Book 4, Chapter 24: Love Only That Which They Defend
Furthermore, it bears repeating that when choosing to have a battle, one should choose a place and time in which one’s own advantages are maximized, and the opponent's are rendered as reduced as possible. While this might seem obvious, I have seen far too many generals and other commanders of high rank who feel that having a "fair" and "honorable" fight for glory is of more importance than achieving their objectives or safeguarding the lives of the soldiers who follow them. So, for all of the glory that appears to come with two armies lined up on a field, ready to hack and chop each other to pieces and let the side who died the least say that they won the day, I believe that it is more honorable to have the other army be soundly defeated by overwhelming force if they cannot be brought to parley and negotiation. For sure, the young hotheads who feel otherwise will throw themselves into conflicts and waste their lives, but those who reserve fighting for when it will do the most good will have far fewer dead friends and allies to mourn.
And for those times when a battle is inevitable, then a wise general will do everything they can to arrange things in their favor. Allies. Supplies. Their morale and that of their enemies. Differences in culture. Surprise. Reputations. The weather. The land itself. All are ultimately tools in the hands of those who would wage war with their final goals in mind. And the more of these that the wise general can bring to bear, the more weight they remove from the arms of their own soldiers when it comes time for the clash itself.
To those that say that this is the cowardly route, all I can say is this: Which is more glorious? An army marching to its doom, shedding bodies and blood like leaves from a tree in autumn, beautiful and transient and weakened after the fight with rain and cold? Or a force that loses as few men as possible, and comes home with stories about how their foes fell like wheat before the scythe, and achieved victory?
—The Wing And The Ax, Queen Marshal Astrid Haddock I, undated draft, Waterford University Archives
Tropes that appear in this chapter:
- Bilingual Backfire: Alfric can speak Norman, not that Jacqueline and her co-conspirators know that, so when one of them speaks about Jacqueline not actually being pregnant with Orvi's child and them helping impregnate her to keep the ruse in her earshot, Alfric reports it back to William.
- Character Death: Spitelout dies of his injuries in this chapter.
- Content Warnings:Chapter Trigger Warnings: Character Deaths
- Continuity Nod: When Hiccup sees the cooking pots his soldiers bring before Astrid, he remembers Magnhild being upset with him for using the communal kitchen's pots for his battle plan against Harthacnut.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: With Astrid's battle plan, Berk's army of two-thousand defeats Henry's army of twenty-five thousand without losing anyone.
- Death by Irony: Henry claims his army is backed by God, but his army is defeated the way God defeated the pursuing Egyptian army in the Plagues story, washed away by a river.
- Delayed Reaction: Archbishop Octavianus has only just noticed the Jewish refugees, even though they have been coming in for three weeks.
- Hell Is That Noise: From the perspective of Henry's knights, the racket from the construction work done by the Hooligans is an inexplicable sound which highly agitates them.
- Karmic Death: William's citizens in Rouen believe Henry's army will be killed and it is entirely their own fault. Hiccup has warned everyone that his enemies get only one chance of mercy, and if they squander it by coming at him with an army to attack him again, it will be smashed.
- Last Request: Spitelout's final words are for Rivkah to tell his nephew Hiccup he said "Hello".
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: Defied, Astrid gives her soldiers financial incentives to not loot, destroy, and harm prisoners.
- Rule of Symbolism: Henry's army is defeated in the exact same way as the Egyptian Army pursuing the fleeing Jews were in the Plagues story, washed away by a river.
- Sleep Deprivation: The construction required to implement Astrid's battle plan has the unintentional but useful side-effect of keeping Henry's army awake throughout the night the whole week the construction happens. This makes them agitated, and causes them to snap and even try to kill each other.
