The banner dropped, and the army exploded into a sea of motion. The Mahout surged forwards towards the enemy shield war; the dust from the charging war elephants covered the tracks. The air was filled with the war cries of the warriors as they sliced down their foes.
Bows were drawn, and arrows were nocked and loosed in one fluid motion. The sky darkened with the deadly rain of arrows, and the enemy line wavered under the onslaught.
The charging infantry clashed with the shield wall. The shield wall was a terrifying place. The one where the heroism of men didn't matter. The ugly and harrowing sight of the shield wall was evident as the screams of the wounded and dead echoed alike. The hammering of iron against each other.
The pikes peeking through the gaps of the shield wall were directly driven into the throats and bellies of the incoming enemy. The wounded cry out, fall, and get trampled by the living.
The cavalry of the enemy broke through the flank of Ram's army. The cavalry's mobility didn't give them much leeway to be targeted. He changed up the formation a bit to focus some of the heavy infantry on the flanks to prevent a breach due to charges.
The relentless attacks by the enemy cavalry did damage to the flanks of the army.
"CAVALRY CHARGE!" screamed Ram.
His own cavalry were used to flank and take out a unit of the enemy cavalry amidst this. The war elephants broke through but were quickly repelled by the rain of arrows showered upon them, and all the mahouts were killed in the process, effectively putting the war elephants out of commission for the war.
The elephants, without the mahouts to control them, fled from the battlefield into the forest due to the chaos.
Ram was gaining ground on the battlefield as exhaustion was settling in for both armies. The survival instincts of the soldiers kick in as the battle becomes even more aggressive. Vijayarama's army and Ram's army were quite equally matched.
Vijayarama was at a slight disadvantage due to his early loss of many soldiers due to the ambush. The charges of the Ram were being picked apart and defended easily by the instructions of Vijayarama.
Ram orders another cavalry charge on the weakened flank of the enemy. Anticipating the cavalry charge, Vijayarama holds his cavalry, rotating them to the weaker area, and executes a pincer attack, trapping them and decimating the cavalry unit between the infantry and cavalry.
Seeing the pressured cavalry due to the excellent pincer attack.
"INFANTRY MOVE AHEAD!" screamed Ram. The infantry pushed forward, trying to break their formation.
To cope with the relentless assault by the infantry, they quickly positioned themselves in a different, tighter square position and braced the shield, pointing their pikes at the approaching threat.
The clash of steel and the horrifying thud of the two huge forces rocked the earth. The sparks of conflict flew across the field. The concentrated rain of arrows picked off some of the Ram's infantry in the process of the aggressive push to save the cavalry.
The already reduced cavalry unit retreated and switched to the other flank, this time making sure not to be pincered. Using their mobility, they employed hit and run on the infantry, slowly chipping their numbers away in the frontline.
Ram changed the formation of his infantry, anticipating a cavalry charge. He opened up a deliberate gap for the cavalry to use. When the unit entered toward the gap to target the archers, they were quickly closed in from the back by the light infantry and cut down mercilessly, unable to escape.
The battle raged on with no victor in sight as more corpses piled up on the battlefield. The exhaustion of battle was setting in for both armies. Neither of them backed down from the battle; they kept fighting to the end.
Even Ram was exhausted from fighting in the battle and commanding the army, which was also the case for Vijayarama.
The clashes were increasingly becoming more desperate. The formations of each army become sloppier as time passes. The stench of the dead settled in the air, and the dried mix of blood and mucus riddled the earth. Thousands of bloody weapons illuminated under the orange hue of the sun.
The climax of the battle was approaching closer as time passed. A new thunderous sound took the battlefield by storm. The dust in the air settled slowly over the horizon as both army commanders looked over at the source of the sound.
The ground trembled as a man could be seen on the horizon; emerging from the horizon were tens and thousands of men clad in pristine armor. A new army had entered the fray of an ending battle.
The army marched towards the open field in neat formations. Both commanders were hopeful, thinking that the approaching army was their reinforcements.
As the army closed in. The face leading the army became clear. It was the patriarch of the Nayaka family, Rudra Simha Nayaka. He was known as one of the best commanders in the history of the Empire, apart from the Emperor.
A smirk played on the patriarch's face as he saw the battlefield.
"These youngsters are good nowadays. But alas, they can't match the prince." He muttered to himself.
The soldiers fighting before had fallen silent and, in dismay, saw a large army approaching, some of them dropping their weapons to the ground. Both Ram and Vijayarama noticed the looming horror that was going to unfold on this very battlefield.
Rudra Simha wasn't their ally.
"CHARGE," a war cry bellowed.
The battlefield was turned into a wasteland by the patriarch's army. The exhausted armies of Vijayarama and Ram stood no chance against the Nayakas. The destruction was massive. It was an overwhelming defeat for both armies. The battle ended with Nayakas suffering minimal casualties and the deaths of Ram and Vijayarama.
This battle placed the Nayaka on the map. The youngest prince's faction had officially entered the war.