Legends Never Die: Lessons of History (ch. 75) (Patreon)

Things were not going particularly well, Hadi acknowledged as he stared at the report written on a scrap of parchment. He felt an exhaustion deep in his bones, as in the three weeks since their landing, he had yet to sleep well. The most he had gotten was when he was unconscious and he was half tempted to ask Zafir to whack him over the head.

“He eludes us,” Prince Harun cursed, and it was clear that the situation was no less stressful for the prince. No, it was more so for him. A defeat like this would tarnish his reputation. The only silver lining was that most of the nobility, the leaders of the army, were currently dead. Picked off one by one.

Siegfried seemed to have it out for Hadi because the one noble that Hadi wished for him to kill was currently glaring daggers at Hadi from across the table. “You said he would be baited,” Emir Muhammad cursed, thumping a fist on the table.

“He has taken the bait. Many times. He just pulls back faster than we can catch him,” Hadi argued tiredly. The situation had only deteriorated with time. His solutions were temporary stopgaps at best.

The change in formation and foraging helped some. It served a dual purpose of tempting Siegfried into giving battle against the smaller bands of a thousand men, while also serving as a way to replenish their dwindling food reserves. One band might get harried, but the other nine thousand men wouldn't. They could fish, hunt, search for berries, roots, and nuts. Efforts that were hampered by Siegfried's ability to cut through men like cloth and burn their supplies.

If they kept them all gathered in one place under a heavy guard, he cut through them. If they scattered the supplies out, he would still burn them. If they scattered them out and put a heavy guard, then a noble was killed. Without fail, Siegfried poked them where it hurt, and after nearly a month, during the time that they should have spent preparing for an invasion of Anatolia, they were hungry, injured, and the beginnings of a sickness were starting to sweep through the camp.

“The longer this goes on, the better it is for him. He knows this. It brings him no advantage to commit so early against an enemy that outnumbers him so greatly,” Hadi explained yet again, wishing he could scream into his hands. “The longer this goes on, the weaker we become. The more desperate.” They lost another five hundred men to Siegfried's raids, though another two hundred were so injured they could not fight.

Prince Harun fell heavily into his seat, “Then we must offer him a morsel too tantalizing to ignore- I am aware that is likely his plan,” Prince Harun stated, seeing Hadi's expression. “But it is a risk we must accept. The situation cannot stand as it is -- we must either defeat him or we must retreat.” Upon ships that they no longer had. Though a few still remained, and Siegfried seemed to deliberately avoid damaging them. He was leaving them an escape route to flee with.

And that frightened Hadi. That frightened him more than words could possibly say.

He could not argue with the Prince. “It must appear natural, then,” he offered. “A lapse in discipline. A group venturing too far out in search of food. It might take a day, but we could see a reaction to that.” The past three weeks could very well have lured Siegfried into a sense of security. He always prodded the furthest one out, spotted by scouts that must have the eyes of an eagle.

It would make sense. Hunger would be affecting their judgment, and they found nothing on already picked cleaned ground. That kind of mistake could very well be the exact situation that Siegfried sought to create.

“We must undercut his mobility,” Emir Muhammad stated, and when he wasn’t glowering, Hadi could aknowledge he had a decent head for strategy. “Else he will simply flee when we approach as he has done every time before. Coward,” he muttered underneath his breath like a curse. Another time, Hadi would have thought it odd to call him such given that Siegfried had taken to the field every battle so far, but he was loath to speak or even think in the man’s defense now.

“We stagger our approach,” Prince Harun voiced, his lips thinning, looking down at the table as if it were a map. “He will hit the first group quite hard. The second will come… as you said, the Pagan is quite bold. If we tempt him into staying for the second band, we can then march in force directly upon him. We kill his cavalry, surround him… he will try to flee but we will pursue. To the ocean if we must. Siegfried must die.”

That was the danger of having an army based around a single man. He was the very tip of the spear. They were united because of him. Should Siegfried perish? Then the pagan army’s morale would disintegrate. So far from home, Hadi suspected that most would choose to leave the Mediterranean altogether, sailing home with the wealth they had managed to claim. A few would remain loyal to Princess Astrid and her unborn baby, but it was a rare form of loyalty that could endure the mere prospect of a worthy leader just because of who sired him.

Hadi nodded in agreement, “Siegfried must die.”

He just had a feeling that it was going to be easier said than done.

…

Siegfried had made himself a number of enemies within the camp -- he had slain many friends, he had stolen food from their mouths, and burned medicine for their wounds. So, Hadi found little trouble finding volunteers for the duty of being bait. The only true trouble was the fact that he was going to be leading them.

It was a rather unfortunate turn of event, but a predictable one. The noble leaders of the army had been systematically killed off -- there were precious few left. Emir Muhammad would be leading the second wave while Prince Harun would follow up with the rest of the army. If everything went to plan, which it almost certainly wouldn't, they would be bringing down fifteen thousand men upon Siegfried's outstretched thousand. A small force would be left behind to maintain the siege, and there was the force in the settlement to secure the ships.

Which was how Hadi found himself seated upon one of the few remaining horses, keenly aware of his position as his band of a thousand men pretended to forage. In the confines of his own mind, he ran through the battle -- how it would take place. His part in this mess was to take out the horses and tie up Siegfried for around twenty minutes. By that time, Emir Muhammad would close in and reinforce. Once their strength was sapped, they would try to flee, only to be trapped in Prince Harun's net-

An arrow punched through the throat of the man next to Hadi, and Hadi flinched so badly he nearly fell from his horse. He wheeled around, his gaze darting to the source of the arrow to find that his scouts failed him. The terrain was chosen specifically for its rocky hills that would help mask the rest of the armies approach, but Siegfried used it to his own advantage. Hadi only realized they had arrived when he saw hundreds of horsemen galloping right towards his force.

“Naeem, stay close to me,” Hadi instructed his brother while the alarm horn blared, a signal for the men to jump into action as much as it was for Emir Muhammad to get going. Hadi recognized the lead horsemen easily, his blood red hair making him easily stand out.

This was the flaw of the plan as far as Hadi was concerned -- he had to survive twenty minutes against… that.

“Spears and shields! Form up! Form up! Archers!” Hadi began to shout out, the men reacting snappish to Siegfried's arrival, even if they didn't have the forewarning that Hadi wished for. The men gathered themselves up, leveling their spears, getting into a rough formation while the archers managed to get off a single sporadic volley of arrows. A few struck home, but most either over shot or struck the mail armor that the pagans wore.

Then they struck Hadi's force like a hammer. The first spearline buckled, the second folded, while the third managed to remain standing. The air became filled with the sounds of steel, bloodletting, and worse of all were the screaming horses as they were upended or felled. Hadi had anticipated the devastating effects of the charge, but anticipating a broken limb didn't make it any less painful. And that was the effect that the charge had upon Hadi's force -- it was the equivalent to having an arm shattered.

Their rough formation crumpled, the pagans carving deep into them while their infantry were racing to keep up as their archers fired off arrow after arrow. So powerful was the charge that Hadi doubted that they would manage to survive five minutes, much less the twenty they needed. And, it was only their hatred for Siegfried that kept his force from crumbling apart in a full rout, letting Hadi regroup.

“Press on! Their horses! Their horses!” Hadi yelled out as the momentum of the charge tapered off and his men began to push back. It wouldn't be enough, Hadi knew. The pagan infantry struck them almost as soon as the charge lost its momentum -- an odd five hundred men, but their effect was almost as devastating as the charge. They marched in formation, round shields and axes, wearing ringmail and helms.

A professional force of fighting men, Hadi knew. Against his unarmored levies. The Pagan himself marched aggressively, turning the spears that his men had to the side until they were in striking range.

Normal battles didn't see that many dead. Hadi had studied the records -- people still died, of course, but with armies of comparable sizes, the losses were always smaller than one would expect. And, in truth, most of the losses came from when one army routed and the victor pursued them. That wasn't what the pagan army did. The charge, Siegfried himself, shattered their formation into pieces and that disruption had the same effect as a route -- unprepared and unarmored men met the sharp axes of the pagans that pushed their formation to the side.

And there was nothing that Hadi could do. There were no clever tactics that could turn the situation around. It wasn't a matter of desire, but it simply wasn't feasible. Hadi felt like he was trying to fight a landslide that simply pushed his men to the side if it didn't overwhelm and trample them underfoot. And worst of all, that landslide had a name, and he was coming right for Hadi.

“Hold! Hold!” Hadi shouted, knowing his role in this mess and he would be damned if he lifted so much as a finger more. The horses were being thinned out, though Siegfried remained horsed, wielding a large axe that he swung with devastating efficiency. His job was to hold them, take out their horses, and everyone else could do the actual work of killing the monster before him. “Hold, damn you!”

It wasn't much use, Hadi could admit, his army being shaved away down to nothing as the minutes went by. To his men's credit, most of them didn't flee. They died bravely, but they still died all the same.  And one thing was looking more and more likely, but he didn’t dare think it. At least, not until his brother spoke the words out loud.

“We have to unhorse him, brother,” Naeem voiced as Siegfried carved through the men that separated them. Killing was hard work. Hadi knew that first hand. His duel had lasted all of three minutes, but in that time, he was rendered breathless and drenched in sweat. Siegfried made it look easy. Simple. Each swing of his axe harvested lives much like a farmer would harvest wheat.

He was right. Even if they slaughtered the odd thousand men that Siegfried had with them, it was pointless unless they killed Siegfried himself. However, as right as he was, Hadi found that fear pooled in his belly at the mere thought of throwing himself in the direction of that beast. Any trace of moisture vanished from his mouth, and the sounds of the slaughter faded away the moment his gaze locked with Siegfried’s, and there was no doubt in his mind. Siegfried was coming for him.

The thought was enough to make him quit the field then and there. And he would have if it wasn’t for his fool brother having more balls than brains, charging forward without so much as a shadow of a thought of self preservation.

His choice was robbed from him, Hadi cursed, forced to follow to make sure that Naeem didn’t get himself killed. Or, rather, so he could have the pleasure of killing him himself if they both managed to survive the battle. They waded through the sea of bodies, and Hadi with his horse was able to usher them to the side with greater ease.

He wasn’t here to fight. He was here to kill Seigfried’s horse. If he managed that much, then he could play dead, and he could survive this madness. His heart was pounding in his throat as they neared one another, and with another swing of his axe, Hadi felt blood splash over his face.

It’d be a bold face lie to say that he had a plan. There wasn’t a single thought going through Hadi’s head as he tensed -- nothing but pure fear driving him. And, it was only after he did it that he realized what he did.

At some point he drew his sword, holding it with a white-knuckled grip, and he dove forward. Siegfried anticipated the move, and in a flash, he swung his axe, only for the blade to miss Hadi’s head entirely. Hadi wasn’t diving towards Siegfried. He dove towards his horse, driving his blade into it, and he hit the ground to find that the dusty dirt was a bloody mud. The horse cried out in pain, bucking up, and Siegfried landed heavily off to the side when the horse collapsed nearly on top of Hadi.

That’s it. That was his part done. The rest of the war was up to literally everyone else, because he was done, Hadi decided, finding the bloody mud quite comforting. He didn’t even mind getting stepped on -- let everyone think he was dead. For good. Maybe, once the battle was done, he could sail away and start a new life somewhere away from all of this bullshit.

“HAHA!” Hadi heard a terrifying laugh and, despite himself, he dared to look up to see that Siegfried was looking right at him with a wide smile on his face. The absolute bastard looked almost pleased that he had been knocked on his ass. “So it’s you that’s been such a pain in my ass,” he accused and Hadi saw a gruesome death in his near future unless something changed within the next five seconds.

Allah decided to answer his prayers then, because Hadi heard the sound of the horn. Relief turned his bones into jelly, even as Naeem and Zafir managed to reach him, pulling Hadi up. Siegfried, completely unbothered by the conflict that surrounded him, simply looked over everyone’s heads…

Confidence.

An army of nine thousand was heading his way, and Siegfried didn’t seem bothered in the slightest.

Siegfried glanced his way and Hadi felt his blood turn to ice. And, to his immense horror, Siegfried inclined his head respectfully to Hadi before simply turning around and getting ready to flee with his men. He was glad for both Naeem and Zafir keeping him standing because he would have collapsed without them, but the knot of tension wouldn’t leave him. And it took him a minute to figure out why, only when the pagans quit the killing field to reveal the utter massacre that had taken place.

“Their retreat is too orderly,” Hadi noted, watching the pagans retreat. They certainly moved hurriedly, but they moved as a cohesive whole. Was that because they weren’t feeling the pressure? There was maybe three hundred men left in Hadi’s entire force that could still fight, so they weren’t really in any position to pursue…

“You’re overthinking things, brother. We have him,” Naeem said, smiling viciously at the retreating army that swiftly vanished into the hills as Emir Muhammad were closing in to pursue. Neither had cavalry, and theoretically, the pagans should be tired from massacring Hadi’s men. With Prince Harun moving to seal the exit from behind, they should have Siegfried completely surrounded and from there, it was merely a question of how many men he would take down with him. Hadi’s estimation was a lot. A truly astonishing number of men that would be spun into a legend.

Hadi clenched his jaw, “Remind me to strangle you later.” He told his brother, spotting a rider leading a horse behind him. Based on the affronted look, his fool brother didn’t even realize what he did to deserve it.

The rider approached, “Is Sheikh Hadi among the living?”

Unfortunately. “I am,” Hadi waved at the man, and there was some relief on the messenger’s face. “What news do you bring?”

“We’re here to collect the wounded with your injuries prioritized, but Prince Harun suspected that you would wish to join him if you were able,” the messenger replied. That was an offer he could refuse. He could probably get away with saying that he was injured and brush off the invitation entirely. But…

“I could use a horse, good man,” Hadi replied and his brother looked at him like he couldn’t recognize him. Hadi’s gaze met Naeem’s, knowing his thoughts even as he took the offered horse. “Get to Fajr, not the siege camp. Both of you.” He needed to see it, Hadi thought. He needed to see Siegfried die with his own eyes or he was going to be seeing him in his nightmares for the rest of his life.

“Brother-”

“That isn’t a request, Naeem. Zafir, get my brother there. Drag him kicking and screaming, if you must,” Hadi instructed, earning a serious nod from Zafir as Naeem appeared almost betrayed. “Always assume the worst, little brother, and you’ll never find yourself surprised again.” Despite the aches and the pains, Hadi wheeled his horse around to trail after the messenger that was sent to collect him.

And from horseback, the sight of his dead men churned his guts. He could practically see where the pagans had cut through his lines, leaving piles of bodies and hundreds wounded. Some could recover, but Hadi expected that most would die of their wounds in the coming days.

He clenched his jaw, swallowing back bile, and rode off towards the Prince.

…

The plan hadn't entirely worked as hoped, as the pagans managed to move faster than expected. Yet, a day later, the net was slowly closing in on them. Hadi joined up with Prince Harun, who congratulated him on his bravery and promised him honors. After everything, Hadi didn't even have it in him to despair at the prospect.

But the trap was set. Prince Harun marched to the coast, going wide before going inland. Emir Muhammad continued to doggedly pursue Siegfried, attempting to push him directly into the open arms of Prince Harun. Only Siegfried proved resistant according to the scouts, heading to a battlefield of his choosing.

“A frightful man,” Prince Harun acknowledged. “He dictates terms even when outnumbered so fiercely.” There was a quiet note of admiration in his voice as they sat on what was two of six horses left in the army.

“He senses the trap,” Hadi agreed. Siegfried was looking for a battlefield to limit the effectiveness of Emir Muhammad’s numbers while maximizing the effectiveness of his own. To that end, the rocky hills with winding narrow valleys and paths was a good choice. It just wouldn't be enough to save him.

The moment that he committed to a defensive position, or even an offensive one, Prince Harun would close the distance. Wide and from behind -- cutting off all hopes of escape. Hadi didn't feel comfortable letting Siegfried dictate any terms of the battle at all, but now the shoe was on the other foot -- Siegfried was forced into a no-win situation and the most he could hope for was to be a real bastard to kill.

“His men…” Prince Harun started, only to trail off. Hadi glanced at the prince to hee that his lips had thinned as he gaze out at the terrain, waiting for a messenger to confirm that the pagans were committed to battle. “His men are loyal.”

They think they're following a god, Hadi wanted to say. And after everything he had seen, they very well might be. “They feel like they can win because he is there,” Hadi said instead. “They see him carve the way, and they are inspired. It is why they shall crumble the moment he dies.”

Prince Harun said nothing to that as they waited for the message.

And waited.

And waited.

And then Hadi saw him. A man riding one of the few horses left in the army, waving a flag that signaled the advance. Hadi took in a breath as word got out, the army moving as one to close the trap upon the Pagan. It was a true testament to him, Hadi thought as they marched -- a total of twelve thousand men were completely dedicated to taking a single man's head. And Hadi could only pray that it would be enough.

They marched in silence, both he and the Prince taut like a bowstring. Soon, over the sounds of marching feet, Hadi heard the sounds of fighting. It was becoming an all too familiar tune to his ears, he lamented. One that he hopefully would never have to hear again.

Soon, he could go home. He could get fat. He would spend a king's ransom at every brothel he could find. Wine would flow in rivers. From here on, Hadi swine to himself, his life was nothing but smooth sailing and irresponsibility.

“He picked his battlefield well,” Prince Harun uttered when they found it. They marched through the valleys of rolling hills, and they swiftly found the battle itself. The prince was correct -- the valleys and steep inclines made the small hill that Siegfried was arranged on difficult to attack. Doubly so considering that Siegfried had been marching in a specific direction, and the hill was prepared with a rough earthworks and palisade.

It was a small fort, barely a fort at all. But one that would turn an already painful battle into a bloody one. The hill that the fort was on had two feasible points of approach. There was a potential third, but Hadi wouldn't trust the ground under the weight of hundreds of men. At the base of the hill was a valley that pooled deeply -- they would have to spread their men out a bit to encompass it, but there should be no issue.

All that was left was to get the killing done.

Emir Muhammad was already leading an assault on the position, and it seemed to be making little in terms of progress. Hadi saw Siegfried on the walls, letting loose arrows in an almost continuous stream that felled men without fail. Prince Harun wasted no time joining the assault, trying to force their way through with nothing but pure numbers.

The progress made was small but steady. Slowly, the earthworks were overcome. The palisade was toppled. The pagans began to get picked off…

And then a horn blew.

“What signal was that?” he questioned, overlooking the battle with Prince Harun, who frowned deeply.

“Was he killed?” Prince Harun asked, looking to his attendants for an answer. There was no question who the he was. However, Yahya shook his head, appearing uncertain.

“My prince… I don't believe that horn was ours,” Yahya answered and Hadi closed his eyes, looking to the sky above to see that it was darkening with signs of incoming rain.

Yahya was soon proven to be all too right as six thousand pagans and Romans began to pour into the narrow valley passes. Passes that would let them use their smaller numbers to great effect.

They were trapped in the valley.

Hadi couldn't help it as he realized that they were the ones that had taken the bait -- he laughed, and he laughed and he laughed.