The casualty report shocked everyone. The losses were far too heavy.
The Barbarians' society was relatively primitive, but they were no savages. Their traditions had taught them that an army could collapse if it took too many casualties in battle.
Yet this force had lost more than sixty percent of its men!
That meant the ten-thousand-strong force had suffered a devastating blow to its fighting strength.
Worse, more than half the soldiers were dead or wounded, and the officers had been nearly wiped out. The reason was simple: as the army retreated, the Legion Commanders and Centurions became the Border Fortress archers' primary targets.
The archers stationed at the fortress in Two Rivers County included many expert marksmen from the Barbarians.
They were elites of the Former Tribal Alliance, exceptional shots armed with fine War Bows crafted by the Two Rivers County Arms Factory. The bows made them deadlier still.
Together, those advantages let them pick off enemy officers amid the chaos of battle.
James had not ordered these exceptional marksmen to join the ordinary volleys. Instead, he told them to wait for openings and hunt Barbarian commanders.
The strategy had proved devastatingly effective.
Several Legion Commanders had already been wiped out by the Bed Crossbow crews. With their extraordinary eyesight, the marksmen quickly found the remaining Barbarian officers and destroyed the force's officer corps.
More than half the officers were lost. Only one uninjured Legion Commander remained, making the officers' casualty rate even worse than the soldiers'.
Ordinarily, a force might still be reorganized and sent back into battle after suffering heavy losses among its rank and file.
But with so many officers gone, this force had virtually no hope of recovering its strength or fighting ability.
They might recruit capable Barbarian warriors from other groups to replenish its