"A chokepoint is often the best option for a numerically inferior force to fight a numerically superior foe at, as there, numbers are unable to be brought to bear, and quality often mattered over quantity.
Fatigue still plays a major role however, and as it piles on, casualties would start to fall, and as such, such actions are usually a last ditch delaying action at best, as the numerically superior force would be able to rotate in fresh fighter to the frontline at will more easily, and over time grind their enemies down." - Adalbert Chisholm, Chief of Staff of the Ptolodeccan Army.
"Pull!" Stefan yelled once the foremost cavalryman reached twenty meters distance from their defensive line. On the back of their line, men and women pulled hard on several thick ropes, and as a result, makeshift anti-cavalry fences - merely several spears connected together with horizontal shafts, with their butt ends affixed against the ground and their elevation limited by another rope tied to their lower side - sprouted out from where they were hidden under soil and dust, forcing the cavalrymen to take twists and turns in a zig zag to avoid them instead of charging straight.
For the foremost of the cavalrymen however, the fences had emerged too suddenly, far too close to them, and they were thrown off their saddles as their mounts failed to halt or turn aside in time and impaled themselves on the fence.
Some of the lucky riders fell on hard ground and got up after dusting themselves, while less lucky ones broke bones or worse on their fall, with at least one breaking their neck on the fall, as Aideen saw one cavalryman lie unmoving with his helmet at an oddly sharp angle.
Yet others were even more unfortunate and were thrown onto the next row of fences where they found themselves impaled as they fell. Those cavalrymen further behind managed to stop after witnessing what happened at the front, and they were about to work on dismantling the fences when Tirya gave a hand signal.
Over a hundred of the Templars and Death Knights in the back were given bows and quivers full of arrows, and they made use of it as they shot over the heads of their compatriots and right towards the pursuers. The arrows caused the pursuers to fall into disorder for a moment, before a group of them - all clad in templar uniforms - held their shield up and led a charge on foot instead.
Aideen did a quick count of the charging templars - formerly the second templar unit - and quickly determined that there were over twice as many of them as the people she had with her. She gave firm nods to Tirya and Stefan, and to her left and right, men and women braced themselves for combat.
To Aideen's right, ten templars formed a compact shield wall, while behind them another ten held long spears - borrowed from the militia - with which they could attack from behind. The Death Guards to her left had a more loose formation of only six wide, with another seven behind them in a criss crossing manner, because they needed more room to bring their two handed weapons into play. Those behind also wielded long spears for now, ready to switch to their usual weapons at a moment's notice. Aideen herself anchored the center of the line, and before long, the first of the former templars were upon her.
The young man swung his mace at her fiercely, and was surprised when Aideen blocked it with one hand, while her other hand made a thrust with her weapon - it was in its three sectioned form as it was more prudent in the cramped quarters - towards his face.
He managed to block the thrust with his shield, but was thrown off balance as a result, and Aideen took the chance to slide the stave she used to block his mace down towards his hand, hard enough to break a bone or two and make him drop his mace, before she kicked him in the belly which caused him to fall against the man behind him.
Both fallen men were entangled for the moment, but a young woman took their place as she swung an axe at Aideen, fanatical hatred in her eyes. Since her opponent swung in a way that left her open to retaliation, Aideen didn't bother to be nice. One stave struck against the lower end of the axe's blade, near where it joined the shaft, and halted its momentum. She held the middle stave as she swung it against the side of the woman's shield, which caused the third stave at the end to flail back and strike her, right at the back of her neck, where the spine connected to the skull, with enough force to shatter bones.
Aideen kicked the dead woman away before she could slump down in front of her, and by luck her dead body landed on top of the two that were trying to get up and brought them down again. That brought her a moment and she quickly gave Tirya and Stefan a touch to heal up some slight cuts they had taken in the meantime.
She had not remembered how long she fought after that - though others told her that the battle had only lasted for three hours -, as all she could do was keep her focus on the dizzying blur of weapons clashing, lives taken and lost, and healing others whenever she had a moment to spare.
The weight of their enemy's numbers began to make themselves known after half an hour of unceasing combat, as fatigue started to set in, and people started making mistakes. Casualties began to fall one after another, too far or too late for Aideen's hand to reach.
Tirya fell when a former templar cleaved her head with an axe. Somehow she managed to stay conscious long enough to wrap her hands around her killer's throat, and choked him to death even as her body fell down on his.
Stefan died when another former templar decapitated him right as he landed the finishing blow on one traitor, and the old man's headless body slumped down and fell before Aideen could react.
Whenever one of the frontline fighters fell, a spear wielder behind them would pass their spear to another behind them, and whip out their usual weapon and take the fallen's place. Other than Aideen, the frontlines must have been replaced four, maybe five times in its entirety by the time they finally saw the long awaited sight they had been waiting for.
First slowly, then more rapidly, large rocks fell down from the top of the valley, as it bounced down the steep incline. It was a large enough amount to call a small avalanche, and it fell from both sides of the valley, just ahead of where Aideen and the others made their stand. They saw the falling rocks, and made a fighting retreat to avoid being caught in the mess, as the avalanche soon intensified.
Literal tons of boulders fell down the sides of the valley, the shock and vibration they caused, made more loose stones unhinge from their resting spots and join them on their way down. The avalanche fell mostly on the middle and backlines of the former templars, who were still trying to push their way forward, and were hemmed in by those behind them, unable to turn around and escape.
They died under the falling boulders and were buried underneath it, as the avalanche sealed the valley with boulders, cutting off the frontlines of the battle from all the pursuers further behind. It would have taken at the very least days to clean the blockade, and to detour around the mountain range would have wasted at least three days as well.
As the avalanche came to an end, Aideen and the remaining people with her ceased to retreat, and instead fell upon the pursuers stuck with them on their side of the blockade, and they swiftly and brutally put every last one of them down.
Then they combed the field of dead bodies for the corpses of their comrades, and reverentially brought them out of the valley. Less than sixty of the older Templars and Death Guards who fought with Aideen were still alive, though they were soon joined by the militia volunteers as they climbed down from where they had been busy setting up the avalanche.
Solemnly, they packed the dead on some of the wagons left for them, and then they set off, to follow after the main group. The dead would be given their last rites and buried when they reached Ptolodecca, as Aideen refused to risk the pursuers finding their graves and potentially desecrating them.
"A chokepoint is often the best option for a numerically inferior force to fight a numerically superior foe at, as there, numbers are unable to be brought to bear, and quality often mattered over quantity.
Fatigue still plays a major role however, and as it piles on, casualties would start to fall, and as such, such actions are usually a last ditch delaying action at best, as the numerically superior force would be able to rotate in fresh fighter to the frontline at will more easily, and over time grind their enemies down." - Adalbert Chisholm, Chief of Staff of the Ptolodeccan Army.
"Pull!" Stefan yelled once the foremost cavalryman reached twenty meters distance from their defensive line. On the back of their line, men and women pulled hard on several thick ropes, and as a result, makeshift anti-cavalry fences - merely several spears connected together with horizontal shafts, with their butt ends affixed against the ground and their elevation limited by another rope tied to their lower side - sprouted out from where they were hidden under soil and dust, forcing the cavalrymen to take twists and turns in a zig zag to avoid them instead of charging straight.
For the foremost of the cavalrymen however, the fences had emerged too suddenly, far too close to them, and they were thrown off their saddles as their mounts failed to halt or turn aside in time and impaled themselves on the fence.
Some of the lucky riders fell on hard ground and got up after dusting themselves, while less lucky ones broke bones or worse on their fall, with at least one breaking their neck on the fall, as Aideen saw one cavalryman lie unmoving with his helmet at an oddly sharp angle.
Yet others were even more unfortunate and were thrown onto the next row of fences where they found themselves impaled as they fell. Those cavalrymen further behind managed to stop after witnessing what happened at the front, and they were about to work on dismantling the fences when Tirya gave a hand signal.
Over a hundred of the Templars and Death Knights in the back were given bows and quivers full of arrows, and they made use of it as they shot over the heads of their compatriots and right towards the pursuers. The arrows caused the pursuers to fall into disorder for a moment, before a group of them - all clad in templar uniforms - held their shield up and led a charge on foot instead.
Aideen did a quick count of the charging templars - formerly the second templar unit - and quickly determined that there were over twice as many of them as the people she had with her. She gave firm nods to Tirya and Stefan, and to her left and right, men and women braced themselves for combat.
To Aideen's right, ten templars formed a compact shield wall, while behind them another ten held long spears - borrowed from the militia - with which they could attack from behind. The Death Guards to her left had a more loose formation of only six wide, with another seven behind them in a criss crossing manner, because they needed more room to bring their two handed weapons into play. Those behind also wielded long spears for now, ready to switch to their usual weapons at a moment's notice. Aideen herself anchored the center of the line, and before long, the first of the former templars were upon her.
The young man swung his mace at her fiercely, and was surprised when Aideen blocked it with one hand, while her other hand made a thrust with her weapon - it was in its three sectioned form as it was more prudent in the cramped quarters - towards his face.
He managed to block the thrust with his shield, but was thrown off balance as a result, and Aideen took the chance to slide the stave she used to block his mace down towards his hand, hard enough to break a bone or two and make him drop his mace, before she kicked him in the belly which caused him to fall against the man behind him.
Both fallen men were entangled for the moment, but a young woman took their place as she swung an axe at Aideen, fanatical hatred in her eyes. Since her opponent swung in a way that left her open to retaliation, Aideen didn't bother to be nice. One stave struck against the lower end of the axe's blade, near where it joined the shaft, and halted its momentum. She held the middle stave as she swung it against the side of the woman's shield, which caused the third stave at the end to flail back and strike her, right at the back of her neck, where the spine connected to the skull, with enough force to shatter bones.
Aideen kicked the dead woman away before she could slump down in front of her, and by luck her dead body landed on top of the two that were trying to get up and brought them down again. That brought her a moment and she quickly gave Tirya and Stefan a touch to heal up some slight cuts they had taken in the meantime.
She had not remembered how long she fought after that - though others told her that the battle had only lasted for three hours -, as all she could do was keep her focus on the dizzying blur of weapons clashing, lives taken and lost, and healing others whenever she had a moment to spare.
The weight of their enemy's numbers began to make themselves known after half an hour of unceasing combat, as fatigue started to set in, and people started making mistakes. Casualties began to fall one after another, too far or too late for Aideen's hand to reach.
Tirya fell when a former templar cleaved her head with an axe. Somehow she managed to stay conscious long enough to wrap her hands around her killer's throat, and choked him to death even as her body fell down on his.
Stefan died when another former templar decapitated him right as he landed the finishing blow on one traitor, and the old man's headless body slumped down and fell before Aideen could react.
Whenever one of the frontline fighters fell, a spear wielder behind them would pass their spear to another behind them, and whip out their usual weapon and take the fallen's place. Other than Aideen, the frontlines must have been replaced four, maybe five times in its entirety by the time they finally saw the long awaited sight they had been waiting for.
First slowly, then more rapidly, large rocks fell down from the top of the valley, as it bounced down the steep incline. It was a large enough amount to call a small avalanche, and it fell from both sides of the valley, just ahead of where Aideen and the others made their stand. They saw the falling rocks, and made a fighting retreat to avoid being caught in the mess, as the avalanche soon intensified.
Literal tons of boulders fell down the sides of the valley, the shock and vibration they caused, made more loose stones unhinge from their resting spots and join them on their way down. The avalanche fell mostly on the middle and backlines of the former templars, who were still trying to push their way forward, and were hemmed in by those behind them, unable to turn around and escape.
They died under the falling boulders and were buried underneath it, as the avalanche sealed the valley with boulders, cutting off the frontlines of the battle from all the pursuers further behind. It would have taken at the very least days to clean the blockade, and to detour around the mountain range would have wasted at least three days as well.
As the avalanche came to an end, Aideen and the remaining people with her ceased to retreat, and instead fell upon the pursuers stuck with them on their side of the blockade, and they swiftly and brutally put every last one of them down.
Then they combed the field of dead bodies for the corpses of their comrades, and reverentially brought them out of the valley. Less than sixty of the older Templars and Death Guards who fought with Aideen were still alive, though they were soon joined by the militia volunteers as they climbed down from where they had been busy setting up the avalanche.
Solemnly, they packed the dead on some of the wagons left for them, and then they set off, to follow after the main group. The dead would be given their last rites and buried when they reached Ptolodecca, as Aideen refused to risk the pursuers finding their graves and potentially desecrating them.
