The battle had started upon a flatland of green grass, brimming with vitality, now, the soil was covered in deep imprints, like behemoth had ran its claws across its surface, patches burnt by corrosion, others scorched by a vile, serpentine black flame, all hints of crimson, all broken pieces of equipments, down to the smallest of shards, all was perfectly scraped away from the battlefield, after an unknown amount of furious combat, during which neither side seemed to gain an overwhelming advantage, Ourlst had called for a retreat, and as per the agreement, this signified the end of hostilities for the rest of the day, and the upcoming night, only the aggressors had this right.
"It was just to gauge us, this was not a serious battle… At least, troop-wise, those that were there definitely did their utmost to kill as much as possible, but the mages did not get involved beyond a single spell, and Ourlst called for a retreat without good reason, it was just for show, they are testing us, and they are letting us know that this was what they intended, soldiers are feeling demoralised, they feel like lives were lost and put at risks too much compared to the strength the enemy came at us with" Aramap's great helm was put on a nearby table, covered in grimes and decayed soot, his white cloak far from its usual pure colouration.
"We too sought to see what they were made of, even if that wasn't their true striking force, we have seen what their regular soldiers and knights could do, we will be better prepared next time… But tell me Aramap, how was this Ourlst? What did you think of this lieutenant of Loimos?" Alisart was most interested in the individual strength of the undead trusted with waging war against them.
"Well, first of all, he is left handed, and it's a pain in the ass, all the knights under his command seem to be left handed as well, so we better churn up some trainings for everyone to get used to this, the other knight that were dispatched struggled to even fight properly because of this…" Aramap stopped for a moment, someone lightly pushing a piece of cotton doused in medicinal liquid over his forehead, although his helm had done its job masterfully, the undead was no stranger to half-swording and had managed to land a few solid hits, as every knight should know, blunt force trauma was a type of damage that could get through iron armour.
"...Clearly though, Ourlst is multiple levels above the other knights, I don't know if the others were of a low rank or something, but the left hand is a beast, we are somewhat tied in terms of speed and brute force, but since he is an undead, he is much more willing to take hits, and he takes them remarkably everytime, they are probably trained with much more brutality than us considering that they won't die from injuries, he knows how to regain his balance and posture from any hits as long as it's possible somehow…"
"I see" the warking noted this astute observation, it was true that they were all used to facing living beings just like themselves, so they made assumptions about their foes using their own experiences and knowledge, however, the enemy of today was one that had already experienced death.
A trainer needed be well aware of the health and limits of his trainees, push them hard, but not to the point that it became detrimental, one could not just hit someone with a stick constantly and hope that instead of just dying or fearing the stick, they grew tougher, well, you could do that but the success rate would be abysmal, however, with undeads, they felt no pain, never tired, did not require food, you could use much harsher training methods, they did not function on the same principles at all, so to train someone to take hits, you could just hit them with the actual attacks, full force without needing any pedagogy or even slowly increasing the difficulty.
"What else?" asked Cleavster.
"...In sword handling, there is no doubt that he is a master, Ourlst is a bonafide knight- The other knight seem to have one special skill each, some can produce miasma, one could puke some sort of acid et cetera, but it seems like the left hand was capable of making use of many more, and with more versatility as well, he probably didn't show me everything in our confrontation…"
"...Also, from the looks of it, that black flame seems to be rather important to the undead vanguard, some regular soldiers used it as well, and it seemed like every knight is capable of setting their weapons ablaze if necessary, I did my best to not get hit by it, so I don't know what is so different from regular flames, it is probably best to go around the medic tents and ask around-" the knight jolted as the person tending to his wounds pressed a little too hard on a bruise.
Aramap was mostly tired right now, although he had taken hits, no bones were damaged, he had just gotten his forehead slightly cut as the worst injuries suffered, the same went for his opponent, they had roughed one another up but never landed any serious wounds.
"That is certainly a good idea, I will try to win some time by asking for a short truce, we'll use this time to get our knights more comfortable dealing with left handed opponents, the other territories have not yet suffered any battles, I'll try to see with Combuscrus is willing to lend us one of his pyromancers" the troops of the warlords were less numerous, so it was dubious if any would be willing to let even one go.
Just as he said this, Alisart began hearing the preaching of the missionaries outside the wall, those guys were awfully quick, faith was not very prominent on Belliste, in fact, it was wholly absent, so no one really understood the concept very well, and to the southerners, using powers borrowed for something else, even if from a higher sphere, was not very well received.
But there was nothing to do, they were not aggressive at least, a bit too happy one might say.
"Ah, one last question Aramap, do you think I could defeat this undead?" the knight raised his head, one eyebrow higher than the other.
"Well, he would certainly not go down easily, so unless he massively held back during our fight, you should be capable of cutting him down" he said matter of factly, not at all hesitant in the idea that his lord could lose, Alisart Cleavster was a warlord after all, to be warking, to hold this title meant that no one was above him in the south.