“Being hit in the rear always does horrible things to the morale of the poor assholes being ravaged. It was not only a matter of morale either. Having enemies on your backs meant you had to fight with the fear of being stabbed from behind, which might happen anytime for all you know.

That sort of dread kills fighting efficiency, and where one falters, others tend to follow. Even well-trained troops fall prey to this issue at times, as it was just part of the old instinctive psyche to fear, to make an attempt to flee when flanked by predators from both the front and behind.” - Gregorian Aurelius Secundus, Second Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

During their weeks of working together, Reinhardt had naturally attempted to integrate Mischka and her people into the Free Lances. That effort included joint training when they had the chance to, and it had not taken long before both of them agreed that some of their methods were relatively incompatible with each other, while others worked even better in tandem.

One tactic often used by Mischka’s group that Reinhardt adopted for use was their linebreaker shield wall charge. They still relied entirely on Mischka’s people to serve as the pivot of the tactic, which was honestly a simple one, where the shieldbearers took the front of a wedge and charged through the enemy lines, then opened their wall from the middle to allow the troops behind them to charge right into the middle of the enemy formation.

The tactic served Mischka’s people well, but previously they faced issues where they went in too deep and often got flanked by their enemies as a result. With the more numerous Free Lances behind them, their flanks were secured, while they in turn provided the Lances with a highly effective assault tactic.

Reinhardt had tried to replicate the feat using his own people, but to little success. Even the strongest and largest of the Lances, himself included, can’t really push their way forcefully past more than four or five people. Mischka’s shieldbearers on the other hand were almost as effective in charges as the heavy cavalry rhinos the dwarves used, as they utilized their massive bulk along with the momentum of a charge to great effect and simply crushed whatever was before them.

In the end, they settled for a supportive setup, where Mishka’s shieldbearers spearheaded the charge, with Reinhardt’s troops behind to help secure their flanks and rear. Reinhardt himself and other elites of the group usually followed right behind the shield wall, along with the therian matron herself, as they would be the ones disgorged into the middle of the enemy formation.

One such charge formed up shortly after the Free Lances cleared the alley. Even with Elfriede and another five splitting off, they still numbered seventy-five, with ten shieldbearers at the front of the wedge they formed. Yuri and Niko led the charge from the center, their massive door-sized tower shields held before them.

The sight of a literal wall of metal charging their way spooked quite a few of the thugs that had turned around on noticing the appearance of Reinhardt’s group behind them. Others - probably their lieutenants or the likes - tried to fashion them into a defensive line even as the dwarves on their other side pushed them even harder, but it was to little avail.

Mischka’s shield charge had broken through soldiers in formation before, even toppling cavalrymen with the force of their charge. A ragtag group of poorly organized thugs never stood a chance of withstanding them. A few ineffectual weapons were thrown to bounce off the shield wall, and then the wall of metal was upon them.

A horrible crunch resounded as the shields slammed into the thugs with the force of a charging bull behind it. Lucky ones were shoved aside with a few broken bones. Unlucky ones were struck down only to be trampled to death by merciless metal-shod boots of the shieldbearers.

Niko and Yuri exchanged a look shortly into their charge, and they led their men to push sideways, opening the center of the shield wall right into the center of the enemy formation. The baffled thugs had no time to even react before Reinhardt and Mischka charged out from behind the now opened center of the shield wall with their men following behind and started their grisly work.

Reinhardt just bashed aside two men at once, the man on the left dropped with a shattered head, while the flanges of his polemace struck against the side of a woman beside the dead man, hard. The woman’s body bent over unnaturally where he struck her, and she too collapsed without a fight as she spewed out copious amounts of blood from her mouth.

To his left, Mischka wielded her great blade and cleaved right through those thugs arrayed before her. The first two fell apart in two pieces, their flesh and bones torn and shredded by the heavy blade. As for the other two, the flesh and gore on the blade had dulled it enough that it had not directly cleaved them apart.

Instead, their bodies were folded around the blade - and each other - in very unnatural ways as Mischka just continued her strike without a care. Both men fell to the ground and convulsed as they vomited their shattered internal organs, before the therian matron made it worse as she stepped on them and yanked her blade out from the tangled mess they had become.

Others of her clan and the mercenaries under Reinhardt fanned out from behind the two of them. Some of them helped Yuri and Niko push the flanks and widen the gap, while others struck out to the sides of their leaders and helped them push into the enemy formation.

Undisciplined and poorly trained, hammered from two sides at once, the thugs broke before long, as the dwarven army breached their defenses on the other side. Many simply routed, as they ran into the maze of alleyways without a care. Some even dropped their weapon and armor just so they could run away a little bit faster.