The drums hit before dawn.

  Deep, like rolling thunder, the sound rolled through the camp, dragging every man upright. There was no groaning, no hesitation as their training kicked in, their bodies moving before the mind fully awoke.

  Armor on, weapons grabbed, all equipment checked.

  A skirmish was commencing; those who were late to join the formation would be punished.

  “Stay close to me,” Adam told Raen as they moved out of the tent, his voice low.

  Raen glanced at him, noticing his serious expression, and nodded his head.

  “Got it.”

  The squad quickly walked out of the tent before heading out of the camp, falling in formation with three other squads, forming their platoon before joining their company a couple of hundred meters away from camp.

  They stood shoulder to shoulder with the 2nd Infantry Company to their left, numbering some 200 soldiers after their last engagement.

  ‘About 500 of us put together?’ Raen thought, quickly numbering the soldiers in the two companies put together.

  Vares commanded 3 companies, but the largest of the three, the 6th Company, commanded by Captain Donovan, was already sent somewhere else by the battalion commander himself.

  “The 2nd and 4th Infantry Companies, forward!” A lieutenant’s voice cut through the chaos, the boots of soldiers squelching through mud as they moved.

  ***

  Several minutes later, the battlefield revealed itself, a valley, scarred and brutal, stretching wide and flat.

  The ground was churned mud and scorched earth, torn up from weeks of skirmishes. Wooden stakes jutted from the ground – hasty fortifications from previous fights, half-collapsed now. Abandoned equipment littered the field, as did bodies, half-buried in the mud. Too old to be recognized now.

  The smell hit them next. The wet soil and smoke from distant fires, and underneath it all – rot. The sweet and sickening smell that would never truly leave a battlefield.

  Veteran soldiers, used to it, readied their weapons and awaited their orders, while fresh conscripts stood beside them. Their faces were pale and hands white as they clenched the weapons they barely knew how to use.

  Raen’s eyes moved across the landscape, reading it like it was a map. He quickly assembled the whole picture from the visible details.

  To the left, the 3rd Infantry Battalion had dug in along the eastern ridge, a line of shields and pikes anchored into the earth, holding the flank. Their job was to block the enemy cavalry, preventing them from sweeping around the flank as they had done last month, decimating 2 companies.

  If the cavalry wanted to go around them, they’d be faced with terrain difficult for horses to pass through. Different directions didn’t help either, as it would be impossible for them to pass unnoticed or flank properly through the forest to the west.

  Beyond the ridge to the southeast, smoke rose into the gray sky. Another skirmish, most likely already underway.

  Further ahead, the 7th Company was forming a defensive square, spears out. They had been hit hard recently, their formation lacking compared to the usual, fresh recruits filling spaces left by the dead. Their grips told the story plainly – they had never stood in a formation like this before. One hard push and they would buckle.

  To their right, where the forest thinned, were the 1st and 5th Companies, already engaged in battle. Flashes of steel glimmered between trunks, some soldiers shouted battle cries, others shouting in pain as skirmish lines clashed and broke apart.

  Pockets of fighting were alive everywhere around them.

  Vares stood atop a rise overseeing the chaos, coat whipping behind him like a banner, jaw clenched so hard that it looked painful. Two men flanked him: Anderson, arms crossed and eyes scanning the woods with calmness that seemed almost unnatural; and Captain Merrick of the 2nd Company, a gaunt man with hollowed cheeks and a permanent scowl.

  “Fourth Company!” Vares barked, pointing down the slope. “Form the support line for the 5th Company withdrawal!”

  “Second Company, you are to –“ Before Vares could bark more orders, a runner arrived, breathless, saluting Vares.

  “Enemy movement in the Western thicket, sir! They’re circling around the 1st and 5th Company, around 200 men strong!”

  “Shit!” Vares cursed before snapping toward Anderson.

  Anderson was already moving. “The fourth will intercept!” He saluted and didn’t even wait for Vares to formally issue the order before quickly making his way down.

  “Fourth Company, double-time, we are to engage with the enemy circling the western perimeter!”

  The 4th roared in unison before quickly moving, Raen’s squad amongst those at the very front. The 2nd Company in the lead of Captain Merrick, took over their original task, forming the support line for the withdrawal of the 5th Company.

  “Platoon leaders!”

  Anderson’s voice snapped as several men peeled away from the ranks, the leader of Raen’s platoon breaking away from directly behind him and jogging to Anderson’s side with the others.

  Anderson wasted no time as he pointed and spoke. His hands moved to indicate positions, each instruction delivered in a few words. The platoon leaders listened without asking any questions.

  “You two: vanguard. Hit them fast and hard, I don’t want this to drag.”

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  “You two: flanking strike. One on each side, surprise them.”

  “No, forget that, both on one side, I want their flank destroyed immediately.”

  “You reinforce the flank. If they try to go around us, stop them.” Anderson told the last platoon leader before glancing at the company.

  “I want three men as scouts, fast. I want eyes on them before we get close.”

  The platoon leaders, all veterans, able men who could read the battlefield proficiently, dispersed back to their units without a word. Within seconds, three soldiers had broken from the ranks and sprinted ahead.

  Raen’s platoon was one of the two chosen to be the vanguard. He watched the scouts vanish into the trees and felt a familiar sensation, a tightening in his chest.

  Not fear, something sharper, a cold focus that settled over him before every engagement.

  A few minutes passed, and the scouts returned, slightly out of breath.

  “Slightly over 200 of them, sir!” The lead scout reported, standing behind Anderson. “They haven’t spotted us yet.”

  “Good, that’s all I needed.” Anderson clapped the man on the shoulder before sending him back to his platoon. His gaze then moved across his company with a calm look.

  “Fewer than us,” he said softly, almost to himself.

  “This won’t take long.”

  It didn’t take long for the two companies to find one another. The fourth company emerged from behind a small hill into open ground, and there they were. The enemy company, already formed up and aware, was getting ready to engage.

  Both companies were irregular, with neither being filled with spearmen, as most companies were.

  The regular tactic when entering a formation and attacking the enemy was for the men to hold their shields and spears before slowly charging forward, but neither were like that.

  Behind the company, their captain barked orders, mounted on a horse, and stood a careful distance from the front. Anderson studied him for a moment before dropping his gaze to his own men.

  Raen was in the second line, right behind his squad, observing the enemy, analyzing their formation as the two companies slowly closed the distance.

  This battle was one he did not participate in his last life, as he was still unconscious. He had no information that he could use to his advantage.

  “Adam,” Raen said, his voice low. “The two men directly in front of you. The one on the left is a newbie; his stance is bad, guard weak. Break him.”

  “The gap Adam opens is yours, Dral. Go through it.”

  “Jason,” Raen glanced at him. Jason’s knuckles were white around the spear, his jaw tight. Even though this was not his first conflict, he had always been like this before a battle. “Just thrust. Don’t overextend and try to be clever.”

  Jason glanced back at him, swallowed, and nodded.

  “Mark.” Raen glanced ahead. “The two in front, the bearded guy and the longsword wielder, they’re ours.”

  “If you say so, Cap.” Mark chuckled.

  “Thatch, Marcus, do as you always do.”

  Neither answered, but neither needed to.

  Raen’s eyes then drifted past the front line, settling on the enemy captain.

  ‘Standing back to escape if things go wrong, huh?’ Raen thought, a smirk appearing on his face.

  “Thatch.”

  “He’s as good as dead,” Thatch said, eyes already fixed on the enemy captain.

  “Charge!”

  The order rippled down the line, and for a heartbeat, nobody moved.

  Then one of the enemy men roared, charging forward with a large battleaxe, followed by the rest of his company, the cry breaking whatever had been holding them.

  Adam roared back, hammer raised high, and the company answered.

  Raen’s legs moved through the mud, his right hand gripping his sword tight, but not too tight.

  Two hundred men were charging at them, fifty meters away.

  Forty meters.

  Twenty meters. Raen could see their faces now.

  The enemy captain still stayed back, mounted. Raen glanced back for Thatch, but the latter had already disappeared.

  Of course, he had.

  Ten meters.

  “Brace!” Someone behind shouted.

  And then the lines collided.

  ***

  The impact wasn’t clean or glorious.

  Mud, metal, and bodies slammed against one another, the air filling with the crunch of shields and the wet sound of steel cutting through flesh. The air filled with the sharp coppery smell of blood.

  Raen’s shoulder slammed into the man in front of him, one of the two he marked for Mark. The soldier staggered, swinging his sword wide. Raen ducked under the blow and shoved the man back into his own line, right into the path of Mark’s opponent, who had slid back on the mud. The two tangled together, their guards compromised, and Mark’s curved sword was already moving.

  To the left, Adam did what Raen instructed him to do, his hammer coming down like divine judgment.

  The newbie Raen marked tried to raise his shield, but he was too slow.

  The hammer caved into the shield, rotten wood splintering, the arm breaking together with the shoulder below. The scream of the newbie was cut short as he fell into the mud before being trampled by soldiers, both enemies and allies.

  Dral moved the instant Adam had raised his hammer. He came in low, sliding past Adam’s left and swinging his axe at the veteran standing next to the gap. The man’s guard had dropped for a mere second because of shock, but Dral would not give him a second more.

  Blood sprayed, the line buckled, and the company charged in, tearing the enemy formation open from the small gap that Adam and Dral had made.

  The back line pushed Raen forward as well, and he found himself face-to-face with an enemy, an older soldier who held his sword with confidence. One glance told Raen that the man in front of him was not to be underestimated.

  The man moved first.

  His sword was dropped low, trailing the mud before slashing upwards, before even being in range of Raen. Mud was sent flying forward, straight at Raen as the enemy soldier planned on blinding him first before quickly dispatching him.

  “Good try,” Raen said as his left hand blocked the mud, placed there the moment he saw the enemy move.

  “Not bad, youngster.” The opponent said before slashing down, aiming straight at Raen’s right shoulder. His sword met Raen’s, which was further reinforced by Raen’s left arm from below, the metal gauntlet pushing hard against the sword to lock the block in place.

  Raen then smiled. He slid his left hand to the tip of his sword and pulled it back an inch. He then pushed forward with his right, allowing the enemy sword to glide down his own.

  Right as the swords separated, Raen straightened his wrist and extended his right hand, the tip sweeping across the neck. The veteran tilted his neck at the last moment, and the blade only grazed him, barely drawing blood.

  The two exchanged blows several more times, and even though they looked to be on par with one another, Raen was visibly getting tired while the breath of the older soldier was still even.

  The veteran saw it and pressed forward, testing Raen while measuring the distance that their stamina was opening between them.

  He then froze in place.

  A curved sword came from behind, cutting open his back. The man’s legs buckled, eyes wide in pain.

  Raen’s sword swiftly stabbed through the man’s neck.

  He pulled his sword out, and the man fell.

  “I had him,” Raen told Mark.

  “Sure you did, Cap,” Mark grinned, wiping his blade on the dead man’s coat. “That’s why you were panting like a dog.”

  Fair point.

  Raen sighed before looking ahead. The enemy line was crumbling, their soldiers backing away.

  Victory.

  …

  Then a horn sounded.

  Not theirs.

  It came from the right, from the forest close to them.

  “Shit.” Raen breathed as he noticed movement in the trees, dark shapes emerging from cover.

  Enemy reinforcements.

  Fresh troops, about a hundred of them, poured from the forest – the same direction the scouts had previously cleared.

  ‘They hid a second force, waiting for us to commit.’

  The enemy captain on horseback wasn’t retreating anymore; he was grinning.

  “Captain, we got –“ Before Raen was able to notify Anderson, an arrow hissed past his ear.

  And then another. And a dozen more.

  The enemy reinforcements had archers.

  “Shields!” Adam roared, grabbing his hammer with his right before quickly grabbing a shield that was nearly buried in the mud.

  But half of the squad didn’t have shields, and those that did carried small shields with them. They were skirmishers, meant for fast engagement, not defensive formations.

  A cry then came behind Raen.

  Jason.

  Raen turned, only to see Jason on one knee in the mud, his left hand pressing on his right shoulder. An arrow jutted from it, the shaft faintly trembling.

  Raen looked at the arrow, looked at Jason, and then at the forest. He realized with cold certainty, they were baited into a trap.

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  I know it's cringey, I like it though.