It was these kinds of battles that Vangelis hated. Not because of the mud, or the rain, or the confusion... that was just part of war. What he hated about battles like this one was how too many men would lose their lives...

When battles were organised, when they were controlled from above on a dry landscape where lines and colours and units can be seen, lives lost could be limited with careful tactical manoeuvring. Vangelis' job came in two parts. One was to be that voice of reason, that voice of strategy - to create those lines and that order. When the advantage was theirs to push forward but not press it. When the line was weakening to hold firm and shore up the line. His first role was to be the brain of the body that was the Colchian army; one unit the legs, another the arms, all working in tandem with himself as the mind. It was hard to orchestrate with runners, horn blowers and flags, but it was significant to victory.

His second role happened when the first one failed. When the battle became something unmanageable. When there was no easy route to retreat and it was basically at the point of do or die, Vangelis became a soldier, down on the ground with his men. Trained more heavily than most of the men around him - for he had no basic shores or encampment maintenance to tend to - Vangelis was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. Like all others who had been in the military as long as him, he had lost his sensitivities to harshities of war. He was therefore without the hesitation that got men killed, without the empathy that halted one's blade at a critical moment. He was only dangerous because, once on the battlefield, he felt nothing. He was simple a pawn on Ares's mercenary board. He went where he was needed. He killed that which stood before him. There was no more thought...

Within this particular combat, Vangelis had begun in one role and transferred to the other. He had started as a commander, back from the battle and instructing the movements of his men. Then the rain had come.

Rain was one of the worst things for a soldier. You could handle wind, snow, hail, baking hot temperatures. But rain was the killer. Mostly due to what it did to the land beneath your feet. Suddenly they were working on a slippery mess of mud and sludge. Such ground gave you no strength in your defensive walls, no power in your forward attacks. It risked slips and slides and made retreating very dangerous indeed.

It had been an order to retreat that Vangelis had halted in its progress.

Having noticed that the flanks were falling and the line weakening, the crown prince knew that steps had to be taken in order to regroup. He had called for a slow and progressive retreat. There was a river just a few clicks back that would serve as a defensive barrier until they could regroup. He had been calling the order when he had noticed the back line of men in the centre shoved backwards and attempting to surrender ground without the order. Several of them had slipped and fallen off their feet. Vangelis' order had died in his throat. Such a retreat now - organised or not - would have his men on their backs and beneath the enemy's blades. Offering leniency in the line was difficult to pull off at the best of times. In this kind of weather, it was suicide.

And it wasn't possible just to have the Knights turn tail and run for it. They would be plugged full of arrows from the enemy archers before they took more than three steps.

Which meant the battle had stopped being a place of combat. It had become a place of survival.

And the only way to survive in elements such as these was for the opposing force to be killed.

Vangelis had joined the fighting only a few moments after.

Charging in on his steed, he had slid to the ground, dropping low and absorbing the shock in his knees as he ducked to avoid a thrown lance and has his round shield up in time to catch three arrows. The enemy was no fool. Take off a unit's head and it would flounder.

Calling for an attack call, Vangelis strode into the mess that was his army, his height and size helping him find his place as others naturally moved out of his way. Vangelis aimed for the gaps, stepping in the parry an enemy blade determined for the head of a fallen comrade. He then took that enemies place and made for the next open space.

With each step he continued forwards, with each kill he made headway.

Then the heavens opened further.

Torrential rain hammered down on them, the sound of raindrops on metal a constant buzz in everyone's ears. The soldiers could barely see, could barely move, their feet stuck in the earth.

Vangelis found the newer ones - the weaker ones. The ones inexperienced enough to fall back on instinct and wipe at their eyes with their arm, or try to blink their vision free.

In that moment Vangelis was there. He had learnt long ago to keep your eyes open when in battle. No matter how much they hurt. No matter how full of grit or sand or smoke they might be. No matter how blurry an image your vision is reduced to. It was still better than nothing. It was still better than giving your enemy that edge. The edge that Vangelis was taking full advantage of wherever he could.

It was as he had made another kill, shirking the dead weight from his curved Saracen blade that he was bumped into from behind and his body spun. His feet planted so as not to slip, the General twisted his upper body in order to parry an attack that did not come. For the collision had been with one of his own men.

A man who, unbelievably to Vangelis, was smiling and cracked a joke.

"Throw in a few maidens to rub in the mud, we’d have ourselves a real luxury here.”

Vangelis was soaked through to the bone, every inch of his skin now numb from the cold and his muscles having to rely on willpower alone to move. His hair was plastered to his face and neck and water ran down his face in waves. He spat the fresh water from his mouth as the man made his joke, only to look up as an enemy solder lunged for his man's back.

Vangelis shot his arm forward with as much force as he could muster, his sword punching through the tender flesh of the oppositions neck.

Pulling the blade free sideways with a harsh jerk of his arm, Vangelis half decapitated the enemy before turning his attention back to Mr. Smiley.

"Can the jokes, soldier, and you might live to see such a woman again."

While he would never be disappointed in the act of saving a man's life, Vangelis felt a spark of certainty and security in the knowledge that he had not saved one who was useless. When a second attacked approached them, the Lieutenant? (it was hard to see his uniform) was quick to respond with a parry and a dispatchment. He was also quick off the mark, using his surroundings as a means of attack as he drowned the first man and ran through a second. If they were talking purely in numbers, Vangelis' actions of rescuing the man from the grip of Hades had already paid its dividends.

Confident in the man before him for just a moment, Vangelis looked out over the sea of muddy, flailing humans that had once been his organised and strong military unit. All were struggling in the weather and the appalling conditions but Vangelis could just about define, through the shining mist of droplets on shields and the humid rain, a line of shield bearers standing true against the enemy. Even as opposing forces brought through and attacked from within - the breachers being the men that he and his compatriot were slaying to the ground - the shield wall was actually holding. Vangelis felt pride bloom in his chest. His men were no more willing to rescind then he.

With a flash of steel, a man with a large axe came swinging out of muddy, smoggy darkness and his fellow soldier was quick to apprehend the weapon.

Catching it in the cross, the fighter kept the blade of the axe down towards the ground, his sword pinning it beneath the fixing of the shaft. With the adversary bent double and attempting to pull his weapon free, Vangelis obeyed the lingering look - a request for help and reached for a nearby fallen blade.

The halberd he grabbed was slick with mud but his hands were so wet that they slicked free the handle in the time it took to retrieve it from the ground and hold it in position.

With an almighty swing, Vangelis had detached the head of the axe wielder, the halberd's blade swinging clean over his fellow soldier's bent figure and cutting cleaning through skin, muscle, flesh and bone.

With the speed, accuracy and the length of the weapon creating so strong a force behind its impact, the head detached with a pop that sent it spinning, up and over before falling to the ground with a thunk that was lost in the roar of the rain.

Placing the end of the halberd's shaft into the ground and reaching out, Vangelis grabbed hold of the other man's shoulders, pressed the weapon into his hands and then called over the noise around them.

"Come find me if you live through this, soldier." He told the man, his tone not even entertaining the possibility that it might be himself to pass beyond the River Styx that night.

He hoped the man did live. Such a skilled soldier at such an apparently young age - again it was hard to tell when the man was coated in the black tar of the earth - was a rarity in the military. And holding in to talented men that that was one of the hardest tasks as a commander. The young ones always tended to die first...

Taking back up both of his dual, Saracen swords with their curved blades, Vangelis spun each in his hands and headed away from his fellow fighter in search of further carnage to be had that would help increase their lead.


Eight hours later and the battle had finally been put to an end. Ares had been appeased as victory had come to Colchis. But so too had Hades been given his due. Half the unit had been killed in the combat and Vangelis was back within his tent, standing before his desk with all maps and documents laid before him for the next big adventure in attaining more land.

He had not washed, he had not sort medical treatment for a cut to the back of his hand and a slice in his left thigh. Instead, he had simply managed to return of his still living servicemen and retired to his private tent. That had been ten minutes ago... And the General had yet to move from his position of stoic thought.

In an uncharacteristic moment of rage, Vangelis was suddenly moving. The General grabbed hold of one end of his desk and with a roar of anger upended the item. Maps, parchment, quills, ink bottles and candles were sent everywhere, the tent losing some of its light as the latter fell to the sodden earth and were extinguish in a low hiss.

Angry at the situation, angry at so much death and - most significantly - angry at himself for being the man responsible for said lives lost, Vangelis stood with his hands on his hips and heaved heavy breaths as he surveyed the destruction he had wrought for no good reason. It had diminished his rage none and had only offered him an additional frustration in the fact that he would later have to clean and place everything back the way it had been.

He felt dampness on his hip as the blood from his open cut ran in rivulets over the back of his hand and soaked into the hem of his riding pants but he paid the sensation no mind. Parts of him were drying now that he was out of the downpour but he was still mostly soaked through to the bone. Every layer of his armour and under tunic was damp and cold - every inch of his skin having been reduce to gooseflesh, now numb against the chill of the night.

It was but the early hours of the morning now and it would not grow warm outside until the rain ceased and sun rose - both of which looked to still be hours away.

Running a hand through his hair, Vangelis felt crusty locks that broke under his touch, the mud and dirt laced water that had dried it together in clumps turning to sludge and dust under his fingertips. His face felt hard and dry as the mud there had cooled and cemented first.

He wanted to yell again.

It would not be until morning when he could properly assess the damage that had been done to his patrol of men, but he had already seen the bodies on the fields - bodies that he had ordered dragged under cover as they had set up their tents in the nearly claimed land. He would not have the husks of the dead expand and bloat in the rain. They would burn that as soon as the weather would allow. But even without the final numbers of how many would be cremated, Vangelis knew that there would be too many. Far, far too many...

When the flap of fabric that constituted a door or barrier to the outside world was pulled aside, Vangelis did not turn around. There was only one soldier on the battlefield that day who had impressed him enough for him to invite the man into his company after the war had been waged and the killing had come to an end. His guards, still out in the rain and mud were also vigilant. There was no way a man would have been allowed into Vangelis' private square of silk covered mud unless he met the description he had given - regardless of the Colchis uniform and the three inches of mud the man had acquired on every surface of his body fighting for the kingdom with the red flag.

His hands still on his hips and his front turned away from the invited intruder, Vangelis' expression didn't change when the man greeted him and then offered him a stupendously useless suggestion of the healing pools of Elimea some thousand miles away. He resisted the urge to raise a brow and offer a sarcastic comment when the men openly admitted to speaking before he thought and, instead, simply allowed the soldier to introduce himself.

Now that the fighting had ceased and the rain had continued, Vangelis could see a little more of the Colchian fighter before him. He was tall and carried himself as a Colchian - square, hard and rough around the edges. His uniform was, indeed, that of a Lieutenant as he had suspected but been uncertain once under the combined cover of sludge and nightfall. He also noted that the man couldn't be much older than himself - not far out of his teen years and yet was likely to have been within the military for several years. How he had managed to maintain a light glow in his bright blue eyes, Vangelis did not - and would never, as luck would have it - understand.

"I applaud your love of home, Philippos of Elimea." The crown prince offered him for his advice. "I would never expect an apology for adoration of your province." He paused to turn towards the man properly in order to continue the conversation. "I'll not lie that I, however, now judge your grasp of geography for thinking such a place within my reach of healing myself anytime soon."

Glancing at the floor when the man commented on requiring assistance, Vangelis simply looked back with a straight face and calm features - as if the muddy ground was exactly where he had wanted to store his supply documents for the beans and rice required for his regiment next month.

"Not at all, soldier." He stated, simply, ending that particular conversation and moving on to another as he took two steps forward and picked the table back up with one hand and set the article back down on its legs. The moment of tidying was almost instinctive - his mind subconsciously finding something to do as he talked. Vangelis was not a patient, nor chatty individual.

"I instructed you to find me, as I was simply curious if you and your jokes would survive the night." He told the man, without hint of insult or judgement. Any soldier whom had been in that skirmish or others like it would have doubted any of their officers' survivals. "And, as you have, I want you to lead exercises tomorrow at dawn." He told the self-proclaimed Philippos of Elimea. "Captain Porthius was injured last night. He'll be back in rotation after a few days but in the meantime you'll be handling the western flank unit."