Expansion The Munrian War: Fall of Emder [Iron Cult Expansion to Emder]

[Dreadheart]

The Freeguild infantry advanced up the river, making their way to the Northern Road, while the cavalry creeped behind them. With little to no obstacles, they advanced without cover, and without any chances of surprising the Guard, for they were aware of their coming as soon as they made into line of sight.

Unfortunatelly, for the Guard, the artillery was far behind and had yet to be moved into a favouring position to provide any support, leaving the now stretched Guard elements to fend for themselves...

General Altegrol was aware that this brought the two sides on even grounds. Instead of rushing his artillery, he changed the tactic and summoned his remaining cavalry contingents to Kropsyde, now riding North along the road, to meet the enemy.

"General, sir." Captain Tybog intoned, saluting Von Altegrol.
"Captain Sol. The man I required."

"How can I be of service, sir?"

"The enemy is moving..." the General lowered his spyglass and offered it to the Captain. "Look. Some three hundred infantry, those buggers. And a cavalry troop. I will have the Dragoons sally out to lure the enemy forth. You and your company will march out to support them."

"Advance! Keep the Line!" the officers barked, as the infantry advanced under the sound of drums, and the shadow of the large black and red flags marked with the cross of the Iron Cult. From their flanks, cavaliers galloped out, sounding their trumpets as they hasted, offering a challenge to the enemy's cavalry.

Tybog could tell simply by looking across the field, the enemy had much less mounted troops than the Guard. Their foot troops, though... Oh, that would be an issue he would have to deal with....

As the formation pushed onward, the enemy infantry started splitting, with their right flank lagging behind. Whether driven by zeal, or foolish planning, or simply disorganization, Tybog could not recognize, yet the enemy cavalry suddenly kicked into a gallop, rushing forth ahead of the infantry to meet their rivals. A brutal cavalry engagement followed suit.

The two sides clashed like contrasting waves in the Kraken Sea. Riders were trampled after losing their balance and falling over the saddle. Though their cavalry blades were sharp, they were very thin, rapiers, unable to deliver any amputative cuts. Instead, these finesse, civilized weapons, delivered piercing blows, without enough size to the wound's surface to cause severe bleeding. This, though, meant not the battle wasn't brutal. The wounded, almost always fell to their deaths, with internal bleeding and vital damage in any hit that was not diflected. The carnage continued, as the cavalry contingents blent in a chaotic pursuit of one another. The numerical advantage of the Guard's cavaliers, gradually overcoming the zealous fighting of the Freeguild dragoons....

 

[Dreadheart]

It wasn't long until the Guard cavalry routed the enemy dragoons from the field, finally openning the way for the infantry. As the troops advanced, and the cavalry held their pursue, the Freeguild infantry started advancing, shooting volleys against the riders to push them back. Instead of allowing them, and thus exposing the Guard troops to a disadvantageous engagement against the numerically superior Freeguild foot troops, the Guard cavalry turned and commited to a charge against the Freeguild rifle soldiers.

"What are they doing...!?" Tybog muttered, pulling the hammer of his rifle. "Prepare to fire!" he commanded.

While the cavalry threw themselves against the bayonet infantry, the other section of the Freeguild troops advanced towards Tybog's company.

"First rank, Fire!"

Musket shots squealed across the field, followed by sudden screams of pain as troops were wounded by stray or targeted fire on both sides.

"Second rank, Fire!"

In each volley, the two infantry contingents came one step closer. Something that increased their accuracy, and brought them closer to the bayonet charge, which was usually how an infantry engagement ended, in open fields, and such contained the highest casualty rates of all action....

Meanwhile, the cavalry, now deep in the enemy's formation, faced dozens of troops with affixed bayonets, piercing rider and mount alike, as they fought back. One after the other, the cavaliers fell, or were dragged down and butchered...

The remaining riders turned and fled, seeing the futility of the battle. Gazing to the infantry engaging on their rear, the feeling of panic became ever stronger, leading the entire remnants of the contingent to routing, flying off the field seeking the safety of Kropsyde.... It was now upon the infantry to hold back what seemed to be the very final push of the Freeguild army on Gronharen....

 

[Dreadheart]

"Fix Bayonets!" Tybog commanded. In a moment where instinct took over, the captain fell on his knees, as yet another volley of musket shots flied past the formation. The Guard bled, as the infantry fired again and again, while troops from both sides made ready for the soon to come hand to hand carnage...

"Where is the cavalry, cap!? We are done for without them!" Eldenrik shouted, expressing the worrying each and every of the Guardsmen had, to Tybog.

"They will come, soldier. Now, make ready to serve Fuernburg!"

He couldn't know. In reality, he doubted himself. Dust and shouts still came from the far flank, where the cavalry had been engaging, now mostly beyond Tybog's line of sight due to the advance of the enemy infantry. Now, they were on their own, about to weather the storm of battle like they always had. Alone. And unsupported...

"Ready arms!!" Captain Tybog roared, seeing the enemy preparing for yet another volley. He wouldnt let them have that one... He would change the stalemate, if it was the last he did....

"CHARGE! FOR FUERNBURG! FOR THE GOD-MACHINE!"

In a sudden wave of roaring, shouts and stray musketfire, the infantry charged forth onto the enemy line. Though evenly matched, it was clear that the Freeguild infantry counted on the cavalry themselves, stalling for time as they pushed for riflefire exchanges until one of the two cavalry detachments came on top in the nearby engagement, thus providing the advantage to their allied foot troops... But that, that was a plan now failed, for the Guard pushed onward with bayonet and cries of battle.

The Freeguild line troops, seeing the coming charge and yet to fix their bayonets, rushed to respond, with many, perhaps because of their inexperience, resulting to firing their muskets, in hopes of killing the foe prior to them reaching the line...

 

[Dreadheart]

The soil ran with blood, as the Guard clashed with the Freeguild infantry with furious zeal. Skulls were pierced, guts spilled and mercy deprived. The infantry clashes in Munria were renown for their brutality, although little to no armour was used, for the most part. The chivalric ways of the West were all but a legend, with the local powers seeing more purpose in fielding larger, more organized armies, over to knightly hosts and household troops. These were reserved by the nobility who in and of itself held a much higher status in comparison to the Eirish or Pottaunese nobility. The fighting, for the most part, was done by massly drafted and limited trainned troops that were fed into lines of battle until the soil grew far too muddy of blood and death to advance farther...

Captain Tybog was no stranger to these ways. Actually, it was all he ever knew, of war. This was his job. His profession and life alike, until he met his end in one of the many fields of battle he ought to perform in. The Guard's gambeson, strangely enough, did provide a certain level of protection against the bayonet and the knife. Neither side used heavy armour, and if they did, none of this action would have taken place.

 

[Dreadheart]

The Freeguild infantry held fast. The melee became more and more violent, with troops from pockets of open ground formed by tinny advances of either side, loading up and firing their muskets in close range, adding to the chaos of the front line.
Additional troops were rushed from the nearby buildings, in view of the engagement. Though scarse, and few in number to make a difference, the impact on morale was massive, as the troops of the line felt the officers behind them did pay attention to the engagement and kept feeding them reinforcements. To recognize the quality or numbers of these reinforcements was impossible, given the tight melee and the chaotic fighting in the front.

Both of the battling forces knew why they were fighting for. It wasn't victory. It wasn't pride. It was time. Time for the engaged cavaliers to conclude their own stand nearby, behind the wall of dust and cacophony of hooves, and rush to hit the enemy infantry from the rear. If that was to happen to the Guard, Tybog had little to no way to hold his troops in line and salvage the chaotic rout that would follow. The safety some might seek behind the buildings of Kropsyde was unpheasible, given the cuirassiers would soon catch up and slay them before they got themselves in range of the barricaded troops manning the settlement...

 

[Dreadheart]

"They better come quick!" Tybog muttered behind his teeth, as he stood up from the pit in which he had caved an enemy soldier's head into the soil with his musket's stock. The small openning around him filled with smoke, as his troops fired behind him against the enemy to preserve any little advantage they had formed.

Captain Tybog ducked, turning back to the line to avoid the soon to come retaliation of the enemy's musketeers. Indeed, it came as soon as he moved past the first line. Accuracy was low, though the distance cut short, because of excess fatigue and blinding white shrouds from the firing of rifles..

"Keep pressure on them, lads! Keep the powder coming!" he shouted, grasping on his leg. A sudden pain pierced through him. Whether the wound pre-existed, or he was wounded a moment prior, he could not figure. The andrenaline in his body was high enough to neglect most pain caused by wounds not inflicted on anything vital. As he pressed on the wound, he realized that was a shot that went, hopefully, clean through. It must have been there for awhile, as his entire pants had turned red beneath the gambeson.
Though he felt such a wound much better, compared to those inflicted from the distance, and had to be treated by the surgeons to pluck out the lead shot, this one gifted two different holes from which blood kept pouring...

 

[Dreadheart]

The situation grew stressful, as the cavalry refused to appear from behind the wall of dust. Both sides had suffered by the melee, eventually forcing themselves to give ground. To their mutual relief, both formations pulled in relative synchrony. It was any a captain's fear, when the time to withdraw came, that the enemy had enough strength left in them to push against their unit and inflict enough panic to the troops to cause a rout.

In the Iron Guard, Captains who failed to control their troops were severely punished for their incompetence. Troops found fleeing an enemy without a direct order... Oh, their fate was usually worse, being captured and thrown to the firing squad, or even, should the situation demanded it, forced to return to their ranks. The latter was a dark practice used usually by the most ruthless commanders, or the Plague Doctors who occasionally gained command of Iron Guard regiments. Such acts of forced penance marked the end of the respective unit, for it was pushed to the breaking point in the field to be made an example of to the rest, yet to give in to fear of the enemy. After such acts, the fear for their commanders usually bested that of death itself...

 

[Dreadheart]

"This is not a pleasant development..." General Altegrol shook his head. The noise of the artillery guns being wheeled forth up the hill, and the exhausted gasps of the troops that pushed them, loud to Altegrol's ears, though the elder general ignored their struggle. His hands kept behind his back, while his long gabardine flapping by the occasional blow of the wind.

The view was horrid. The city of Gronharen was turned into a ruin. Over a thousand shells had wounded the once rich settlement, while the fighting in its streets went on, now in less and less numbers, as isolated groups engaged one another. The districts around the river had a thick white shroud over them, hinting to the infantry push of the Iron Guard against the Northern district, last of the Freeguilds' strongpoints in the city.

Across the field, into the distance, Kropsyde was covered by smoke. Altegrol pulled out his spyglass, investigating the situation there. Even through the magnifying glass of the spyglass, he could not clearly distinguish the units in the field, for some remaining standing buildings broke his line of sight.

"Place two of the cannons there..." he pointed to a nearby plateau, next to the steep slope of the hill. "Have them ready to fire immediatelly..."

"But, general, sir?" the lieutenant complained. Worrying was evident in his tone. "Our own troops are engaged outside Kropsyde. We will fire on our own troops!?"

 

[Dreadheart]

"I said get the cannons ready to fire, lieutenant...." Altegrol's irritation by the lieutenant's comment was strong in his words. A glare was offered to the man, louder than an order to continue, and thus the lieutenant bowed his head and rushed back to the cannons.

Back in the field, Captain Tybog's troops had pulled several dozen meters away from the enemy. The two formations, now battered and bled of troops, did not engage in another melee contest. Instead, some brave soldiers walked ahead of their line and fired their muskets to the enemy before pulling back again. A new, bloody, stalemate was established.

The Freeguild troops had lost heart in the stand. Their officers choosing to withdraw and regroup, instead of pushing their stand against the Iron Guard. The latter, in turn, had suffered casualties, lost gear and was low in ammunition. Tybog knew, this would be an attricious engagement, which if not assisted by reinforcements of any kind, could carry on well into dusk.

Something had to happen.

He lied down, behind a soil bulge formed by a landed artillery hit, and tore part of his cloth to make a makeshift bandage for his leg. The bleeding wasn't stopping.

"Captain, sir!" one of the surviving troops shouted, crawling towards him through the muddy soil, to avoid stray musket shots that flied overhead.

 

[Dreadheart]

"Open fire!"

The artillery guns roared. Barrels spat flame and white smoke surrounded the hill on which the artillery had repositioned. General Altegroll once again used his spyglass, to measure the precision of the cannons. The first shot fell on a high roof of one of the buildings blocking the view to the battle outside Kropsyde, followed by another shot that cracked the support beams of the same building, causing most of it to collapse into the surrounding streets like a melting icebreak in a time warp.

The following barrage landed upon the Freeguild infantry ranks, casting red and brown mist into the air, with limbs and broken rifles becoming shrapnel that rained down the openning. The precision of the artillery was shocking even to their commanding officers...

But General Altegroll, was no stranger to modern war. He was a pioneer of artillery use, and much favoured them over the traditional cavalry tactics. Years into the battlefields had made him an expert bombardier like few others, not hesitating to risk his own troops, for the gamble of a deadly precision shot that could land a blow so shocking to the foe it could turn the tides...

And in Kropsyde, that was just what happened...

The column of dust elevated by the landing of the artillery shot right amidst the Freeguild formation caused a sudden shockwave of panic.
Though limited view, due to the smoke dust and structures from the distance, General Altegroll could recognize the ant-like marks on the view that hinted the routing enemy troops.

Another artillery shot fired, landing seconds later farther into the distance. A horrifying feeling befell the Freeguild infantry, as if the artillery trailed their rout.... It indeed did just that...

Within moments, the enemy infantry had been driven off the field; The curtain of the artillery barrage allowing Captain Tybog and his troops to withdraw back to Kropsyde, while the cavalry, seeing the fleeing of their comrades, broke and ran away from the field...

"Lieutenant..." General Altegroll intoned, lowering his spyglass.
"General, sir?"

"Send word to Fuernburg. Gronhaven has fallen. The 88th is moving North."