Battle of Gartaca

The Battle of Gartaca was a decisive battle in the Second Uhekian Mage War. It is a significant part of Uhekian history, cementing the Templars as the warriors of the nation and the Solomon name as a hero in history.

## Prelude

In **567PR** Hosmer and his forces declared war on the Templars and Uhek. This was met with quick success, capturing Cardend, and the later victory at the Battle of Cardend against the Templars.

After secruing his supplies, Hosmer continued his campaign of revenge, marching on the capital, Gartaca.

The Templars sent a force to distract the Mages, which they did successfully at the Battle of Everton in Asunak **569PR**.

After that, they continued their march on Gartaca.

## Location

The location of the battle was just outside the city of Gartaca. Siezing the advantage, the Templars and Solomon found a hill that they could deploy on. With the extra time given to them by Nordlund, they were able to make some hidden fortifications all around and secure their supplies.

It is noted that while the hill could be encircled, the threat of the garrison at Gartaca flanking the circle was very real.

## Organisation

### Mages

The mages formation was similar to what they had at the Battle of Cardend. With angled up sides, in order to better capture the enemy and use their numbers advantage on the flank. To deal with the cavalry from last time, they added extra spearman on the Western side.

For leadership, the Western side was commanded by Lindblad, while the East was commanded by Hansson, Hosmer taking his place at the commands HQ.

Their plan was to open up the Templar lines with spearman, allowing the much fresher and more dangerous heavy infantry to come through and deal with the opposing heavy infantry.

### Templars

The Templars also employed the same tactic they had at the Battle of Cardend. Though this time it was the leadership that changed, and the Cavalry having a much longer arrow-head formation.

Solomon lead the middle, standing amongst the ranks as another soldier, mainly there to boost the morale of the troops and use his skill as a soldier to sway things to his side.

Taking his post at the HQ was Rikhill, who had a very little in terms of defence, needing every extra toop on the line.

Trevarthen commanded the East, Thorp commanded the West and Oliver was amongst the cavalry. To make it seem like Solomon was amongst the cavalry, there was a special detachment placed there, along with someone wearing Solomon's more notable armour.

## Battle

### The Initial Charge

The battle started in late-morning with the Mages pushing up the hill. They knew that it would be disadvantageous for them, but the hill having access to Gartaca meant that the Templars could withstand a siege and Hosmer wanted the war to end.

Charging up the hill was obviously a terrible idea, for the spearman at the front were met with a barrage of projectiles. Worse yet was the hidden trenches on either flank of the Templars, which stopped them being enveloped easily. It meant the current formation that was taken by the Mages was meaningless, only allowing their archers to get free passage on the sides.

When melee hit, it was barbaric. All scholars have agreed that it was nothing like before. The fighting was so close, and the ground so unstable by all the marching that some of the soldiers were just falling over, causing them to die of suffocation when stepped on by allies or foe. With all the yelling and screaming, Solomon could not even issue commands, simply stabbing ahead and killing whoever he could see.

In a few minutes, almost everyone on the line had been wounded in some way, with piles of the dead stacking up by their feet.

### Oliver's Cavalry Charge

Seeing the ferocious fighting in the melee, Oliver pushed his cavalry to charge into the spearman on the side. Having untamed mobility due to no Mage cavalry, he was able to take his time and position the charge at a better angle. It produced devastating results, with enemy spearmen sent flying through their own ranks, and a general sense of emergency on their Western flank.

Lindblad was even hit by one of the Templar cavalry, but managed to pull the man off of his horse and strike him down.

After the results of the charge, Oliver quickly became bogged down into melee fighting, removing the effectiveness of the cavalry for the rest of the battle.

### Duel of the Commanders

The rest of the battle was long and hard. Because of the trenches blocking the Mages tactics, they were unable to do anything but try and advance. This was the same for the Templars, who were blocked by archer volleys everytime they tried to go around the trench and hit them.

Simply put, everything became a brawl.

Two hours passed in the battle until something happened, neither side wishing to give ground with the casualty number rising. Solomon had been wounded earlier in the fighting, and pushed back to gather his breath and heal. When he was able to return, he grabbed a bunch of fresh heavy-infantry Templars and pushed through his own lines to reach the front. There, he took an idea from Quince in the previous war. Rather than push directly forward, he angled himself and his troops and began using the momentum to cut a diagonal line through the Mages.

Similar to the last war, Lindblad saw what was happening and pushed to meet him, bringing his own elite soldiers.

Eventually the two clashed, but it was Solomon who had the upper hand, not because of skill or experience, which was evenly matched, but rather the relative freshness of his troops vsing the exhausted ones of Lindblad.

Room was quickly made for the two to duel, which would decide the outcome for the battle. Lindblad struck first, thrusting a series of quick jabs at Solomon, who blocked most with his shield but the one he missed stabbed him in the shoulder. Dropping his shield, Solomon lunged forward with his longsword and managed to slash Lindblad's leg, losing balance in doing so.

With the opportunity to end the battle, Lindblad swung his blade at the off-balance Templar. Though the blade was not destined to hit, with Solomon instead grabbing the blade and pushing it to the side with his shield hand, causing him to lose three fingers and almost his arm in the process. Now it was Lindblad who was off-balance, with Solomon stabbing his sword through the Mercenary Commanders chest, killing him.

Immediately after the duel ended, the Mage soldiers attacked Solomon and his Templars, who came to his aid. Solomon took another wound, this time taking out his eye but managed to survive the ordeal. Retreating back to the HQ where he could be healed while the Templars at the front pushed with the gained momentum.

### Retreat

Their commander dead and a new surgeance of Templar pushing into them caused the Mages Western side to falter. Hosmer tried to go over and reform his lines but it was too late, once the word Retreat was said, it spread through his army like a plague. Ten minutes later, the Mages were in a full rout.

## Aftermath

With Solomon and the Templars gaining their first real victory since the war begun in **567PR** along with taking down a very capable and important enemy commander. Even though their losses were high, the battle has been seen as one of the Templars greatest, showing their grit and determination to stop the mages threat.

Hosmer could not even claim even a slight victory in this ordeal, now moving on the defensive, most of his time was ensuring that the soldiers under his command had good morale. He also vowed to wipe out the Solomon bloodline, which had hurt his chances at victory in both wars now.

## Scholar Accounts

While the events above have been the accepted events by the Uhekian Council, the scholarly accounts for the people on the field have differed greatly from one another.

### Epaminondas

Epaminondas states that while the battle was tough and full of grit, the Mages were actually a lot less-equipped than had been told from the previous battles. This was not said about the mercenaries but rather the followers, claiming some only fielded just a single spear and no armour to defend themselves.

Thus, Epaminondas has placed doubt on the actual number of casualties in the battle, not believing that these lowly spearmen could do so well against the heavily armoured Templars, even stating an event of how he witnessed a lowly spearmans head get crushed when trying to outstrength a Templar.

Another difference is him recounting that Oliver's Cavalry charge was only half-effective, as he kept most of his cavalry behind and out of the combat in case they were needed for a flank. Though, Oliver himself was in combat too much to be able to command them elsewhere, meaning they did not compete in the battle.

### Fitzherbert

Fitzherbet was a scholar that had followed Solomon to all the battles. He wrote that the soldiers on the Mages side all had demon-like qualities to them, watching as one ripped through a man with his bare hands.

His account of the battle was that the Templars stood in the face of evil and won, stating that Solomon and the name Solomon glowed with a light aura, calling him divine in a right.

### Motesfont

Motesfont was the respected scholar by the council, with most of what he wrote being above. The only difference is he states that the right flank of the Templars was beginning to falter, recounting that Trevarthen was almost killed by a retreating soldier, who was too scared to go back into the melee.