Varre was terrified. The rows of knights and Royal Guards fighting in front of him were melting in the face of Charles’ onslaught. The rebels, having freshly recovered their banner, were capitalizing on this new momentum and pushed back hard, aiming to recover the loyalist flag.

  Jan wasn’t going to let this happen without a fight. He busied himself arranging the nearby infantry into a new wall of pikes and spears that could stop this tidal wave of enemies.

  Rather than race forward, propping up the rapidly collapsing line, the soldiers no longer replaced the men in front of them. That area was lost to chaos, while a second line was being quickly prepared. The footmen dug in. Some only mentally, but others literally pushed their shields into the ground and stood behind them, using them as makeshift cover. Their pikes could easily reach over and stab anyone trying to approach.

  The men defending the banner didn’t just stand idly by either. They retreated. Slowly and in an orderly fashion, but they repositioned themselves behind this new defensive line. At this meticulous pace, it didn’t seem like running, but a simple strategic choice.

  While commoner infantry couldn’t hope to match armored knights in a fair fight, when holding steady and supported by nearby allies, they could seriously slow down heavy cavalry. Their formation was denser and the rebels had no room to maneuver for another charge. With any luck, this line should be enough to sap any momentum the enemy may have gained after recovering their flag.

  Varre too repositioned behind the second layer of defenses, encouraging his men to fight harder.

  Captain Hakon, didn’t think it was far enough. “Your majesty, I insist. We need to get away.”

  “Absolutely not,” the king replied and cut the air with his armored glove, “we cannot turn this into a rout, Hakon!”

  “But…”

  “No buts! If I leave now, then the soldiers will consider the battle lost! We cannot allow that to happen. Not here, not this close to the capital! You know that!”

  In the corner of his eyes, Varre could see Jan watching this exchange and smiling approvingly. It wasn’t the count’s place to intervene in such affairs, but everyone knew that the monarch’s presence would be a serious boon to morale.

  The captain still remained unconvinced. At least until the king finally offered a concession. “Fine. I promise will not sacrifice my own life for this. If we lose the flag, I will fall back.”

  “Thank you, your majesty. That’s all I ask,” Hakon sighed, relieved.

  “Good. Now get back in there and defend!”

  The heralds blew into their trumpets, calling on all able bodied knights to concentrate on this position. Though the nobles were free to pick their own skirmishes and go to wherever they felt they could achieve the most, this was the critical point of the battle. If Charles managed to topple Varre’s flag here, the fight would be over.

  The mages too fled behind this second line of defense. They fired off spell after spell into the approaching sea of enemies, trying to thin them out. They aimed for rebel cavalry, shooting above everyone’s heads, but they struggled to concentrate in this chaotic, stressful situation. Many attacks ended up glancing off the enemy’s armor.

  “Damn it! I thought taking that flag was supposed to break them!” Perry yelled over the noise of combat.

  While normally the Royal Guards kept people at a distance, creating a protective cordon around their monarch, they were all busy now, fighting at the front lines and attempting to stop the enemy onslaught.

  Varre, unable to do anything to help directly, rode closer to the two twins. “How are you holding up on mana?”

  “Mana?!” Jury replied.

  The former earthling had forgotten the proper terminology in the chaos of battle. “Aura! I meant aura! Can you last longer?”

  “We’re doing our best!” Perry screamed back, “we’re giving it everything we’ve got! We’re way past the point of conserving our aura for later!”

  Varre’s gaze followed the next spell as if shot out of her hand. The ball of energy went over the heads of loyalists at the front and hit some rebel knight right in the head. Electricity swirled around his helmet, jerking his entire body, before the man fell off his mount.

  “If you promise to invite us to the victory ball, then we swear we’ll stop them!” Jury yelled, without even looking at the monarch, concentrating on her magic.

  The second twin seemed to focus on different attacks. Rather than shooting off projectiles, she held a real, physical short bow. Before launching each attack, she held up the arrow in her hand until it glowed with magical power. When finally unleashed, it cut through plate armor as if it wasn’t even there.

  “If you do that, you’ll be the guests of honor! Seated at the best table!” the king replied.

  “I’ll hold you to that!”

  The enchanted arrows were clearly powerful, but not lethal. The king saw one of the rebel knights who got hit straight through his shoulder, but kept on fighting. The girl simply wasn’t accurate enough to reliably hit vital targets at this range. The spells also took a lot out of her. She was breathing hard, visibly much tired than her sister.

  At least she brought enough arrows, Varre mused to himself. Her quiver was almost empty, but she carried several more attached to the side of her saddle. Jury either overprepared, or put too much aura into each one of her shots. Either way, he wasn’t going to lecture her. She was the expert here, not him.

  Fortunately, it looked like the combined efforts of mages were having an effect. Rebel knights were getting decimated. Every couple of seconds, someone received enough damage to either retreat, or fall off his horse, dead.

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  Slowly, the brutal onslaught appeared to slow down. Much of the loyalist cavalry that was left outside the second line of defense had retreated as well. Either to rest, or reposition. The front line got pushed all the way to the wall of pikes and the infantry were doing their job well.

  The biggest threat had been stopped. For the moment. Now, the loyalists just had to win.

  Noticing that the situation had stabilized, Jan finally left the front lines and joined his monarch’s side. “God damn those bastards!” he yelled.

  Despite his words, the count was clearly smiling. He was panting and out of breath, his armor was splattered with blood, and the metal around his left arm appeared to be dented a bit, but the commander came out alive.

  “You fought as well?” Varre asked him.

  “I had to. Things were… pretty desperate. But we beat them back! And this little maneuver… was very costly.” Jan said, while panting.

  “How costly?”

  Noticing the king’s concerned expression, the count shook his head. “For them, not us. We were getting pushed back. Giving up ground. They fought to the death. Stupid bastards! Didn’t even work!” he pulled his head back and laughed loudly.

  “Good job!” Varre slapped him gingerly on the back, not sure how to react, “but we still got a battle to win. What do we do now?”

  Jan immediately turned serious again. “I’ll try to get some guys and attack them from another angle. There!” he pointed off to the right, “twenty knights should do it. We’ll cut through the infantry and start pushing. We’ll threaten their flag again and maybe they’ll panic…”

  “What’s that?” the king interrupted, noticing some commotion in the distance.

  The count rubbed the sweat off his brow and strained his eyes. Then, he started chuckling. “Looks like Khoman will be saving our hides today!”

  When Charles prepared the initial plan for the battle, he arranged the troops by the river bank into the famed Miroti hedgehog. It was a good strategy. It occupied a lot of territory and allowed the cavalry to frequently sally out and harass anyone attempting to use the right flank.

  Or at least it would have had he stayed at the ramparts.

  The foreign formation was highly effective at defense. And it didn’t leave a lot of room to maneuver around it. But now that that the center of the rebel army had moved forward, it was left behind.

  The footmen arranged in a circular formation couldn’t easily advance. They were meant to protect stores of supplies and servants ready to take care of the knights as soon as they returned. The only offensive capabilities provided was the cavalry. And now that Charles had moved forward, the distance they had to travel back and forth greatly increased.

  Khoman used his own knights to stop the enemy charges. It wasn’t the most effective use of the armored warriors, but it allowed the loyalist infantry to keep going. They managed to circle around behind the rebel’s center and could now counterattack.

  While the duke focused all of his energy on the desperate counterattack to recover the banner, the back of his army was in serious danger. Perhaps Charles’ knights could have decimated Khoman by charging against the undefended footmen, but they all rushed to the middle of combat instead, throwing everything they had against Varre and his honor guard.

  It was a risky play. If they had succeeded, it might have caused a complete collapse of the loyalists.

  Luckily, it didn’t.

  Not only did their gamble fail, their forces were now surrounded from two different sides. Most of the elite cavalry was now stuck, concentrated around their leader. Many were injured and exhausted and there was no one left to guide the panicking peasants at the back. The commoners didn’t expect to have to face a new enemy and with no nobles around them, urging them forward and risking their lives alongside the commoners, many footmen chose to flee.

  With every second, more and more rebels noticed their compatriots running away and joined them, desperately fleeing towards the safety of the ramparts. Their army was melting.

  Charles noticed what had happened and attempted to send some of his knights towards the back, to try and recover the situation. Jan wouldn’t let him. While the duke was distracted, the count launched a counterattack of his own.

  All of the cavalry. The Royal Guards, the knights, even the squires and scouts. Everyone who had gathered here to defend the flag from falling to the enemy’s onslaught now threw themselves onwards. With the tide of battle turning yet again, Charles couldn’t be allowed any chances to try and recover the situation.

  Varre understood it just as well. Raising his own longsword high, he joined the mass of nobility pushing forward. Of course, with so many men in front of him, he would never get to the front, where the actual combat was happening, but the mere sight of their monarch bravely charging towards the enemy inspired the army.

  Even the peasants who locked themselves in place to stop the enemy’s counterattack started moving forward now. Step by step, they slowly advanced, pushing the Charles’ footmen back.

  The rebels didn’t resist. Though the peasants couldn’t see what was going on in other areas of the battlefield, not with thousands of men blocking their line of sight, they could see how their leaders were acting. The knights were panicking. Retreating, moving to other areas of the battlefield, and getting pushed back. If even the nobility couldn’t stop their enemy, then what hope did these drafted peasants have?

  The duke attempted a last stand around his banner. Yet again, he staked everything on this singular symbol. This time, he knew it was too late to flee. Together with his closest and most loyal vassals, they surrounded the flag and defended it with their lives. It was futile.

  The angry loyalists pushed hard against them and soon the duke’s entire entourage was laying on the field. Either dead or captured. Charles himself was disarmed fought to his last breath, unwilling to surrender no matter how many times the offer was made. He injured a few knights, but eventually succumbed to his injuries.

  Then, the banner fell again. And this time, there was no one around to recover it.

  This was the true end of the rebel army. With their flag captured and their leader either dead or imprisoned, everyone turned to flee. It was a complete rout. Men trampled over each other, desperately running towards the safety of the ramparts, no matter how pointless it was.

  Varre preferred to avoid casualties, even among the infantry. These peasants may be rebels today, but that’s only because their leader turned against the crown. Soon, they would come back to the fold and would work hard for their kingdom yet again. Unfortunately, many of his men didn’t share these views and he didn’t have the time to order everyone around.

  The light cavalry threw themselves forward, out for blood. They cut down anyone who refused to immediately surrender. The knights on the other hand, focused on capturing enemy nobles, hoping for a good ransom to bring home.

  With the center collapsing, the left flank fell shortly afterwards. Gregory hadn’t managed to capture the enemy leader, or their flag, but without Charles, victory was just a matter of time. Noticing their loss, many of the rebels surrendered immediately, before they got surrounded.

  No one tried to hold a second stand at the ramparts. A few rebels made it in time, but they didn’t have anywhere near enough manpower to make a difference. The light cavalry simply went around the fortifications, on the left side, and resumed the chase, ransacking through the enemy’s supply train.

  The Miroti hedgehog was the last remaining obstacle. The knights visited it briefly, only to quickly resupply and recover their servants before fleeing the field of battle. The infantry stood their ground. Unmoving, like they’ve been this entire time.

  As the last enemies were being driven from the battle, Jan was slowly bringing the troops back together, surrounding the rebels that appeared ready to give up their life for this hopeless cause. Fortunately, Varre intervened.

  Despite Hakon’s complains, he personally rode ahead of the formation and offered the hedgehog’s leader a guarantee. Everyone who surrendered, would be spared. After a short deliberation, the infantry lay down their arms and the fighting was officially over.

  The battle was won. Charles was dead. After months of turmoil, peace could finally return to Logres.

  The battle appeared to return to a stalemate, but there was one piece still at play, making its move.

  The duke refused to surrender until the very end, fighting to his last breath.

  I decided to try it this way, because I'm a little afraid that if I title the chapter accordingly, I will be explaining what happens in it and spoiling it. Now of course, I could use some more neutral terms to describe the events and keep it vague, but I wanted to get your opinions.