NOVEL SIMPLE E133 – Didn’t I tell you I’d sort it out?
“So?” Heria asked as she waited atop her wolf, sitting cross legged.
“Seems as though we won’t be interrupted for some time whilst we sort out our Kingdom for the next short while…” Ares replied as he returned to his army. “We’re going to wait for until noon and if they haven’t left, then we’re going to drive them out. I want a single Company at the ready, everyone else can eat and then we’ll take take turns until noon.” He motioned a hand to the Flaming Wolves. “You will be on duty first, and then the next will be those to your left, and so on.” Ares said as he waved his arm to show them the order.
Ares walked over to the refugees that remained within his fort. He smiled. “See? Didn’t I tell you I’d sort it out?” Then he asked the cooks to prepare food for everyone, dropping down stacks of meat for everyone. He still had quite a large amount of meat in his ring.
Heria remained with her Flaming Wolves, being dutiful for once, even if she was lazing around on her wolf.
“I want every Major to come and meet me, I need to speak with you.” Ares called out as he then left the group, heading outside the fort over to where he would have been with his Flying Wolves during the fight, who were relaxing nearby.
Ares waited until the six Majors appeared. He didn’t know them personally, but apparently the Captain had all chosen their Majors, and Ares was still giving them the chance to solidify their rank.
“So I figured out, by watching you all line up, I may have left everything too rigid. I would like to change a few things when it comes to the army. I would like the army to remain dynamic, and realised that since we don’t have an entire legion at the moment, that the large blocks of Companies may not be the best way of doing things.”
The others waited as they listened in. Even Heria was paying attention for once.
“So I would like each of you to pick a Second Major, who will control half the Company. You will continue to give orders as you have recently, but I would prefer to keep the units a little more free form. It would have been useful to have double the blocks so that everyone could move more freely, as well as to move more autonomously whenever the time called for it. I still want each Squad to move independently if needed, but working with the Companies as is doesn’t seem to be a good idea.”
They nodded slowly and then Ares drew the typical formation he wanted. The light infantry, with their javelins and such, would skirmish with the enemy first before then they would move in to fight. The left flank would be where the general to remain for the most part, and it would be the most reinforced flank. They would try and crush the enemy from the left to the right, with the cavalry chasing off whichever enemy ran away, but only half a Company would leave since they would be archers and will be able to mow down the enemy from afar without the danger of getting too close for the enemy to turn around and turn the tide on them.
“This will be the typical formation, though may change depending on the situation. I would also like to keep about two half Companies of heavy infantry in reserves, or instead two half Companies of light infantry so they can move around in the Squads to reinforce whichever section of the line is breaking… This should allow us to gain victory most of the time, but we’ll have to see when it comes to that time. I would like to have a large army of horse archers, or rather, wolf archers, but we don’t have enough wolves or wolffolk for that at the moment. Perhaps in a generation or two I can show you something rather terrifying.” Ares smiled.
He waited for any questions. The Majors asked for some things to be repeated, but they understood the gist of the conversation and then returned to their Companies to inform them of the rules.
Ares himself began to do math on the ground to figure out just how many soldiers he had. He recalled something about having twenty Companies or so, and recently there has been talks of about six elite units like the Roaring Tridents, which he needed to figure out a name for. Something majestic and cool? ‘Oh… actually, Majestic sounds pretty good? A Majestic. Yeah, let’s stick with that for now.’
Ares hummed out absentmindedly before he then looked back down. Twenty Companies in total. Three sets of six, so he could make six Battalions. That meant he had two left over to move over where they pleased…
Ares stared down at the little boxes he had made. The Two spare Companies could be the wolf Companies he had made, but at the same time… he did want to create the First Battalion, which would be a Battalion that would be strengthened. He may call is something else if he ever had an extra Legion around, something like the Mega Battalion or some such…
He could create it right now considering the wolf Companies, but decided against it for now. Having the two Companies that could move swiftly to reinforce an area, it was just too useful to have. Ares sighed and then returned back to the camp to grab some food. He looked out to see the humans had already started to leave.
“Heria.” Heria turned to face him. Her unit had just finished with their shift, Ares had been in thought for some time. “Nevermind, I’ll deal with it.” He nodded towards her.
“What did you need of me?”
“Would you care to grab your Squad and circle around to check if the humans are truly leaving? Could you watch them go?”
She nodded. “Very well, I can do that little at least.” Heria said as she yawned and then whistled as her personal Squad then rode off to the side to do as Ares had asked.
Ares looked back to the humans. They had offered to leave Ares alone for some time. No doubt they had very few soldiers on hand. They had destroyed an entire Legion almost, but whatever was left of it was probably reformed under Commander Nevro.
He wanted to drive them off, but it would take him some time to form the various villages and towns nearby, as well as to go and explore to the West. With the oxfolk nearby who had still not joined them, it was awkward. If the oxfolk had joined him, he would have chased off the humans that remained, but alas, another time perhaps.