Victory!!!
When the Minisians realized that the Republic troops racing down from the north were not reinforcements but a band of routed soldiers, the resolve they had barely managed to sustain finally collapsed.
Draining away with it were their courage and the still-wet blood on their armor.
The swords and spears that had gleamed in the firelight with the cold promise of vengeance now clattered to the ground, rolling helplessly like snakes with severed spines across a red-and-black carpet woven from blood and mud.
The Minisian soldiers who had yet to breach the Prince's Army's formation suddenly raised a deafening clamor. It was not because the fall of the old General Dude's banner had inspired some miraculous courage and driven them to attack.
Instead, the soldiers scrambled to discard their weapons, strip off their armor, and turn to join this race that no one had ordered.
They trampled their comrades' corpses, used wounded men who had yet to breathe their last as stepping stones, and ignored their officers' furious curses as they scattered toward the edges of the battlefield.
Some even drove spears into the backs of former comrades to fight over riderless warhorses.
General Dude's adjutant knelt in a pool of blood, cradling the trampled banner in trembling hands. He raised his head, desperately searching for the general.
As he turned, he saw a young drummer knocked down by the fleeing troops, his drumsticks still clenched tightly in his hands. He saw a grossly overweight quartermaster shoved beneath a cannon wheel, the crack of his ribs clearly audible.
"Stop! Form ranks! The general isn't dead! The banner is still here! Form ranks!"
The adjutant screamed in vain, his voice drowned beneath the tide of fleeing men.
A stray bullet struck his shoulder. He stumbled behind a rock, only to