99 AC / 54 HA
Third Person POV
The lush green fields that once surrounded Qohor were gone, replaced by a festering expanse of churned mud, shattered siege engines, and the bloated corpses of men and beasts. The past few moons had bled the city dry, leaving the earth slick and reeking of rot. Now, the soil would drink again. The red sea of the Imperial camp stirred in the pale dawn light, but for the first time in this bloody siege, Rome was not the instigator. The defenders of Qohor had chosen to strike.
The surviving sellsword companies formed their lines, their mismatched armor and ragged banners a stark contrast to the rigid discipline of the Free Cities' regulars. From the great, iron-wrought gates of Qohor marched the Unsullied. They had moved in an absolute, terrifying synchrony, eight thousand spears rising and falling as one, forming an unbreakable wall of flesh and iron to reinforce the vanguard.
Sitting astride her warhorse behind the cavalry lines was Ana, Commander of the Falling Stars. General Mor and General Tycho trotted their heavily barded mounts through the muck to join her on the ridge.
Below them, the massive Qohorik army shifted, compressing its infantry and cavalry into a dense, triangular wedge—the Boar's Snout.
General Mor spat a glob of phlegm into the grass and pointed a gauntleted finger toward the distant Roman lines.
"You had the right of it, Commander Ana," Mor grunted. "They anchored their pikemen heavily on the flanks to break a wide cavalry charge. There is very little ironwood concentrated in their center. If we shatter their middle, we can rout them and push straight through to that bastard Claudius."
"We will, provided they do not shift their lines before we strike," Ana cautioned, her emerald eyes tracking the distant movements of the crimson shields. "The Romans are crafty. If they deduce the wedge is coming, they will close that gap."
"They are not the only ones on this field with a mind for war," General Tycho noted, a smug, hard edge to his voice.
Ana offered a curt nod. She turned her mount toward the master-of-horns and dropped her hand. "Begin."
A deep, mournful blast tore across the ruined plains, instantly answered by dozens of warhorns echoing down the allied lines.
"For Qohor!"
"Die, you red bastards!"
"To the Goat!"
A deafening roar ripped from sixty thousand throats as the Boar's Snout surged forward. The wedge was a brutal, singular instrument of war—a spear of overlapping shields and driving mass designed to pierce the enemy center and gut the command structure before the flanks could collapse inward.
The distance closed rapidly. Thousands of hooves tore the mud into flying clods of dirt and blood. The Qohorik vanguard barrelled relentlessly toward the Roman testudo.
Across the field, the Imperial centurions realized the trap too late. Their heavy pikes were uselessly anchored on the far wings, leaving the thinned, vulnerable center of the Roman line braced for the devastating, concentrated impact of the Boar's Snout.
The Boar's Snout thundered across the ravaged plain, a massive wedge of screaming men and frothing horses driving straight for the Imperial center. The earth shook under the combined weight of the charge, throwing up thick clods of blood-soaked mud.
Halfway across the killing field, the formation shifted. Without warning, the entire western wing of the Qohorik cavalry sheared away from the protective flank. Spurs dug into horseflesh. Whips cracked. The detached regiment surged forward at a breakneck gallop, converging violently with the leading vanguard at the very apex of the wedge.
The Imperial centurions screamed their orders. The Roman center locked their heavy red shields together, forming the impenetrable iron-roofed testudo, bracing for the impact they had calculated.
They misjudged the mass.
The concentrated weight of the reinforced Qohorik cavalry slammed into the Roman center with the force of a falling mountain. Wood splintered. Iron buckled. The front ranks of the Imperial infantry were instantly pulverized, crushed beneath the iron-shod hooves of heavy warhorses. The red wall bowed inward, groaned, and shattered completely.
Qohorik riders plunged into the breach, their longswords and battle-axes rising and falling in brutal, bloody arcs. Severed limbs and ruined heads tumbled into the mud. The legionaries caught off guard by the sheer, overwhelming density of the shifted charge, scrambled to close the gaps, but the horses simply trampled them into the earth.
Atop the command ridge, Ana drew her curved blade and pointed it toward the distant Roman flanks.
"Loose the shafts!" she roared. "Pin their horses! Do not let them close the wings!"
Volley after volley of black-fletched arrows hissed into the pale morning sky, raining down upon the Roman cavalry waiting on the far edges of the field. The Imperial horsemen raised their shields, forced to hunker down under the deadly iron hail, utterly incapable of riding to the defense of their breaking center. The catapults began throwing boulders and stones into their way completely crushing a charging horse and man to mincemeat.
General Mor threw his head back and let out a vicious, barking laugh. "We have them! The red bastards are breaking!"
"Aye we shall be rejoicing upon their remains if this carries on," General Tycho agreed, a savage grin stretching across his scarred face. "Look at them bleed. Claudius's throat will be ours before midday."
Down in the mud, the Qohorik forces were massacring the legionaries. The heavy cavalry pushed deeper and deeper into the Imperial camp, cutting down fleeing Romans and driving the wedge straight toward the enemy command tents. Victory tasted like copper and sweat in the morning air.