Chapter 327
Kamiran Floodplains, Archduchy of Rebirth
Sarth-Asaria High Road
Alexandra sighed as she closed the blackbird''s report, gazing at the war council assembled on the So Much For Subtlety''s bridge, Manson, Philia, Rim and half a dozen other officers.
"Alright, no change into the enemy. They''re still digging in, and trying to be clever."
The duke grimaced.
"Do you they seriously thing those pontoon bridges will allow them to surprise us?"
"I think they''ll expect them to scare us into pulling back from assault on the main bridge. Which...isn''t that bad of a strategy, honestly." Alexandra shrugged. "If nothing else, it''ll force me to divert some artillery fire away from them."
"Well, better to be overestimated in this case."
"Indeed. Alright then, let''s reconvene this evening." Alexandra looked at the hologram on the projector, showing the advancing army, with its armored spearhead, backed up by cavalry. "If we continue at this rate of advance, our vanguard will be in range to engage tomorrow. Better stop early, dig in, and take a good night of rest before that. And as a bonus, we''ll have a fallback position."
Everyone nodded.
"I will rejoin my troops then." Said the duke and the Knight-Commander, almost simultaneously, and Alexandra chuckled.
"Of course. I''ll have the Tetsudo carry you off."
"Much appreciated."
Alexandra inclined her head. Technically all the officers here had featherfall enchantments on their armor, they could literally just jump off the ship, but the courtesy was the least she could do.
"Alright then. See you this evening!"
*****
The duchess looked at the horizon, where the aircraft had vanished.
"Has it gone home to roost?" She asked her spymaster, who closed his eyes, and nodded.
"Yes. Our rogues report that it has."
"Good." She turned back towards her assembled officers. "Riders of Dawn! Today is your day to shine! Today is your day of victory! For Surnise!"
"FOR SUNRISE! LONG LIVE THE DUCHESS! LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!" Screamed out the assembled officers, soon picked up by their knights.
The duchess gestured, and thousands of soldiers swarmed over their mounts.
And a few minutes later, a veritable tide of pegasus and gryphons rose into the skies...mounts that hadn''t had to ride in days, been carefully fed and allowed to rest for this very moment.
The airships didn''t follow. They were too large, to easy to detect thanks to their powerful engines and magic hungry systems.
The duchess watched as the gryphons rose, her nephew among them, and she did something she hadn''t done in decades.
She prayed. Prayed to whatever God of the pantheon may be listening. To grant her and her people victory against those who would destroy her world.
Maybe, just maybe, one of them would listen.
Unlike when she had prayed for the life of her parents, as the King was preparing their executions.
But divine assistance or no...the die was cast.
*****
Alexandra grimaced as she gazed at the prototype.
Okay, fabricators or no, she was going to have to dial it back down for the basic infantry. Quality over quantity was all well and good, but numbers had a quality all of their own and-
ALERT: RECON DRONE 6 REPORTS ENEMY CONTACT
ALERT: RECON DRONE 6 REPORTS MANY ENEMY CONTACTS
ALERT: RECON DRONE 6 OFFLINE
Alexandra was out of her avatar and her full attention was on her ambassador golem in less than a second.
"Status?" She asked as the golem stood up on the So Much For Subtlety''s bridge.
"One of our recon drones has sighted hostiles between us and Sunrise''s army." Said Subtlety as the AI''s hologram flickered. "Inloading Omega databurst now."
The holographic projector chimed, and an image appeared above it. For a second, Alexandra thought she was looking at a storm cloud of some kind, until she saw the edges.
Edges made up of pegasus. Pegasus and Gryphons.
Oh fuck.
"Battle stations!" Alexandra scrambled and slammed her fist on the big red button in the center of the captain''s console. "Get the entire army into combat formation, NOW!"
"Aye aye!"
Alarms sounded throughout the ship and the army below. Some of the human soldiers milled around, confused, but most of them fell into a well drilled routine, thanks to the Knight-Commander''s relentless exercises, even on the march.
The artillery train stopped dead in its tracks, and the golems and humans began unlimbering the guns, as riflemen and pikemen formed a square around them. Meanwhile the entire army started collapsing in on itself, turning from a marching column into something approaching a combat formation.
But even reacting as fast as they did...
Alexandra saw the icons pop up on the sensor systems, as more drones were sent to their deaths to buy more information.
She saw the enemy''s speed, and she swore.
It wouldn''t be enough.
"Get the guns ready for anti air mode!" Were she a betting woman -which Emilia relentlessly winning and then turning that against her in increasingly lewd ways had very much convinced her not to be-, she would put all her money on them trying to bum rush the artillery in a dive attack. "We''re about to have company!"
She gazed, nervously, as the guns were readied. Too slow, too slow, too-
Sunrise''s air cavalry was flying nape of the Earth, and they simply appeared in visual range, almost without warning.
Her ships opened fire, but the enemy simply ignored them. Her fleet, even with the Subtlety, was too diminished to be the real threat. No, her ground force was.
Seemed like they''d learned the lesson from the UDC''s little incursion.
Her army opened fire. For the first time since it had been formed, many of Sarth''s troops or the Kaidani volunteers used their guns in anger.
Wards glittered as bullets were swatted aside with something almost like contempt, and magic answered from the seething mass of cavalry.
Fortunately, Alexandra was equally well prepared, and the spells withered and died on her formation wards.
Then, the cavalry closed the gap, and dove.
They couldn''t dive directly onto the guns. The wards prevented that. But they did try to land and punch through the infantry.
Unfortunately for them, those were her army''s elite. A mix of golems, Sarth''s ducal guard and Philia''s remaining royal knights.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
And unfortunately for her, the other side was Sunrise''s.
Soldiers screamed and died as a solid phalanx of gryphons tried to dive in for the kill, plowing through the tightly packed square of infantry.
Alexandra''s finest died...but every meter forward had to be bought with blood.
Blood...and time.
Time Sunrise no longer had.
The guns opened fire, and Sunrise''s vanguard vanished. Well trained, essence gorged knights on mythical beasts or no, nothing was going to survive the fire of a thousand artillery pieces at point blank range.
More kept pouring in however, but it was clear that the other side was changing tactics. Instead of trying to force themselves onto the artillery, which was already being reinforced by more and more infantry, living and automata alike, they landed...and attempted to cut the column in half, before it could form into a coherent battle line, and defeat the army in detail.
Alexandra noted that the enemy''s air cavalry declined to attempt a full encirclement of the army, instead opting to concentrate their force into a single coherent frontline, with dedicated spearheads of gryphon knights, using the mass of the lighter pegasus cavalry as support and cannon fodder.
Whoever was in command on the other side had clearly singled out the Kaidani volunteers as the weak link within the army, and focused their thrust there, to attempt to sunder the entire formation.
It had backfired spectacularly. The Kaidanis were fighting like demons, with a fervor that made even Alexandra uncomfortable. She saw entire squads drag armored knights from their saddle and then dogpile them, tearing through their armor until they could finally reach the screaming soldier within, uncaring of the fact that the same knight was killing them in droves with bursts of magic or wild swing of their enchanted weapons. Some, who were wearing some kind of makeshift metal mask, were being especially vicious, outright ignoring their own wounds and throwing themselves in suicidal attacks if it meant taking one more knight with them.
But even with this insane bravery, they still fell to the enemy''s blades and sorcery. And the units around them were driven back as the Kaidanis held their ground, Sunrise''s pegasus cavalry flowing around the knights to widen the gap.
They had successfully cut off her army''s vanguard, the cavalry and armored units now fully encircled, as the rest of Sunrise''s force tried to pin the rest of her force in place.
Sarth''s cavalry tried to punch through as the spearhead was separated from the army, but they were thrown back, and for a horrible minute, it seemed like the vanguard would be surrounded and annihilated.
Then the Mackie arrived.
Having rushed back from the front at the start of the engagement, it hadn''t actually fired yet, outside of a few bursts of machinegun fire at targets of opportunity flying overhead.
It came to a halt right beyond the seething frontline, and for a split second, everyone stopped, as the combatants glanced at the massive creature of metal, towering over them.
The Mackie made sure of its targets.
And fired.
All in all, despite its impressive armaments, two howitzers, twin rocket pods, a double barreled autocannon and a few machineguns weren''t that much in the grand scheme of such a battle. Even the missile launcher wouldn''t make a big difference.
Except that the lion''s share of her special, enchanted ammunition had been reserved for the mech...and it could unleash it at point blank range.
The howitzers fired first. Two barrels spit out hundred of projectiles from their canister rounds straight into the mass of Sunrise''s pegasus cavalry.
And halfway through their flight, their enchantments triggered. The air crackled with energy as arcs of electricity leapt wildly between the cannister rounds.
Neither the electricity nor the projectiles were enough to actually kill the beasts or their riders...but as the shots buried themselves into their targets'' bodies, their second peculiarity emerged. Those were not made out of steel, but tungsten, surviving the impact...and the enchantments continued to discharge their energy.
The entirety of Sunrise''s frontline screamed and spasmed as they fell, electricity raging through their nerves.
Screams that vanished as Sarth''s cavalry washed over them, slavers falling silent as iron clod hooves reduced their heads and bodies to so much pulp.
The Mackie marched forward, its autocannon turret swinging like a metronome, letting loose a barrage of hell, its rounds exploding into spears of energy, shattering wards and throwing riders out of their saddles.
Then the machineguns focused on those whose barriers were down. High caliber bullets lodged themselves in enchanted armor plates and essence infused flesh...and activated their enchantments.
The bullets sparked with energy, and began glowing red hot, before beginning to liquefy, molten metal infiltrating the cracks in the armor or gaping wounds in the screaming warriors.
Every step of it was designed to incapacitate. Alexandra knew that the Mackie was an impressive piece of equipment, but it was a force multiplier for the ground forces. Its greatest strength was its support, not its own power.
The vanguard lurched forward, plowing through the pegasus cavalry that had poured in, and the gryphon knights whirled to meet them.
Magic screamed through the air, as the paladins and mages among them unleashed their power upon the mech, and the machine staggered back as its shields were hammered.
But while they focused on it...the spider tanks had rushed to the forefront.
There weren''t that many of them. Not after the battle of Ytakan with the UDC. But there were enough, especially with the gatling one front and center.
Sunrise''s best staggered back from the onslaught. This time there were no canister shots, no fancy enchantments. Just shells, steel, gunpowder and cold hatred.
Their assault upon the Mackie faltered, and the mech regained its momentum. A fired again.
This time, the howitzers weren''t first, as the mech leaned forward slightly, and unleashed its rocket pods.
Most of the rockets didn''t do anything. They simply screamed through the air, and impotently pinged off of barriers.
The ones who worked however...
Dozens of wards came down as the null warheads activated, and the mass of Sunrise elite staggered back as the Mackie unloaded its entire pods into them, annihilating their magical protections.
Then it righted itself again...and the rest of its weapons opened up.
Two wave of kinetic energy erupted from the shells the howitzers spat out. They weren''t the magnificent vortex of destruction of pulse warheads, but nor were they intended to be. Unexpectedly bereft of their wards, the knights staggered, the mages thrown about and rendered incapable from focusing and summoning their magic once more, to weave back some form of protection around themselves.
And the autocannon and machineguns swung about lazily, picking them off with inhuman precision, sensor pods tagging every single person that had thrown a spell at the Mackie.
The machinegun rounds hadn''t changed. Molten metal was wonderfully versatile when it came to killing people, and regardless, there was only so many types of ammo and internal ammunition switching mechanisms Alexandra could afford.
An allowance she had focused on the autocannons. The turret seamlessly switched between ammo belts, and the first two rounds, loaded into the barrels, were the previous spears of energy...and the next were balls of eldritch blue fire.
Some of the mages had a split second to scream in utter horror as they recognized the spells, a split second before the rounds hit them...and the spirit fire spells latched onto their cores.
This was the same magic Emilia had threatened Allya with upon their first meeting, back when she was just another adventurer. A magic considered so horrific many hesitated to use it, and one which Emilia had refused to teach the dungeon core.
But the archmage she had captured, and locked into a simulation had no such compuctions.
The spells latched onto the mages cores...and began devouring them, ripping out their essence and converting it into more of the insatiable flames.
The spellcasters fell to the ground, spasming as blue flames erupted from their eyes and mouths. Some, more resilient or simply luckier than others, fell unconscious as their damaged cores managed to extinguish the inferno.
Others...did not, and explosions rocked the battlefield as their cores, gorged on mana in preparation for the battle, came undone, releasing their stored energy in cataclysmic blasts, tearing ragged holes into the enemy formation.
The Mackie plowed forward, heavily armored feet rising above Sunrise''s cavalry, and coming down on gryphons and heavily armored riders alike, its machineguns firing in every possible direction as the autocannons continued their grim harvest of mages.
Sunrise''s elite were good. Very good. But they were also nobles, one and all...with a functional self preservation instinct.
They broke, and for the first time in living memory, the best the slaver duchy had to offer cut and ran like beaten slaves fearing the lash, fleeing for the safety of their advancing army.
Officers rose from the main battle, and flew over to them, trying to rally the warriors.
Unfortunately for them, Alexandra had been waiting for exactly this kind of stupidity, born out of the minds of nobles used to distances being a massive impediment to ranged weapons in medieval warfare, even if you were able to be seen by the enemy, and more importantly, not expecting that the enemy would have AIs capable of tracking you even after you went into the throng of fleeing soldiers. The So Much For Subtlety''s launchers cycled, and wave after wave of interceptor missiles screamed out, quickly joined by the Mackie''s own.
The officers fell like flies, and the fleeing knights dispersed, trying to flee their own officers, fearing for their lives, shattering even the faintest hope of bringing them back together.
But the rest of Sunrise''s force still bore onto the army, slowly carving their way towards the artillery, the only thing holding them at bay. They came forward, step by step. And the Mackie, no matter how formidable it was, could only be in one place at a time, as the vanguard rejoined the main army and folded into it.
Alexandra looked up from the holographic display, and glanced at Subtlety.
"We need to break contact. If we don''t, they''ll pin us down until the whole damned army arrives, and if that happens, we''re all dead." She closed her eyes. This was exactly the situation they were there for, but...there was no telling what would be people''s reactions to using them. Having weapons of the Old World was an entirely different matter from using them, just like nukes on Earth. "Fire the plasma missiles."
"Aye aye, firing plasma!" Barked out the AI.
One minute, Sunrise''s remaining gryphon knights and pegasus cavalry pushed grimly forward, slowly being annihilated or routed by the Mackie, making its way down the army, but not nearly quickly enough for it to matter.
The next, their entire backline was reduced to its component atoms.
The missiles didn''t even fly. They fired from the launchers, and the same instant they were there. Their drives, meant to propel them to fight spaceships, accelerated them to almost eleven kilometers per second, the speed necessary for a spacecraft to escape Earth''s orbit and fly off into the solar system.
Each missile, roughly a cubic meter''s worth of electronics, propulsion systems, metamaterials and high density alloys, almost fourteen tons in total, hit with the kinetic energy of two hundred tons of TNT, the yield of a vest pocket nuclear warhead or the UIS'' infamous ''Davy Crockett 2.0'' tactical nuclear rockets.
The plasma warheads were just the cherry on top, unleashing a wave of coherent energy accompanied by a blast of arcane power that destabilized shields and wards, allowing the following blast to punch through the barriers like they weren''t even there.
Alexandra watched in horror as the wave of destruction died out. Refusing to use it to get the vanguard out...had been a wise choice. Even with using it on the enemy''s back line, their support and mages, at least a tenth of the dead were her own people. Had she used them in place of the Mackie, she''d have done the enemy''s job for them.
She shook herself. There was no time to ponder. She screamed orders, and musicians as well as radios carried them to the troops below.
"EVERYONE PULL BACK! Grab every body or wounded one of ours you can and go. The tanks will buy you time!"
The soldiers were well drilled by this point, and even the most undisciplined amongst the Kaidani volunteers wouldn''t dream of disobeying her orders. The human troops fell back, dragging wounded comrades and fallen allies alike with them, Alexandra even noting distantly that they seemed to be applying that directive to her golems as well, though not carrying a metallic husk over a biological ones when there was a choice.
Surise''s troops milled hesitantly. The attack had shaken them, and all were darting looks of pure horror at the screams of the dying in their back lines, and the ominous battlecruiser hovering before them.
That, combined with their officers so foolishly exposing themselves, caused them to hesitate. They didn''t pursue the fleeing troops closely enough.
And the tanks rolled between the two clashing armies like a tsunami, the Mackie at the helm, running parallel to the retreating line of humans and golems, unleashing hell with their guns, doing a drive by to an entire army, the Mackie''s torso turned sideways as its legs ran it forward unimpeded.
Sunrise''s troops staggered back. And by the time they got their courage back, the army had already broken contact, the lines reforming into a coherent wall of spears and pikes, slowly marching backwards as the artillery began leapfrogging back, half thundering and covering the retreat while the other half ran backwards to new firing positions.
They could have pressed on still. But the missiles and the tanks had shattered their momentum. The apparently invulnerable Mackie, its shields glittering under the half hearted spell attacks from the surviving mages and paladins, the constant pounding of the guns, and the death of much of their officers prevented them, hell, even convinced them, from regaining it.
Sunrise''s air cavalry mounted a few timid, token attempts to regain contact, and fell back.
The battle was over.