Lennart sat behind the breastwork, listening to the dull thunder rolling again and again. It gave him a little reassurance, and his grip on his halberd loosened.
The Siege Heavy Cannons on Boulder Heights were firing.
Lennart knew nothing about artillery. He was just a grunt who knew how to grab a weapon and hack at people. Although he had followed his lord into battle against the Republic five years ago and hacked his way all the way up to captain, hacking at people was still all he knew.
"Company commander! Company commander!"
Someone was shouting. Lennart turned to his left. Twenty meters away, a second lieutenant wearing a pointed helmet and breastplate, with a silver star and a diagonal stripe on his shoulder armor, was yelling at him.
"The enemy is closing in on us! About a thousand meters away! There are so many of them, all cavalry!"
Lennart glanced at the young second lieutenant, irritation immediately spreading across his face. The young man had graduated from the prince's Military Academy that year and been assigned to the Hegrande Legion.
He had nothing against the young man's presence, but the fellow made far too much fuss. He came running to Lennart over every little thing. It was damned noisy.
"I know!"
Lennart shouted back irritably, raising his halberd and banging it against the ground.
"I'm not deaf. I can hear the hoofbeats outside."
"Shouldn't we do something? The soldiers are a little scared."
The second lieutenant pointed at the halberdiers behind the breastwork. Of the more than a hundred and fifty men, quite a few were visibly nervous, their faces deathly pale and their hands trembling.
This hundred-meter stretch of breastwork was the defensive line of the Hegrande Legion's Fifteenth Infantry Company, Lennart's company. That made Lennart the man