Chapter 3 - Surviving the Meatgrinder

Sweat and blood drips down my brow as I watch the enemy army approach rapidly. I can feel my heart beating loudly and my hands tremble as I clench my weapon. Every damned muscle in my body feels too sore to even pull my own weight, and I have the sensation that I'm about to overheat and suffocate due to the exhaustion.

The enemy is more organized, less tired, and has taken the initiative. Every second that passes, the possibility of our forces being wiped out and slaughtered by the incoming Sulostans seems more fucking likely. The criminal stupidity and negligence of our officers will cost us both the siege and our lives.

However, I must calm down and focus if I want to have a chance at surviving. I've been in countless battles, and I've managed to postpone my imminent death every time. What's one more?

I close my eyes and breathe in and out slowly to regain my composure. Calmness and cool-headedness are the greatest tools of survival and the trademark of experienced professionals.

"EVERYONE FALL IN FORMATION! PREPARE FOR CONTACT IN ONE MINUTE!" A officer yells.

In the distance, coming from the besieged town, a small army of Sultans yelling battle cries with their weapons out approaches.

Under the protection of the magic barriers created by our support mages, the mercenaries climb out of the trench yet again to be able to face the enemy better. The infantry begins forming shield walls and other defensive formations. Our archers, crossbowmen, spellcasters and mages get behind them and I scramble to do so too.

My robes are completely drenched in the fucking mud, and they slow me down, but I can't do anything about it.

The officers order the support mages to stop casting magic barriers to allow us to retaliate with our long range weapons.

"FIRE AT WILL!"

The surviving artillery mages and spellcasters start casting spells at the enemy as they get closer, as well as our archers and crossbowmen. The enemy responds with their own long range capabilities; bolts, arrows and spells alike rain down on us. While the shield wall protects us from most small projectiles such as bolts and arrows, high energy spells pierce both the shields and the soldiers as if they were made out of paper. More blood is spilled, some of it even splatters on my face, but I don't let it bother me.

Jason starts firing directly at the enemy as soon as he gets the opportunity. I snap out of it and follow his example. My staff's recoil mechanism is covered in mud too, so it splashes it all around when I fire. The soldiers in front of me get pissed off, righteously so.

"Be careful, for fucks sake!" An infantryman yells.

"Shut up! Want me to kill the damned Sulostans or not?!"

I cast another spell and a group of Sulostans further ahead explodes into a red mist, but I am only able to fire a couple more times before the enemy army arrives.

Deafening war cries are heard all around as the two opposing forces crash into each other. The entire affair is brought down to a crawl; victory will be decided by each soldier's ability to win in hand-to-hand combat.

Under the orders of our officers, the infantrymen tighten the shield wall and do their best to resist the ruthless attack of the Sulostans. Shields, swords and polearms clash loudly and violently while the enemy attempts to push us back into the trench. The soldiers at the front have it the hardest, as they have to resist kicks, punches, sword blows and spell castings from the enemy.

The constant rumbling of the armies, the clash of steel against steel and the yells of the soldiers makes for a truly deafening wall of sound that assaults my already faltered eardrums. Everything smells like sweat, blood and mud, and I see red everywhere. I can't think straight, the only thing that goes through my mind right now is just how tired I am, and of course killing and surviving.

The officers do their fucking job for once and manage to organize our men and put up a decent strategy to repel the attack. The infantry at the front stops the enemy on its tracks with the shield wall and harasses them with swords and polearms. Meanwhile, the archers, crossbowmen, spellcasters and mages in the back take turns to peek through openings in the formation to deal heavy damage to the enemy. It seems to be working, the Sulostans are taking heavy casualties. Thin puddles of blood form on the mud, although some of them come from fallen Stracian mercs.

I continue doing my job as best as I possibly can despite the exhaustion and the pain, firing from behind the shield wall at every opportunity. I score multiple kills. The enemy soldiers notice me and desperately try to kill me using their polearms and spells. Artillery mages are priority targets because of their lethality, but the soldiers at the front protect me and allow me to keep firing to turn more Sulostans into red paste.

The battle wages on. Hours pass and our forces are way too tired from the previously failed assault, so the Sulostans start to overwhelm and push us back.

A soldier at the front yells at me. "Hey, you! Artillery mage! Fire faster, we're in trouble here!"

I groan loudly. I'm fuckimg tired. Everyone seems to tell me to do exactly that, despite not understanding that even the most seasoned mages like me have limits. As proof of that, in that exact moment, I run out of magic power, essentially becoming as useless as an ordinary civilian. Casting so many spells has naturally pushed me near the breaking point and drained all my aether reserves, and I had already used all the batteries I had.

The soldiers are being quickly overwhelmed, I need to do something fast, or the shield wall will collapse, and we'll all be killed. Normally, it would take up to six hours for my aether reserves to replenish naturally, but everyone would be fucking dead by them. I need to find more aether batteries.

"I'm dry, I'll go replenish magic!" I yell at the soldiers before rushing back to the trench.

"HURRY UP FOR FUCKS SAKE!"

Once there, I scramble desperately to find the aether batteries we were given earlier when we first began bombarding the walls of the town, but I can't find them anywhere. Everything is a complete mess, there is mud, blood, debris and corpses everywhere.

I can hear the soldiers yell and cry out for help, they will be overrun soon if I don't manage to get back quickly enough.

As I rush through the trench looking for anything remotely resembling an aether battery, I stumble upon the corpse of one of the rookie artillery mages that arrived today, still gripping his staff. In my desperation, I search his pockets and pouches for batteries. I know very well that neither the gods nor the other mercs will smile upon me looting a corpse, but I don't care at all. I never have, that's one of the reasons I have survived so many battles.

Then, the Sulostans punch through the shield wall and our defensive effort seemingly collapses. Enemy soldiers flood through our flanks and the rearguard, our forces barely manage to face them. This is the worst possible scenario made reality.

The Sulostan soldiers that passed through the defensive lines jump into the trench to harass our rearguard. Two of them see me and sprint my way at full tilt intending to make me meet the business end of a halberd.

I search the corpse faster and find a solid object inside one of its pouches. An aether battery. I rip it out desperately and pull on it to absorb the aether units. Then, I quickly grab my staff and turn around to cast a spell. The head of one of the Sulostan soldiers explodes just an instant before he can impale me with his halberd. The other one is armed with a short sword, and he swings it down at me without hesitation. I roll and get up, barely managing to dodge it, but he continues attacking relentlessly. I can't defend myself in close quarters combat, so I throw my staff at him using all the strength left in my arms to stun him momentarily, and then I drop on the ground and grab the staff of the fallen rookie artillery mage. I fire and his head explodes too.

I fall on my knees. I'm exhausted, sore, and out of magic again. That battery was small and only allowed me to fire twice; my spells usually consume a lot of aether units. I look around. Everything is in complete chaos. The Sulostan soldiers are inflicting more casualties, and our army is increasingly weakened. It seems all is lost.

"EVERYONE TAKE COVER! RIGHT NOW!" An officer yells.

I see the other mercs abandoning whatever they're doing and throwing themselves inside the trench. The support mages cast magic barriers above us again too. I am initially confused, but I quickly realize what's going on after I see white flashes of light in the distance near our own camp. There's another squadron of friendly artillery mages, and they're firing directly on our position.

I dive in the mud and cover my head with my arms, praying that the gods won't decide it's time to finally make me pay me for all my transgressions.

About a second later, artillery spells come down on us. Being at the receiving end of artillery magic feels like divine intervention; the spells are so powerful they make the ground quake and your ears bleed.

Everything outside the magic barrier our support mages created is blown to bits and incinerated. At this point, I can't hear anything anymore. I've been temporarily deafened by the roars of the explosions. My head is spinning once more.

When the reckless bombardment is over, the Sulostan forces are crippled; their own support mages stayed in the town, and they had no way of protecting themselves from the artillery fire. I scoff. Only a complete psychopath that's utterly crazy in the head would ever order an artillery magic strike directly on top of friendly forces. However, even though thr strike killed many of our own men, it was fucking brilliant. The initial momentum the Sulostans had is gone and their forces are thrown into disarray. The tide is turned. Now, the Stracian mercs take the initiative and mop up what's left of the enemy. The encounter is over. I sigh and let myself drop face up in the mud from exhaustion. I've survived one more battle.

The Sulostans retreat into the town, but the mercs are too tired to chase them. In the end, nothing has changed and we return to the same status quo as before. The siege continues, the only difference being the thousands of men now lying dead on the bloody wasteland.

After the enemy retreats completely and the area is relatively secure, we begin our own retreat into the main camp as the sun sets. We drag our boots, exhausted, wounded, demoralized. I am soaked in mud, sweat and blood. Right now, the only thing I want is to clean myself and sleep. I have no energy left at all.

Then, Jason taps me on my shoulder as I walk back to my tent. It's kind of hard to understand him since at this point I haven't fully recovered from the hearing trauma and my eardrums are still ringing.

"Rose! You survived!"

I'm glad to see him, I lost track of him around the time the defensive line collapsed, and I was wondering if he was still alive. But he is a true professional just like me, so It's only expected.

"Yeah. You too, huh?"

"Barely. I might need to get stitches…"

I then notice he's bleeding.

"Right… Good luck." I speak. I don't really want to chat right now. I'm too tired.

He extends his hand out to me.

"I guess you owe me a couple bucks."

"Piss off. I never agreed with that in the first place."

I give him ten stracian credits that I happened to have in my pouch.

"Huh. You were never this easy to convince." He says.

"I'm just not in the mood for your crap right now. Do yourself a favor and treat Heather and me to a beer later."

"Haha! Sure!"

Jason's banter and his attempts at cheering me up are honestly kind of cringy, but I understand that this is his way of keeping up his own morale and lightening the mood, especially after that fiasco of a battle. I probably should learn from his optimism. We might all go crazy if we don't distract ourselves like he does from time to time.

If anything, its good having some like him as a friend. The life of a mercenary is often lonely.

"Well then, I'm off to the infirmiry. Heather should be there too, so I'll go see if she's okay while I'm at it. You should tell us how your meeting with the Overseer earlier today went on another occasion. Later, Thorne."

He goes away.

I completely forgot about the entire situation with the Operations Overseer and the document he asked.

I rush back to my tent without even bothering to clean up and grab a paper and a pencil.

After about an hour of thinking and pulling on my own hair, I managed to finish the document. I use today's attack as a benchmark to design a plan. We failed because we couldn't punch through the enemy's defensive magic, because our forces were uncoordinated and because the enemy anticipated our attack, so I built my plan around these issues.

I show up to the Overseer's tent just after sunset, still covered in mud and blood. I seem to put him off, but I can't really do anything about it. I had no time.

"Overseer, Sir. I came up with a plan." I say as I catch my breath.

"Oh, yeah?" He replies.

"Yes, but I'll need a stealth specialist."