An hour into their uneventful watch, the Witches all came out with determined looks, then did a double take as they noticed the black magical armour active over the uniforms of the patrol.
“Did we take an attack?” Priya asked.
“No, Lieutenant. Mister Wolfe didn’t know how to activate the spells on our gear, so he was practicing.” The patrol leader answered.
“With every spell on your armour?” Priya asked.
“Isn’t that how it works? You get attacked, and you turn on the defensive spells?” Wolfe asked.
“And how long does it take you to channel enough mana to activate all those wards?” Priya asked curiously.
“I’m not a Witch. I don’t need to channel it. I have it stored. I could do the defensive and offensive spells for the entire force at the same time, but then I would be right empty and unable to maintain a barrier during the initial stages of the attack.” Wolfe explained.
“I can verify that he activated all the spells at once.” The team leader added helpfully.
“That really is cheating. Having a humanoid Demon around is like borrowing a legendary artifact of the great war.” She sighed while looking at the matte black armour the patrol was wearing.
“Alright, keep up the good work. Wolfe will stay with you until the end of your shift, so be sure to show him the ropes.” Priya decided before returning to the rest of the group of advanced Witches.
Ilyas stepped forward and raised her voice, addressing the whole camp at once. “Listen up, everyone. We have an announcement. As part of our training regimen, it has been agreed by Mister Wolfe’s Witches that once a week, everyone will report for a short mana vein opening session, like we held today.
Work on your power in the meantime, as the Lieutenant will be making notes of your progress.
We will also be adding practical magic to the training rotation with your officers as instructors. Most of you know how to activate your own armour and weapons, but as you grow, you will be able to do more without exhausting yourself, and you will need the knowledge.
That is all for today. We will announce the training changes tomorrow.”
For the rest of the evening, the squad was excited and cautiously optimistic since they hadn’t been to an academy since having their skills upgraded to really know where they stood in relation to actual Witches. None of the senior Witches in the unit had mentioned that almost all of them already had the power but not the knowledge to at least barely pass the first midterm, even if they couldn’t get through the whole first year.
The next morning’s training was unlike anything that Cassie and the others had ever seen. They were told to grab their swords and join the group so that Priya could teach everyone an ancient combat technique unique to large groups of Witches, known as the phalanx.
With themselves plus Priya and the other officers, they formed a wall around a team of archers and Stephanie, who had been adorned with a crown of branches to play their Commander.
The Familiar Cat thought the whole situation was hilarious but willingly played along, with Pup and Flame as her bodyguards in the center of the unit.
“Form Up” was the call to create the phalanx formation. When it was called, the Witches gathered in a loose circle and dropped to one knee, forming their Armor spells into a two-piece shield. One-half in front of them, one-half above them, with a gap big enough for the archers to shoot out of in between.
“Alright, I want all four teams to practice as individual groups with your officers in the middle. Remember, shield high enough to block the attacks, so they have to be over your head, but leave a gap for the archers and the spears.
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That was how the whole first training session went. The teams would move to patrol the camp, and then Priya would order them to form up, and they would fall into their phalanx formations.
“That’s it for morning training. Grab lunch and prepare for your afternoon rotations. Tomorrow we will begin working on the camp-sized phalanx with the whole unit.
The outer shield is not intended to hold in one spot forever, so once the archers have done what they can, the outer ring will charge out and engage the enemy, driving them back and thinning their ranks. Once that is complete, they will fall in again before the enemy can counterattack.” Priya instructed.
“Have you ever actually seen this in combat?” Wolfe asked, impressed by the strategic thought that went into the mobile turtle shell.
“No, since I’m not in the special forces. But it was in the history of war books, and the details were good enough that I’m sure we’ve done it correctly.”
Wolfe thought the same. It was a very impressive formation with so many overlapping armour spells.
Wolfe drew a crude map of the camp in the dirt to explain his thoughts on the Phalanx. “For base strategy, I would say it is the final line of defence. The barrier Array can hold against the initial charge while the unit does its best from a distance, then when the outer Barrier falls, move to the phalanx formation and rely on the physical defence lines to slow the enemy while you kill as many as you can.
If you only charge out of the Phalanx once they’re actually in the camp, you can drive them back to the defence lines and reform the full Phalanx, putting them right back where they began.”
“Not bad for a rookie. Where did you come up with that?”
“Gang fights in the lower levels are almost the same. They defend the edge of their Turf, then fall back to regroup and charge out to push the invaders back to the boundary. I’ve seen it dozens of times over the years.”
“We almost all came from the same neighbourhood, a district in the upper floors. That’s why there are no humans in our group at all. The lower floors have a few without Witch blood, but Sylvan treats them as refugees and finds villages outside the city for them to settle instead of integrating them inside the walls.” Priya explained.
“Morgana doesn’t have that many Witch-Blooded residents, non Witches make up three-quarters of the city, and we’re told that it is suicide to go outside the walls and a crime to even try to leave the city, like we would be defecting to join the enemy,” Wolfe explained.
“Yes, Morgana did the opposite. They have Witches make up all the villages, trying to prove that the disconnect from nature is what is causing our weakness. But they never send any of the villagers to the academy, so nobody else knows if it’s working.” Priya informed him with a sigh.
“I guess it’s better we just leave the politics to the Big City Nobles and grow our own strength.”