General Kaelen stood on a windswept mesa and surveyed the pathetic remains of his grand army. What had been two proud legions, nearly ten thousand strong, was now a ragged column of perhaps six thousand exhausted, half-starved men. The southern march had been a catastrophic failure. The guerrilla tactics of the desert tribes, coordinated with a terrifying strategic brilliance, had bled him white. His supply lines were nonexistent. His men were on quarter-rations. His horses were dying.
He knew he had been outmaneuvered. The feint at the Dragon's Tooth Pass, the long, secret march—it had all been anticipated. His enemy, the bastard prince, was not merely a tactical commander. He was a grand strategist of a caliber Kaelen had not encountered in his long, storied career.
The Patient Vulture had been out-patiented.
Kaelen knew he had two choices. He could attempt a retreat, a long, desperate fighting withdrawal back through the hell that had unmade him. It would be the end of his army and his reputation. They would be harried, hunted, and annihilated piece by piece.
Or, he could make one last, desperate gamble. He could abandon the pretense of a siege or a war of logistics. He could consolidate his best remaining soldiers into a single, hard strike force, abandon his useless baggage train, and make a lightning-fast, all-or-nothing push directly for Oakhaven itself. He would force the decisive battle his enemy had so cleverly denied him. He would stake everything on the discipline and courage of his veteran soldiers in a single, climactic clash. It was a madman's gamble, but it was the only move left on the board.
"Burn the wagons," Kaelen commanded, his voice cold and devoid of emotion. "Every man is to take three days' rations and all the water he can carry. We march north. We march now."
The news of Kaelen's move reached me within hours, relayed by a chain of Ashen scouts. The giant was no longer lumbering into our web; it was making a desperate, wounded charge. The war of a thousand cuts was over. The final battle was at hand.
"He is a good general," Borin observed, as we looked at the map in my war room. "He knows when to fold a losing hand and go all in."
"He is," I agreed. "And he is giving us exactly what we want. A battle on our terms, in a place of our choosing."
I pointed to a location on the map, a wide, shallow valley about half a day's march south of Oakhaven. It was flanked on three sides by steep, defensible ridges. The valley floor was flat and open, perfect for a conventional battle. It was the only such place for fifty leagues. I had known for months that if a final battle were to be fought, it would be here. We called it the Valley of the Anvil.
"He will come here," I said with certainty. "It is the only ground suitable for his style of fighting. He will see it as his only chance to deploy his remaining heavy infantry in a proper battle line."
The call went out. The scattered raiding parties of the Confederacy began to converge. The Ironpeak warriors, the Ashen Rangers, the Oakhaven Vanguard—all of our forces began a swift, disciplined march to the Valley of the Anvil. We moved not as a tired, lumbering legion, but as a series of swift, coordinated units, living off our hidden supply caches. We would arrive at the battlefield rested, well-fed, and prepared.
For three days, we worked. The valley was transformed. Ulf's Sappers did not build walls, but they subtly altered the terrain. They dug hidden trenches, concealed by nets of desert scrub, to break up a cavalry charge. They prepared small, controlled rockfalls to be triggered at key moments.
My main force, the anvil of our army, took up a defensive position at the northern end of the valley. The Oakhaven Vanguard and the Ironpeak Shock Troops formed a dense, deep shield wall, five ranks strong. Their iron spears and heavy axes bristled. They were immovable.
Kai's archers and Rangers disappeared into the ridges on either side of the valley, hundreds of hidden nests from which they could rain down death with impunity.
And Borin and his Dragoons, our hammer, were concealed in a deep, wooded canyon a mile to the west of the valley, completely hidden from view, waiting for the signal.
On the fourth day, they came. A ragged, desperate, but still formidable army of four thousand of the kingdom's best soldiers, marching under General Kaelen's personal banner. They were thin, their armor was dull with dust, but their eyes burned with a veteran's grim resolve. They saw the open valley. They saw our shield wall waiting for them at the far end. They saw the battle they had been craving.
General Kaelen, mounted on his black warhorse, looked across the valley at our line. He did not know he was looking at an anvil. He saw only an enemy that had finally, foolishly, decided to stand and fight.
"Advance!" he roared, his voice carrying across the valley. The war drums of the legion began to beat, a slow, steady, funereal rhythm. The last, great army of the kingdom began its final march.