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Sound the Retreat

There was a half hour period where I was, according to Livio, unresponsive. I do not recall any period where I was blacked out or otherwise paralytic. I assume Livio was being dramatic.

What I do recall was that I had a brief moment of shock, no longer than a minute, and then quickly recovered and sprang into action.

"Livio! Alert Vito and the rest of high command, have them meet here!" I marched down the hall and cupped my paws around my mouth. "Everyone immediately report to your superior officer on the double, muster the troops and get all necessary supplies ready for any movement! If you have any last minute looting to do, do it now!"

My eye danced towards the throne just in time to catch Wuji attempting to guide Lycanlong out of the throne room.

"Where do you think you're going?" I marched through the scattering crowd.

Wuji folded his ears back and lowered his head, "G-g-getting the Prince to s-"

"You're relieved of that duty," I grabbed Lycanlong by the scruff and lifted him up like a ragdoll. He began swinging his legs and laughing. "The Prince is my special guest, get outta here."

"I-i-in accordance with ransom treaties signed by the Alphate and the Republic, I am to accompany my ward anywhere he goes. I insist on being taken with him, no matter where you take him!"

Rolling my eyes, I grabbed a random soldier, "Bind the priest around the wrists, legs, and muzzle."

Said fox turned out to be quite skilled with a rope and had the wolf on the ground and hogtied with as little effort as it took me to tear a piece of paper in half. A rancher, perhaps, or experience in the bedroom.

My nose caught the scent of something acrid and I plopped Lycanlong down on his throne before his urine seeped through his robes and landed on me.

Fuck, where's some damned opium?

My heart was pounding like a galloping horse and my right arm started to tingle. I leaned against the side of the throne and started panting. My lungs were squeezed tight and I could barely suck in enough air to keep conscious.

I wasn't a physician but I knew this meant I was on the verge of having a heart attack. I ordered the same fox who bound Wuji to get one of the wolven servants to fetch some willow-bark tincture and now I was finally alone in the hall with no one but Galip,the Prince and his guardian, the latter of which had rope tied around his muzzle.

Lycanlong poked me in my nose and giggled. I had no energy to chastise him, only to focus on how dry my nose was. It was healthy and wet a moment ago.

A vial was placed in my palm by a she-wolf and I downed the bitter contents in a flash. It could have been poison for all I knew, I doubted the fox I sent would have known the difference, but at this point I didn't care.

Thankfully, thoughts of assassination were not on this servant's mind. I began to feel slightly better shortly after taking the vial or at least I didn't feel like I was about to collapse on the ground dead.

Vito burst into the chamber, flanked by two fennec with sabers at their hips, "Dictator, what's going on?"

I pushed myself off of the chair's back and stood up straight, "Movement from the north and the east. A two-pronged invasion on the peninsula."

Vito stood still in the middle of the room, completely still, "This is bad."

I lazily raised my paw and slapped it on the side of my hip. I didn't pay Vito to simply state the obvious but this was no time to start an argument and get snippy.

Laurent emerged from a side room from the throne around the same time that Livio escorted Guy into the hall's front entrance.

"Right, we're all here, aren't we?" Livio barked. "So what the fuck are we gonna do?"

"Be brief and honest," I announced. "If we stay, can we hold the city?"

"No," Vito said.

The rest of my council shook their heads in agreement.

I couldn't really argue against it as much as I wanted to. I was hoping one of them had an idea, something that could turn us around, some sort of a miraculous tactic forged from the greatest minds that the continent had to offer.

Nothing.

"The fortifications are in shambles, food stocks are barely enough to sustain a civilian population under siege, and even if we successfully repel the attack, with how many provisions of our own we'll have to go through to keep people fed, we won't have enough to keep the campaign going," Guy laid out all the facts. Everything that I knew but was hoping we could somehow ignore in favor of some magical victory.

"What if we met the attackers?" I offered.

"Splitting our forces in territory we barely hold would be a poor idea. Communication could be disrupted easily and if they catch wind of us moving, they might decide to fortify on the water crossings," said Vito.

"How likely are they to learn of our movements?" I looked over at Laurent.

"It's likely our intelligence network is compromised so we should assume they will quite quickly."

Fucking wolves. When this is all over, I'm going to find out who is responsible for this fuck-up.

"Retreat..." the word rattled out of my throat.

The room was silent. Galip put his paw on my shoulder.

Lyconlong laughed and clapped his paws, "Treat! Treat! I wanna treat!"

"We're deep within enemy territory with an overstretched supply line," Vito gritted his teeth. "An organized retreat will not end well."

"Do we have any better ideas?" I asked.

Once again, there was silence.

"We will assume retreat is our only option," I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. I already knew the answer to my next question but I had to ask just in case. "Are there enough ships in port for us to commandeer."

"No," Guy said bluntly.

Despite knowing the answer, I was still disappointed.

"Most merchants visiting the city fled the moment they caught wind of us," Laurent explained further.

"And I'm guessing most of them were at a different port," I growled. "One that's closer to the actual capital, right?"

Laurent bowed his head silently.

"A land retreat then," I sighed and pointed up. "North. Double-time. There's no other option."

"We will be at risk of attack and if we're not fast enough..." Vito rubbed his chin, "...we'll be trapped here."

"We have the fortress on the isthmus captured, if we rush fast enough, we should be able to cross through it safely," I stepped forward, away from the throne. "Unless anyone has a better plan, we need to move right away."

"Plenty of issues here," Livio shrugged, "but there's no other option, is there?"

No one else had anything better.

I gave the order to retreat.

No army in the history of chimera or humankind has scrambled out of a city as quickly and efficiently as we did. Even in failures, we must take stock in what little triumphs we can make as the world crumbles around us.

We even had time to efficiently loot the city. Different units were given different arteries of the city to hastily march through and soldiers were given permission to loot whatever they pleased so long as they could hold whatever they took themselves and kept up with their commanding officer.

While the palace might have been a disappointment in terms of treasure, there were enough nobles and merchants with second homes in Lupercal that had a few things worth taking. My soldiers did not walk out of the city carrying gold but they did carry silver out, it would be enough to fulfill my promises of loot for them, but I would still have to hold up my promise of land.

I could not make the same mistake Philippe did and return with disgruntled soldiers. They needed to be happy and far away from the capital when this was all over.

The planning for that would have to wait. For now, I had to flee this sinking ship before I was dragged down into the depths with it.

I threw Wuji over the back of my horse and pulled Lycanlong up with me, resting him on the front of my saddle. I wasn't going to let either of my hostages get away from me, I knew at some point I would need them.

We marched as quickly as we could away from Lupercal, with Livio leading the advance units to scout ahead. It wasn't long before they sent runners back to us warning about skirmishers in the hills and to be prepared.

I ordered for our formations to loosen as much as we could, a tall order in a situation like this, and I was soon surrounded by some of my bodyguards atop their horses with their shields raised.

As we swung by the first mountain ridge, a hail of stones and the occasional spear came flying down. One rock caught one of my guards, a fennec, in the nose and he fell to the ground, twitching. Another soldier picked him up and carried him away while the rest of my guards closed ranks and continued weathering the storm.

"I have Prince Lycanlong with me and if you don't stop, his life will be in grave danger!"

A spear crashed into my guard's shield and shattered. A splinter of wood bounced off of my false eye.

If our enemy had heard my warning, they didn't seem to care. Hell, for all I knew, Lycanlong getting killed here would have been a relief to certain factions in the Alphate, a good chance for him to 'accidentally' be taken care of in the chaos of battle.

Some brave archers saw fit to take turns firing at our attackers, forming pairs where one would run forward with the army and fire while the other reloaded. The enemy was well-hidden up there in the rocks, so it was likely futile, but there was not much else we could do.

Eventually, the missiles came to a halt. A detachment from Livio's vanguard captured the cliffs above us, which had sent the wolves up there in a retreat. We didn't catch a single one of the bastards but at least we could finally retreat at full speed.

Where was this resistance when we rode into the peninsula? I thought we had the wolves tamed when they quietly let us in without much fighting.

A trap, of course. Don't fight and let the stupid fox go deep into your territory and then unleash hell when he tries to get out and has no time nor inclination to fight back.

Bastards, all of them. I would make whoever fucked with Laurent's intelligence network pay.

The sun had gone to bed and now it was time for us as well. We would march from dawn to dusk the next day and then continue to do the same on the day after, upon which we would hopefully reach the crossing and safety before the wolves did.

The soldiers were exhausted and so was I. There was no time to cook a hot meal and so we were eating cold, dry meat rations and slavemeal bread. It filled the stomach but it did not fill the spirit.

Galip and I passed out in our tent, holding each other. I was scared, I'm not going to lie. I found no comfort, not even in Galip during this time. I knew that there was a good chance my fate was sealed and I was just delaying the inevitable.

Dragged my fellow foxes all this way just to die.

A cry of alarm rang out and I got up from my bedroll and grabbed my sword, dashing towards the entrance without any clothes on. My guard stopped me from leaving.

"We're being raided, it's not safe," a fennec told me.

The camp guards were exhausted and had not sounded the alarm in time. A band of wolven ranchers, fucking ranchers, had burst into the camp atop their farm horses and roped a few soldiers along with stealing some supplies. We killed a few of them but many of them disappeared into the night with captives.

Once the chaos had settled, I inquired about Lycanlong and was relieved to find out that we still had him and Wuji in our custody.

We needed our trump card just in case.

Double-time began at dawn. None of us had gotten enough sleep and we were further exhausted by taking down the camp and getting a move on.

I was tired of carrying Lycanlong around with me, so I put him in Livio's orphan wagon and let the children play with him.

_Livio rescued these kits only to get them caught in this mess,_I sighed. As much as I wanted an excuse to blame our movement speed on the wagon, the truth was that it was going about as fast as our normal supply wagons and not really holding us up, even if the cargo on it was functionally worse than useless. You don't have to feed normal cargo.

The only officer of mine that didn't look defeated was Vito. His eyes were heavy and he had little positive to say, but he did not give off an aura of dreadful fear like the others.

We passed a farm where a gray wolf was sitting on the fence post, waving at us with a smile. Working on his millet field were three naked foxes attached to a drag-chain. No doubt they were soldiers of mine stolen from us the night before.

The wolf knew that we had no time to rescue them.

He knew that he had our comrades and there was nothing we could do about them.

They would never leave the Alphate and would die there.

By the grace of Canis, may their lives be short ones.

Near the end of the day's march, we passed through what seemed to be an empty field of grass. As far as the hilly terrain of Crimea went, it felt rather safe and empty.

At least, until the grass started shaking and a legion of wolves wearing nothing but grass tied to their backs emerged. They rattled their sabers against their small shields with a blood-moon painted on it and charged with no fear.

Whether it be the fanatic's zeal or our exhaustion, we were unable to repel them as quickly as we should. They broke through our defenses even as we shot them down and a few got close enough that I was required to dispatch two of them.

They managed to kill fifty of us and there were only about twenty of these naked zealots. We killed them all, of course, but our dead were over double theirs.

When we camped there was one last nasty surprise: a crate of rations had been broken open during the latest attack and tonight's cold meat dinner had fallen in a pile of mud. The cook attempted to cover it up but there was no mistaking the taste of gritty soil when eating. Many soldiers didn't even bother eating dinner, others did so reluctantly and only because they knew if they didn't eat it now, it would be on tomorrow's menu.

There was no raid that night but we all did not get a wink of sleep, not daring to let our guard down like the night before.

The next day, I was summoned to the front of the army. Guy, who was leading the vanguard that day, discovered a fox lying on the side of the road who refused to speak to anyone but me.

He was scrawny and covered in open lash wounds. Cuffs were wrapped around his wrists and blood oozed out from beneath them. I ordered for a blacksmith to be called and help him out of his restraints.

"They took it..." he whispered to me as I knelt before him.

My skin chilled, "The fortress?"

He slowly nodded and licked his dry lips.

"They came out from the hills..." he rasped as I squirted water into his mouth from a waterskin, "...no more than a mob, but they broke down the northern gate with a log as a battering ram and took the fortress."

That didn't sound like the elite cavalry that was converging on us but it still meant that our crossing was now captured by the enemy.

"We..." the fox swallowed, "...sabotaged the south gate. It should still be open..."

I balled up my fist and walked away. I wanted to scream. Why was this happening? Why?

"We need to keep moving," Guy stepped up to me and whispered in my ear.

"You're right," I swallowed. "We don't have the luxury to change strategies."

All the pieces had been laid ages ago, we just had to play the game.

This was a bad idea and everyone knew it.

But it was the only idea we had.

My soldiers were exhausted and defeated. I did the one thing that I could do to give them some form of hope.

I got on my horse and stood at the front of our vanguard.

I would lead the charge into the fortress. I would be the first inside and the first to die, if need be.

The white stones of the fortress were just barely visible on the horizon.

I made no fancy speech. I just ordered the advance and moved with my men following behind.

As the fortress drew closer, gray heads popped out of the ramparts and arrows started flying. Wolves in patchwork armor filed out of the open gate and aimed pikes at us. Their formation was too loose to be a proper anti-cavalry defense but it was still dangerous for me to attack them head-on.

But I did.

Some fennecs swept across them first with arrows, which was enough to soften and confuse them. My horse stepped around a pike that lunged towards us and I sent the wolf wielding it crashing to the ground with a gushing throat.

Fox and wolf screams rang out behind me as I rode into the small courtyard of the fortress. I hopped off of my horse and my bodyguards immediately followed suit, forming a tortoiseshell of shields around me while the wolves on the ramparts turned their crossbows to us and fired.

It felt like being in a shack during a rainstorm, the way the bolts and arrows bounced off of the shields. One got through the defenses and nicked my leg.

Once the rest of the vanguard caught up, my guards let me free and I led them up the wooden staircase to the ramparts. I caught a whiff of terror right before we collided with the first wolven archer. They took this place when facing a surprised and inexperienced garrison, but now they were facing cornered foxes desperate to survive.

By the time it was over, the white stones of the castle ran red with blood. It seemed like such an easy victory from my perspective but when I looked back on the southern gate I found that the number of foxes lying on the dirt outnumbered wolves. We didn't have morale or a tactical advantage, we just had numbers and a desire to live.

One day after escaping Crimea, I gave the order to cease double-time.

We had lost a lot of good soldiers and darkness stained our morale. Even more were lost to injuries and desertion.

Desertion. Just a few days ago I was proud that the Alphate appeared to have an epidemic of desertion. Now it was spreading among my soldiers like a plague.

At the rate things were going, there was a good chance we'd have no army by the end of the month. I could declare a week of rest but all that would do is make the soldiers dread that this would be a prelude to another attack on the Alphate and then the desertions would escalate.

We were now back in the open steppes in area that we controlled. Theoretically this meant that we would have a deluge of new ideas of how to proceed.

However, when I called my council together, they spoke of nothing. They were all thinking one thing, I knew they were, but they didn't dare say it.

Not until Vito spoke.

"We need to begin negotiations."

I folded my fingers together and rested my chin atop them.

"We have Prince Lycanlong and we've made considerable advances into their territory," Vito continued. "We failed to hold Lupercal but we have shown the wolves the might of the Republic's army."

"I will only accept an unconditional surrender," I said calmly.

"What're you hoping for?" Livio leaned forward in his seat. "Total destruction of the Alphate? We've got enough silver to pay the soldiers and our debt, and with the gains we've had, we'll get enough new land for the soldiers to settle in."

"I promised that we would punish the wolves so that they would never meddle in our affairs again."

"The average folk care more about silver and land than justice," Livio shrugged. "They'll be content with both, I know I will."

"Marco," Vito stared at me, "we can either negotiate a treaty in our favor now or we will lose everything and gain nothing. Our army is in shambles and the Alphate's might be as well, but we're blind to their status now."

"I know!"

"Hubris is the downfall of many failed generals," Vito continued. "Prudence is what creates victories that last. You can walk away from this with one of the greatest victories in fox history if we go to the negotiation table now. You'll be a hero."

I sighed and closed my eyes.

"Send an emissaryto the wolves."

Vito was right, it was time to make our demands. Though the Alphate may still remain, I would ensure that we restore every former Republic to our control.

I would become the truest Hero of the Republic in history and avenge our shameful losses to the wolves.

And if that failed...another war would come soon. The wolves could be certain of that.