Records: the Answer from Aquitaine

## **The English Paralysis**

France was an implacable foe, with better crops and more people... but it was still only an earthly foe. The Devil's Teardrop, the cold itself much less the risen dead, paled France. After that experience, London loved their Regiment – *and they were not willing to part with it*.

Other portions of England, especially in the south, were feeling the same way – and it was hard to encapsulate, or overstate, just how tightly they were clinging to the rays of hope that had saved them.

This was driving King Edward crazy as the SA updated him on the state of Calais.

The Royal Navy and Royal Company and dozens more English Merchant vessels ferried people out of Calais, but the people were dying and the strategic foothold in Northern France could be lost. Even if it they held it, what cost had they already paid for it?

As the King seethed, other things were happening to the south that he was not informed of.

### **The Arms of Aquitaine**

By June, the Aquitaine reclamation of Poitiers, much of the indoctrination and conditioning was already in place for the Arms of Aquitaine. The howitzer artillery had been a special touch, but Prince Rick's trademark was minimal violence (and doubly so when reclaiming lands he was slated to lead).

Just after, he started arming his armies with their own personal-arms: projectors similar to the English army, but without black powder. All they had to do was carry arcane crystals and ammunition. And he started armoring them with the same kind of modified heavy-plate that wasn't actually all that heavy.

And then there were the horseless *War Wagons*.

Prince Rick had engineered most of the Regiment of St. George and had used it as a prototype. It had worked well, and he built on those lessons when building again in Aquitaine.

His father made him promise to skip any battle in Anjou – and he had: *by taking Angers without a battle*. Maine had gone the same way, and between the two, there were thousands ready to fight for the Plantagenets. Prince Rick hustled them through indoctrination, education, training and conditioning.

Equipping and exercise was a little slower: even magically enhanced, there were certain logistical realities he had to work through.

The collection of comparative "irregulars" came together distributed between a growing Palatine Army, Navy, Marines and Guard. Most of the Anjou arms were Guard while Maine was mostly Army (with Guard mix).

For those fully equipped, from Bayonne to Maine, they'd set out in immediate exercises, running through scenarios to get the arms and legs used to the imprinted training. The SA knew the French recruiting effort, they all knew they were destined to face a numerically superior force – and it was up to them knowing how work the Sword and Projector to prevail.

## **One Crisp October Morning**

When the staging near Calais finally happened, there was hesitation to see what the will of England would be. Calais was *not* Aquitaine, and Prince Rick respected his father's directives. To a point.

When the internal resistance wouldn't let go of St. George to respond, Prince Rick made the executive decision to do it himself. *With an army*.

Normally, a march from Bordeaux to Calais, roughly north-northeast, at 8 hours a day on foot, and assuming there were no tactical delays or diversions, was about three weeks. For the fully-mounted, mostly-rolling Lionheart Regiment (Bordeaux-based, named after Richard I) and the Bayonne Regiment (carrying the profile of Eleanor of Aquitaine), they made it north *in four days*.

They brushed the walls of Paris on the ride north and dared the defenders to come out. They did not.

By the time they made it to the outskirts of Calais, they came upon a smoking city and a force of roughly 11,000 camped out and trying to repair their field artillery. When the Aquitaine regiments showed up, just a bit more than 3,600 troops, elements of the French contingent took the initiative to rush them.

Nearly a thousand were cut down in seconds.

Losing almost a tenth of the force in a matter of a few heartbeats was enough to set anybody back on their heels. That was more than enough time for the artillery companies to set up and sight in. The targets were the command tents, and two minutes later, the first artillery barrage repeated the story of Poitiers.

King Charles and Emperor Charles were spared only because they were out, walking among the soldiers.

Other lords and knights, including Wenceslaus, were killed in the first volley.

While Musketeers stayed back with the command and artillery companies, the mounted infantry battalion and cavalry company barreled straight into the remaining 10,000. Leading the charge was no less than Prince Rick, bearing a flaming sword.

### **The Battle of Calais Fields**

The siege force hadn't expected a counterattack and was not prepared when a small, but superior-armed force showed up with nothing stopping them from closing the gap. It was a slaughter.

At the very tip of the spear, Prince Rick collapsed formations. He bore a wand in one hand and a sword in the other. The wand spit a beam of bright red fire, charring anything it hit, instantly killing men in its path. The flaming sword sliced through shields and knights alike, ingiting and knocking back the halves of whatever was left. The bodycount of the Prince alone would've been higher if not for the sheer terror he created. Where he went, the opponent fled.

In the next three hours, the individual and mounted firepower of Aquitaine decimated the force. Four thousand, including the Royal Charles', escaped by the Grace of God – and more specifically because there were only so many ways the Aquitaine formations could cover.

From 11,000, the French Alliance took over 7,000 casualties in about three hours. With about 4,000 survivors, many fled the battlefield and just kept moving until they got home. About 2,000 made it through the countryside and eventually to Paris.

At a certain point, the Aquitaine Arms had orders to let the rest go. Part of it, perhaps, was mercy. The rest was to spread the word.

## **The Relief of Calais**

According to some, the biggest miracle of the battle was the few casualties Aquitaine had taken: only 22 had fallen. Then there were the healing miracles, with Aquitaine priests treating wounded on both sides and saving lives that previously were a certain painful death.

In armor, the 11-year old boy was indistinguishable from a man. In battle, with his sword cleaving through men, he was called many things, from *destroyer* to *the God of War*. It was the wand, though, that made the greatest impressions on both sides in battle, earning Prince Rick the appellation "Magus."

To Calais, Prince Rick and Aquitaine behind him earned the title "Savior."

### **The Aftermath**

The dead were collected and sorted. In a task of terrible patience, priests divined the name and home city of every one of the fallen, on both sides, and recorded it. The armor of the fallen was melted and turned into metal tablets upon which the names of the dead were inscribed.

The bodies were consecrated, burned and the ashes buried. The English were taking no chances that 14,000 dead might rise to destroy the living.

### **Filling the Breach**

The Bayonne Regiment remained on station, camped *outside* the walls of Calais for two months as CCC teams completed repairs and reinforcement. The thousand survivors of the old Calais garrison were cycled back to England for training and rehabilitation, joining the ranks of the *English Royal Guard*.

The rehab had one of the tougher parts, counting as deep medical reclamation of soldiers who'd been scarred to the core of their soul by the battle they'd endured. The soldiers that came back were reluctant but fierce warriors, protective of Calais above all else.

As the Calais Few returned as Royal Guard, they brought back defensive artillery.

## **The Lionheart Regiment**

Two weeks on station outside Calais and the Aquitaine Regiment was ready to take Paris on the way back to Bordeaux. It didn't, but it did ride just outside the western gates and stopped to give them a long look as they passed by.

Instead, Lionheart parked by Poitiers and refreshed supplies. There, over the next two months, they patrolled the northern edge of Aquitaine, sending signals to Charles and Philip that they could strike at any time. It was a tiny force: not quite 2,000, but it struck with the force 20,000 and was fast as lightning.

Just a little further south, Limousin and a few other provinces hadn't been formally reclaimed by Aquitaine yet, but were otherwise cut off from the French crown. Not that this was anything different: the south-central area of France was traditionally very independent, but the Edwardian and Carolingian eras of war had been very different. With the Ricardian now a few years deep, that different yet again, and in a whole new way.

The south-central provinces were slowly collapsing into the Aquitaine fold. Most significantly, to the regional locals, this felt *very different* from falling into English arms.