The Battle of the Black Dukes

The Battle of the Black Dukes, or more formally, the Battle of Worfrau Plains was a major battle fought during the Eastern Border Crisis that took place in 1168, the battle was fought between the Empire of Visimar's eastern kingdom and the Dead Foot, Rising Eagle and the Ironstone clans. The two-day-long battle resulted in a pyrrhic Visimarian victory that ended with a deadly route that saw the death of the Dead Foot chieftain and the imprisonment of the Rising Eagles Chieftain.

Background
The Eastern Kingdom was fighting a losing battle. All conflicts before this battle were victories given to the Clans. Despite how small the battles were, the Vismarians were losing important strategic locations which were then sacked. This damaged the economy after the fact. This battle could've been avoided on the Clans part, but whether it be the glory-seeking sub-commanders of the clans or just a strategic miscalculation, they found themselves in Worfrau, apparently the biggest target in terms of loot and booty for the Clans.

Pre-Battle
The Battle was fought over plains that sat a few kilometres east of the town of Worfrau. This terrain made it advantageous for Visimarian knights and heavy horses to be used to their fullest capability. This wasn't well known or relayed to the commanders of the opposing Clans as they had no proper weapons and defences to drive off such a charge.

The Clans
The clans forced march weeks before the battle had resulted in most of the clan warriors being left behind in the march while some fled the columns to sleep in the forests. This also was another mistake in the hands of the incompetent clansmen commanders who knew nothing of proper campaigns and large supply-lines as most sub-commanders of the Clans were only experienced in small scale cattle raids.

It was even said that some commanders were so incompetent that they abandoned the campaign to go raid other villages along the frontier instead of wasting valuable "raiding stock" which only led to desertion on a small scale. This left the Clans with a small portion of their warriors out of the fight on top of the ones that were "missing" during the forced march. Despite this, the clansmen still outnumbered the Visimarians as they managed to wrangle in over 6500 Deadfoot clansmen foot soldiers with an unknown amount of mounted nobles guarding their flanks. Reinforcements and reserves from the Ironstone and Rising Eagles numbered around just under 1000.

The Empire of Visimar
The Visimarians bring only 5000 soldiers to the battle who consist of untested militia and professional retinue soldiers. With another 300 being retainers, mounted knights and King Benno II personal bodyguards. Most soldiers on the field that day were the Worfrau garrison and 'volunteers' militiamen from the town itself along with hardened soldiers who were on the campaign with the Dukes and King. These men were experienced with fighting the glory hound clansmen after years of skirmishes and small pitch battles so they were placed in the vanguard along with the knights.

Initial Conflict
the battle begun with clansmen fast approaching the vanguard placement of the Visimarians. This large body of wild clansmen was met with arrows and cycle charges by the vanguard which severely severed the centre of the clansmen battle line. Once the melee was underway, however, the main body of the Visimarian vanguard was quickly diminishing as the men were forced to fall back from the sheer amount of clansmen that were encircling them. Visimarian knights soon retreated to the flanks to deal with the underequipped nobles that threatened the flanks of their own lines.

The First Day
When the remaining clansmen lines met with the line of Visimar. A large scale battle was underway. Many of the militia and garrison soldiers were soon under pressure as they were unfit for the volume of clansmen that initially hit their lines, it wasn't until the charge of knights to the rear of the left flank of the clansmen lines that forced the already tired clansmen lines to retreat. Instead of seizing the opportunity to route the enemy, the Visimarians retreated to their camps as well in order to rest for the night as both sides called for a seize fire to gather wounded and perhaps gather information.

The Night Raids
Unfortunately for each camp, they were both targetted by each force in a night raid. It's been said that both the Clans night raiders and the Visimarians found each other while sneaking in the fields dead at night and ignored each other to prevent any sort of commotion before they reached their targets. Once the raiders found the camps they wreaked havoc among camp followers and weary soldiers alike. In total, each raid killed around 100-500 men in both fires and close combat.

The Second Day
The second day was full of ferocity and a need for vengeance by both sides, many accounts say that each side started with the lines insulting each other in their native tongue before clashing in a brutal battle. So brutal that both Dukes that were commanders under Lord King Benno II rushed into combat to personally find the glory hound commanders in the front line and personally slay them. Duke Gerret got his wish when he met Chief Cochrane fighting and soon duelled him. Both sides gave them space as the battle seemed to have stopped to allow this duel to happen unopposed. Onlookers of the duel claim that it took 20 minutes of fighting and maneuvering until Chief Cochrane famously took Gerrets war axe in his shoulder and died a brutal death, a symbol for all of the deaths he has caused during his terror in the Eastern Kingdoms.

The Route
Soon after Cochrane's death in the field, the clansmen lines became exhausted and now demoralized with the death of their chieftain. Most braves and warriors fled the field in an attempt to run back to the Union of Maol-Moirel. If it hasn't been for the valiance and sacrifice of the clan highlanders who held the line back with their ferocious defensive capabilities then the route could've ended with all of the clansmen dead in the countryside. Once the highlanders were either killed or captured, the light horsemen of the garrison were dispatched to the countryside to catch up with the fragments of routing clansmen and either kill or capture them. Unfortunately for the clansmen, the former was more prevalent than later.

Clansmen and camp followers alike were run down and butchered in the countryside and in the streets of nearby towns in villages they were hiding in. In total around 1500 to 2000 fleeing clansmen of both the Deadfoot and the reinforcing Rising Eagle and Ironstone clans were caught in the route and were killed or captured. With most of the captured clansmen being sent abroad to neighbouring continents to be sold off as slaves or were sent to the many frontier labour camps in Clamund. The remaining clansmen that escaped this terror either returned back to Maol-Moirel with no clan to return to or stayed within Visimarian territory and formed gangs to harass the now lost dream of a Maol-Moirel Eastern Kingdom.

The Aftermath
In total, around 5000 clansmen lost their lives during and after the battle. And many were captured and sold off into labour camps and into slavery. Visimarian casualties numbered around 3000 as many of the veterans and knights of the campaign were cut down in the first day of the battle as well as the untrained militias and garrisons of Worfrau. Chief Mcpherson was caught two days after the route had begun, hiding in an abandoned frontier village with his family and what remained of his retinue, he was promptly imprisoned and paraded in Generen during a victory celebration. He was then imprisoned for months until his eventual ransom and release back to the Union of Maol-Moirel.

During the attacks a peasant uprising that was rumoured to be funded by the clans before the battle erupted from the cutthroat forest, the forest provided relief from many of the routed clansmen who soon promptly joined the roaming bands of armed peasants. Small skirmishes erupted between small forces sent to probe the problem which suddenly stopped and the peasants dispersed after word got out that the Emperor Werner the Bold was fast approaching with his army to deal with the now eliminated threat of the Clans.