"The question now is how many prisoners can we afford to take?" declared War mind.
"What do you mean?" asked Milled. "The more prisoners the more magic we can squeeze out of them."
"Keeping prisoners is tiresome business," responded War mind. "Someone will have to watch them and keep them moving with the group. Assuming we don't feed them we will have to deal with a large group of dying men who won't want to march at our speed."
"One-thousand," declared Milled. "The rats will take one thousand. Do the dead folk want any living prisoners?"
"We shall take one hundred," declared Scab. "The rest are good material."
The eyes watching the battlefield saw the breaking army try to run past the flanking force. The rat folk would not stand a chance if not for the cannons and ground ravens. The rats regroup and push forward the colossi behind them.
"The left and right flanks will escape," declared War mind. "Twenty-Eight have the flock circle the center. We will let the left and right flanks run. Capture the men at the center. I will send my puppet to help sort the prisoners."
"Why are we letting them escape?" asked the demi dragon.
"We can't hold them we won't be able to kill all of them," explained the commanding brain in a jar. "It's in our best for them to keep running. We killed half the officers last night and likely a few more today. They are not likely to regroup. I believe they will splinter int smaller groups we can pick off latter. More importantly they will be separated from the supplies necessary to fight us therefore unable to organize a new force. We will be finding pockets of at most ten men with decreasing will to fight until we reach the capitol."
"Sounds like free ranged prisoners to me," declared Twenty-Eight.
The ground forces caught about two thousand yellow coats as four thousand fled in opposite directions. The War mind stretched out its corps as it dismounted a wagon in the rear. The body mounted itself on a man-eating horse and road to the battlefield. The white rats were making themselves busy finding the injured men and using them to heal the injured rats. Tragedy was busy trying to scavenge the shattered bits of cavalry for spare parts to create new abominations.
The puppet road to the surrounded men being disarmed by the rat folk. Twenty-Eight looked menacingly from behind the rats. The dead man rode around the group of royal soldiers making himself seen. The puppet filled its lungs and coughed to remember the unfamiliar lips reattached to a severed neck.
"Whoop! Whoop! ME Meh my," choked out War minds puppet as it prepared to lie its ass off. "Men of the royal army. I am sure many of you are concerned if this force of strange creatures takes prisoners. Fear not we do take prisoners. As is standard officers and skilled personnel will be given preferential treatment. Would all officers, sergeants and grenadiers please step forward."
A group of about seventy men dressed as officers or with diamonds on their shoulders stepped out. Only two grenadiers stood in the group of seventy. For a force of this size, it was too few for it to be all the officers. Maybe they had died last night or were killed in the battle, but the War mind had expected at least one hundred and fifty officers, three hundred sergeants and a hundred grenadiers. Perhaps the grenadiers had all been killed in melee, but he thought that doubtful.
"Fine we will do this the hard way!" screeched the puppets voice. "Form… Ranks!"
The mass of men stood around not moving to form any formation.
"I said form ranks!" wailed the puppet. "You will act on the discipline I expect from men wearing the royal color or I will be forced to use extreme measures to retrain your discipline as fast as possible! Your survival will not be of concern."
The rats began reloading the captured cannons. A panicked mumble began to spread through the men and the mass began to form an organized square. Two thousand men began to form a large square standing at single arm intervals.
"Very good," Shouted War mind. "You will now be checked for hidden arms and sorted into one of several marching orders. Left column forward March!"
The men in the left column stepped forward to be inspected by the rats now holding onto the men's muskets. The War minds-tired eyes searched the ground to find a handful of discarded breastplates and other symbols of authority like sabers. The puppet sat on his horse that smiled a fanged grin at the passing men. The men seemed unnerved as he watched over them passing judgment on what of twenty-one groups, they would march in. Undead came to bolster the rat folk guards and musketeer corpses were raised and armed to help keep the men in order. Twenty of the groups were for the standard infantry. Nine of these groups would be bayoneted after sorting was complete while the rest would be given to the rats and the undead. The twenty first group where the officers and grenadiers who had not stepped forward. They were easy enough for his experience to pick out. The leaders and grenadiers all had mannerisms or looks from other soldiers to stand out. Their brains were worth something to the War mind.
As the puppet sat on the horse it got a feeling that he was forgetting something. Was it not said that a mage was traveling with the army? It was rare as most mages were barred from military service.
"Twenty-eight," asked War mind. "Did you or any of your subordinates kill a sun mage?"
"No, I don't think we," reminisced the not dragon. "Did but he did try to light me on fire when I dived for Poof Poof."
"Did anyone kill a sun mage," thought War mind to all the officers.
None one had claimed to have killed the living flame thrower.
"Fuck!" thought the mind as he grew nervous and he saw a group of rat folk burst into flames.