I made my way into the eastern tower where the whole fiasco had started for me. On the way, we had retrieved the dozen or so troopers of First Platoon that were still alive. The ground floor of the tower was filled with wounded men from a wide variety of squadrons. I shouted up the ramp, “Hrothgar!”

“Milord?” a voice echoed down the tower after I had repeated the shout a few times.

“Downstairs,” I ordered. After a few minutes, a wounded Hrothgar limped down the ramp. He had a wound in his left arm and leg as far as I could see.

“Damnit,” I grumbled. “Let me heal you. Alan, assemble all our troopers, the wounded as well. We’re heading back to the barracks.”

“Milord,” he quickly responded, while I put down Kiril’s badly burned body. I saw a familiar looking trooper dragging in the body of the elven stone mage, dropping him and the sword-staff unceremoniously. It took me a moment to realize it was Alrik, the trooper I had singled out to be the first junior squad leader. The rest of First Platoon fanned out and started separating our wounded from the rest.

I turned to Hrothgar and started healing him. I would need my commander, so I healed him fully. Afterwards, I went to my wounded troops and started healing them. Not fully, but enough to stabilize them and get them walking again.

Mana crystal after mana crystal was absorbed, as my wounded troopers from the other floors started drifting down. The troopers from the other squadrons begged for healing as well, but I ignored them. My men and women were more important.

Alan came down and said, “That’s the last of them. We’ve secured all our muskets.”

I nodded my thanks. My pouch of mana crystals was empty, my mana pool hovering at around fifty percent. Looking around there were no more critical injuries, so I decided to stop the healing. If I ran out of mana I would crash. I had emptied my mana pool a lot, which just once would make me tired. The only thing that kept me running was the constant use of healing magic to keep myself refreshed.

“Alrik, why did you bring that corpse?” I asked, my voice holding a bit of anger not directed at him.

“Milord, I was securing the spoils of war, lest one of those vultures out there claims what’s rightfully yours,” he said after snapping to attention, looking slightly frightened.

I gave it a little thought and reckoned he was right. “Why this one and not the others?”

“Begging your pardons, Milord, the others were soldiers, this one a mancer. Most likely a commander of sorts. All free mancers are wealthy as far as I know, so I thought it might be the same for the elves, Milord.”

I could not fault his reasoning. “Very well then Alrik, we’ll be taking the body with us.”

“Yes, Milord,” he replied and motioned for two troopers to gather it up, while he grabbed the sword-staff.

A lot of the troopers had lost their weapons in the fighting, and except for the muskets and my two rifles tucked away in the corner, we had not recovered all of the weapons. Turning to look over the number of troopers I had left was disheartening. Less than a hundred men were standing at the ground floor with me. I knew there were around two scores on the floor above as well. Meaning I had lost at least a hundred men during the fighting.

“Listen up, we’re moving to the barracks. We’ll be careful going there, those of you that don’t have weapons, loot them on the way. Friend or foe, doesn’t matter, they don’t need it, and we do. Commander, take point please,” I said loudly and bent down to pick up Kiril’s body.

There were still fighting at the gate so we steered toward the alley between Second and Third Battalion’s barracks. The air seemed cleared of harpies, and the few we could see were high-tailing it out of there. There were plenty of bodies to loot, and soon all my troops were carrying a blade. We even managed to scrounge up some extra muskets.

All of us got a bit of a shock when we came through the alley to the mountainside of the barracks. It was a bloodbath. I saw dryads and harpies intermingled with the bodies of troopers. I wondered how the hell all those non-winged elves got inside the walls.

“Milord, look,” Hrothgar said. Looking up I saw he pointed to the west wall. It lay totally open. It had not been smashed to pieces, no someone had made a giant opening in it, most likely the result of earth magic. He then pointed towards the east wall, and though it was far away, the hole in the wall was obvious.

We set a course east, towards our own barrack, but I could not help being worried about the sight that met me when I looked into the Third Battalion’s infirmary. There was a literal bloodbath in there, and if they had done that to one of the middle barracks, they would certainly have done it to the first one they came to from the east as well. The staircases were similarly filled with bodies. Faint sounds of fighting wafted down from deep inside.

The infirmary was nothing compared to the mountain of corpses that were in front and down the slope into the portal caverns. It was easy to see that the primary target had been the cavern. Almost out of sight at a bend, I could see a wary line of troopers standing ready.

“Is the fighting over?” one of them called up. It was a bit hard to see in the dim lighting, but it looked like one of the high commanders.

“They set off the lava trap, the fighting is dying down,” I called back. “Is the portal okay?”

“Yeah. Same for the priest and the mancers. We’re waiting for the go-ahead to begin repairing the walls,” was the shouted reply.

We continued on, the scene from Third Battalion’s barracks repeated itself with Fourth and Fifth’s barracks. When we came to our own, it looked the same. I handed off Kiril’s body to Alan. I realized I had not picked up my sabre again. Was also missing one of my hatchets. The dagger was still embedded in the skull of the stone mage. I armed myself with the other hatchet in my right hand, and the shortsword in the left.

I went first, with troopers carrying spears on either side of me. We had to step over a couple of bodies. I signalled for the rest to wait in the stairwell, while the first thirteen troopers followed me onto the first floor. There were a dozen or so corpses on the floor, mostly elves.

The next two floors were a repeat, just with more bodies. On the fourth, we ran into a group of troopers on the way down the other stairwell. They reported, “All clear, nothing living upstairs.”

Worry turned to fear, and I tore up the stairs to the top floor. After flinging open the door, I set off down the corridor. I barely registered that it was way too short, in time to stop from running into the wall that should not be there. I knocked the pommel of my sword against the stone, calling out, “Anybody there. It’s Karth, the barracks are clear.”

After repeating it twice more, I was starting to lose hope, when finally the wall vanished and I saw a tired Gudrun standing there. Dropping my weapons, I hugged her. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yes, Milord. We managed to get up the walls in both stairwells and a lot of other fortifications, before the fighting got bad because of Ethan’s warning. Said it would be needed,” she replied.

“Good job, you’re not opening the other stairwell, are you?” I asked with a huge smile. When she shook her head, I picked up my weapons and made my way back to our berthing area.

Stepping into the chamber, I loudly said, “We got wounded that need healing, I stabilized everyone. We need fresh water and something to eat.”

The girls immediately sprang into action as the troopers started filing in. I continued, “Hrothgar, gather everyone who isn’t in need of immediate medical attention. Leave a single squad here to guard, while the rest of us clear the floors one by one. Ethan, I need a word.”

“Milord, they said that the barracks was cleared,” one of the troopers pointed out.

“Quite right, quite right. However, I want to double-check that, I want to see how bad the losses are, and most importantly, there are a lot of dead elves downstairs. I think having a longer blade would be a step up from the shortsword,” I pointed out. “And some fucking shields.”

“You heard the Lord,” Hrothgar immediately said, and started barking orders.

I stepped over to Ethan. “How did you know that such extensive precautions would be needed?”

He looked at me warily. “The priest contacted me via magic, warned me that the walls had been breached.”

“Did you reply?”

“Yes, Milord.”

I sighed, and then called out, “Mina, please get over here.”

Ethan had not sent any hidden messages or cries for help, as far as I could tell after a few minutes of questioning. When we cleared floor by floor, I found Nerd dead. He had been slain, and so had four identical looking women and a dozen other skimpily clad women. Some of them had ridiculously large eyes, almost cartoonish looks.

Some of them looked familiar, and I realized they looked like actresses and other celebrities. It looked like Nerd had been trying to hide behind a couple of the quadruplets. I could only shake my head. I was certain the quadruplets were not real but had been made to look like whatever girl Nerd was fantasizing about. The same with the celebrities.

That meant there was a type of mancer out there that could change looks. That was mildly interesting. Even more interesting was the amount of wealth he had on him. Almost one hundred marks. And he had been a busy bee, it almost looked like he had set up a gun workshop. We packed down everything and moved it into our berth. To be safe I had the stone mages make hideyholes for all of it and cover it in stone again.

Next came securing the roof. There was a lot of damage to our crops, only a fifth of it could be saved. There were also a lot of dead elves, which we looted and threw over the side of the roof. For the heck of it, we created bridges to the next barracks and repeated our salvage operations there.

By the time we hit the roof, the fighting had died down from what I could see, and the mages were let out of the cavern. I could see stone mages repairing the walls, some wood mages repairing the gate, and I had healers walking into the infirmaries.

I had looked at the troopers still at the wall. I knew I should still be there manning my post with my troops, but the only thing I could think was, ‘Fuck’em!’

When we had finished looting, I had asked the survivors to form up by platoon, and I was now looking over them. It was a sobering sight. Not one I liked at all. Only four of the original senior squad leaders were still alive. 2nd, 7th, and 12th’s had survived the battle, while 6th’s had been holding down the barracks. That meant I had lost seven in the battle, nine so far since getting here. Eight and ten if you counted Kiril.

The platoons, except for 6th, had all been mauled, most of them were down to half strength or worse. 3rd and 13th were hit the worst, only having 5 and 4 troopers left respectively. Of the nearly 300 men that I had at the start of the battle, only 141 of them survived. 143 if you count the bodyguards I had with me as well.

It would be enough for five hold platoons and around half a squad. Which would be a bit awkward. Also putting someone in 7th Platoon without training would be daft. Also, we had barely recovered any crossbows, so it might be a good idea to just consolidate the two platoons and not refill the ranks.

I was thinking about what to do when I heard a loud argument outside the door. I had two bodyguards stationed outside each door. Angrily I walked over and opened the door. I could see my bodyguards blocking the hallway for High Commander Farnsworth and Ballard, as well as what looked like a platoon of troopers.

“What’s the meaning of this?” I roared, shocking all of them because they had not seen the door opening.

“I should be asking you about that. Why aren’t your men at your post?” Farnsworth barked.

“Because we’re healing our wounded,” I retorted. “We barely had two scores of troopers who were well enough to fight. We’ve lost more than half my men because you assholes waited to spring the lava trap.”

“I will not be spoken to like that,” Farnsworth fumed loudly. His face was completely red. I saw Ballard blanch at the numbers I presented them with.

“And I won’t let you needlessly endanger my men!”

Farnsworth pointed at me, “Arrest this man for dereliction of duty, get his men back in that tower.”

I did not even bother to draw a weapon, I just manifested a fireball in my hand. “I’ve already personally killed close to a hundred elves today, what’s two dozen human extra?”

The troopers behind the high commanders became a little nervous, and Ballard looked a little pale. Farnsworth somehow managed to become even redder in the face. “Threatening a commanding officer, it’ll be quite the gallows for you.”

“Really? Come and get me!” I was about to launch the fireball in his face when Ballard stepped in front of Farnsworth.

“Tempers are high, emotions raw. If you only have two scores capable fighters, you would not do much good,” he turned to Farnsworth. “High Commander, you heard the reports, he held the gate area for several spans with a ragtag force numbering less than a hundred.”

“He’s insubordinate!”

“As a Lord, he’s not actually under your command,” I heard Hrothgar say from behind me.

“But his men are,” Farnsworth hissed.

Ballard shook his head. “A Lord accompanying his men is always in command of his own men. Only the King or High Lord can command them differently.”

Farnsworth mulled that over for a moment. “His High Lord ordered him here.”

“But never wrote a letter, relinquishing command prerogatives to anyone,” Hrothgar pointed out. I had not been aware of those rules, I just did not give a fuck about those bastards any longer. Seeing that this might not need to end in violence, I stopped wasting precious mana on maintaining a fireball. My hand was also starting to get cooked a bit.

“Listen, we’re just trying to save as many of our men as possible,” I said, trying to sound less confrontational. They were still assholes that I wished to pay back for Kiril’s death. He had saved my life several times. “We’ll get back to helping out, but we lost most of our command structure. Let us have a few glasses to heal up and get our squadron squared away.”

Farnsworth grumbled a bit before complaining loudly again, “You should have asked for permission.”

“You weren’t there, and my men were dying in front of my eyes,” I lied. My men were mostly healed up already. “We never got the backup that we should have received. We’ve bled to hold those towers.”

Farnsworth was still shaking his head. I thought for a moment and started shrugging out of my jacket.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Showing you how many wounds I’ve personally sustained in this battle. How many did you sustain?” I said and threw my jacket at him. The white shirt under it was stained with sweat and had more red than white on it from all the blood. “Oh, and add another five wounds I sustained on my legs. I can throw you the pants if you want, but I should warn you, I don’t wear underwear.”

Ballard had caught the jacket and was counting the numerous stabs and slashes. There were many. He wiggled his finger through the stab at my heart. “How did you survive this?”

“Nearly didn’t, saved by a man that’s now dead,” I said, anger and regret warring for being the predominant emotion in my voice. I pulled an intricate-looking metal disc out from under my shirt. I was carrying it as a necklace. “I got an artefact that heals me. Listen we just want the time to regroup.”

That was, of course, a lie, which I had prepared in case people were starting to ask questions about how I was miraculously healed without seeing a healer.

Ballard looked at Farnsworth that was still looking obstinate. “He’s under my command. His request is reasonable, let this go.”

“This is not the end,” Farnsworth sneered and stalked away.

Ballard handed the jacket to one of my bodyguards. “Watch out for yourself, he’s not a man to be crossed. Be back at the tower in two glasses.”

“We will,” I replied, not bothering to put the jacket back on.

I made my way back into the chambers and looked over the troopers. Glancing at First Platoon, I saw that my springboard had survived after all. A bit of good news. In a clear and loud voice I laid out the plans for the rest of the day, “We’re going back on watch in a little while, but first we need to reorganize everything. We’ll start with First Platoon and Fifth Platoon, you’re now the new First Platoon, fill your ranks with the remnants of Third Platoon. Decide amongst you who should be the new senior squad leader, the two squad leaders, and four junior squad leaders.”

It would take some time, but I would have four almost full platoons, two understrength platoons and the support platoon when all was said and done. Unfortunately, the understrength ones were the musket and crossbow-wielding troops. Either it took too long to train, or we did not have enough weapons.

An hour and a half after we had gone back on duty, I had been called away to a commander’s meeting. As always I brought Hrothgar with me, and my bodyguards headed up by Alan, their new commander. When we got there, Ballard waved us over to the group around him. I saw Anders there who gave me a respectful nod for once. I think I managed to return it without letting any distaste show. He had been a bit unreliable during the battle.

I spotted Theo standing in the group for Fifth Battalion. It was good to see that he had survived. I had been a bit worried when I found out he had been assigned to the western tower, and the harpies had managed to take it.

I saw two new faces in our own group. Nerd and one of the other commanders were missing. The other commander probably suffered the same fate as Nerd, though probably in battle, not hiding behind a defenceless woman.

Ballard dragged each of us to the side and asked for casualties. I did not know the number of the other squadrons, but I knew mine. I had lost 127 in that battle alone, on top of the 57 I had lost during the first month. 128 when I included Kiril, but he had not been officially part of the squadron.

Farnsworth stopped in front of us and addressed the 84 commanders and high commanders. “It was a hard battle, the dwarves made a deal with the elves without breaking the treaty with us. It led to the castle being breached not just at the gate, but two other places. We took some heavy losses, no doubt about it, but we inflicted even more. Now, let’s hear the readiness of each battalion. Let’s start with Sixth.”

Ballard stepped forward and reported, “Casualties and the ready number has been tallied. Thirteen Squadron lost seventy-one troopers. Twelfth lost forty-five—”

All of them had lost fewer people than I had. The only one coming close was Anders at 93. The higher numbers did get a gasp or two from the other battalions. Especially when my casualties were mentioned. Even Farnsworth blanched. I think he had been too angry earlier to get what I was saying.

Fifth Battalion had also been pretty hard hit, with each squadron having between 52 and 98 lost troopers. Fourth and Third’s casualties were a bit lower, swinging between 41 and 73. While Second and First had numbers as low as 14 and at highest 36. It was clear who had been pressed the hardest hit, or maybe I just sucked at training my troopers.

“While the number of lost troopers are high, having lost around five thousand in a single battle, the damage we have done to the elven armies are far greater,” Farnsworth said, trying to sound rallying, but I just felt like throttling him. “Our estimate is that they lost close to four and a half thousand harpies and close to twenty-seven thousand ground troops. That’s a significant victory that will set them back for cycles to come.”

“How did we kill that many?” someone asked.

“The lava trap at the end killed almost twenty-two thousand troopers that were on the way up. The rest of them were elves you slaughtered.”

“While the number is impressive, we could have saved a lot of life if we had sprung that trap a lot sooner, Why wait so long?” I asked loudly, making Farnsworth look like he sucked a sour lemon for a moment. A few of the other commanders nodded or gave sounds of agreements.

“You’re right, Lord Karth, if our only purpose was holding this location, then it would be the right course, but it isn’t,” Farnsworth said, a little irritated. From the looks and sounds of it, I was not the only one surprised at that.

“What is the purpose then?” I asked with narrowed eyes.

“To give the elves an inviting target that is very hard, but not impossible to take,” he explained. “We could easily make an impenetrable bunker, and they would build similar fortifications and we would have an unbreakable stalemate. We still have a stalemate, but a vulnerable one. Vulnerable enough that they throw manpower and resources at us again and again. As long as we kill more elves than we lose troopers, we’ve done our jobs.

“If they leave us alone, we can teleport in a huge army that would sweep them away. We could still do that, but holding more territory behind enemy lines would become a problem. Our job is to tie up their manpower, to lessen the burden on the other fronts so we can slowly reclaim what is rightfully ours.”

He took a deep breath. “Yes, if we had used the lava trap earlier we would have saved a lot of troopers, but we would also not have killed so many elves. Now they need to move troops around. They don’t have portals. We might even see a raiding force coming through the portal, it depends on the situation at the front.”

“So we are bait?” Anders asked incredulously.

“Yes, and you’ve done a fine job. Granted the losses we incurred were higher than expected, but that's the reason why they send levies and not a lot of professional troopers here,” Farnsworth continued. “That the dwarves would risk angering us by making such a deal with the elves took us all by surprise.”

“What happened? I wouldn’t have lost so many men if the quick response force had actually been there to back us up,” Theo asked.

Ballard was the one to answer, “As best we can figure out is that the elves made a deal with the dwarves. The dwarves made tunnels that stopped right outside our walls, then while the walls were being swarmed by harpies, several elven lapomancers slipped up to the wall and made the openings you’ve all seen.”

Someone at the other end of where I stood, meaning someone from First or Second Battalion asked, “Don’t we have an agreement with the dwarves in place to prevent that?”

Farnsworth nodded. “Yes, we have. Or we thought we had. The agreement is that they’ll not allow the elves to dig into the castle. They dug outside the castle.”

“That’s bullshit!” someone shouted. Murmurs of agreement came from almost everyone.

“Yes, it’s bullshit, but we’ll just have to live with it,” Farnsworth said loudly. “Remember what happened to the city of Larken?”

The commanders immediately stopped complaining, several of them shuddering. I did not know what that reference meant.

Farnsworth looked a bit pleased with himself. “Good, now that we’ve order again, let’s go over how we move forward. We need to switch the shifts around a bit because Sixth and Fifth lost a lot more troopers than the rest of you.”

After that, it turned into a rather boring meeting. I paid some attention, but I knew that Hrothgar would remember everything. He was a stickler for details, and without his help, it would have been hard running the squadron.

Instead, I thought about what I should do for Kiril’s family. I would have to take care of them, anything less would be—I was not sure about the word, I had never felt the need to look out for other than myself. Selfish. Wrong. Dishonourable. The man had saved my life several times. He deserved to have his family looked after. All my troopers did.