Battle of Greylin

The Battle of Greylin was the first major engagement during the Scanbroughan Secession. It pitted the forces of the Faramondian Count of Greylin against one of the three powerful Scanbroughan lords, the Caped Man of Arkwell.

## Background

The lord of Greylin, Acbert Lusugenet, had been away from his realm at the time of the declaration of war, attending a feast in his brother's domain in the south of Faramond, now part of Dunfleasel.

Caped Man Ellesman Farnton had been massing his troops on the border and swept across in late 634, taking Greenal without any resistance and heading south to Greylin. He took the settlement when he got to it in January 635 and left a garrison before moving even further south with five thousand men.

Meanwhile Lusugenet had heard the news and rallied his brother's troops, some thousand men, assorted men-at-arms and archers. He headed north through Eastlee and Armel, calling in favours along the way until his forces numbered half that of Farnton's.

The Lusugenet scouts detected Farnton's troops halfway between Armel and Greylin, and the Count decided to lay traps for his opponent. He lured them along the hill roads using his few horsemen as bait, and when the Farnton force was strung along the road he struck, ambushing the Scanbroughans and managing to destroy a fifth of his opponent's force before Farnton retreated.

## The Battle

Farnton seemed set to make it to Greylin and hole up there while waiting for help; he had overestimated the size of Lusugenet's forces. He was barred from the town by some of Lusugenet's men, who had taken shortcuts and secret routes to arrive there before Farnton. As he panicked the rest of the Faramondian force brought up the rear and trapped him.

Farnton ordered his infantry into a circular shield-wall with his cavalry inside it. Despite his age he had never fought a battle before and had been put on the spot by the Count of Greylin, who was an experienced warrior and had chosen familiar ground.

Greylin had drilled for situations exactly like this, and employed what has now become known as the Greylin Manoeuvre. He formed his men-at-arms into a wedge three men deep, with the inside of the shape filled with archers, each archer supported by a man-at-arms without his spear. There were two of these, each about six hundred men strong. The remaining men, archers and men-at-arms, were positioned in two smaller hundred-and-fifty-strong formations on the sides.

The wedges advanced towards the Scanbroughan forces and, as they did, the archers were sporadically lifted into the air by their men-at-arms to fire high-angle shots at the Scanbroughan shield-wall. These arrows were ineffectual until the armies closed and Greylin realised there were no ranged troops in Farnton's force.

With the wedges just about stationary and no opposing missile fire, the archers were free to take potshots from point-blank range. They targeted message runners as well as anyone who looked to be high in the chain of command. Within minutes the Scanbroughan infantry was in disarray and Farnton could only count on his cavalry.

Herding the infantry out of the way, Farnton led his cavalry out of the path of the wedges and into open field. Seeing an opportunity, he rode at one of the blocks of spare troops, but lost one rank of horsemen to the men-at-arms' boar spears and a second to a well-timed volley of arrows from the archers behind. This discouraged him entirely and, scorning the infantry who were now surrendering or dying wholesale, led his surviving cavalrymen north to escape the carnage.

The Count of Greylin could not catch Farnton and his cavalrymen, but it was only a minor issue. He had defeated a force twice the size of his own and captured over a thousand Scanbroughan infantrymen - this turned out to be the very last time Scanbrough used infantry in battle.