Hierd hopped down into the trench, the heavy thunderous rain made it all wet and muddy. The soldiers complained about their wet suits. Hierd hadn't brought rainwear for the soldiers, but they will make do with what they have. The soldiers awaited patiently for them to attack. Readying their machine guns, and the Pak40 was already raring to fire.
"Lord." Heduc walked slowly to him, scutting over for the passing soldiers. "They aren't advancing. Should we shoot first?"
"N-no." He peeked over the edge. "We should wait. The knights'll try to circle the field and flank us. And if things go into mind, they should take into account that there are soldiers inside the forest, but she'll handle it."
"She?" Heduc questioned.
Hierd smirked. "Jeane."
---
The soldiers inside the forest were eyeing up the distance. The knights were, Indubitably moving into the forest. An old wiry looking second lieutenant, with his platoon of soldiers, observed from afar the moving formation of knights. "Sir." Whispered one of the soldiers. "What will we do?"
He looked to the soldier. "We wait, observe. But we should inform it first to Ma'am Jeane."
"Yes, sir."
Major Jeane and Gelmund were in charge of the line of soldiers and, borrowing from the trench rulebook that was dug out at the northern gate; they instructed for the second lieutenants to arrange their troops to hide in little carved out ditches, making smaller trenches that are just low enough to hide a fully proned soldier.
The old second lieutenant and some soldiers from his platoon ran, albeit slowly. Towards a larger platoon of soldiers that was located further west the point of discovery. It wasn't his platoon, it was Jeane's. They gave quite a scare to the soldiers as they just peered from the vegetation out of nowhere, but after seeing their uniforms, they calmed. Jeane was a makeshift tent of sorts, not as drenched as the other soldiers. He walked to her and bowed when she noticed his coming. She was sitting on the dirt, caring not for the mud that drenched her.
"Ma'am." He said with a stern expression.
"Yes, lieutenant?" She looked at his face, his eyes.
"The knights are moving in through the eastern path." He said. "Numerous, and there were mages."
She sighed before standing up.
"Second lieutenant, Pierce!" She shouted to Pierce that was sitting inside the tent. "Stay here, in this formation, whilst second lieutenant Joel assists me!"
"Yes, ma'am!" Yelled the lieutenant as he stood up and bowed.
She, after hearing the acknolwedgement, gestured for the old lieutenant, second lieutenant Joel, to go. It was quite some ways off from that platoon of Jeane's. After a long trek of walking in the raining forest. Joel finally found his platoon again. They had actually moved some ways off from their original position since the knights have moved further in. The soldiers, upon seeing the four stood up and bowed. "Ma'am!" They yelled.
"Ease." She gestured, swinging her hand up then down then up.
"Report." Joel said to a soldier, a seargent who had came to him first.
"The knights have moved in further and we were forced to relocate to a safer location. Other than that, sir, nothing else to report."
"Thank you, seargent."
Jeane walked off a bit to the side, where one could see the knights bunching up. "What are they doing?" She eyed the knights cautiously walking inch by inch deeper into the forest.
They were in a circular formation, a ring wherein there was an inner ring of knights with magical staffs. And then inside that inner ring was inner-inner ring of five archers. The second lieutenant shared his concerns over the formation. It cannot be pounced upon by a frontal attack, the outer knights with swords and spears'd deter it. The mages would as well. And God knows what the mages could do. And if the archers were trained enough, even shooting from far away would be a danger.
"The lord would disagree." She said, smiling. "We have guns, they have spears and bows. Lets not worry about the bows. There are only three bowsmen. We have platoons of soldiers who are trained to shoot guns that are automatic." She eyed up a mound that was located up some cliff-face. "Have your soldiers up that mound over there." -She pointed- "And shoot once they reach close enough."
"Yes, ma'am." The second lieutenant went his way to his soldiers whomst were hiding inside their small trenches. Jeane looked over and saw the soldiers getting up from their proned position and making their way fast, yet hidden, towards that mound upwards. The knights were, as then as that now, were slow.
The soldiers were situated atop the mound, and eyeing up the knights at the bottom. Using the M1 Garand, they sighted in, of the fifty soldiers inside the platoon, they all pointed their barrels towards their picked and chosen.
The frontmost knight cracked a twig.
A worthy signal!
A round of bullets hailed from the heavens! The soldiers unloaded their rounds into the knights, they, screaming in pain as the bullets pierced their bodies like mush. Blood splattered every which way, a horrifying scene.
The formation was immidiately broken up. Already half had perished. The other half were just readying up their attacks. Seeing the mage charge up a spell, the soldiers aimed at them and shot mercilessly. Not even giving them any chance of retaliation.
The bowmen never stood a chance.
"Good one!" Jeane yelled from below. She made her way to the fallen knights. "I remember the princess said something about these poor guys. That they're students or something like that." One knight who's head was not obliterated by a headshot was still groaning, the raspy breathing was loud in the silence, the silence of a finished battle.
"Y-you! Woman! H-how dare you!" He yelled profanities at her. "You bitch! Help me! Or else you're commiting a warcrime!" Even under that white helmet of his, Jeane saw the bulging eyes of a man that should be forgotten. Anger, fear, desperation. Those emotions conveyed themselves as the knight screamed profanties at her.
"Nevermind, I don't mind if they're students or not. This guy proved it to me." She unbuckled off her luger and aimed at his head.
He gasped, stopping completely his breath. "N-no! What are you doing with that!? Please! D-"
The bullet clanged inside the helmet. And a river of blood oozed out of the small slit eyes holes.
Jeane stood their with a blank face.
The second lieutenant, Joel, ran to her. "Ma'am. Are you alright? We heard something."
"Yes, I am alright, Second Lieutenant." She turned to him, whoms't was eyeing up the knight she shot.
"What are we to do?" He questioned to her.
"Search the bodies. I am sure lord Hierd might want to know how they work, the armor and wands." She eyed up the fallen knights. "The mages for ma'am Jamie."
"Yes, ma'am." He bowed.
*BOOM!
It came from the distant east. The northern gate! That sound, it could not be mistaken, it was the Pak40's shrill, it's deafening noise. The soldiers were all seen, cowered to their feet. Their hands on their guns, and their eyes set forward, anticipating an attack of sorts. Jeane however stood defiant to the noise. "It's begun."
---
The Pak40s were being fired, their thunderous shocks to the ground shuddered the knights and soldiers. With that, the machine gun fire was blasting straight through the lines of knights as if they were nothing. However, a second after, the mages have erected blue barriers of pure magic.
"What the shit!? Magic barriers!? I thought these shits didn't have developed fucking magic."
And not even a moment later, the Pak40 rounds rained down and fell on their heads. The earth shattering blast that followed suit afterwards was immense. The battalion was scattering. And the numbers plummeting. The king knew he had to fight back, or else Hierd was going to supersede the already failing attack of the mage battalion.
Although struggling, the bowmen got together and, aiming high to the sky, shot out a thousand arrows.
Hierd looked up, the grey of the sky masked the falling arrows. Yet, though faint. The sound of falling arrows dawned upon him, masking in the thunderous rain. Yet like a panther's black color in a green forest, it could not be totally hidden.
"Everyone!" He yelled out loud. "Arrows! Hide!"
Hearts beated, and yelling ensued. As the order travelled further inline the trench, the soldiers ran fast towards the shielded parts, but, the crowdedness of it all, was a disaster. The arrows soon fell down. And to the soldier's exposed backs, they cried out a yell of pain. "Get the apothecary!" They soon yelled out.
"Yes sir!"
But they shouldn't dally. After a couple seconds, the soldiers ran out of their encampments and began blindly shooting toward the plain. "Their infantry's moving!" Hierd blurted out. "They'll not get far with the mines placed, but we need to conserve the mines anyway."
"Shoot at them!" Heduc shouted.
The line of fire regained it's heart and a wall of bullets pounded upon the moving infantry men. The knights were forced to push back, however, to the those who were already on the ground; with their pounding hearts and the rushing adrenaline. They grabbed ahold of their wands and began casting.
Fast balls of fire and gunshot-speed water balls shot out and toward they went to the trenches. Some were hit and burnt. Leaving brutal injuries. "Get them inside and treat!" Yelled the soldiers. But the firing was not detered and continued, brutally killing the charging infantrymen. But by God, they did not want to let down. Continuing another line of arrowfire, which was too swiftly avoided by Hierd's quick noticing of. The krimvald infantry began to charge once more. This time, they casted magical spells and barriers.
The bullets couldn't pierce the barriers and, although some fireballs were shot down, the others that didn't, fell and burnt the duckboards. The rain had no affect over the brilliancy of that ball of hellish fire. The horses were getting nearer, step by step they grew excited; their spears ready to charge forward.
*BOOM!
The mines! They exploded as the horse's hooves stepped on the triggers. The blast spelt death to the king. The battlefield never seemed so one-sided before. And they were with the mage battalion, the best of the best in the kingdom of Krimvald! Yet they're clearly failing! "My liege, what will we do!?"
"Continue the barrage of arrows, they are hindered when we fire them. But those large cannons disrupt the line of arrowmen. We need to focus on taking them down."
"But how, my liege?!"
"We must hold on until our ships have come." He looked to the storm, the grey horizon and raging sea. "They shall bombard the shore, hopefully it shall scare them."
---
"They's a rough out there!" Captain jack gleefully commented, looking out from the bridge window. "The knight's be losing though."
They were ordered by Hierd not to fire the shore and keep on the lookout for any advancing ships. The k-3s danced in the towering waves, the seawater getting in the bow's deck. The sailors were hard awake, trying to balance themselves in the rocky waves. They were getting flung about and all. But Jack stayed still and steady. Adelheid's ship followed closely behind Jack's. And were at cruising speed.
A silhouete appeared from the distant horizon. Captain Jack noticed it almost immidiately. "Aye, fellow!" He looked behind him, to a sailor. "Signal yee' sir Adelheid wid dee' lights. There's ah big fish in dee wa'ers."
"Yes, sir!"
The sailor, and some others went with him. Exiting the bridge and making their way to the light fixture posted on the deck. Aimed at the ship behind, they flashed some code by blinking the light on and off. Two blinks on, and one blink off. Adelheid's eyes flashed. "There's an enemy!" The sailors in the bridge were nervous. The seas have called for ash.
A galleon! "By God!" Jack exclaimed, looking at the ship intently, then, like a flash of some distant memory. "It's the Crossier!"
Elegant white sails battled the the swirling might of the winds. The rain that drenched her board wet of any dry surface. Red was her hull, and she, like her sailors, were thirsting for blood. With her thirty heavy cannons, she was ready for battle. The wind made it hard for her to move. And so unlike, the K-3s were undetered by the wind's updraft. "I want those guns ready for shooting!" Adelheid yelled to the sailors behind him.
"Yes, sir!"
Adelheid set his eyes, calm he was. He ran the steer to the left, circumnavigating Jack's ship. Two ships faced off the heavy galleon. The k-3s were noticably longer and were iron hulled unlike the Crossier. But that didn't deter the slow moving menace of a wooden tyrant.
A plan was carved in both the captain's heads. Those cannons shoots a quarter the distance that the K-3's turrets shoots. "We shoot from afar." The two said. The K-3's turrets were twin barreled. And had a raging amount of armaments aboard, plenty to shoot down one ship.
The sailors toughed it out in the raging waters, getting the guns to function were the least of their worries. They held on to the railings while supplying the needs of Adelheid and Jack. The guns meant for anti-air were repurposed for the sea, and with the two twin turrets aboard, the anti-air guns on either side of the ship, the Crossier would sink in a matter of seconds. "The mages, sir." Questioned one of the sailors.
"Dee' mages'd purse us a problem yes, yes." He stroke his beard. "But I belay that thought, dey's a nothing to us, to me crew, to Hierd's army!" He laughed maniacally, sailing forward now at full speed.
Everyone was drenched in the sea's acursed salty waters. Their uniforms turned grey as water seeped into their white sailor outfits, the fabric getting stuck to their skin like glue to glass. They were getting closer and closer, tensions were afloat in the deck.
-15°- The barrel turned to the hurling chunk of wood.
-25°- The ship encrouches.
-30°- Hearts trembled.
-45°- Breaths were held.
-65°- The Crossier's crew, they could see them!
"FIRE!"
A thunderous clap! Eight shells blasted out of their barrels and held barreling straight into the wooden hull. After a second, another eight rounds were pumped out!
The Crossier panicked, her boarded men ran to their cannons. The ships, encircling from side to side, they, those three ships, were parralel to each other. Shooting from her sides, the galleon roared out all thirty of it's cannons!
The irons hulls were hit, and some were even lucky enough to hit the deck! Yet the K-3s? They were merely scratched, scaved by rocks when they two themselves wear admantite armor. Ever from afar, even if the waters raged and the sky cried. Jack could hear the men aboard that ship cry in uproar. 'How could it not damage it!' Jack imagined. 'Why has it yet to sink!?' Jack laughed out loud.
"Jump me men to your guns!" He dramatically said. "And let we end dis'er skirmish!"
"Yes sir!"
Turning, turning, the guns aimed at the ship. A drop of sweat, or was it? The sailors didn't know. They knew, however, that they were nervous. Galleons are the most feared of warships in the wide sea. No navy dares fight a galleon without having a hundred sloops fight it, maybe even three galleons if ever that navy had galleons.
They pulled their triggers.
A blast of heavy fire, the likes of which were so deafening one would try to shut their ears with the power of just their ear muscle's will power. The bullets pierced and killed. Wood shattered and blood spilt into the sea as it seeps into tiny cracks and escapes. Adelheid's turrets had targetted the ship's rudder. It couldn't turn now. The screams were rampant aboard. But not without atleast some defiance. There was another round of cannon fire. This time, as the ship sunk a little to it's starboard, it had hit Jack's deck. The wood flooring cracked and splintered as the cannon balls landed.
One hit the bridge window! Jack was stunned, but he left it only to laughter. "Yee' black balls can't penetrate my white a-"
The two sloops let out yet another deafening salvo. The maiden of war, the galleon that was once mightly fierce. The galleon feared upon by men and women, child alike. The Crossier put up an effortless fight. The masts were destroyed and the sails flailed as they had but rope to keep theirselves in the air. Yet, as the ships kept shooting, and the wooden wizzed out from their places. Leaving holes in it's stead. The ship's bow began to sink down into the depths. The gush of ocean water, the cold of the deep blue. The Crossier's crew were screaming out profanities and prayers, yet had no one for those to be recieved to but only themselves. The men and the ship. Gone. Sunken to the deep. The vortex of water, those hellish waves. The seas have taken it mercilessly. And as if like a fleeting dream, it's demeaning presence was over.
The sailors aboard the two ships were gleeful, shouting out their victory for the seas to hear. "The Crossier drowns to the bottom of the depths." Adelheid comments as he himself strayed his hands away from the steer and stepped out of the bridge to the cold of the outside.
"Sir?" The sailor walked to him in confusion.
Adelheid turned to look at the sailor. "Inform Captain Jack that I wish to travel beside the shore up to bombard the following battalions."
"Y-yes sir."
( * )
The king's heart drops. The battle stopped to look at the naval war, that deafening salvo heard even from that far away. It was heartbreaking for Krimvald's forces. It was so one way that they cried themselves away from the battle and towards the main formation. Retreating from their own wills, but even still, they did not want to leave the formation of soldiers. In fear of he, the king, staring from horseback.
"Your grace, what will we do?"
The king looked at the knight, even from behind his helmet, he could see his big bulging eyes, eyes that were afraid, distraught. "Retreat." He said with thorns and daggers coming out of his face. Immidiately, the word went around of the king's defeated sigh. 'Retreat' was repeated in the big box formation. The knights carrying the word to their comrades.
Hierd saw from afar the knights running for their lives. The king, from on top his horse, was visibly defeated. They turned around. The soldiers, stopped their fire. "W-we." They gasped. "We won!" And as the soldiers looked at the horizon, where there once was a battalion of fearful mage knights, there was no only the carnage brought upon by artillery fire and mines. The words; 'We Won!' And; 'Glory to the lord!' Spread around like wild fire in the muddy trenches and drenched men.
Jeane's battery of troops leaped from the trees and out into the open as they saw the battalion retreat. Gelmund's troops also. They flailed their guns to the air without care, and as they were victorious, certainly they should celebrate.
"A quick battle, that one." Hierd said to Heduc.
"Yes, lord. Indeed that it was." Heduc said with a smile on his face.
"Lord! Lord!" A yell came from the distance calling for Hierd. He looked around the trench to see where that voice came from. But after the voice called again for the lord, he finally saw the soldier calling to him from atop the trench.
"Y-yes!?" Hierd called back to the man.
"Lord!" His voice trembled this time. "Captain Jack, and sir Adelheid have told us that they will be advancing forward!"
"What!?"
Heduc looked at Hierd, who was aweshook by the news received. "Lord?"
"We need to advance as well."
"Are you certain? We could just call back the two."
"No, no, they have the right mind. Let us end this quickly. And advance-"
Hierd looked at Heduc. "Towards the capital."