“What might be easy or trivial for some could seem like insurmountable difficulties for others. Please at least try to place yourself in the position of others, as not everyone might be blessed as much by nature.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.
The fighting west of Kolitschei continued uneventfully for a week and a half, with the invaders content to make use of their numerical superiority to slowly grind down the defenders over time. Such slow progress was not unusual in battles of the time, as armies would often probe one another for weaknesses before they attempted to make a decisive move to secure victory.
What the invaders didn’t know was that the defenders were perfectly content to let the fighting devolve into a slow grind like that. Time was on their side, as even while they fought the remaining factions in Posuin had sent out people to either hire more mercenaries or otherwise negotiate with their neighbors for aid. Reinhardt knew that Knallzog had already replied in the positive and merely needed time to gather their forces for an expedition, so the passage of time was only beneficial to the defenders so long as they managed to hold on to the current lines.
Of course, it was not like the fighting caused no casualties. There were thousands of deaths from both sides, and many more injured, but most of the injured would return to the fighting after several days of rest. Due to the presence of healers in both army camps, people who returned alive would usually manage to recover quickly, unless their injuries were particularly severe.
Given the stable state of the fighting, severe injuries were still rare, as neither side pushed too hard as of yet, while those that died were mostly unlucky ones, people who caught a blow at a bad place and lost their lives before they could be brought back to a healer. The amount of deaths were still a negligible amount for both sides, given their great numbers to begin with.
Fortunately, while the Kolitschei army suffered a great loss to Algenverr just five or so years ago, they still maintained the majority of their vaunted archers. Those same archers now manned many of the trenches that dotted the hills, as they were the best ones in the coalition forces and thus made best use of the height advantage the hill offered.
On the other hand, the state of Kolitschei’s infantry forces was a pale shade of what they used to be five years ago. While the old Duke attempted to rebuild various units out of the survivors, including training a new batch of Warforged with the help of some old retirees, they were nowhere near as skilled or powerful as they used to be.
Even the new Warforged trainees were brought to the current battlefield, mostly people who had been recruited as teenagers and trained over the past years in the traditional tactics. There were other former Warforged amongst Nestor’s people, who actually went over and helped the less-skilled new batch in their training in the days before the battle.
Compared to Alvaro’s group, though, most of the Warforged – both those working under Nestor and those from Kolitschei – maintained their traditional tactics and equipment, which meant that they likely fought in the old ways. It was effective enough since they happened to be facing another human force this time, fortunately.
The shield walls and long pikes they used proved to be highly effective at keeping the invader infantry at bay, whereas the invaders couldn’t even fight back properly due to the difference in their weapons’ lengths. That said, the traditional weakness of the formation was still evident, and Reinhardt felt that his own Warforged – Alvaro’s platoon – would likely be able to easily take on an equal number of their brethren from either force.
After all, they were well-versed in both the traditional and new tactics and knew how to exploit the weaknesses of their own formations.
Reinhardt’s people did not see much action during the first ten days of battle. Other than the first attempt at infiltration, the enemies only tried to do such a move once more, this time sending some guides from the survivors of the first infiltration attempt to lead a force around three thousand strong to each forested side.
Once again, their movements were noticed the moment they made it. Apparently their enemies had yet to realize that they were being watched from directly above, and that their maneuvers were transparent to the defenders’ eyes. As such, all that their infiltration teams met were traps and more premeditated ambushes, and they left around half their numbers in the forests before they escaped.
With their greater familiarity of the terrain, Reinhardt’s company managed to do better and inflict more casualties compared to Nestor’s troops in the north, despite having fewer people to use. They killed or captured around three thousand of the invaders, many of which were felled or caught by the various traps they had set up, as they were far worse at avoiding them compared to the first batch of infiltrators.
The losses clearly infuriated their enemy’s commander – or commanders, nobody was completely certain as of yet – some, since the very next day, the invaders redoubled their efforts to break through the ramparts, even cracking the first layer of defenses on many places. It was the hardest fighting to date, with the heaviest casualties recorded so far.
At the same time, the more intense fighting also gave Reinhardt a few hints at where he could apply his troops for maximum effect, though he was uncertain and unwilling to commit as if yet. He called Lars over to ponder over the possibilities and ask for his opinion, and some of the other platoon leaders also gave out ideas, both safe and daring ones, for them to consider.
In the end, both Reinhardt and Lars chose one of the more daring plans, which was a rather risky one, but if it worked, would have great effects for the battles to come.
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