You can hear the sounds of the clashing of metals hitting another. The stench of both iron and mud is mixing in the ground in that cold weather. Scream and shouts are scattered in the atmosphere and some are wailings. One can say that peace is being unkempt to be present in that time. How sad seeing people are dying one after another.
"Captain, the enemies are escaping!"
"Let them be."
"But captain"
I stared at the lone soldier covered in blood rushing to report something I knew. What does he think of me, blind? Of course, I can see that they are retreating. The soldiers eyes are full of rage and hatred and I can identify that he is already doubting me. What use of him if he doubts his commanding officer, such a trash. I looked at him and I can see that he is not even an officer yet he dares to doubt me. I dont need such pawn, a useless pawn.
The whole surrounding is filled with bodies, dead bodies, of either allies or enemies. Some are still standing fighting to survive while bleeding to death. Some are already drowning in despair and their eyes are just waiting for their end.
This soldier in front of me is not afraid of death rather his eyes are full of determination to win. The only thing I don't like is that he dares to question me with that strong eyes.
"Go and inform them to retreat here within sixty seconds. I commanded."
"Retreat? But captain we are winning, we just have to push forward!"
"Blow the horn for retreat."
"Captain? Why must I? We are clearly winning!"
"I repeat blow the horn."
He stared at me with those unwavering eyes and left without even doing my command. Fool. He charges into the battle field and killed ten more people. He keeps going forward and killed another five. What a waste of talent if he doesn't know how to obey. Berserker is a great name for him but a mug.
I grabbed a dying soldier and told him to blow the retreat horn. He didn't faze up to question me even he knew that we are winning. He crawled his breath to the horn and blew it giving a signal to the soldiers to retreat.
The sound of the horn gave them to run to my direction. Others obeyed, but many didn't and kept going forward. I commanded the dying soldier to blow the horn two more times as a final warning. Almost half of the troops already retreated while others keep on going forward. When the final warning is given, those hard headed soldier remained in the battlefield. They are all fools. Foolishness and disobedient usually leads to distraction.
The enemies are going forward and clearly outnumbering those foolish soldiers. They were signaling for help but I didn't hand them one. The lone and brave soldier were running towards me but this time his eyes is filled with despair. The soldiers behind him who followed his foolish command where one by one being slain in front of my our eyes. But I firmly didn't give them a hand. Their painful death is their payment for their disobedient while I already gave them three warnings.
The soldiers who retreated were itching to help their tortured comrades. They are shivering to step their feet to be the aid of those fools. But didn't as the fear engulf them seeing those hundreds of soldiers are behind them. They are cowards but not foolish.
The bird whom I sent to spy on the enemy came back and gave me a letter that the enemies are now fully out blast. Means there is no one left in their camp to be their back up. Soon enough they step on my range, I release a huge ice spell to freeze all of them to death including their horses in which I don't like doing so. In that flash of light, the hundreds of soldiers that were heading towards us are slowly freezing. It started to their feet, quickly crawling to their body and finally reaching their heads. In just less than a minute, they became huge sculpted ice blocks.
The whole place became so quiet. I release another spell to create a bolder like ice and hit those blocks shattering them into pieces. Both enemies and foolish allies are being mass murdered in front of these stunned in fear cowards soldiers. The earsplitting place turned in to cold chilling graveyard. Not even bacteria can feast on those shattered like stone bodies. I can pulverise them but that will be a nightmare for these soldiers virgin eyes. Such terror will be unspeakable and they might live in fear for the rest of their lives. But. Surely is that the scene they just witnessed is already terrifying enough to be a daylight nightmare as they stare and shiver to that eerie cold winter day.
That day were recorded as a devastating battlefield disaster as none of those dead soldiers were being taken back to their family to mourn. What can they salvage if their bodies are mixed like hundreds of jigsaw puzzles being mix with one another?
We want back with victory, but those eyes were not seen as happy. It is filled with terror.
Not enough after that battle, the council called for a major meeting.
"This is not right! Why would you do that? This is a battle where we protect our allies and not kill them along with the enemy!" A burst of anger coming from a noble who came from the capital.
"This is disaster what would the people will say if they found it out!"
"NO! This is a mass murder! Such crime is not tolerable!"
These cowards are spitting nonsense but none of it goes to my ears.
"Calm down gentlemen, what she did is a must to do. Weve got an information that the enemy actually broke the rules of war. Our side sent five-hundred soldier knowing that the enemy will send same number but didnt. They sent two-thousand instead. If the northern border of the north falls, the kingdom will suffer a huge loss and maybe none of our people will be able to come back. Lets just be thankful that two-hundred and thirty-two came back alive."
The one who spoke with logic is my twin brother who is currently the leader of the North. He understood what I have to do in the same time explaining my reason of doing so. I dont care if they call me a mass murderer but if we happen to fail, the north will be taken down.
They kept arguing about the battle weve won not too long ago. The truth is, it actually reaches the kingdom. News flies really fast. I just kept silence on my chair hearing their comments, objections, ideas and blabber. If I wouldnt know, they were just looking for loophole to over-throw the authority from my brother. These foolish men wanted the power of north but they couldnt since our family holds into it. The last three generation king gave it to our family to protect and although our parents are staying in the capital, we are staying here to overlook the whole dukedom.
They kept saying that I committed a treason against the kingdom. Some says that what I did is not humanitarian but a barbaric act. They even commended that I should have let the enemy die but not with our soldiers. The truth is they dont now the situation yet pretending that they knew and putting a face that they are kind. Poppycock. They are just greedy.
"This incident will shake the public moral of the common and if that happened, we the noble will suffer, the kingdom will suffer!" Angrily suggested by the Marquis.
"You are right, Marquis. This can cause a public misconception and we might suffer as well. What the lady did is really cruel!" Supported by the Count.
"The king will really be seen this one. Dont blame us of the outcome."
"Oh really? Then let the king knows about it."
"What did you say?"
"I said, let the king knows about it. Tell the king that I killed the two thousand enemies along with the foolish soldiers who disobeyed my command. You can as well inform the king that the enemy broke the rules of war. Perhaps say to his majesty that most of the northern soldiers who came from another noble families disobeyed three times my warnings to retreat."
The outspoken nobles suddenly became quiet.
"As a commanding officer, those soldiers who neglected my command despite of THREE WARNINGS are considered traitors. Traitors are punishable of banishment, so I banish them but they also vanish along with the enemy. That is one stone with two birds. You can also add your statement to the king that despite we are being outnumber from the very beginning with thrice as the number of soldiers we had, we WON and the NORTH IS SAFE."
It didnt change the fact the you still killed our citizen!
"Citizen? I didnt kill any citizen. Ah wait. Maybe you are talking about the exiled soldiers during the war. The word EXILE means they are no longer citizen of the kingdom. So technically, they are NOT OUR CITIZENS. Maybe they are common people from the other kingdom who happened being caught in the war and ended up dying."
"LADY WINTERS!" The Marquis banged his hand to the table and stood up of anger.
"That's enough Marquis". My brother interrupted.
"My sister is indeed saying the truth. The soldiers reported that despite the three warnings that my sister have given them to retreat, some soldiers didnt obey her command. According to the protocol, what they do is actually a treason and my sister has a right to banish them. Since these soldiers are now exiled, they are no longer part of the kingdom. It happened that they are still wearing our soldier uniform during their banishment. So, it looks like they are part of our kingdom but actually not."
"But those soldiers are not yet fully given a letter of being banish!" The marquis inflicted.
"Marquis... are you siding to those people? I am fully aware that you dont know the rules of war since you yourself havent been into one. Banishing of common people and banishment of soldiers are different. Common people will be banishing with a written paper but a soldier doesnt need one to be banish. They are at war, there is no time to write during those time so a single action from their commanding officer with a valid reason and witness is enough. With the two-hundred thirty-two witnesses, my sister has a right to banish them in that instant."
"This is still not a good..." The Marquis is about to say something yet my brother interrupted him.
"It sounds to me that you are siding those exiled people and according to the law, once a person took and help the exiles, they are as well committing a treason against the kingdom. So much that you are a marquis and yet you raise your voice to a higher rank than you are. We the Winters feels that we are being humiliated by A MARQUIS in our resident. It is true that it can tarnish our reputation as from the DUKE FAMILY. However, if we file all this claim to the majesty the king, we can inflict a damage."
"Also, brother, a noble who committed a treason can be punishable by exile or death." I added.
Oh really, I must have I forgot about that. He grinned evilly while looking at the nagging marquis.