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That night, as almost everyone went to rest in preparation for what was to come tomorrow, Grud spoke to Mita, who was resting inside of him. [Mita, can you go send a message to our boys? I have some things to coordinate with them tomorrow.]
[I could, but what if one of the shamans from the Thunder Strider side sees my wisp form floating away from these walls?] Mita asked a bit worriedly.
[There is no need to worry about that, they would think it is just a wandering spirit that is wandering away from our location. Besides, if one of those shamans tries to make contact with you, you are more than strong enough to reject their attempt.] Grud assured her.
[Fine, what is it that you want to tell our boys?] Mita relented, and Grud briefed her.
Once Grud was done, Grud and Mita looked around to ensure that none of the shamans were watching them before Mita emerged from Grud's body and ascended into the sky. The only individuals capable of detecting her were shamans and mana-sensitive people who, for whatever reason, were not chosen to become shamans.
As Mita was flying over the Thunder Strider encirclement, she caught the attention of a Thunder Strider shaman who just so happened to be attending to the wounded and was looking up at the night sky while taking a break.
When that shaman saw Mita in her wisp form above, he tried to make contact with the wandering spirit to maybe get some insights into the future of the battles to come.
Mita observed the shaman's attempt to make contact and metaphorically slapped it away, while burdening the attempt with a jumbled array of disasters she had witnessed or other wisps had shared with her over centuries of her existence as a wisp.
As Mita continued her journey to see her boys, the shaman who attempted to make contact with her lost the sparkle of life in his eyes as the jumbled array of disasters played in his head. This overload of information and doom soon caused the shaman to have a brain aneurysm, and after a minute or so of looking blankly into the night sky, he let out a soul-wrenching cry of despair as blood trickled out of his eyes, nose, and collapsed on the ground, babbling incoherently about the lands being covered in fire, the ground cracking open to swollow the living, the seas rising up to cover the land, pillars of stormmy wind bridging the heavens and earth, and world ending.
Of course, these were just common natural disasters that Mita and the other wandering wisps had observed in their travels, but the shaman's mind was too fried to put that into context, and besides the long winter, he had never seen any of the other natural disasters before.
This commotion woke up the whole section of the encirclement, and the now brain-dead shaman's "prophecy" that was recounted by the wounded he was taking care of, caused a stir among the other shamans, doubly so because none of the shamans could verify these future disasters when they contacted other passing wisps to ask them about disasters to come in the future.
This commotion about a prophecy of doom eventually reached Ba'Rak, and when he conferred with the shamans and found that they could not verify this prophecy, he ordered the shamans and commanders to quell this talk of prophecy among the men, labeling it as a rumor.
But as they carried out Ba'Rak's orders, the shamans took the prophecy to heart and recorded it. The reason they took this prophecy so seriously was that, to date, nobody has ever died receiving a vision of prophecy from the spirits, so the fact that it happened was a seriously bad omen that they needed to look out for in the future.
***
Orin, son of Grud, was sleeping in his personal tent. The reason he was afforded this luxury and honor of having his own accommodation was mainly because, among the many sons of Grud who had accompanied their father to battle, he may not be the oldest, but he was the most martially inclined of the older generation of Grud's sons.
While he was sleeping, he heard a familiar voice. "Orin… Orin, wake up…"
Because of that familiar voice, he gave a familiar response, "Later… I still want to sleep…" he mumbled in response to the voice.
In response, the voice giggled, and Orin felt a highly concentrated mana brush his fringe, covering his eyes. That woke him up immediately and got him looking around, only to land his eyes on the translucent form of Mita, one of his many mothers, who only those who are mana-sensitive can see, which most of Grud's children are. "Mother Mita! What are you doing here?"
"Be at ease, Orin." Mita said to him while stroking his hair, "Your father sent me to pass a message to you."
After delivering Grud's message to Orin, Mita, still in her translucent form, sat down beside him. "How are you doing, son?" she asked. Orin's birth mother may have been Reta, but all of Grud's wives treated each other's children like their own.
As for why Orin was not surprised to see Mita's translucent form, it was because when Grud's children reached a certain age, in addition to receiving the talk about the birds and the bees, they also received a conversation about family secrets that they must never discuss with outsiders, and Mita not exactly being flesh and blood at all times was one of them.
After they talked and caught up, Orin exited his tent and woke up the other commanders to relay to them his father's plans.
***
The next day, the battle started as usual. At this point, it seemed like the Thunder Striders were just planning to grind Grud's forces down by attrition. However, today, besides the men on the wall, the scene behind the wall was different. Instead of men resting and waiting to take their places on the wall, every man was armed, armored, and ready to go at the drop of a hat.
Chief among those who were ready to charge into battle was Grud. But this time, he was wearing a thicker cape and had a layer of discarded armor tied to his body at the gaps in his armor, and instead of a proper shield, he was holding the door to the chieftain's home with handles nailed to it to make a makeshift shield.
As usual, Grud was going to act as the spearhead of the charge, and he was not going to take any more chances of stray spears slipping past his armor and putting him down.
Now, all they had to do was wait for the signal before they charged.
***
In the woods outside the encirclement, Orin saw one of his younger brothers ride up to him, "What news, brother?" Orin asked.
"The fat bastard Ba'Rak is in the same place." his younger brother reported.
Orin nodded and gestured for his brother to get back into formation. 'They must be getting careless, thinking that we cannot reach their leader. But we will show them.' Orin thought.
In the past few days, Ba'Rak had his men construct a raised, sheltered throne from which he could observe the battle, confident in the thousands of men surrounding him to be his meatshields.
To break this attrition, Grud had sent word to him that they were going to perform a pincer attack from inside and outside the encirclement. The objective was to take Ba'Rak's head and break the encirclement at the same time.
Orin and everyone with him knew that this maneuver was going to cost lives, but they did not fear death. They only feared dying like cowards, and getting ground down by a siege attrition was a close second. And they could not leave their allies to face such a death.
When Orin saw that everyone was as ready as they could be, he gave the orders, and they rode forth to face the enemy.
***
From atop the walls, one of the archers had just loosed an arrow at the besieging forces, and just as he was reaching for another arrow, he saw figures in the distance closing in fast to the outside of the Thunder Strider's encirclement and immediately recognized it for what it was. He then turned to his commander and shouted while pointing at what he saw, "They are coming! It is time!"
Hearing that, Grud stood at the inside of the gate and shouted, "Form up!"
Flanking his left and right, the biggest and strongest men were decked out in what remained of the best armor they had, holding cobbled-together wooden shields as big as they were, but unlike Grud, they were not strong enough to wield a weapon along with the shield, so they was all they were holding.
The lines immediately behind the shield wall comprised spear wielders whose job it was to stab at enemies between the gaps of the shield wall, and flanking the sides, were men who were holding shields and one-handed weapons.
"Make ready!" Grud shouted, and the men behind him responded with a war cry.
"Now!" Grud shouted, and the men at the gate quickly threw off the bar and pulled open the gate, allowing Grud and his men to charge out.
The moment they exited the gate, Grud and the men holding the shields beside him felt a torrent of arrows pelt their shields, and now that they were concentrating fire on a new threat, the amount of arrows that were lodged into the shields the shieldmen were carrying actually added considerable weight.
But that did not matter. They just needed to carry these shields until they made contact with the main bulk of the enemy, and soon enough, they did.
The first one to meet the enemy was obviously Grud. His bulk and strength allowed him to push his way into enemy lines five men deep before his momentum was arrested, and the hole he made was an excellent breach point that the shieldmen took advantage of to push in and widen the breach point.
It was at this exact moment that Grud's riders crashed into the back line with their cavalry charge, throwing the battle into chaos.