Fred and Mendes appeared south of the enemy with their troops.

“It looks like they weren’t prepared for us,” Mendes pointed out,

“I don’t get it, half their commanders are competent, but the other half are so crap they counteract the competent commanders,” Fred complained.

“Yeah… are we going to allow them to form up, or are we engaging now?” Mendes asked.

“We are engaging, Artillery Captain, Deploy the cannons” they were currently on a hill facing the enemy, “the rest forward march,” Fred commanded.

They set up the 3 Halberdier companies in the middle to form a battleline, 30 wide by 5 deep, and deployed the two musketeer companies to the sides, with the Cavalry to the left flank with Fred and Mendes, the enemy leader was the same side as Fred’s cavalry.

“So, what’s the plan?” Mendes asked.

“We will get into Musket range and hold our ground, when they come closer, we can open up with the crossbowmen and then pull back the muskets and have them swing round to the outer perimeters allowing them to get a crossfire on their front lines as they fight the Halberdiers,” Fred explained.

“What about us?” Mendes asked again,

“When they charge, we will beeline for their commander,” Fred answered.

“They are medium and light cavalry, we won’t be able to catch them,” Mendes argued,

“That’s fine, that is what we want,” Fred claimed

They just got into musket range when the cannons started firing, with cannonballs whizzing overhead straight into the enemy as they rushed to form up.

With the added losses they were suffering from the Muskets as well, the enemy was in a strained position, they had lost 10% of their army with no recourse in the first 20 minutes of the battle, at this Fred heard a horn, which seemed to signal a charging order as the enemy just started rushing at the front lines of Fred’s army.

As they got into range of the Crossbowmen, the crossbowmen opened up, felling more men, and forcing the enemy troops into a sudden stop, the second rank of crossbowmen opened up at this, and the enemy started to panic, until they heard the horn to charge again, and continued forwards.

This pause brought enough time for the cannons to switch to grapeshot, causing streaks of mangled corpses through the enemy ranks.

While the enemy was charging Fred’s front line, Fred and the cavalry were charging the enemy cavalry, seeing this, the enemy commander ran away, fleeing around the rear of his troops, this was what Fred was waiting for, he saw the enemy clash into the Halberdiers, and the melee fighting becoming more apparent,

“Heavy Cavalry platoon, split off and charge into the rear troops of the enemy,” Fred commanded, this was at the rear of the first battle line, he then ordered the second heavy cavalry platoon to charge the rear at the second battle line,

At this, the enemy commander saw what was happening and ordered his cavalry to turn around to engage the platoon of knights, Fred didn’t care about this and ordered the knights into the last section of the battle line.

At this, the right flank musketeers had repositioned and opened up a salvo at the enemy cavalry as they tried turning, as they were turning in on the side they were getting shot at, this caused chaos as they tried to navigate around the falling horses. From this the cannons started opening upon them, they were the only real target for the cannons, all the other troops were too close to friendlies.

Fred and the knights slammed into the rear of the enemy, many of whom were medium or light infantry and fell quite easily, Fred was in the thick of it now.

He dropped his lance and drew his sabre, it was an odd choice for a knight in this world, usually, they would sport a bastard sword, but Fred felt the sabre style was better for horseback. After all, many horse riders throughout history donned the sabre, for its ability to slice through the enemy as they swept by.

A lot of the enemy men around him were late teens early twenties, and he could feel his Astartes body kicking in now, he was able to outpower a lot of them with his swings, and he was much much faster with his attacks,

Fred started to see the panic sink into his enemies, and some started to run away, which encouraged more to follow, Fred looked around and noticed the enemy cavalry were already fleeing towards Ludnus, “The Enemy General Flees from battle!” Fred shouted out, this caused a rout in the enemy,

Fred’s cavalry gave chase mowing down stragglers, at the end of the battle, just under 400 enemy soldiers survived, with only the remains of the enemy cavalry managing to flee, in stark contrast, Fred had only suffered just under 100 casualties.

“These cannons and muskets sure make battles easier, as well as our investment into better armour,” Mendes commented.

“Yep, it sure gives us an advantage,” Fred responded.

“But don’t get too conceited, our battles aren’t going unnoticed,” Mendes commented, they were facing two groups of scouts in the south, these weren’t normal military scouts, and if they had to make a guess, they were from third parties, gathering feedback. “It won’t be long until others start taking these weapons seriously, and at that time, they will start copying us.”

“Relax, we just have to stay ahead of the game,” Fred chuckled. They had spotted these people all over Albion during the war,

“I am glad you are so confident because I am not.” Mendes grumpily replied.

“Once this war is over, I am going into new streams of development, I have plans for something big, but it will make us more visible.”

“This is what I don’t like about you, always drawing attention with your weird inventions.” Mendes sighed.

“In my world, we didn’t have mana,” Fred told him.

“I know, you’ve said,” Mendes answered.

“But we still had magic,” Fred told him.

“Magic? without mana? How?”

“It has many names, sleight of hand, party tricks, all sorts, but the main principle was the same, distraction,”

“Distraction is magic,” Mendes asked questioningly.

“You give your audience something to look at in your right hand, so they don’t see what you do with your left hand.”

“So, what are you doing with your left hand now?” Mendes asked,

“You’ll have to wait and see.” Fred chuckled. “Right, we will rest for the night and then march south, scouts, one of you send word to Daniel to take Gulledge, then the other sent word to Jacques to meet at the outskirts of Brillante, tomorrow.

___

The next morning, they marched down to Brillante, when they were a few miles away they could hear the sound of cannon fire. Fred sent a scout off to see where Jacques was.

The scout informed him that Jacques was close, and they could hear the cannon fire,

“Scout, Tell Jacques to encroach onto the battlefield from the East, so we can block off both sides, Daniel is attacking Gulledge, and that would be the enemy’s only escape route,” Fred ordered.

“Yes, sire.” The scout confirmed and then rode off.

“This is it then, this should be our last battle,” Mendes said, they had been at this for two years, comes the harvest next month.

“Well, let’s see, we may be continuing this war when the king returns.”

At this, two scouts came from up north,

“Sire, a message from the north,” one scout spoke,

Fred noticed the other was wearing the insignia of Derek,

“Go ahead.”

The one with Derek’s insignia spoke, “The colonies in the north have been harassing our borders, they are claiming we are illegally working their lands, but the maps clearly state they are our lands. Derek has moved most of his troops to the border, and are squaring off with the enemy troops, he is awaiting your orders.”

“I see,” Fred turned to his scout

“Sir, we have had reports from all three towns closest to the border, all the way down to Louttonne, even Vachegue has seen raiders from across the river.” His scout reported.

Mendes and Fred looked at each other, “Do you reckon they have gotten wind of the return of the king?” Fred asked.

“We haven’t got word from the mainland about Burgundy/savoy’s actions yet, but it’s possible, Normandy’s independence was on the table, but Aquitaine has kept a low profile about their actions. This could be seen as a supporter of the king.” Mendes answered.

Fred returned to face Derek’s scout, “Tell Derek to oversee the construction of 5 wooden forts across the border, we will start shipping up better construction material soon.”

“Understood sire” the scouts saluted and left.

“Is this a test for Derek?” Mendes asked.

“Yes.” Fred acknowledged, “Right troops! Prepare for battle,” they were just under the hill, once they go over it, they will be entering the battlefield.

He received a scout report that Jacques was entering the east with 500 men, “We are going in, move it!” Fred ordered,

They rode over the hill to see the battle below, the town was about 1 mile away from the hill, Fred looked over to the east to see the flags of Jacques. The enemy had already started drawing battlelines to face Jacques, and now Fred was coming over the other side. Fred’s troops marched forwards towards the enemy.

The cannons found a hill off to the side, about 700 meters away from the enemy, they were guarded by a platoon of Halberdiers, the rest of its company merged with the other two to bring them up to fighting capacity.

They set up the same battle line, with the cavalry on the right flank, the opposite side to the cannons. The enemy was under heavy bombardment from the town, and Jacques’ 8 cannons were starting to fire too,

With Fred’s becoming operational, and the musket’s getting into range, they had the enemy pincered on all three sides. The enemy had split in half, to face each side, while this meant, Fred’s side outnumbered his opponent, Jacques side didn’t.

As the enemy charged each side, they were pierced by bolts when they got into range of the crossbowmen, but unlike Fred’s last battle, this didn’t deter the enemy and they carried on.

Fred drove his cavalry towards the enemy cavalry, the only problem was that there were still 80 Noble guards and 30 wizards, so Fred had to kite them for a bit, he ordered his signaller to send orders to all three cannon positions to fire on the enemy cavalry.

He sent a signal to his right flank musketeers to disengage from the infantry fight and try to hunt down the wizards. This put more pressure on his Halberdiers, but he needed to deal with the cavalry to strike a decisive blow.

They fought for an hour before the wizards finally fell or fled. This seriously reduced the Noble guard’s defensiveness, and with the constant bombardments from the cannons, they were slowly whittled down too.

With this, Fred finally decided to charge the enemy cavalry, the heavier horses for the knights and Heavy cavalry crushed the lighter breeds used by the medium and light cavalry, but the Noble guards managed to deal with the brunt of the impact.

The Noble guards were skilled in their crafts, but Fred’s cavalry managed to push 3 soldiers onto each noble guard. Fred, Mendes, and a heavy cavalier were fighting against the commander.

Fred hadn’t been practising much with his Esper ability but decided to try and push with it, his enemy was a lot older, and a lot stronger than he is now. Fred was able to create an electromagnetic field around him, to push iron away, it wasn’t that effective but managed to close the gap, only it was slightly raising his armour too.

The commander kept trying to swing at Fred, but his cuts weren’t getting through the armour, Fred then fed currents through his sabre, causing it to heat up, every time he swung the sword at the commander’s armour, bolts started to fly off, straight at the armour.

The enchantments were protecting the commander, but Fred noticed that the lightning bolts were corroding the enchantments, so he kept swinging, causing more to erode, and now, Fred was leaving glowing marks across the armour, signs of it heating up, however, Fred’s sabre was losing its edge from the heat.

Fred signalled Mendes, and they both jumped at the commander, causing all three to fall off their horses.

When Fred got to his feet, he was thrown a bastard sword.

This time, with two hands on the sword, he could control two elements more effectively, the first was lightning, creating a supercharged ionized coating around the blades, making it turn blue and heat up, as well as the metal element to keep the shape of the sword.

He charged at the commander, who had just orientated himself, and they began to duel, two heavy cavaliers circled them to keep others away, the commander had drawn his bastard sword for the fight, and it was an enchanted one, so when they clashed, sparks of Esper and mana power went everywhere.

Spark after spark went off, but the commander noticed his enchantments were eroding again as lightning bolts discharged from Fred’s sword onto his. He went in for two bashes and managed to open up a gap to swipe at Fred’s armour, but again, with the slowing down from the electromagnetic field, and the tough steel armour, he wasn’t getting his best strikes in, this pause allowed Fred to swing at his gut, causing a heated orange line along with his plate armour,

Fred was continuing to swing and swing, but he noticed his mana was draining rapidly, Mendes wasn’t keeping idle at this, he was coming in for swings at the commander, although he could tell that the commander was at a higher skill than him,

When the commander came in at Fred, Fred managed to force him to overcommit, sweeping past Fred, at this Fred grabbed the wrist of the commander, and kicked at the side of his knee joint, then Fred began supercharging his hand, causing the wrist to heat up, he then sent lightning bolts through the commander’s armour,

The commander was struggling, and finally managed to shrug Fred off, but Fred had achieved his aim, although he grabbed the left wrist, which wasn’t the knight’s dominant hand, he had melted the joints, removing all flexibility in it, as well as finally managing to destroy all of the enchantments on the armour,

He couldn’t get the lightning to travel to the commander’s body, but this was good for now,