The Twice Lost Battalion
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“Cuz bows are SO good in war these days,” Jade chided. “Come on, I get you guys like these old-timey things, but what hope does Rowen have against a modern, mechanized force? Or is this all about ‘seeking the divine’?” Honoria raised her chin regally and pushed her hair back over her shoulders. “Scarlet,” she said calmly, not meeting Jade’s gaze. “Would you kindly regale us with an account of the Razza?” “I’m not a bloody radio,” Scarlet snapped. “Why does everyone just expect me to be able to recall any random historic event off the cuff?!” “Perhaps because that is all you do?” Arisa suggested. “I spent many months as your sole companion. I like to think it is the reason I am at all up-to-speed on the modern era.” Scarlet rolled her eyes and slumped into a chair. “For most of the Alliance Era, Rowens told this story. Near the end of the Mage Wars, the region was invaded by ten-foot-tall armored monsters who could shoot their claws at people and could only be killed by an arrow to the head. “The story was first documented in the early Golden Age, by then said to have happened about ten generations—or less than three hundred years—before the time of Eieber. Historians never knew what to make of the legend; noth remotely like that was described anywhere else in the literature. Some kind of major engagement was obviously fought in Western Rowen around the era specified, but no one could explain it.” Scarlet rearranged herself in the chair and rested her chin on a fist. “Then, you have this story from the Crimson Blade, specifically the Old Gudersnipe Army. They were fighting the Marcon Alliance on the Greater Continent around that same time. The story was chronicled in the old battle hymn ‘the twice lost battalion’ about a group of soldiers who got lost… then were lost.” As she recalled the spooky details of the millenias-old legend, Scarlet felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. As many times as she’d told this story, it still made her sweat run cold. “The story plays out like this: an entire battalion, some forty-thousand combat soldiers plus support troops, got, well, lost. They couldn’t navigate easily and ended up far from where they had meant to be. We’re talking about a fully mechanized, modern-style force, here. Tanks, trucks, reconnaissance aircraft—operating at a time when the state of the art in warfare for everyone else was the steel sword. They got lost on their way to Korrinth, and had their asses handed to them by an unknown assailant. “The Blader’s story is a lot less mythologized, they published the after-action report: seven out of every eight Lancers died in about a week and a half, plus eighty percent of their support troops. They lost ALL their equipment and heavy weapons, the survivors walked back.” Jade leaned against a wall and examined her finger nails. “So what the heck does one story have to do with the other? Is this some far-fetched theory or something?” “Well, see, that’s the thing of it,” Scarlet forced herself to swallow. “For the whole of the Alliance era almost, that’s all these were: two unconnected stories. Then, in the late Sixth Age, someone put them together. “My own ancestor, Hunter Jusenkyou, was traveling through Rowen while he was a Slayer Dragon, and happened across an tavern where the barkeeper showed him his most prized possession. It seems the man’s family had kept a genuine Razza arm, passed down through the ages. “Hunter, being the astute archeologist that he was…” Scarlet paused and forced herself to meet Jade’s eyes. “Realized that what the man had was a badly decayed rifle from the Crimson Blade. His theory is corroborated by an otherwise innocuous detail, the name of the Lancer regiment in the story. The fighting fifty-third infantry. “More commonly known as The Razza.”
“I still don’t like it,” she complained. “I have a VERY tough time believing that a bunch of guys armed with advanced military-tech lost to a comparatively primitive force!” “Well it HAPPENED, so you had best believe it!” Honoria complained. Jade made to jump out of her seat, but Scarlet gestured for her to calm down. “There’s a lot to the story you aren’t considering,” Scarlet said. “First off, they may have been BACKED by advanced, mechanized stuff, but come on, you’ve been in a Rowen forest; can you imagine trying to get a tank through that? And this is Eastern Rowen, so the ground is even worse! The Razza Lancers would have had to go in on foot, so the actual strength was probably just forty-thousand combat Lancers. “Meanwhile, Rowen didn’t actually have a standing army; they literally just mobilized their entire population. Everyone had their own weapons, they knew the terrain inside and out, and were used to hunting for a good portion of their food. Even if we just count the conventionally able-bodied, that’s probably five hundred thousand combatants. All of whom didn’t need any clearer orders than ‘shoot the scary guys making loud noises’, and could survive off the land around them in a pinch. Those poor Lancers never stood a chance.” “And, what, they dressed up as giant lizards for fun?” Jade scoffed. “That’s just confusion in the re-telling,” Scarlet sighed. “Lancer forest camouflage looks a little like lizard scales, if you think about it; and they did wear full body armor that’d be plenty enough to stop an arrow. The part about them being ten feet tall… well, I bet even Honoria will agree that Rowens tend to exaggerate their enemies in order to make their deeds look bigger.”
