The mountain pass was a graveyard. The cheers of victory had died in the soldiers' throats, replaced by a grim and hollow silence. The Vexin alliance, victorious but exhausted, stood on a battlefield of shattered shields and fallen men. The King's army was no more; its remnants had fled in a chaotic rout, but the price of their defeat was etched on the faces of every Vexin soldier.
Hours later, in a makeshift war council tent, the leaders of the Vexin alliance gathered. The air was thick with the scent of dirt and regret. Damon, his armor scarred and his face streaked with grime, sat at the head of the table. His hands, gripping a cup of water, were stained with the blood of his enemies and the grief for his fallen comrades. Isolde, Arion, and Lord Eran sat across from him, their faces a mask of weary resolve.
"The King's army is broken," Damon said, his voice a low, tired rumble. "But the victory is a grim thing. We lost nearly 3,000 of our own. The 200 who bought us this victory... and another 2,700 on the field. The rest of our people who were able to fight are exhausted."
Arion, a pragmatic warrior to the core, spoke. "Their army is shattered. The King's guards, to their credit, fought to the last man. The foreign soldiers, a force of 6,000, broke and fled. We killed over 5,000 of their men. We now have a combined force of around 6,000 men ready to fight, but they are weary."
"They are not fresh," Isolde corrected, her voice a low, precise whisper. "They fought for hours against our 200 men. They paid a heavy price. They are bloodied, but their numbers are still overwhelming." She unrolled a map of the borderlands, a complex tapestry of mountains and rivers. "The 10,000 mercenaries will be here in a few days. They will march straight for the fortress, a hammer blow of chaos and fury."
Lord Eran, the new ally who had seen the ferocity of the Vexin firsthand, spoke with a grim sense of realism. "They are not an army of honor. They are mercenaries. They fight for coin, not a cause. They will be ruthless. They will not stop until they have their reward."
Damon looked at the map, his mind a whirlwind of strategy and grief. The old plan, a defensive battle in the pass, was no longer an option. The mercenaries were a different kind of enemy. They would not be fooled by a simple trap. They would overwhelm the fortress with sheer numbers.
"We will not fight them here," Damon said, a new resolve in his voice. "We will not wait for them to come to us. We will take the fight to them. We will find a battleground where their numbers mean nothing and their ferocity is our shield. We will fight them from a position of high ground, from some heights. We will use the terrain to our advantage."
He pointed to a specific ridge on the map, a place with a clear, open field that led up to a series of rocky outcrops. "We will fight them there. The high ground will give us a decisive advantage against their cavalry. It will force them to fight uphill, and it will give us a shield to break their charge."
Isolde, her eyes fixed on the map, saw the genius in his plan. It was a new, desperate gambit, a plan born not from a place of strength, but from a place of grim necessity. The Vexin were a broken force, but their will was unbroken. The war was far from over, and the next battle, the final one, was just beginning.