Steel and Mana

Chapter 299 – The Situation Down South

The fields surrounding Volkhir, the central city within the southern frontline in Ishillia, had become an unending sea of churned mud, blood, and ash in the past months. The Geth Empire and Ishillia still stood locked in grueling combat that neither side could break. It was now the middle of autumn, and the months of fighting had stripped the land of its vitality, doing it much more harm than the long winter ever could. What few trees had managed to survive by now had been all stripped bare, their skeletal forms standing there like weird, ghoully mementos on the scorched earth. The air wasn’t any different; it reeked of decay—rotting corpses of those who neither side could retrieve, mingling with the acrid smoke of ever-burning fires, consuming everything, including those who they could recover but didn't survive.

Both armies were rooted in place, unwilling to yield even a meter of land yet unable to advance at the same time. Realizing it, the Geth forces had dug themselves into the flatlands, constructing rudimentary fortifications with any tree they managed to cut down. They reinforced them from the earth they dug up and the boulders they found. Using anything that could be moved. These were only poor imitations of Ishillia's expertly entrenched positions, though, but better than camping in the open. Still, they offered some semblance of protection, especially after they realized they weren’t going to conquer the city and push deeper in. Each day was a grim cycle of survival—for both parties. There was no end to repairing fortifications, rationing supplies, and counting the dead.

For Emperor Kadosa IV, the holy conquest he preached had long turned sour. He no longer stood at the front of his troops, delivering fiery speeches to inspire them; those days had ended when the Ishillian lines proved to be unbreakable. Without his closest ally, Emperor Ahnud’s presence, his plans fell apart very quickly. Was he angry? Yes. Yes, he was. Ahnud's failure to deal with his neighbors, being bogged down in a similar stalemate with Roblesia and Tentian, was the direct cause of the failure of his crusade. At least, Kadosa and many of his generals began thinking like that.

By now, the Emperor of Geth had spent his days in his command tent, poring over maps marked with countless failed strategies and blocked routes to go around the Ishillian defenses. His armor, once clean and shiny, adorned with the Medallion of Life, was now tarnished, dented, and beginning to rust because of the blood stuck to its surface, eating away at it. The weight of his decisions caused his army’s numbers to dwindle, and he found it increasingly challenging to find reinforcements, pulling untested officers and young men from back home. Still, his pride forbade him from retreating.

Food supplies had become a constant concern. Supply wagons were frequently ambushed by Ishillian guerrilla forces, their routes becoming more perilous by the day. Somehow, no matter how many such groups he crushed, more would pop up… Then, the common folk who had joined the crusade by themselves were the first to feel the sting of starvation and the horrors of an actual battlefield. Desperation grew among their ranks, turning their fervent faith into murmurs of dissent, even causing a few regiments to disappear, disband, and become bandits. A pest who started raiding Kadosa's supplies, just like the Ishillians.

Kadosa's commanders were no less troubled. Every plan to breach Ishillia’s defenses had failed spectacularly. Most of the siege engines that were brought forward in their previous, biggest summer assault had either been destroyed or rendered useless by Ishillian precision strikes. It was their last, big push for a breakthrough, lasting for four days, ending in the Emperor’s order to retreat to their starting point, achieving… nothing.

There were attempts at cavalry charges into the Ishillian fortifications, resulting in catastrophic losses, thanks to the uneven terrain favoring the defenders. They were followed by a massive night assault, a source of hope that had quickly turned into a cruel joke; Ishillian mages ensured that even the cover of darkness offered no advantage.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Then came the Geth response, using their own mages to bathe the land in fire, which was countered by the Ishillian forces just the same. The only result that both parties achieved was the death of regular troops caught in the crossfire on both sides as fire rained from the night sky.

The battlefield between the two armies became a no-man’s-land after the fighting, a treacherous expanse riddled with traps, craters, and the charred, unclaimed dead. Skirmishes erupted once again the other day, brief but ferocious clashes that left both sides losing a good amount of troops once again. Geth patrols ventured cautiously into the hills surrounding the land, seeking weaknesses in Ishillia’s defenses, only to be ambushed by hidden archers and guerrilla fighters.

It unfolded in the early hours of the overcast morning following the previous night's magical battle. A Geth detachment, led by a young officer, a fresh replacement from back home after his predecessor died on the battlefield, initiated a breakthrough. He was desperate to prove himself and attempted to flank an Ishillian outpost nestled in the hills. The Geth soldiers moved quietly, trying to hold their breath so as not to make a noise, but the Ishillians had anticipated the maneuver. It wasn’t the first time they had stopped a flanking maneuver, and it wouldn't have been the last, either.

As the Geth troops approached the outpost, a hail of arrows rained down from above, cutting through their ranks with precision. The survivors charged forward, only to find themselves ensnared in hidden traps dug into the earth, decorated with sharp metal spikes, catching multiple men and impaling their bodies. Hearing their cries, Ishillian infantry emerged from their covert positions, their blades drawn, rushing down at them, knowing where not to step. The skirmish was over in minutes, and the Geth strike force of veterans was annihilated, forcing Kadosa to find another officer replacement… again.

When news of the failed attack reached the Emperor, he ordered retaliatory strikes against Ishillian positions in anger, resulting in yet another bloody stalemate. This ended his attempts to break Ishillia and stopped all of their attacks for weeks.

“We cannot sustain this, Your Grace.” General Harven, one of Kadosa’s most trusted tacticians, stood before the Emperor, his face ashen. “When winter comes, it will destroy us before Ishillia ever does.”

“And what would you have me do, Harven?” The Emperor snapped, slamming his fist onto the table. “Retreat? Slink back to Geth with our tails between our legs? We are supposed to be on the same level as Ishillia! They are supposed to be in inner turmoil, fighting rebellions all over their territory! Yet they stopped us?! Am I going to acknowledge that Ishillia is superior even when it's down on one knee?!”

“No, my Emperor. But we must adapt. Strike at their supply lines. Send assassins to take out their commanders. We need chaos in their ranks, or we will bleed ourselves dry. We must do something, or we both will die here, and we all know Ishillia will be the first to recover.”

Kadosa’s expression darkened, but he gave a curt nod. He was right… they couldn’t keep this up. That night, he dispatched his most skilled operatives in a desperate gamble to disrupt the Ishillian war machine; if this wouldn't work either, he was afraid that he had to give the command to retreat. And that could end him up in much more trouble than anyone could imagine... maybe even in a revolt back home.

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Across the battlefield, Ishillia's defenders still held firm, though their efforts of standing their ground were not without cost. Volkhir’s surrounding fields were now a labyrinth of trenches, barricades, and hastily constructed fortifications. A man-made forest of dearth.

Soldiers rotated shifts at the front lines, their faces less strained than those of their counterparts on the other side. Lucca, Pascal's disciple, proved to be a more outstanding tactician than Emperor Kadosa’s own generals. He oversaw the defense, directly giving orders and reacting to everything Kadosa and his army tried. He was a constant presence, moving among the troops to bolster morale, casting spells himself, blocking the enemy’s magic. His robes were worn and caked with mud, but he was leading by example. Although he looked tired in the past month or so, his mind remained sharp, and he tirelessly devised countermeasures to Emperor Kadosa’s relentless assaults.

“Hold the line,” he ordered innumerable times, a phrase that became the mantra of the Ishillian troops. “Every day we stand is another step toward victory.”

But even Lucca knew the cost of this prolonged struggle. Ishillia's forces were stretched thin, their numbers dwindling with each skirmish. Reinforcements trickled in from other regions, but they were often raw recruits or hastily armed peasants, conscripted bandits. Every lost veteran was a hard blow… The rebellion in the old territory of Scorc had diverted critical resources, and although his disciple brother was washing the land with blood to reign them in, breaking the spirit of the people was not an easy task. Then… there was the northern border with the disobedient Mirian Ishillia. At least, he received news from Barth that he had finished his preparations and contained the woman in the North, sealing the region like trapping a bug under a glass jar.

At least his Mater, the Eternal Emperor, could now start focusing on this battle. Thinking about his situation, his mind returned to the immediate future of his own supplies. While they were better protected than the Geth supply lines, theirs were also not immune to disruption.

For the past two days, Geth's assassins somehow managed to sneak past him. They struck under the cover of night, targeting caravans and supply depots. These attacks forced his commanders to divert troops from the front lines, further straining their defenses. Yet, Lucca adapted at once, employing counterintelligence and delegating one of his mages to place magical wards at their depots, trying to root out the infiltrators. He didn’t hesitate to send a mage to find the enemy, along with a squad of veterans. The tiniest cracks could break their wall as time passed… and he wasn’t going to let it happen.

The city of Volkhir itself bore the scars of war. Once a recognized regional capital, it was now a fortress in all but name. Civilians worked alongside soldiers, reinforcing barricades and tending to the wounded brought back from the front lines. The city’s walls were lined with ballistae and their own siege engines, ready to repel any assault that may break through. Every able-bodied man, woman, and child had been conscripted into the defense effort, leaving the streets eerily empty. Anyone refusing to do so very quickly found themselves hanging from the walls.

Thanks to Lucca’s quick reaction, Kadosa’s gambit to sow chaos in Ishillia’s ranks had yielded only minor successes. At the same time, Ishillian's efforts to push Geth back were unsuccessful due to the difference in the number of troops. The war had devolved into a grinding war of attrition, and Lucca was hoping to whittle the Geth forces down to size so he could finally overpower them.

For the Geth Empire, the question was no longer one of conquest but of survival. If their army suffered a disastrous defeat here, the entire Geth Empire would be at risk. Kadosa’s commanders urged him to consider a retreat, but the Emperor remained steadfast, his pride outweighing the mounting losses. For Ishillia, the challenge was to maintain their fragile line while preparing for the inevitable resurgence of Geth’s assaults.

Lucca understood that their current strategy was working, but he lacked the resources to launch a counteroffensive. He had to hold out a bit longer. When they retreat, he can start pushing a little. And with the North contained, the remaining Ishillian ships were being prepared. The moment they arrived, the Geth Empire would be finished!