Lord Joyde The Madman: Heylo, everybody! How are you all doing?

Happy new fa-I MEAN YEARS, everyone!

Been awhile since I last did this.

Even got my hands on an ancient game called Mount And Blade to get myself in tune with this chapter.

Story.

Whatever.

Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...

A few hours later... - The Battle in the forests Of Marrowdorf - Alice's Point Of View...

I looked over my troops with a prideful and appreciative gaze, with dawn close at hand, each soldier was making their final preparations for the grueling battle ahead.

"My lady, the enemy commander is approaching us now!" My marshal exclaimed with a rather happy look on his face. I wonder whats got him riled up?

Perhaps this enemy commander is a rival of the old man? Or maybe its just him being bloodthirsty. Either way, the man who approached me did not come alone... no, he had a masked boy my age at his side."Is this the Lady Pendragon?"

The man spoke with an arrogant tone. He stood at around one eighty tall and possessed a rather.. large, should we say, structure. Yet he was also decently muscled, had only one eye which was his right and several scars upon his body. What little of it was exposed, that is.

He appeared to be middle aged and wore a well-tested suit of mail armor combined with exquisite black leathers. He held a horned plate helmet in his right hand and a large sword-of-war type of claymore on his back."That I am. Question is: who are you?"

The enemy commander grinned and laughed with a sinister undertone."My name is Cassius Terrowin, Lord Mayor of Luxien. I am the first sworn vassal of Prince Ulfo The Fourth of Clausia and I am here to secure my liege his rightful fiefs!"

A quirked eyebrow was his answer."A Prince? Here? And you act in his stead?... wonderful."

Cassius rolled his eyes in annoyance."Enough! I'd rather not waste any more time on idle chatter with someones future baby maker. Bring me your commanders so that we may discuss the terms of your surrender!"

Someone's future baby maker?...

Reacting solely on my anger, I summoned my sword into my right hand and leaped into action, slashing sideways with all my might. The divine wraithblade cleanly severed all four legs of the mans white horse, causing it to slam down and crush the man beneath its weight."W-what?! You dare attack me here?! DISHONOR!" Terrowin screeched out in anger and dragged himself out from under the horse as the supposed prince remained watching on his, the mask concealing any form of otherwise visible emotion, yet I could feel the shock and surprise reeling off of him.

Terrowin dragged his claymore off the ground, seemingly unable to wield the blade properly. Maybe he bought it only recently or maybe he isn't really as strong as he seemed at first... either way, my silvery blade found itself placed very intimately close to the mans exposed neck. Once he noticed my blade, he rose his hands up and then placed them behind his head."Y-you, bitch!.. if you kill me here, the dishonor will haunt you for longer than even I would want it to!"

I pressed the blade upwards only slightly, yet it was enough to slice the mans skin somewhat as I turned towards the prince."Princeling, does this bafoon really fight for your cause? Is he truly just in his actions? Do you approve of the raping, the pillaging and the despoiling of my lands?"

The masked prince shrugged and responded arrogantly."I don't care in the slightest about what he does. I have eight thousand men gathered up and bearing my banner. A horde which you will not be able to defeat no matter what happens here... though, I will say that I like what I see so far, dear."

He rode off and away after saying something like that."W-what?! THAT BLOO-h-hey, I-" The man swallowed down hard as I pressed the blade somewhat more strongly to his neck."I-I can be of u-use to you. T-that brat, his betrayal.. I cant let it slide so easily! Surely, you can use me as one of your commanders!"

"Let me think..." I placed a finger on my chin in thought."How about.. No." And with that, I beheaded the man and unwillingly splattered myself with his blood."Ew.."

"Hah! There'll be plently more from where that came from but, milady.. that prince... you are engaged?" Peter questioned me with a glance of confusion and I let out a massive sigh."Not by choice, but while I did know that I was to be wed to a prince, I didn't know which one."

I sighed and shook my head out of my stupor."It does not matter. Prepare the soldiers so I can give a speech. The battle is about to begin."

A few minutes later...

The pale moon rose high in the sky, indicating that morning was close at hand. My men were ready and hungry for blood.

Ulfo's... not so much.

Turns out that my original estimation of their forces was around two thousand off... or maybe the two thousand soldiers I saw back then ran off during the night. God, I hope not.

Deserters are just another form of bandit. At the very least, they must've ran in the opposite direction which means out of my county."Your warriors are ready and wating, milady."

A nod was the mans answer as I turned around, silvery blade in my only hand shining in the moons pale light. Yet, before I could begin my speech, my marshal approached me bearing a familiar piece of gear in his hand.

Luctus.

Peter then asked me with a quirked eyebrow."Milady, I hope you don't mind but... I could hear this beautiful artifact crying from a mile away. Surely, you don't mean to not use it during the battle, yes?" I sighed in turn."I don't know how to make use of it, Lord Cognat. I'm currently missing an ar-..."

Just as I tried to say that, the pair of gloves twisted and turned in Peters arms, the resounding breaking and reforging of metal could be heard loudly from the pair... Then, from two, there was one.

A giant mechanical arm of some kind, totally black colored and brimming with the same level of power that Luctus had while in its Halberd form. Its fingers matched mine perfectly, the length of the arm matched mine as well... Without giving it much more thought, I promptly placed the mechanical wonder of living metal onto the wound on my left shoulder.

Pitch black tendrils erupted from the metal and wove themselves painfully into my flesh, connecting to nerve and bone yet somehow I managed not to scream. Once the process was complete, I had a left arm again."Thats gonna take a while to cook up an explanation for."

Taking in a deep breath, I finally turned towards my mesmerized and horrified soldiers... and I laughed, completely dispelling the atmosphere."You know, during the few times my father was home, he often told me stories of Gods-blessed warriors who fought with the strength of ten men, slaying beasts and humans alike with singular blows... Unlike those legendary warriors, you people are lucky."

Their horror turned to utter confusion for only the briefest moment."Thats right. You are lucky. Because you don't need to kill ten men. No, you only need to slay around... what? Two or three each? Pfft."

Now, the atmosphere was full of chuckles and snorts."Heh... you know its almost funny. A princeling charges into our lands, killing and raping and pillaging... and for what? War? Nope. Profit? Nope. For fun? Nope. Glory? Nope. Revenge maybe?.. guess what: nope!"

The men were now confused once again, some even scratching the back of their heads."So, why is he here, you might be asking yourselves? If hes not here for any of those things then why the hell are we even fighting him? Why is this prince here to despoil our home lands?"

Their questioning glances now became somewhat enraged, their inability to comprehend the situation twisting their minds in anger. Good, anger is an emotion I can use here."Just because he can. He is here: Just. Because. He. Can."

Silence followed my dark reveal as the stunned men and women and orcs alike couldn't believe their ears. Their silence, their anger and confusion soon brought birth to a kind of fury that I can only assume is a lesser version of the God-given berserker rage. A rage which reminded me quite a bit of Chaos and the bloodthirst that her children, like yours truly, are continuously affected by."So lets give him the what for, eh?"

My question sent the warriors into a crescendo of fury-forged screams and howls of war. I turned around to face the giant horde of exhausted and twitchy peasants. The few horsemen that the enemy had seems to have been left behind to protect Ulfo in the backlines... too bad for them and my future husband, we have a plan for that.

"Fluffy." A single whisper as the giant bat lands next to me."The enemy is one giant, disorganized horde. However, they seem to still have a few commanders or captains around to hold themselves together. I want you to fly above the battlefield and observe. Seek and destroy their remaining leaders, butcher them in the most gruesome ways possible." Fluffy howled into the night sky and leaped into the air, his wings forming a visible shadow on the ground, even in the middle of the night.

I rose my sword high into the air, took a breath..."CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGE!" And released a kind of war cry I didn't believe myself capable off.

A myriad of soldiers immidiatelly rushed by me, slamming their bodies and blades against the unprepared peasant hordes up front. The ensuing melee quickly decorated the ground with severed body parts and torrents of blood.

I rushed to follow them, to let battle be joined!

A peasant in tattered clothing screamed as he rose his kitchen knife into the air and slashed downwards. My body moved on instinct, making sure that the mans knife slashes at nothing but thin air as I dodged to the right, threw my blade into my mechanical left hand and thrusted through the mans stomach in a dual motion. Then, I tore the blade upwards, splitting the man all the way up to his throat as I wasn't able to reach any higher.

Ripping the blade out of the split corpse, I moved onto my next target. Another poor sod, forcefully drafted into a battle he was never meant to be part of, wielding his trusty pickaxe. It seems like this particular peasant was a little more skilled than the last, as the remainder of someones eye was plastered onto the pick. He swung the thing from downwards up, intent on impaling me. Instead of outright dodging, I leaped forward and caught the mans right arm between my legs, which I then twisted and broke, rejoicing in both his scream and the sound of shattered bones. Grasping his head with my left hand, I dragged my silvery blade across his neck, severing his head with terrible ease and drenching myself in blood once again.

A single look at my crimson dress, formerly a royal blue and purplish, made me give out a sigh. This is why you just don't do battle in a dress. Its a waste of good fabric, I say!

Continuing on with the slaughter, I found myself in front of an actual soldier this time. An infantry man with a wooden shield and a spiked mace. Perhaps rather foolishly, I thrusted my blade forward and he blocked on time, causing my sword to be stuck inside of his shield. Immidiatelly, the experienced infantryman twisted his shield to the left and then up, causing me to let go of the sword. He beamed me a smile and rose his mace sky high as I was left disarmed.

Leaping into him and using my metallic left shoulder as the point of impact, I manage to destabilize the man for a moment which was long enough for me to punch him in the face. He spat blood and forcefully turned as my fist cracked his jaw. Not wasting another moment, I ripped my sword out of his now dropped shield and stabbed through his abdomen, black blood flowing from the wound.

Black blood? I think that means I ruptured his stomach. Either way, I twisted the sword out of him and spun around, causing a very fatal wound to the man as he fainted on the spot from both pain and blood loss. He wasn't dead yet, but he would be in a couple minutes at worst.

An immaculate howl echoed from behind me as I dodged to the side just in time to avoid a heavy double edged axe which struck the ground and promptly ended the infantrymans life. Huh, guess he wont be lasting mitues after all. What appeared before me was a giant, muscled man... a totally naked man with naught but a loincloth.

A barbarian from the deserts, a mercenary... a vulture come to feast and grow fat off of this blood-soaked, war torn land. Oh well, cant say I blame him.

Not that it'll help him survive as I dragged my blade across his abdomen, spilling out important intestines and drenching myself in even more blood. I let out another deep sigh as I turned around to see massive siege weaponry in the distance.

Unused siege weaponry.

Wooden, siege weaponry.

In the middle of the enemy horde, siege weaponry."SORCERERS! LIGHT THEIR SIEGE WEAPONS ON FIRE!" My yell roused the up-till-now somewhat inactive members of the Pins as the mages in question quickly rose their staves, wands and rune gloves alike and chanted. Soon, a massive crescendo of fireballs danced across the sky and set the wooden weaponry ablaze.

The ensuing inferno caused even greater havoc upon the enemy as their camp was fairly nearby and very much subsceptible to fire. The soldiers in the backline were immidiatelly rushed into dousing the flames by their captains... who had to yell really loudly in order to get the attention of their panicked men.

Which in turn revealed them as potential targets for Fluffy. Gore and blood splattered all around as screams thundered across the battlefield. Fluffy's jaws were full, his teeth raking in the meat of a dozen leaders.

"F-FALL BACK!" Someone suddenly screamed and the all too willing backline of the enemy routed, leaving those unfortunate enough to be caught in the melee to their fate. This served to even further demoralize my enemy as some of the peasantry either commited suicide or fell to the ground, playing dead in hopes that nobody would notice.

Naturally, I ordered their execution. No living thing can escape this battle. Well, no enemy anyways.

Anyone I let live here will become a bandit. We have enough of those already because of the long war.

"W-what the hell!? ORCS ARE ATTACKING THE BACKLINES!" Another panicked yell as my orcish soldiers finally began their assault on the enemy rear. It won't take very long now.

Victory is within my grasp."CHARGE! LET NOT ONE OF THEM SURVIVE! WE HAVE ENOUGH BANDITS AS IT IS!" I yelled out at the top of my lungs. My orders, combined with an immediate explanation and thus a viable excuse for further butchery, inspired the men to even greater heights of blood thirst and rage."Thats right! If we don't kill 'em all here then they'll continue doing to others what they've done to Oryx!" Peter, the sly old marshal, quickly added onto my orders with a bit of spice of his own.

Needless to say, as soon as our cavalry finally got into posistion and charged the enemy flanks on both sides thus crushing the morale of the large mayority of those who had yet to be wounded on the enemy side, the enemy rose the white flag and a surrender was called for.

And this is how I won a battle of two thousand and five hundred versus ten thousand, well actually eight thousand but the scribes don't need to know the full story right?

Don't mind me guys and girls! I'm just a line break...

And thats it for this chapter.

Hope ye liked it!

Its... honestly, I think I did pretty okay with this one.

Not nearly as much of a disaster as I thought it would be.

Actually, the only problem I have with it is ... not really a mistake from this chapter itself but the fact I made it 2.5k vs 10k... maybe a bit too much.

Meh.

Whats done is done.

As per usual, I'll remain online to edit out mistakes and reply to early comments!

Anyways, read and review! And Good Morning/Day/Night to you all! ADIOS FOR NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!