A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind)

The remaining cavalry floundered to avoid a similar fate and streamed through the narrow gaps between our three companies, where there were no spike laden ditches. We had broken the force of their charge, but they had regrouped behind us and were preparing to charge from the rear, when a literal shower of arrows reigned down unexpectedly upon them from those gathered along the great wall behind them. Within moments the once proud lancer cavalry brigade was reduced to but a few scattered survivors, who either faked death on the battlefield or were trapped underneath the heavy bulk of their dead mounts.

The onrushing soldiers, following close behind the ill fated cavalry charge, attempted to climb across the ditches, trampling on the fallen and wounded bodies of their own fellow soldiers and their mounts. It was a grisly scene of hell reserved for only the bloodiest of battles.

The ditches filled full with the bodies of the fallen. As they met our tight line they were thrust through by our spears, as we stood packed tight together in our wall of shields. They parted around the strength of our shield wall as the cavalry had in search of a weak spot in our shield line and because they were being pushed on by the onrushing mass of soldiers behind them still eager to claim their part of the victory over us.

The strength of our shield wall and the deadly thrust of our spears helped send them sheeting through the gaps between our three columns in search of an easier target than the one we presented them with. As they poured out and around our company's rear they too became victims of the same scathing rainstorm of iron tipped death shafts as their cavalry had been before them.

We held our shields tight against the desperate jerks that came from the enemy in their vane efforts to break our shield wall. The ditch before us was now full with the bodies of the slain and the dying. It was time to move on.

"Lift shields and circle turn!" I bellowed out trying to be heard over the loud din of the battle all around us.

Those nearest me echoed my words and soon all were in awareness of the command. The center column, of five thousand warriors, split seamlessly into ten circular shield formations of roughly five hundred each, which moved independently of each other and began to march in spiraling trajectories pressing deeper into the enemy line.

Each of the ten formations lengthened the distance between them and the other groups. Some moving slower while others moved faster in beat with a choreographed plan that had been weeks in the practicing of. The enemy ranks gladly parted allowing the circularly spinning and tightly pressed formations to go deeper and become more isolated away from the two larger warrior groups that still remained pressed against the steep sides of the pass in an elongated formation.