Battle of Valdor's Pass

The Belt of Medusa separates Brankara from the hobgoblin empire of Dhargul, and has to be constantly protected against Dharguli probing raids or invasions. On one occasion, the Brankaran Royal Army captain responsible for defending the mountain passage known as Valdor's Pass received word from his scouts that a hobgoblin legion was approaching the mountains.
With little time to prepare, Captain Riman sent scouts to the nearby villages to warn them and send a message to the army summoning reinforcements, and then led his troops into the pass. The pass was partially blocked by a small stone keep built by the Brankara Royal Corps of Engineers, but he had only two companies of heavy infantry, a company of archers, and a squadron of knights. With a legion of heavily-armed hobgoblins approaching, his unit would either be overrun, or simply pinned in the fort while the rest of the hobgoblins marched around them and proceeded into the Brankaran countryside to sack the defenseless villages.
Riman placed his archers inside the fort, with every one of his support personnel - quartermasters, farriers, stable-boys and the like - in infantry armour and making it appear that his whole force was inside. He led the remainder of his force away from the protection of the keep, and placed them up on the sides of the pass.
When the hobgoblins approached, flights of arrows from the archers stopped their advance and bunched them up into phalanxes. As they approached the fort, their attention held by the archers and armour-clad non-combatants, one company of the heavy infantry attacked the legion from the rear quadrant with their javelins and shortbows, ripping holes in their unprepared rear line.
As the legion paused in surprise, the wedge of twenty Brankaran knights flung themselves down the hill, tonnes of armoured warhorses and knights hurtling down the incline at a gallop into the thousands of off-balance goblinoids. Each knight slew or trampled dozens of hobgoblins, splintering their lances before drawing their longswords and turning to hack their way back to the Brankaran line. As the hobgoblins began to rally, starting to encircle the doomed knights, the company of heavy infantry smashed into the gaping hole the knights had left, causing more casualties and holding the line open long enough for the knights to extricate themselves.
The legion formed up under barked commands and blowing horns from their officers, starting to chase after the retreating infantry and knights - only for the second company of infantry to attack from the other side of the pass, colliding with the now rear of the surprised hobgoblins. As the goblinoids reeled, fresh salvoes of arrows from the keep tore more rents in their formations.
The legion reeled around from blow to blow, each Brankaran hero slaying many times his own number before being pulled down. Just as it looked like all hope was lost and the hobgoblins would win the day through sheer weight of numbers, a Brankaran horn split the air, and a fresh flight of arrows darkened the sky from behind the fort. The hobgoblins broke and retreated in the face of the reinforcements about to round the fort.
The reinforcements turned out to be merely a single company of archers and a company of pikemen, villagers from a local war-grange of the Knights of the Flame. When the scout had reached the village, the faithful worshippers of Sunpyrion had donned their armour, and led by the grange's training-sergeant, marched to relieve the fort. Their arrival had made the hobgoblins believe a much larger relieving force had arrived, and forced them to quit the battle.

Conflict Type

Skirmish