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"Tell the warriors from the Umpa tribe to move up and support the right." Orin said to one of the many runners in charge of relaying his orders. These runners were the sons of a number of warriors who brought them for their first battle and wanted them to observe from a safe distance.
As he watched the boy, who looked like he had barely just completed his rite of passage to be recognized as a man, he asked, "Have we heard anything from the scouts that went to keep an eye on that other thing?"
"Not yet. But we are expecting them to report in by the end of today." Voro answered as he looked over the fighting.
Orin nodded in acknowledgment of his brother's report before asking, "Brother, what are your thoughts on the battles so far?"
After a moment of silence, Voro answered, "In the first and second battles, it looked like we caught them off guard. Every subsequent battle after that, it feels like we are being lured somewhere… even now, the enemy looks to be fighting defensively. It feels like it is only a matter of time before they spring some kind of ambush on us."
Orin nodded. "Any reports from the scouts that went deeper into enemy territory?"
"Not yet. They were supposed to report back half a day ago. So either they are held up to avoid enemies, or dead." Voro replied.
"Then we take this nice and slow. When the enemy decides to fall back again, send out our reserves in probing groups. I want to make sure the main body of our army is safe… ask the Gomo tribe to get on it, I hear they are some of the sneakiest hunters around, might as well put them to good use." Orin said, and soon runners were running to relay his newest orders.
Half an hour later, as Voro had observed, the enemy retreated with relatively little loss. A pursuit force was sent to put pressure on their retreat so they would not notice the probing groups that followed in their wake. And for the next few hours, Orin's forces marched forward to relocate their temporary base in the direction of where they thought the enemy was most likely coming from.
***
That night, after the camp relocation was done, Orin was shaken awake by Voro, "Brother, wake up, one of the scouts sent on that special assignment has just returned."
This woke Orin to alertness right quick as he threw on a robe and followed Voro to the command tent. There, he saw one of his tribes men looking worse for wear, like he had ruffed it for multiple days with limited supplies, because that is what actually happened.
The scout proceeded to tell the leadership what they observed. The supposedly large forces that were their allies' responsibilities to attack were, in fact, just uncontested territories where they chased out enemy scouting forces, and when they ran into their first sizable enemy force, their allies simply postured but did not attack, even to the confusion of the enemy forces.
Eventually, the leaders of the opposing forces met in the middle, talked, and the enemy retreated. The scout and his group were too far away to know what was said, but it was suspicious as hell to them.
After that, their allies' advance looked ridiculously slow. Day after day, they would break camp late in the morning, slow march with no opposition, and set up camp late in the afternoon, well before the sun was to set.
By the third day, the scouts figured that their allies were purposely not going to fight. They did not even bother to chase away the enemy scouts that were blatantly and openly keeping an eye on them. So the leader of their scout group decided that it was time to report back.
"Good job." Orin said as he patted the scout on the shoulder. "Eat and rest for tonight. Tomorrow, your last duty is to guide another group to relieve your group." he then dismissed the scout while the leadership stayed behind to discuss the implications of this latest update.
***
At first light, just as the relief scout group in charge of watching their supposed allies moved out, the probing groups sent out the day earlier reported back in. The good news was that they had either ambushed or repelled enemy groups of similar size waiting in ambush. The bad news was that one of the groups came across the scout group that went deeper into enemy territory. They were dead, and by the looks of their bodies, they were tortured and killed.
"I do not want to belittle the loyalty or bravery of those dead men, but we have to assume that the enemy now has information on us." Voro said, and all in the command tent begrudgingly nodded their head in agreement.
As Voro and the rest of the leadership were discussing things, Orin was plotting something, and when he had the skeleton of a plan, he said out loud, "Knowing what we know now, I do not think we can really call out allies our allies. But we cannot accuse them outright because we cannot prove anything. However, I do have a plan to make them do their share of fighting."
Due to the planning session, they broke camp two hours later than usual.
***
Tarof, lead warrior of the Mikri tribe, under the banner of the Rising Horn tribe, was leading a rather disorganized retreat at the moment. And as he ran at the head of what he estimated were six hundred people, he wondered how he ended up in charge of so many other people.
He was from a medium-sized tribe that joined this battle with the promise of land, resources, and loot, but he was not prepared to lead, especially this many people, and most of them were not from his tribe.
Sure, he held the title of lead warrior, but that was mainly because of his combat prowess, not his ability to command large numbers, and he knew it. So in the latest engagement with the Alliance forces, when anyone who so much as shouted or gestured an order found themselves pincushioned with arrows and spears, he found himself and his fellow warriors being easily routed as their battlelines collapsed.
As the mass of warriors retreated, they tried to reestablish a command structure, and that was how leadership of these routed men fell on Tarof's shoulders. He was by no means the only lead warrior around, but all the lead warriors who were used to command were dead, and his group was the biggest in the group. Despite his fears of giving up control and getting targeted by Alliance forces, he knew that if he did not restore order and form an orderly retreat, they were all going to die.
Tarof picked up his speed to get some distance ahead of the retreating masses, then he turned around. "STOP AND FORM UP! IF YOU DO NOT, WE WILL ALL DIE!" he shouted.
Those closest to him were from his own tribe. They recognized his command and obeyed. They rallied around him and formed a semblance of a battle line.
The moment their retreating allies from different tribes saw a semblance of order in the chaotic retreat, they were drawn to it like moths to a flame.
"SHIELDS TO THE REAR! SHIELDS TO THE REAR!" Tarof shouted, and every warrior holding a shield, regardless of what tribe they hailed from, filtered to the rear to defend against their pursuers.
When the battle line was formed solidly, they started retreating in a somewhat orderly manner and cycling injured men to the middle of the group.
However, despite being on the back foot, the Alliance forces did not push them aggressively. They simply pressured Tarof's men until they were forced to fall back.
This went on for hours. And to Tarof's surprise, besides a few cuts, scratches, and the occasional lucky shot of an arrow, they had not lost more than two dozen men. Another thing that surprised him was how his forces ended up positioned. At first, they were falling back to the north, but when he looked up at the position of the sun, he realised that they were now falling back to the west.
In all the flurry of activity, Tarof did not know how it happened, but he had a few ideas of why it happened, and none of them were good. Currently, the first thing that came to his mind was that it may be a pure coincidence, but he had fought long enough not to be that naive, so he gave the command to correct their course and slowly go back to retreating north.
It did not take long for Tarof's suspicions to be confirmed. The moment he corrected course, the Alliance forces started applying pressure on them to retreat west. When he commanded his men to keep pushing north, the Alliance forces stopped holding back and started killing his men until he gave the command to head west.
"That confirms it. We are being herded somewhere." Tarof whispered to himself.
But even when Tarof noticed it, it was too late. The Alliance warriors were rotated and rested, while his men were run half ragged in their retreat. If they stand and fight, they would surely die. If they dispersed and ran for it, they would just die tired. Even now, when he looked past the main bulk of Alliance forces herding them, he could see groups of warriors prowling, waiting for the men on his side to break discipline and run off on their own.
That only left one option. Let themselves be herded into the trap, and once the trap is sprung, use the chaos to escape. Tarof knew that he was no master strategist, but he was confident in his strength of arms. All he needed was a few good men and for the smaller tribes' warriors to be fodder for his escape.