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The third part of his orders begin when the missile unit has moved into position at the top of the hill and fired their flaming bolts; the flames will ignite the tinder and wood placed there protecting the flank of General Silnod's retreating forces; Silnod's infantry will then turn and take up a defensive posture and his cavalry will turn and charge the enemy after General Gurn's missile unit fires on the enemy's pursuing forces; finally, Gurn's cavalry will charge the enemy's flank from the south and confuse them.

Mid-day came; the rains stopped as predicted by High Priest of Southern War Helnet Sith and each sergeant and captain had completed their preparations and awaited the signal to engage the enemy. General Gurn sat on his horse under the now glaring sun, a bitter cold wind occasionally forcing a small grimace from him. He was surrounded by two regiments of his cavalry and infantry acting as bodyguards, the captains from both regiments took reports from runners: the cavalry captain received and sent the cavalry reports and the infantry captain did the same for the infantry; missile reports were sent and received by Cavalry Sergeant Sathrin who was unit advisor to General Gurn. The flag bearers crouched to the side of the General. The priest, whose name was Baum Sith, prayed in the tongue of the stone burner; the General ignored the language that seemed to be only a low rumbling from the priest's throat. As he was receiving a report from Cavalry Sergeant Sathrin, the sergeant stopped in mid-sentence and pointed to the south.

General Gurn turned his eyes and saw his Oath Brother's flags and priest in a running retreat. Gurn frowned and ordered an aide to hand him a spyglass. He held the tube to his good eye and surveyed the terrain further south. Infantry soon came into view: they were also running. Then he saw General Silnod and a very small force of cavalry charge in and out amongst the rear of his fleeing force, fighting off the forward cavalry of the enemy.

"Sergeant Sathrin, I count some one hundred fifty friendly cavalry, one thousand foot, some one thousand - no - two thousand enemy cavalry and four thousand enemy infantry so far."

"General? So many losses?"

"Indeed."

"To lose that much their forward camp must have been twice the estimated size, and possibly six of their ten camps must have joined."

"Agreed."

The General scanned the terrain as the retreating forces threw their flaming torches. He shifted his view to the hill hiding his missile unit and watched as they moved into position and fired their flaming arrows a measure past the retreating unit's western flank. The wind helped to ignite the fuel and soon the mud began to boil.

General Gurn looked further north as the infantry moved out of cover. He swept his view south again and grunted as his Oath Brother's retreating infantry nearly collided with the reinforcing infantry: a sergeant waving a sword with the head of an enemy staked on the tip rallied the infantry in time, however, and the retreating force turned and dug in.