thing that really makes sense to me. His position isn’t as secure as those of the other generals, you know? When the new divisions were established there were a lot of senior officers fighting for promotions to general. The General of the Army has promised severe repercussions to anyone using adventurers as meat shields, so it would make sense that he wants to keep you away from any task that could lead to heavy losses. If you or your Guildmaster complained that he was breaking the duke’s word, he might just get replaced.”

“We need to do something about that,” Bordan said resolutely. “Today was a disaster. If we want to beat a full division, we need to use everything we have. Speaking of everything we have, where were the damn mages?”

--- ----- ---

“Master Gregory,” General Asher said, “we could really have used your help yesterday.”

Gregory stiffened slightly, but his face remained impassive. “I apologize, general, but I believe that it is of the utmost importance that we continue to practice. Until we master those spells we will be of little use to you, I am afraid.”

“With all due respect, Master,” Bordan spoke up from beside Edwin, “you don’t need spells to be effective in combat. Any of your mages should be capable of throwing fire and raising shields, no?”

The bald mage narrowed his eyes at Bordan, then shoved his hands into the sleeves of his robe.

“Of course they are, but those conversions have exceedingly short range. To use them, we would need to be right in the fighting. None of my colleagues are equipped or trained to be on a battlefield, and forcing them to join the melee would put them at great risk. Surely you can see that losing the few mages we have before we ever get the opportunity to have a real impact on the fighting is a foolish notion.”

“When will you be ready, then?” Asher asked.

“We are working as quickly as we can,” Gregory answered curtly. “In fact, I should get back to it myself. If you would excuse me.”

With that, Gregory marched out of the command tent, his departure bringing a gust of cold air into the cramped space. For a few seconds, nobody spoke. Then, Asher cleared his throat.

“With that out of the way, let us move on to yesterday’s battle. Obviously, our approach was flawed. Once the Marradi realized that all of our heavy infantry was in the center, they repositioned their forces to focus on the flanks. Our light infantry was unable to hold under the sudden pressure, and we were forced to retreat. The good news is that we lost only forty men, the healers being close by saved the lives of almost two hundred. Sixty are still unable to walk on their own and will require a few more days of magical healing before they are ready for combat again, but I have been assured that they will make a full recovery.

“The staff has identified a favorable position for our next battle. We have now identified our adversaries as Lindvar division, a newly established unit from south-eastern Marrad, near Pel Pelledris. Assuming that they continue to pursue and try to fight past us, our next engagement will be a day and a half from now, on a hill east of the Small Anvil. We will have the high ground this time, and we will have at least half a day to prepare the field of battle.”

Asher smiled darkly. “They will not find it as easy to get past us this time.”

Murmurs of approval filled the tent, and Edwin could feel the anger and eagerness radiating from the officers. Their first engagement had been an unequivocal loss, and they were not going to take that lying down.

“We will meet again tomorrow to flesh out our defense in detail,” Asher continued when the muttering had died down. “I want each of you to think on how to best use our time and resources to hold this position.” He tapped on a new map hanging on a tent pole. “This will be by far the most defensible position until we reach Giant’s Head, so if we do It right, I believe we can end their advance right there. We might even be able to make it to Archer Hill after all.”

The meeting ended and the officers began to crowd around the map, quickly devolving into a discussion about troop placement, which kind of ditches to dig and where, and other specific considerations. Gerrack gave Bordan a meaningful look, then hurried out of the tent to catch up to the general. Edwin turned to his party leader.

“We got beaten this badly and he thinks we can still win with enough forces left to assault Archer Hill?”

“It’s not impossible,” Bordan said, shrugging. “In war, how you use your forces is everything. With a good plan that uses each unit’s strength as well as the terrain on their side, a smaller force can easily beat a larger one. The problem remains that we don’t have a lot of heavy infantry. If we try to simply fight line against line as we did yesterday, we will always be on the back foot. “

“How much heavy infantry do the Marradi have?” Leodin asked. “Do we know?”

“They don’t have any,” Bordan said, leading them out of the command tent and back toward their corner of the camp. “Marrad doesn’t use heavy and light infantry as we do, they only have one type. Their armor is quite a bit stronger than our light infantry’s but nowhere near what our heavy infantry is wearing. That’s why our usual tactics revolve around a sturdy frontline of heavy infantrymen with archers to back them up, and the maneuverable light infantry to plug holes and lead quick attacks into weak spots.”

“Why?” Leodin asked. “I mean, why don’t they use heavy infantry too if it’s better?”

“Resources,” Amos piped up from behind them. The young lord had been with them in the command tent, but he hadn’t said a word since they had left for the meeting. “Marrad doesn’t have nearly as many iron mines, so forging weapons and armor takes up a large percentage of their overall production. Their infantry’s armor is perfectly balanced to provide maximum protection while still being affordable. Compared to that, a full suit of heavy infantry armor requires more than twice the amount of iron. Even with the iron they’re buying from us, they can’t manage that – especially since they have more soldiers.”

Leodin stopped in his tracks, turning around to face the noble.

“What do you mean, they’re ‘buying iron from us’? Are you telling me that we’re selling them the iron that they use to build weapons to wage war against us?!”

“We were until about half a year ago,” Amos said. “Technically, the resources we were selling them were only allowed to be used for non-military purposes, but that just means that they could use more of their own production to outfit their soldiers. They must have stockpiled an impressive number of weapons and armor over the years, they did much better work outfitting their new divisions than we did.”

“But… why?” Leodin asked, struggling for words. “Why would we want them to have more iron for weapons?”

“We don’t, but we don’t have a choice,” Edwin said. “It’s not a secret, but people don’t like to talk about it. The truth is that we can’t produce enough food to feed our population, not even close. With the Clawed Woods making much of our land uninhabitable, the rocky ground, and the constant monster attacks, our villages can’t produce enough of a surplus to feed the population of our cities. Marrad, on the other hand, has acres and acres of fertile land in the south of their duchy, enough to feed all three duchies on their own. In truth, we’re exceptionally lucky that Marrad doesn’t have a lot of iron and silver mines. In the end, we need them more than they do us.”

“If we stopped importing, why aren’t our people starving?” Salissa asked.

“Just like they apparently stockpiled weapons and armor, we have prepared for this situation as well,” Amos said. “I’ve heard that there are secret underground stasis storages filled with thousands of tons of food. Nobody knows where they are or how much we have, but it seems like we can survive for quite a while as long as we ration well.”

“In any case,” Bordan interjected, “our light infantry can’t fight a protracted melee against theirs unless we have some other advantage on our side. If we can properly fortify our position and dig in, that might give us the edge we need.”

“Let’s hope that it does,” Edwin sighed.