Chapter 103

Timber Hall was a larger town than a place like Midgeside or the Market Town of Knightsbridge that we had needed to take yesterday. Roughly thirteen thousand people lived in its confines along the banks of the Holywater River compared to Midgeside's Seven thousand or Knightsbridge's Ten thousand. It would be a lot more difficult than taking Knightsbridge as well, as Ser Jaremy of Knightsbridge had withdrawn with most of his forces to Timber Hall in preparation for the battle, leaving us to largely take the town unopposed.

The main part of Timber Hall was defended by a wall of timber and earthworks encircling not just the homes and shops of the town, but also several small fields of root vegetables and grain, which allowed Timber Hall to stretch its resources quite a bit in a siege. At the same time, the Castle of Timber Hall was not, as the name might suggest, a timber keep, but a motte and bailey of good stone that had a similar plan to that of Wiston Castle in Wales back on Earth.

It seemed the Wodes weren't going to make it easy for me to crack their defenses. True, we had the upper hand, in both technology and numbers thanks to my technology and Ser Raymun Darry's Reinforcements. However, the vast majority of the enemy forces were Sellswords, professional soldiers whose entire reason for being was combat. That veterancy evened out some of our advantages, plus there was the town and castle to fall back on in case of defeat. No doubt Timber Keep would be waiting to accept any survivors of the battle, requiring us to besiege the town and delay things further.

Time was not on our side, unfortunately. Baelish could bring the Vale into the War against us at any moment. I needed a quick victory here, which would mean that I had to wrap things up in Timber Hall within no more than two days. That being the case, I had my men draw up for battle as swiftly as they could be arrayed. As the enemy did the same, I smirked as I spotted the hodgepodge of formations that they were attempting to weld together.

"It seems that the Lost Legion's Ghiscari Cohorts are a mismatch with the Gallant Men's more Westerosi Single Line." I smirked.

"Who's that in the Center?" Questioned Bryen Farring, my Squire.

"The Windblown. That's their ragged standard, no doubt the Tattered Prince can weld both formations together. Break the Windblown and we can break the enemy." I answered, spotting the ragged, patched-together, standard of the Windblown in the center.

It was true, the Windblown had the most varied troop types, they were a veritable army unto themselves, after all. Plus the Tattered Prince and his Officers were some of the most veteran sellswords in all of Essos. If we could break their formation in the center, the enemy cohesion would disintegrate, allowing us to sweep them aside at our leisure. Unfortunately, doing that would be more easily said than done. Not only did the Tattered Prince send skirmishers out ahead of his main line, but he had armed them with Matchlock Carbines purchased from abroad instead of the usual Crossbows.

Interestingly, however, the battle of Timber Hall didn't start with a clash between my infantry and the Windblown's Skirmishers. Instead beginning with a paired artillery duel and cavalry action. Ser Raymun Darry and Ser Roger Groves led our cavalry against the mixed Heavy Cavalry of the Long Lances and Light Cavalry of the Windblown on the left flank, while our Cannons exchanged fire with the lighter mix of four-pounders and ballistae of the enemy.

I watched on with a wince as a lucky shot from a flaming ballista bolt slammed into a battery of six, six-pounder, guns from The Skulls, punching into a stack of powder barrels and causing the battery to erupt in flames. That wasn't great, since we were a bit lighter on cannons than I would have liked, taking only sixty guns with us to subdue the Eastern Riverlands in the hopes of supplementing our artillery train with fire from our Baidak Flotilla. Unfortunately, the battle was being fought on the wrong side of Timber Hall for the Baidaks to lend their guns to the fighting.

As the cavalry clashed on the right wing, there was even more bad news, as the Windblown were proving to be much better horsemen than Ser Raymun's Force and better by a decent margin than my own. Their Jinetes, Horse Archers, and the odd Matchlock Pistolier were cutting down our own cavalry, even as it charged into the Long Lances' Heavy Cavalry. We would be taking heavy casualties among the cavalry before this was all said and done, mark my words.

I had no time to worry about that, however, because the Windblown's Skirmishers had finally come into range. What ensued was a duel of Musketry that saw our musketeers take moderate casualties, but drive back the Windblown's Skirmishers. I drew my Valyrian Steel Sidesword and pointed at the Windblown's Line of Infantry in front of my force just as an explosion rocked the back ranks of the enemy lines as a Battery of Six-pounders from Bloodstone sent up a Battery of Six, Four-pounders of the enemy in a massive explosion.

"Come on lads! We can break them here!" I roared out, commanding the charge.

As our lines surged forward, I ran with them, our Pikes spearing into the Windblown's Lines, the second and third ranks of the Windblown moving up to take the place of the fallen as a push of pike ensued. I raced forward, alongside Halberdiers to attempt to break the press of pike and smash open the enemy formation, even as the Windblown sent swordsmen in to do the same. The first opponent I met in the fighting was a Westerosi Swordsman with much of his face hidden behind a Bristly Red Beard.

He lashed out at me with a mighty slash of his Bastard Sword, forcing me to duck underneath it even as I came in with a Tondo Cut at his legs, slashing out from right to left. To his credit, he seemed to have been expecting that and managed to avoid having his front leg cleaved in half by just lifting his leg up, my slash passing under his foot. His riposte forced me to lean to the side as a downward slash aimed to cleave my head in twain. I returned his cut with one of my own, a downward vertical colpo fendente cut at his own head. He parried that with his Bastard Sword, my Valyrian Steel Blade taking a chunk out of the edge of his own sword. In response, he smashed his blade's hilt into my helmet, staggering me as he pulled a dagger to try and take advantage. Fortunately, I was ready for it and dodged the thrust, cutting out with a rising, vertical, riddopio cut that cleaved off his arm at the elbow.

As The Ginger Sellsword fell down, going into shock from the loss of his arm, I bulled forward, cutting out with my Blade at a Pentoshi Sellsword with a magenta-dyed beard and mustache who had battered my Squire to the mud and was about to finish him with a downward thrust. My blade cleaved into the side of his neck from behind as the Pentoshi was so focused on finishing off Bryen cleaving through his jugular in a spray of crimson blood and biting into his spine, taking his head clean off. I pulled Bryen to his feet as the Dead Pentoshi toppled to the mud.

"Bryen, are you all right?" I queried.

"Watch out, Milord!" Called out Bryan looking behind me.

I turned to see a Lanky Westerosi Swordsman with long, dark brown hair spilling out of his helmet charging at me from behind. I had just enough time to turn before he reached me with his blade, but Bryen launched himself at the Westerosi smashing his shield into the Man's legs. Bryen's shield, already on its last gasp from fighting the Pentoshi, exploded into a mass of useless wood and leather, but it did its job, knocking down the Westerosi Swordsman and allowing Bryen to scrabble atop his prone form to plant his Dirk through the man's Barbute-style halfhelm and into his eye.

"Bryen?" I asked.

"I'm all right, Milord." Huffed my Squire.

"Right, I'll be knighting you after this, mark my words." I grinned.

"We have to survive first, Milord." Nodded Bryen.

That said, we moved on, cutting down other enemy Swordsmen as they tried to break the press of pike. Over the next forty-five minutes or so of fighting, I took four other Swordsmen, two Qohoriks a Myriman, and an Odd Volantene with scrolls attached to his baldric. Meanwhile, Bryen took three others, a Westerosi with White Hair and Cornflower Blue Eyes, a Pentoshi, and an Omberite of all things, judging by the Amber Torc he wore on his bicep and the language of his battle cries. By the time that the first hour of Combat was up, we had pushed back the enemy Swordsmen trying to break up the press of Pike, allowing our Halberdiers one-sided access to the enemy Pike Blocks.

It was twenty minutes after that that it seemed the Tattered Prince had enough. A horn blasted out three sharp notes from the rear and the Windblown began a fighting withdrawal. Now we were in an odd situation. We could press forward, potentially allowing ourselves to be enveloped, Cannae-style in order to attempt a breakthrough, or we could allow the remainder of the Windblown to withdraw. I chose the latter, allowing the Tattered Prince to salvage the remainder of his Sellsword Company.

This opened the potential for us to turn and utterly destroy either the Gallant Men or the Lost Legion. I chose to do the former, sending my forces into the Flank of the Gallant Men. On seeing this, the Lost Legion likewise ordered a fighting withdrawal. The Ghiscari decided that discretion was clearly the Better Part of valor here. With the Long Lances having been driven off by the Cavalry, that left just the Gallant Men, now surrounded on all sides by our forces, and the Guard Forces remaining in Timber Hall to oppose us.

It took another fifty minutes to do, but we utterly annihilated the Gallant Men, encircling them and squeezing the pocket they were in from all sides until finally, it burst like a melon in a vice. The remaining Gallant Men surrendered, along with their standard, baggage, and pay chest, a major victory for us. However, it came at a steep cost.

While we had captured some eight-hundred Gallant Men along with their Standard, Baggage, and Paychest, and slain, wounded, or captured a further one-thousand-eight-hundred mixed sellswords and driving the rest from the field, we had also lost some one-thousand-four-hundred men killed or wounded to do so. We had also lost ten of our sixty guns to counter-battery fire. The victory wasn't quite a Pyrrhic one, but it was damn close.

Regardless, we began to set up siege lines around Timber Hall almost as soon as the battlefield had been cleared. Our bombardment of the walls would begin a mere twelve hours after the end of the Battle. This time, our Baidaks on the Holywater could contribute, and we would be able to hit the Town from both land and river with our guns. It only took another twelve hours to force a number of breaches in the timber and earthwork walls of the town, and two hours after that to breach the inner wall around the Castle.

Twenty-six hours after the Battle of Timber Hall, the Castle Surrendered to spare the town and castle a sack. Though the Sellswords had only left forty or so men as a token force to bolster the sixty-some-odd Wode Guards and the Hundred-odd Impressed Townsfolk armed with whatever they could get as a scratch militia. We took them all prisoner regardless, along with Ser Jaremy of Knightsbridge and Ser Devyn Wode, the youngest of the Brothers Wode at just sixteen, and the man his brothers had left in command of Timber Hall while they went south with Lord Mooton. The way toward Saltpans was open.

Unfortunately, the Sellsword Army would still be in play, albeit reduced, going forward. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we see the Battle of Timber Hall. Turns out, the Tattered Prince is a pretty damned canny commander. He managed to give as good as he got before ordering a withdrawal. That sort of thing tends to happen when you make War your sole profession for your entire life. Though the Gallant Men are out of the picture now, and Timber Hall and the Wode Lands have been captured, the Tattered Prince has managed to keep the majority of his army intact and in the field, even in the face of someone like Ricasso.

At any rate, the next chapter will involve advancing into the Lands of House Hawick, as Ricasso moves to take Saltpans and continue his Eastern Riverlands Campaign.

Stay tuned. . .