“A good surprise would be worth its weight in gold… if only you could weigh surprises at all, that is…” - Eugen Ross, retired mercenary.

By the time Marshal Publius Cornelius decided that the pursuing Southern Coalition forces were too close for comfort to the “bait” being played by part of the Levain Militia, nearly three-quarters of the enemy forces were within the ambush zone they had prepared. Three-quarters of the joint Levainian and Caroman forces had gone ahead to prepare the ambush, including all their archers and cavalry.

The moment the signal was given, hundreds of archers showed themselves near the tops of each hill in the region and began to shower the Southern Coalition troops with arrows from high above. The height advantage gave the archers a far better vantage point for shooting as well as helped extend their range further.

Meanwhile, the infantrymen that had gone ahead and hidden behind the hills of the region came out of their hiding spots and rushed straight towards the enemy forces, while the militiamen who played the role of bait also turned around and reformed their formation, the small units they had split into to give an impression of every man running for themselves recombining into larger formations smoothly thanks to their training.

They then held their ground before their flummoxed pursuers as they acted as the anvil to the ambush’s hammer.

The surprised Southern Coalition forces were unable to respond in time to the sudden development. Their formation was already scattered due to their haste during the pursuit, while their soldiers were strung out over a rather large distance, with part of the Olfas army not even within the ambush zone yet. As such, they failed to mount much of a resistance against the sudden assault.

Within moments of the battle being joined, infantrymen from Levain and Caroma broke through the lines of their enemies from the Southern Coalition. Archer shifted their target to avoid the spots where the infantry were engaged with the enemies, some moving closer to the battle to improve their accuracy when it was the only option available.

Spears and shields clashed against one another as the infantrymen fell upon their enemy’s flanks, their coordinated assault breaking through the enemy’s haphazard defense. Some of the enemy’s elites, the men-at-arms maintained privately by the High Lords, tried to regain control of the situation by lending their weight to the fight, but found themselves stymied by the equally skilled Caroman and Levainian elites they faced.

Knights from the Southern Coalition attempted to break through the ambush with a charge towards the nearest unit of Levain militia, but found hard resistance instead as the militiamen braced their spears against the ground and quickly formed into a spear-and-shield wall formation that held strong even though the charging cavalrymen crushed and trampled part of the first few lines with their momentum.

Once they exhausted the momentum of their charge while failing to break through the militia formation, the militiamen enacted their revenge as spears pierced through the knights and their steeds from the sides. The knights quickly found themselves unable to fight back effectively, and casualties quickly began to mount as one knight after another was unhorsed and summarily slaughtered by the militiamen.

Despite those in the rear trying to help, most of the Southern Coalition soldiers trapped within the ambush found themselves unable to get out of the situation. Every avenue to extricate themselves were sealed, and as their formation crumbled, the coalition troops began to rout and crash against each other, those in the rear still trying to push forward while those ahead trying to escape to the back.

Quite a few people were trampled by their own allies during the mess, and the ambushing troops naturally didn’t let the opportunity go to waste either, as they pressed the offense harder against the coalition troops. Only after the commanders in the rear received news of the situation did the Southern Coalition troops initiate a retreat, which allowed the routing soldiers an avenue of escape at last.

Even so, neither the Caromans nor the Levainians let them withdraw easily as they sent off their entire cavalry contingent to harass the retreating coalition forces until they had gone far away, the light cavalry claiming their own fair share of victims along the way as the coalition forces were too worried about escaping to fight back against them.

The disastrous battle resulted in a massive loss for the Southern Coalition. In total, only a little over sixteen thousand out of them over forty thousand soldiers managed to retreat in any semblance of an order. The ambushing troops had slain at least ten thousand or so soldiers, while the rest had likely scattered during the rout. Many of them would likely run back to their home villages and desert the army, while other unlucky ones might meet their end at the claws and fangs of wild beasts. Only a miniscule portion was likely to return to muster with the remainder of the army.

High Lord Jerome Fandol of Cezar, along with his entire contingent of knights and the vast majority of his elites, had been amongst the dead, which left two of the four First States of the Southern Coalition without a leader. The late High Lord had at least left his heir back in Cezar, but that also meant that only High Lady Corrine Olstein of Olfas was left in the frontlines.

And all they had left was an army less than half of their opponent’s in number, one that still reeled from the disastrous defeat, with the soldiers’ morale at an all-time low. As much as the High Lady worried about their obligations and the future of their nation, she still heeded her generals when they advised against any further pursuit of the withdrawing joint forces.

After the successful ambush, the joint forces of Levain and Caroma enacted a measured withdrawal for the first couple of days, to make sure that they weren’t being pursued any further. Only after they became certain of that did they withdraw in full towards Levain.

Unfortunately, even with the victory, they were still at least another week and a half away from Levain city, so they would not make it back before the invading forces reached the city.