It came. There was a growing reverberation, the horns of the Fallen sounded throughout, consensus reached. The horn songs faded as they started marching, ushering a slow stampede, the sound of their armours steadily increasing as more and more men were allowed forwards.
There was nothing ambiguous or guileful about it; the Fallen had simply decided to reach out and overwhelm Lanston. The first line of men had long cleared into the Basin when still more marched from the hillocks.
Elmira knew not what to make of it, because now she could see the entirety of the enemy, and they were much too great for Lanston. Worst of all was that small circle of men that came through the middle, escorted and protected by thousands. All of them were Priests still mounted, save for a single fallen walking right among them, his size making him a giant of a man.
Then, as though her eyes were trying to conjure up images in denial, she saw hordes of dark spots moving rapidly through the open valley, many of them on the flanks of the Fallen march. Her first realization was that some of them were running on all fours, the nightmare revealing more of its horrors.
The beasts she thought had been tall tales on the soldiers’ part bounded inhumanly onto the mesas where the strike groups waited. In mid-air the Reavers brandished their scimitars from the back-holsters and came down hard on the Lanston men. The strike groups scurried to eliminate these animals amongst them, all the while failing in thinning the Fallen - all the while the black march moving closer to the core infantry.
The core infantry started its very own wave by wave arrow fire again, trying to kill off as many as they could before inevitable contact.
The strike forces seemed to struggle internally with the Reavers, as their closed ranks did nothing to hamper the beasts’ fury.
Then Elmira saw her final fear come to life. For the moment she was sure Lanston would die and she had been vainly hoping Cid knew this, that he and his closest men would decide to retreat in faith that the Fallen could no longer hunt them down.
She knew he wouldn’t; there was just too many men left in the Basin.
The cavalry came with a steady pace into the Basin, descending down the trail in a long line of horses.
A disturbance wrenched Elmira’s gaze to the black march. A bright spark of yellow flashed as a precursor of the explosion, orange flames sundering a multitude of Fallen, smoking remains dividing the path and halting their step.
Elmira stood agape, Cid and the cavalry forgotten for a moment as she sought the source of this ghostly intervention, the Lanston men apparently untroubled by it, doing little to help Elmira through the confusion. She looked at Vanapha, sure the Valkyrie would be the first to find the origin.
Rather strangely she found the Valkyrie frantically busy with something in her hands, tying an object to an arrow it seemed. Curious, Elmira watched her and deducted much in the next few moments. She remembered her working on something or another at Oldeloft, thinking of those vials she showed Cid. Piecing together what had happened Elmira looked on:
The Valkyrie deftly twirled the second arrow between her fingers, mixing the substance. Posturing, she took careful aim with that arrow, waiting for the right moment. Then she released.
Elmira’s gaze hopefully followed the arrow as it sped an incredible distance to the black march. Vanapha had waited for the Fallen to dense up and her arrow was destined for those who did so the most. Elmira’s carefully poised eyes saw the arrow strike but a single worthless face in the Fallen ranks.
The explosion was instant. On impact an inferno breathed to life with such suddenness that it displaced dozens of men brutally, igniting them as they flew. Again the march was slowed and hindered, the flames withering from their initial fury, but standing as tireless landmarks puffing plumes of smoke into the sky.
Elmira’s gaze was drawn to the cavalry again. Out in the open they formed a wedge, like a long-sided triangle pointing its head at the Fallen’s west flank. At its foremost was Cid, Elmira seeing his spear lifted high and the man alongside him undoubtedly the fabled Colonel Drissil, Captain of the Charge.
The two men on their horses suddenly set pace, leading the wedge forward. The canter turned into a gallop and the gallop into a dash, the charge of cavalry bearing murderously at the Fallen’s flank. The black amours remained fixed on the core infantry, only bracing themselves instinctively a few seconds before impact.
Elmira saw Cid and Drissil coming in fast.
She could not bear it and closed her eyes. A great clash of steel and flesh sounded, intertwined with screams and cries of horses and men. A few seconds later Elmira found she couldn’t bear the ignorance any better than knowing and opened her eyes.
It took her a moment to realize what she was witnessing. The Lanston cavalry had smashed right into the ranks of the Fallen, shattering that which had been a boundary of bodies.
The wedge formation evened out with the resistance of enemies, but still Cid and Drissil led the charge, the cavalry changing its pace and direction at the mere whim of the two men. The air was clear today, the rains having weighed down the red dust of the land, so even though she saw Cid only as a small figure on the battleground, there was no mistaking him; kicking at the fallen at his sides and spearing those in his way, then ramming with Cilverhoof to create space when necessary.
Elmira noted that the strike forces had freed themselves from the menace of the Reavers, ultimately overwhelming the suicidal spree of the dogs with numbers.
The Lanston cavalry all the while worked itself through and around the Fallen like a worm, eating away at the march’s figure. They never quite got far enough to strike at the Priests, but were dealing damage nonetheless.
Elmira could not know this, but Drissil’s feeling for the charge was so acute that he experienced it as a tide of the ocean. He knew immediately when the momentum was lost and ordered disengagement whenever needed. In an instant Drissil’s command was enacted. The cavalry surged from out the Fallen’s reach, peeling away, turned around and made a cutback route, gaining their speed anew as they rammed into the enemies, then gouging them with weapons before retreating again. Vanapha synchronized her attacks, firing exploding arrows every time the cavalry needed some breathing room to retreat.
The ranks became tenderized and the melee specialists charged in, each specialist followed closely by two shield bearers. There was no need for command; years of drilling caused the men to follow an innate timing.
They surged in, cut down dozens of Fallen and then retreated, the shield bearers covering their escape should the enemy pursue with crossbows. And she was then reminded of playing as a child outside and seeing two different colonies of ants tearing away at each other. Only now it was real men, real faces of sons and fathers on both sides.
The half and half effort by the specialists seemed to be an unmatched recipe until fatigue made them somewhat slower. Elmira tracked a figure breaking away from that black heart in the middle, abandoning the Priests and striding ferociously through his own ranks, his size and presence becoming greater the closer he got to Lanston. The last hundred yards he sprinted, breaking into the isolated specialists just when they sought to hamper their next victims. They were not prepared for it.
The giant fallen man was invisible to most until his first few strokes fell. Suddenly the specialists were failing, attempts of fronting and escaping useless as the giant cleaved the life from them, moving inhumanely from death to death, his savagery ordaining the lesser fallen around him into rage of their own.
It was but a small part of the battle, yet Elmira was sure this giant could see to it that Lanston’s greatest plan be foiled in his warpath. One other had her sight on the giant and the arrow could not have come timelier. It thudded nearby on the ground, but the result was pure, the giant and his men swathed in the flames, disappearing.
Nothing escaped it, nothing stood up from it. Certainly it was another great milestone for Lanston’s survival.
Elmira had been estimating and found that at le
ast for the moment the Fallen were losing men much faster than Lanston, even more so as Vanapha continued to punctuate each sequence with a callous kill of fire and smoke.
Yet after all the effort the Fallen was still immense, still great. It seemed as though the numbers they lost only weeded out the extra luggage as their group turned more condensed, stronger, and faster as well. They pushed forward, straight at the core infantry, almost ignoring the Lanston cavalry and the few men hacking at their sides so that their march looked like a pursued exodus more than anything else. This worried Elmira, for the most likely answer to their demeanour was a means to sunder Lanston.
Regardless of the black march’s enforced cumbersomeness, another pack of Reavers broke out into the open. Again like before they came with such speed across the land that Elmira couldn’t catch where they were coming from. This time they decidedly converged toward Vanapha’s pinnacle; she was being identified for the threat she was.
Tensed and fearful Elmira watched as the Reavers sank their claws into the pinnacle surface, crawling up with strong arms to get the Valkyrie. Whatever the Reavers’ shift of attention spared to Lanston would now ensure Vanapha’s demise.
Alex watched from the thick of the core infantry. Even as he commanded his line of archers’ volleys he was well aware of the Reavers’ ascension to Vanapha on their right, their numbers crawling up the spine of rock demanding his attention, even though meaning he would have to falter his volleys for a moment.
He shouted to his men closest to him, making the cluster face east. His order was clear: shoot a volley at the Valkyrie. Their hesitance was swept away by the urgency in his voice, the men aiming and pulling uniformly. Alex trained on Vanapha again, determined to buy her time if nothing else and trusting her to adapt to his plan.
Vanapha was frantically trying to wave down one of the Rangers, seeing no escape from these menacing creatures on her own. They were closing. The first of them she simply shot in the head, allowing its body to roll limply from the rock. The next seven however were imminent and she was to be overwhelmed.
Her Sight alerted her of it first, and then she looked at the core infantry as a murderous flock of arrows ascended toward her. With great relief she vaulted backwards from the pinnacle top, sliding the bow over her body in one motion and catching the edge as she hung in the shelter of the shadow side.
She heard the swarm of whistling arrows coming in fast and how they struck the howling beasts right in their backs on the other side, their wounded bodies swept from the pinnacle by the volley. She saw some undesignated arrows flying right above her where she had stood but moments earlier. Her Sight warned her that one Reaver on the other side had not been hit and was still coming up.
Vanapha scrambled up again in a race, she and the creature clearing to the top at the same time. She anchored herself, tilted and straightened a kick right into the Reaver’s throat before it could gain momentum, getting a yelp out of it before sending it over the edge.
Her troubles weren’t over. The Reavers’ failure only allured more to the cause, the Priests evidently directing the animals to eliminate the one who could kill them if the opportunity surfaced. Now more than a dozen new Reavers were climbing, pursuing at each other heels, great black furred arms reaching up and up before slamming their claws into the rock face. Again Vanapha waved and this time one of the Rangers responded. Sedger abandoned his hassling of the Fallen for a bit, gaining height so that he could dive circling for the Valkyrie. He knew there wouldn’t be time to land.
Vanapha saw Sedger coming in even faster than the Reavers, the beasts’ ragged breathing loudening. Preparing herself, Vanapha took another Trisera arrow, spinning it while taking a deep breath for what she was about to do next. Notching the arrow onto the string she made the slightest run up and leapt completely clear of the perch. The Reavers turned their heads as their prey jumped over them, so very high up in the air. One of the confounded beasts bounded out after her, having peace with falling to its death.
Prepared for it Vanapha could only hope Sedger would arrive in time, her hypervigilance making everything seem slow. She turned her body in the air and took quick aim. She shot past her aerial pursuer and into the pinnacle.
This time the explosion rocked and shattered the pinnacle, the clinging Reavers dead instantly. Vanapha closed her eyes instinctively at the light, using her Sight from there on. She could feel the concussive force pushing her and the Reaver even further, keeping them airborne for another crucial two seconds.
The rock of the pinnacle split like glass, catching up with them. The darting rock pieces crushed the Reaver first and just when it should have rend through Vanapha’s body a curtain of a barrier threw itself into existence to halt the rocks with a smash. Vanapha opened her eyes and smiled as her legs and arms caught onto the speeding Volj, the sudden change of her body’s acceleration making her giddy.
‘You have my gratitude Ranger,’ said Vanapha as she held onto the man.
‘No worries, lets clean up, eh? I’m sure you’d like to get back at those Priests, they have been giving you a lot of attention after all.’
‘Yes, lets,’ said Vanapha, looking down at the core infantry, and silently thanking the man watching her back.
Alex breathed easier and felt his arm find a solid rhythm again as they volleyed. He had seen Vanapha making it safe, with the pinnacle exploding so fiercely that some of the smaller rocks rained down on the core infantry.
Alex had been sure he would see Vanapha die, falling to her death or crushed by the flying rocks. The Ranger’s magic came just in time and Vanapha’s superior senses allowed her to catch onto the Volj in mid-flight.
For a moment Alex wished so that it was he on that Volj catching the Valkyrie, but then he knew he played his part in saving her and being a soldier he understood that, especially now, they were all faceless cogs working together to get through this alive.
Seeing Vanapha caught by the Ranger, Elmira’s concern became wholly focused on Cid again.
She winced unconsciously each time Cid entered the fray, but she found the sight reach an insatiable side of her, experiencing an unexpected satisfaction at seeing the Fallen slain. Fighting as they were Lanston seemed favoured as the Fallen grew more exposed with every route, those Priests centred in the middle looking not so invincible anymore.
They were halfway through another route when Cid was suddenly snatched from his horse, a fallen soldier grabbing desperately and pulling him from his saddle. He disappeared in a mass of bodies, Cilverhoof cantering on riderless.
Elmira gasped, her panic making her heart throb in her stomach as well as her throat. Her eyes searched desperately for any sign of him.
Drissil had seen the event from the corner of his eye and had to adjust the charge, in the first instance not to trample their Commander and in the second to make a swift cutback to try and save him.
Some of the melee specialists went in blindly to the spot where Cid fell, putting themselves in harm’s way as they collided with the Fallen, hacking as though making their way through a dense forest of black armours.
Elmira saw an arrow hit a fallen enemy every few seconds exactly where Cid would be and she traced the fire back to the Valkyrie on the Volj, whose frantic demeanour gave Elmira hope; hope that Cid was still alive for the moment.
Drissil managed to clear a sizeable path with his cavalry, the concentrate of bodies diminished. Elmira saw a Lanston soldier hunched like he was trying to help someone up, then a second later a fallen plunged his sword in the man’s back.
Elmira felt herself growing faint, yet her entire focus remained on the chaos below. Tidings for worse only sought to bring nightmares alive again as Elmira by chance spotted an ashen figure wandering near a column of smoke, tearing himself from his broken black armour and searching the ground for his weapons, his rapid movements showing his rage. He should not have survived it…
Then Drissil voiced a retreat from the thick of things, commanding everyone to
get from out the Fallen’s reach. Elmira could not believe what she was seeing.
They are abandoning Cid…
There wasn’t time for deliberation for Brunick, knowing from horrid experience how quickly these things could go wrong. He had seen Cid wrenched from horseback just like everyone else. From his safe distance away he started the charge on foot, roaring, peace with whether he would be helped or do it alone.
He’d like to think that he had no fear, but the sound of men following his charge bolstered his poise. It seemed utterly lunatic for a bare-chested axe man to stampede into heavily armed and armoured men.
But then the Stoneskin made him almost invincible and his axe, fists and elbows became flailing weapons, carving into the Fallen ranks. He lost his momentum in the weight of the enemy and then his aid came, heavy swords swinging from behind to help Brunick cut through.
This was another type of battle; the Lanston military was bred to be conservative, calculating and efficient. The melee specialists though existed exactly for situations like this, when desperate times called for feral fighting. The slaughter was up close and personal, Lanston’s finest warriors the overdue spectacle as fallen and soldiers were weighed man-to-man.
On Brunick’s part the frantic Lanston men were favoured, but they were here in this mess on their own cognizance and as such they weren’t fighting for mere survival; they were fighting to get their Commander back.
Brunick had a good idea of where Cid had fell, and from the front he pushed their endeavour in that direction. He was like a shield then, fighting, but his body taking most of the hits, his fellows spared what he could endure. The swords and hatchets of the Fallen pinched, bruised and welted his arms and chest, but they seemed nothing more than blunt instruments to Brunick’s body.
Remnant Pages Spearhead Page 41