Chapter 2:

Slobden The Evil Awakens

While I was sleeping very soundly, a big group of soldiers, who would go down in history as The Army of Doom, had just crossed into Krasniqi Clan’s domain.

In the previous 10 days, a lot of stuff had happened, and it had happened so quickly that news had not yet reached us. 

This brings us to the main antagonist of this story: Slobden The Evil.

Neighbouring the Krasniqi domain from the north was the Hasani domain. This was a large group of tribes loosely united under the chief called Zeze Hasani, who resided in the big city village called Prizren, one of the three only villages big enough to be called cities in the Dukagjina area. 

The Hasani Clan was pretty much the same size as the Krasniqi Clan, and the only difference between the two was that one had a city and was more centralized than the other. A very small difference, but an important one indeed.

So 10 days ago, Zeze Hasani had suddenly died, the cause unknown.

Immediately his eldest son, Slobden Hasani took the title of chief of the Hasani Clan. 

The first thing he did was kill all his rivals to the throne, personally going tent to tent with a group of loyal mercenaries he had handpicked from Drenica, and ambushing his brothers in their sleep.

In a two day purge, Slobden had killed all his rivals and consolidated all power under him. 

On the third day, he implemented reforms that would change the world forever. 

Both the Hasani and Krasniqi clans used to be evenly matched when it came to their armies, but with change in organisational structure and disregard for all traditions, Slobden the Evil changed all of this.  

Firstly, he mobilised every person in the Hasani Clan. 

He called every single person, even children, to gather at Prizren. In Dukagjinian culture, women weren’t allowed to battle or work, but this was changed. Any person who could walk, or use their hands, were now soldiers under one army. 

If a person was too weak to battle in the front line, then he would be given a logistical job instead. 

Everyone else who was able-bodied would go into one of the four groups of Doom.

These were: The front group, the left flank group, the right flank group, and the reserve group. 

Usually armies would just be one long frontline, where soldiers, regardless of their strengths are weaknesses, were just randomly placed in the line. There was no organisation. 

But Slobden the Evil changed this.

Each soldier was put into a class, There was the heavy Shield Class, the fast Warrior Class, and the long range Mage Class.

In the front group, there would be three ranks. 

The first rank would be the heavy Shield Class soldiers, who would use their big shields and clubs to act as a wall and heavy infantry. These Shield Class soldiers had a very strong defence but bad attacking power. 

Directly behind this rank would be the fast Warrior class. This class would have no shields but either a sword or spear, whatever the individual warrior himself preferred. 

The Shield rank would make openings in the enemy line where the Warriors would quickly charge, create massive damage, and retreat behind the Shields again. 

This way the Shields compensated for the Warriors’ bad defence, and the Warriors compensated for the Shields’ bad attacking power. 

And right behind these two ranks, would be the long range Mages.

Again, these mages would themselves decide which spells they preferred to use. They would attack from a distance and be defended by the two front ranks. 

If an enemy managed to flank the two front ranks, then the Warrior rank would quickly fall back and defend the mages.

Internally in the groups, the soldiers decided how they would organise themselves. They just had to organise themselves as either Shield, Warrior, or Mage, and stick to their positions. This way the organisation in battle was very loose and fluid, and each soldier could take initiative on his own.

Then there were the right and left flanking groups. 

These groups had the responsibility of flanking the main enemy army, which the front group would hold in place. 

There were two main differences between these flanking groups and the front and reserve group. 

The first difference was that though the three rank structure of Shield, Warrior, and Mage was kept, each soldier was riding a big Riding Lizard. 

And the second difference was that only the best soldiers were picked for the flanking groups.

And lastly, there was the reserve group. This group was made entirely of Warrior soldiers. On Slobden the Evil’s signal, these soldiers would rush the battlefield.

Besides these four groups, Slobden of course also had lots of tactics and coordinated attack styles he could easily signal the soldiers to do. For example, he had a special horn which, when signaled, would make each Mage fire one long distance spell at a specific point in the battlefield.

And on the fifth day, after mobilising all of this, came the Great Marche.

It was customary for clans to first send declarations of war to other clans, agree upon a place of battle, and then stand next to each other in two front lines. 

Of course,  Slobden the Evil did not do this. 

Immediately he started a BlitzKrieg with no warning, and started going from village to village and annihilating them. 

He would force march with the reserve group behind the front group, and the flanking groups marching ahead to kill any scouts. 

When they came upon a village, they would massacre it. Kill every male, even if a baby, and sell all the women to slavery and loot every thing. 

If they came upon a front line that had the chance to organise themselves, which was rare, then they would rapidly annihilate it with their superior organisation. The casualties in the Great Army of Doom were very few to non-existent, and the casualties on the other side were absolute. 

No enemy male survivors were allowed. Also, if any captured women gave birth to a boy, those boys were killed.

 It was sound policy actually, because there was a high risk of assimilated boys revolting. So it was more effective to have the slave women assimilated into the Hasani Clan, because then the children born would be of Hasani descent and less likely to revolt. And the captured areas would be repopulated and distributed to soldiers with their new slaves. This last fact highly motivated the soldiers.

On the tenth day, after conquering every village bordering the Gjakova line to the North West of the Dukagjina region, and every village until the Llap Region, the Great Army of Doom crossed the border into Krasniqi territory.

***

I woke up feeling very well rested. 

That was some of the best sleep I had had in awhile, and that handjob from Elvana really satisfied me. 

“I wonder if I can get her to clean me again tonight?”

I made some water and washed my eyes. Then I took a bucket and pooped and peed. 

“What should I eat for breakfast? Gjevrek? Fruits? I know, let’s see if Elvana picked some berries yet! Then I can also grope her ass from behind while she feeds me.”

I went outside. 

The weather was really bad. Clouds grayed the sky and rain poured down. The visibility was poor. But something caught my eyes. 

Down the hill a man was running up towards the village. The closer he got the more details from his body I could see. And as he got closer, I started feeling sick to my stomach. I started running towards him.

His entire body was covered in cuts and slashes and burn marks.

“DREQIT! DREQI OSHT!” he started screaming.

 I ran towards him. 

“What happened!“ 

He didn’t react to me. Just started mumbling. I slapped him hard, and grabbed his face to make eye contact with me. 

“HEYY! What happened?” 

“Attack. A huge army is-” he said.

 I started running towards the village. 

“WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, EVERYONE FORM A LINE! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK, EVERYONE FORM A LINE.” 

I ran to my father’s tent. I ran to every tent. Soon I had organised a somewhat stable line.

 “GO TO THE HILL AND DEFEND IT! TAKE ALL THE WOMEN AND CHILDREN SOUTH!” I started yelling out commands.

 I grabbed my still nameless Riding Lizard so I could get around faster. I went to all my brothers and told them to grab their Riding Lizards and help with the line. I first saw Mehmet. 

“HELP ME FORM A FUCKING LINE, NOW!” 

He didn’t say anything, just nodded and went to grab his Riding Lizard and help muster the line.

I went back to the hill. All the village men had formed a big line atop the hill, and my father and brothers were behind that line in the centre on their Riding Lizards. But it was hard to see from down the hill. I joined my family. 

“They are going to attack from the north,” I said.

 I was so sure of this because that was where the wounded villager had come from. And because there were no enemy villages farther south, only some smaller villages that were part of our clan.

We held that line for one hour, but nothing came. I wasn’t sure, but I think from far away I heard some loud horn. 

Suddenly, my skin turned completely pale. 

“What’s wrong?“ said Mehmet. 

My entire body broke into cold sweat. I felt like throwing up. The position I was in felt like death. 

“Get away from here!” 

I stabbed Mehmet’s Riding Lizard with the lance I was holding in my left hand. I just realized now that I had automatically picked up my weapons.     

When I stabbed the Riding Lizard it jumped away, I also hit my Riding Lizard to jump away. My father and brothers just looked at me in confusion. 

“Get away from there!” 

Then I saw it. The sky turned colourful rom all the long distance spells. They were all concentrated and aimed at one spot. I later learned this was another one of Slobdon the Evil’s battle tactics: Take out the leadership first to destroy morale. 

I saw a barrage of spells tear my father and six brothers to pieces.

“NOOOOO!” Mehmed screamed. 

I couldn’t talk. I was in shock.  

The front group of the Great Army of Doom now appeared. That group was 2 times the size of our front line, since we hadn’t had time to mobilize all the men. 

Then I saw the worst part: From behind, the two flanking groups had merged and were now charging us, along with the front group charging us.

It was a pincer attack. 

During the one hour of silence, the flanks had moved around the main village and annihilated the smaller villages, then moved to our flank. The concentrated fire was the signal for them to charge.

I awoke from my shock. I rode up to Mehmet and grabbed his face.

“We need to run, now!” 

“No,” he said, “we have to fight!” 

I punched him in the face. It was then the mages from our frontline and the enemy mages from the flank and front group started firing spells at each other. The spells from our front line did almost no damage because of the Shields, while the enemy barrages shredded our front line. 

I already knew we had lost. One Fireball tore off my Riding Lizard’s tail and almost hit Mehmed. 

I grabbed Mehmet’s Riding Lizard’s collar and we started fleeing the battlefield. 

“No! What are you doing!” 

I elbowed Mehmed in the face and knocked him unconscious. We barely missed the charge impact. I knew our village men were getting crushed and massacred, but I didn’t care. 

We were the only ones who could flee because only the shief and his sons got to have Riding Lizards because they were so expensive. The reason the Great Army of Doom had so many Riding Lizards was because they had stolen them from the villages they massacred.

I rode directly for the forest with Mehmed unconscious on his Riding Lizard and me controlling it. A detachment from the flanking group chased us. But we were protected from the spells they fired at us by the dense forest, and we soon lost them because of the heavy fog.

Ahead lay a dangerous journey.