A little later the two enemy armies openly faced each other on the plains. Both sides sent emissaries to inquire if this battle still could be avoided but everyone knew that doing so was not much more than a farce with some empty talk meant to uphold diplomatic decorum. The clash had already become unavoidable.

Both Violant and Wynkin had already taken their respective positions. The girl was the commander of the cavalry – of course riding on Huwcyn’s back – while the berserk had command over the infantry and was going to fight afoot himself. There was simply no horse that would’ve been able to bear his weight alone. Both spouses wore excellent armor and had their typical weapons with them, namely the spear for Violant and the enormous broadsword for Wynkin. Huwcyn also wore armor. This set of horse armor had been created by dwarven smith Hanarr on Violant’s request. She didn’t want to risk losing the ceffyl dwr on the battlefield like she had during the civil war in her last lifetime. The water horse didn’t like the protective gear in the least though.

Among those who were going to participate in this battle of fate, there were many of the ducal couple’s acquaintances and friends. Although none of the princes had come to fight alongside them, the royal knight order had come to be under the commanders-in-chief’s commando. During this time Hubert was nothing more than a normal knight participating in the cavalry unit formed by the royal knights although he still retained his title as captain of the knight order. Parcie too had joined the troops, the infantry to be exact, and was itching to start fighting soon.

A good part of the defenders consisted of denizens from the other march, many of them thankful former fighters of the grand duchy joining the Yteish cause to show off their new loyalty. Additionally, the wild hunt participated near-complete, safe only for a few men Banadietrich had left back at Mt. Hackelberg to serve as sentries. The nachtjäger had come personally to actively support his liege.

Soon the farce the pre-battle negotiations had broken down and battle broke out. Infantry and cavalry stormed forward while receiving support from archers at their back.

A volley of arrows went down on the enemy lines.

The Yteish shooters responded to the greetings from the Mérovian and grand ducal archers not with a volley of arrows of their own but rather with loading a primitive kind of harquebus guns, one of Arinnefja’s many inventions. They had climbed on some sort of wooden structure not unlike a hastily built castle walkway, allowing them to shoot over the heads of their compatriots to hit the helpless enemies. No armor was able to withstand the projectiles whose reach was even farther than would have been expected normally by use of black powder.

The reason for that was the incorporation of artificially crystallized magic similar to a dragon stone. However the troll might have accomplished this sheer unbelievable feat, the implementation of those small magic crystals allowed for an additional boost of the projectiles, increasing their reach dramatically. In fact the shooters were able to take down the hostile archers like sitting ducks while remaining at a safe distance themselves. It only required a miniscule amount of magic to trigger this wide reach, and even better, the weapon consumed the necessary amount of magic from the atmosphere, allowing even people incapable of using magic to make use of it.

Soon enough the hostile armies clashed directly. The plains turned into a sea of blood almost immediately. Some fault for that definitely lay with the redcap twins Dougald and Donnell who had come together with the wild hunt to join the fun – as they saw it. But that wasn’t all. They had even recruited many of their own kind despite their usual solitary tendencies. The sight of dozens of redcaps slaughtering their enemies like pigs at the butcher’s and draining their blood while laughing eerily was sure to demoralize the enemies. The Yteish fighters got traumatized all the same but at least they thought with goosebumps how they could count themselves happy that the redcaps were their allies rather than their adversaries.

The wild hunt’s way of fighting was hardly less gruesome than the redcaps’. The ghostly or demonic huntsmen had the nasty habit of dealing with their opponents like they did with wild game and were collecting trophies all around.

Parcie, too, fought like there was no tomorrow. Swinging his broadsword left and right, he felled enemies all around him. This was his last chance to find worthy opponents before peace would return again and he decided to make the most out of it. In that regard he eerily resembled his allies from the other march, although his reason wasn’t bloodlust at all. It was just him being the musclehead he always had been.

Wynkin’s style of fighting was strikingly similar to Parcie’s, mowing down enemies all over the place with his gigantic heavy broadsword that was sure to break and smash both the enemies’ armor and bones on contact like they were brittle twigs or tree bark. Although the sword’s edge was cutting sharp, as expected of a product from Hanarr’s smithy, the major factor was still the inhuman strength the berserk put behind each swing of the unbelievably heavy weapon. The similarity in fighting style was of course caused by Wynkin being Parcie’s pupil in martial arts and thus adopting his teacher’s way of fighting as his own. All the more so, as Parcie’s fighting style was unbelievably well suited for a berserk. The duke of Ealdon nonetheless upgraded the fighting techniques he had learnt from his martial arts tutor though. Specifically he implemented the use of magic, mostly wind or fire magic, in each and every swing, thus creating a terrifyingly destructive swordsmanship that was only possible for someone being a sentient berserk with a unbelievably high magical aptitude.

Violant also made use of magic during her fight on horseback, albeit less directly than her husband did. Sometime after she had discovered how to shrink her spear Violant by chance had also found out how to elongate its shaft at will. This allowed her to skewer hostile riders in a distance where they believed to be safe because they were still out of the famed Valkyrie’s reach, at least according to commonsense. At the same time this meant for the girl that there was no necessity for her to throw her spear at any time and to risk ending up without a weapon of her own in the middle of battle.

The combination of never before seen fire weapons, otherworldly support, and genius fighters soon turned the tide of the battle heavily in favor of Yteland. Both the Mérovian and the grand ducal nobles and commanders tried to hold their line on the battlefield lest they would have to retreat in disgrace which, for nobles at least, was a worse fate than death in action. For some part, the widely spread fear that Yteland might use the momentum to conquer Mérovian or grand ducal territory also played a role but most of it really was but aristocratic pride.

On the contrary, the infantry of the grand ducal army for the most part consisted of forcibly recruited peasants who didn’t share the grand ambitions of the grand duke and rather longed for their homes where they could peacefully till their fields. Faced with a battle that appeared like hell on earth, it didn’t take much for them to take to their heels and desert. Even if they had to await repercussions after returning to their homes and fields on their own initiative, it was still much better than dying a useless death, the more so as it also couldn’t be in the nobility’s interest to leave the fields deserted.

Of course there was a lot of cussing when the nobles from the grand duchy forming the cavalry became aware of the infantry’s rash flight. The harsh militaristic policy introduced by Svyatoslav the Great during his reign finally showed its consequences. During the reign of Svyatoslav’s predecessor, Grand Duke Skarbimir the Gentle, the commoners and peasants had had a comparatively easy life. After succeeding his suddenly deceased father whom he always thought of as weak, the warmongering Svyatoslav changed the state policy to its complete opposite, leading to the current situation.

The discipline of the Mérovian army was much better, as it consisted mostly of nobles. King Amaury of Mérovie had promised the participating nobles territorial gains in the newly conquered lands corresponding to their respective contributions. Accordingly, the will to combat was much higher, as defeat meant that the promised rewards would go up in smoke. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But if you ventured even your life on the battlefield and still gained nothing in return for it? That was anything but pleasant. Thus the Mérovians still gave their everything in this all-deciding battle even after their allies ended up in chaos.

Halfway through it came to the showdown between Wynkin and Svyatoslav the Great. The grand duke had a truly majestic appearance. Wearing a polished armor, the hostile ruler appeared with an undoubtable grandeur. His blue eyes sparkled with ambition while his full reddish blond beard gave him a somewhat regal appearance, not unlike a majestic lion. The grand duke was on horseback, a black horse every bit as awe-inspiring as its rider. Contrarily, the duke of Ealdon was afoot. Or at least this was the initial situation. A rapid sword strike from the berserk suddenly closing in robbed the horse of its right foreleg and its head before it was even able to become aware of the imminent mortal danger.

The rest was some kind of tragicomedy rather than a true fight. Svyatoslav who hadn’t been aware himself of the berserk closing in with incredible running speed, suddenly found himself on the ground from one moment to the other. Seeing as one of his legs was stuck under the body of his felled horse, he desperately struggled to come free, allowing for a less than majestic but rather pitiful sight. During his struggle with his life- and headless steed, the grand duke unfortunately forgot to stay guarded against his surroundings and was in turn decapitated himself before he was even remotely able to know how and what had happened.

The rest of the grand ducal turned tail as soon as they saw the head of their lord lifted up high to the sky on the tip of a spear Wynkin had taken from a fallen soldier nearby. They now knew that the battle was a lost cause and left their allies to fight for themselves. For now it was more important to return to the grand duchy as soon as possible since the succession was unresolved. With the violent deaths of both Dobromysl and Svyatoslav in the span of but a few months, the original grand ducal bloodline came to an end since both had no heirs of either gender. Therefore it was apparent that strife for succession would soon break out among the branch families of the grand ducal house. Those in question hurried especially to return and claim the position as Grand Duke they believed to be rightfully theirs.

Roughly around the same time Duke Médard de Crêtou, a heroic looking knight with shot blond hair, met Violant on the battlefield and both fought on horseback. The lady’s magic trick with her elongating spear brought her the win and cost her opponent his dominant arm in a careless moment. This outcome was not nearly as honorable and heroic as the Duke had hoped for. The Valkyrie of the other march was satisfied all the same, on one hand tired from the endless fighting, on the other hand bashfully recalling her husband’s words about what he wanted to do after the battle was won.

Witnessing their commander caught, the Mérovian fighters laid down their weapons and surrendered, thus giving up their ambitions that had already become but a lofty daydream. The Yteish troops then rounded up all remaining enemies and took them into captivity. Outbreaks of resistance were soon quelled by the redcaps in the bloody kind of way.

Thus the battle of fate ended with a victory for Yteland. The knights and soldiers then were sent out to pursue the fugitive grand ducal military, lest the latter plunder villages for food on their way back home. What was going to happen with the captives was a question King Baldwin had to decide.

The monarch didn’t show any obvious interest in actively exploiting the situation to occupy enemy territory although he surely would demand territory as part of the compensation during peace negotiations. Peace negotiations here meant that the winner had the right to dictate whatever they wanted in the peace treaty but King Baldwin was a comparatively civil ruler whose claims surely wouldn’t go overboard.

As for Wynkin and Violant, they were celebrated as heroes of the fatherland and invited to the capital.