July 2, 2022 – 4 minutes read – 694 words

Dashing — The horses and running dragons carry the Eighth Army soldiers

The northern area of the Kingdom is mountainous and covered with coniferous trees. The region is buried in snow during winter.

The Eighth Army troops in their black military uniforms moves along the foot of the mountain where the horses can walk. The 200 soldiers are silent as they follow their leader (me).

After a half-day’s travel time, nightfall approached.

“All right, we’re camping here for the night. Setup tents, no fires!” Pat

When we reached a small creek, I decided it was time to stop. I climbed a nearby tree to get a better view.

The fortress is that way, so the tribes should be that way? Could I see their fires if the sun goes down a bit more?

“Each group, take your lookout in the normal order. We’ll move before dawn.” Pat

Overnight, there were some attacks from goblins and wolves, but the Eighth Army suffered no damage. I made sure to climb the tree again after the sun set to discern the precise location of the enemy.

At the first hints of dawn the Eighth Army begins to sortie.

“Let’s go, expect to be in combat this afternoon. Everyone, we’re moving at a reduced speed, for stealth.” Pat

At that point, I signal my running dragon with my feet, once I’m moving, the rest of the army follows me. While running, I gnaw on dried meat and drink water from my water bottle. I don’t want to overeat before the battle.

When the sun has moved to directly overhead, we could see the outline of the fortress. Our sneaking strategy had been achieved, I can see enemies ahead.

“All hands, keep quiet. Carefully move forward.” Pat

The Eighth Army moves forward silently and slowly. There’s only barely audible footsteps of running dragons or hoofbeats of the horses.

At around a kilometer from the enemy, I order “Full Assault!” with a quiet voice.

“Augh, enemy attack!” Tribal Warrior yells when we’re around 200 meters away.

We’ve managed to get quite close to the enemy unnoticed.

“Major Wily! Ready horse archers!” Pat

“Ha! Horsemen, draw your bows! Ready… loose!” Major Wily

At the Major’s command, about a hundred arrows fly from the horse archers.

“Major Vampert! Running dragons should charge with spears out!” Pat

Major Vampert is a slender man, a little taller than me, he shakes his long red hair and opens his brown eyes.

“Yes, sir! Running Dragon Battalion! Ready Spears!” Major Vampert

This battle won’t be a forest battle, so we’re using spears. Though the Eighth Army uses shorter spears than average.

The enemy was impatient after staring at the fortress for so long. They had just received word that reinforcement has arrived and hundreds of tribal warriors had been taken out. They would never have expected Kingdom soldiers to attack from their read.

The people known as the mountain tribes scraped out a living in various settlements scattered around the Northern mountains. Life in those mountains was harsh, and there are many years they cannot grow enough food for all their people. On those years, the tribe sometimes will attack in an attempt to take plains land. Since the tribes aren’t able to coordinated among themselves, the small raiding party is driven off and have yet to take any land.

This time, the tribes were able to coordinate and all the warriors set off in a joint action. They were in high spirits since they outnumbered the fortress, but had stalled out when they had no equipment to attack the fortress. In fact, the tribal warriors had never participated in a group battle before, how would they know what to do?

“Enemy attack from the rear!” Tribal Warrior

The entire group is dismayed by the shout, even a nearby arrow causes them to scream.

A tribal warrior thinks to himself

It wasn’t supposed to be like this!

The empire sold us food at bargain prices, but it would only last a month before we ran out. Starvation is inevitable if we can’t wrest some territory from the Kingdom. This was the only time we could invade!