It hit the black armours on the front, its blades and weight easily tearing through a 50 count of men before losing momentum and disintegrating as it hit the soil. It was a gruesome sight. More than just the apparent casualties the ballista bolt had shattered the Fallen’s tight posture and they became all the more vulnerable to the next volley of arrows.
Lanston sought to dismantle their enemies, firing ceaselessly at the Fallen. The enemies advanced vainly, their numbers decimated by the time they reached the strip of water. The arrows were finally halted and from the Lanston core rushed but 40 men, meeting the last of the Fallen regiment in the waters and quickly finishing them off in a one-sided melee.
In good spirit the Lanston men cheered. The first test was done, but if the Priests had indeed only been looking to disarm Lanston by some measure then they had been successful.
Elmira noticed now that while Lanston was fighting the relatively meagre regiment, the enemy catapults were being loaded. Elmira was sure they were still yet out of range, but she shuddered at the damage those machines would have on Lanston.
There was quiet stalemate for awhile and then everyone heard a duo of horns sounding from the Lanston Cavalry. An order had come and this time the gold armours took initiative. Two of the three Lanston strike groups started moving, dismounting their respective mesas, forming a tight rank and marching right at the Fallen’s high and mighty position. They were less than 500 men combined and Elmira sincerely thought Lanston was making a mistake. She saw the Rangers circling far above the men below, their rotations moving subtly closer and closer to the Fallen.
The Fallen responded to the marching strike groups, rolling their catapults forward to the very edge of the cliff. Then Elmira saw magic the likes she had never seen before. The Priests who waited mounted at the sides of the catapults raised their hands, touching upon and wielding their mystical force.
All the while the Fallen engineers prepped the catapults, loading, winding and aiming them. Elmira had no idea with what the Fallen initially loaded the device, whether it was simply rock or a more sophisticated projectile, but what followed drew every single stare in the Basin. The command was sounded.
The catapults snapped and launched, the wooden arms coming upright to hurl six giant balls of violet fire through the air with great tails of black smoke. They came plummeting hundreds of feet far from their elevated launch point, and Elmira could hear them burning terribly through the air, sure that they were magically guided as well as they descended flawlessly on the Lanston men.
Without panic the two Lanston companies formed complete turtles, holding their shields tight at the flanks or overhead, each shield becoming a protective scale. Just before the men enclosed themselves entirely in semi spheres of shields she saw the Lanston Sekhaimogists raise their hands. The shields folded close and an instant before impact Elmira saw the golden shields illuminate like a lantern.
The projectiles crashed in concert, striking on top and around the companies, the purple fire swallowing the turtles whole, dark plumes of smoke rocketing into the air and a dust storm kicked up, barely masking the fragments and shrapnel propelled through it all.
The devastation was obscuring everything and there was a solitary moment of uncertainty. Elmira’s eyes widened as the flames dulled and the smoke dissipated, and still the golden shields remained in place, impervious and unscathed, still glowing.
Sensing it was safe to move the Lanston men broke up, the spell ended. They moved with unexpected speed toward the ramp, the heavy shield bearers working hard to keep up. Again Lanston seemed to be reckless.
The Fallen showed the immediate intention of labouring to reload the catapults, but even Elmira sensed it was pointless to shoot now as the Lanston men drew too close. The soldiers ran right up the slope, finding rest half way up where the ramp had a smooth terrace of ground. Joined together they once more formed a turtle, this time merely making a straight wall of locked shields to face the Fallen. Elmira could not fathom what they were trying to accomplish, the meagre amount of men surely to be crushed and far removed from their brothers who could help them.
Predictably enough the foremost of the Fallen issued a slow march down the ramp to remove the Lanston stain before them. The Lanston magi started weaving their magic again, their waving gestures almost comical behind the turtle. Elmira expected something extraordinary to happen, something to justify Lanston’s suicidal position.
Her train of thoughts was interrupted as she spotted Brunick for the first time. He was at the lead of the 400 men on the ramp, at this distance only recognizable by his bare chest and his axe as he swung it over one of his hunched comrade’s shield to crush an enemy on the other side of the wall. The Lanston soldiers fought tightly, never risking their formation for a second, relying on conservative stabs and arrows to keep the Fallen from stampeding through and over them.
Even after a minute nothing resulted from the Sekhaimogists’ effort and Elmira grew frustrated. By now she had heard of Brunick’s Stoneskin, but has never seen its workings before and so she feared for his life all the same.
A Captain of the turtle blew his horn and then the Rangers suddenly made their first decisive move. Elmira had missed something, this she knew - something has changed.
Olexion and his men came diving swiftly into the fray, descending toward the catapults.
The Shadow Priests tried to overpower the Rangers’ barriers with their magic, but nothing happened, and it was only then that Elmira understood that Cid planned to get his Sekhaimogists in range to bind the powers of the Priests so that they could not harm the Volje.
Desperately some Fallen soldiers aimed their crossbows at the air and even before their bolts were released Elmira knew that the Rangers’ bubbles of magic would keep them at bay. There was an eruption of chaos as the Shadow Priests were wrenched into the air, the mighty Volje grabbing their prey with all the efficiency of a hunting fish eagle.
She saw the dangling beings crushed in the clawed grip and then dropped a hundred feet in the air, their already limp bodies flailing into the Fallen masses. Seemingly feasting the Volje dived, ceremonious in their slaughter.
Only a handful of them escaped with their lives, fleeing like rats into the safety of the Fallen numbers, hiding with their peers in the deeper mass of the Fallen army. Quickly adapting the Rangers aimed their Volje at the catapults. As one, three Rangers at a time dived and in a fluid motion the Volje grabbed at the frames of the machines, tearing it apart as they turned upwards again, rendering the catapults worthless.
Elmira cheered, bouncing on her feet, hands clasping, realizing they had just disabled some of the Fallen’s most powerful weapons. The men in the Basin also cheered as the companies on the ramp started their retreat, determined to get out of the way before the Fallen could truly weigh on them.
The head of the black-armoured march tried to chase down the strike forces, but the Rangers simply changed form once more, sweeping dangerously low across the ramps as they lashed out at Lanston’s pursuers. Claws came to rend, and the barriers of the Volje extended as rams as they crashed through the Fallen.
The Lanston men made a sound retreat into the Basin, quickly retaking their former places on the mesas. The Fallen who had taken it upon themselves to chase mindlessly and managed to escape the Rangers’ onslaught were quickly shot down by the strike force that had remained entrenched on their mesa through all of it.
It was all rather familiar as the two forces returned to what they were before blood was spilt, yet now the Fallen were without the catapults and many of their Priests, all the while more than a 1000 of their men’s bodies made a trail along the Basin floor.
Elmira could identify turmoil in Fallen ranks there at the maw, their faceless command having just been thrown around like dolls, and the Priests who remained alive would not expose themselves unknowingly again.
Elmira read into the vigilant posture of Lanston and came to expect the worst again. There was no
let up by the soldiers, their eyes fixed, their armaments poised. In her mind the Fallen were crippled now, but the tensed and braced golden armours told Elmira different, explaining to her that Lanston’s entire effort was simply to force the enemy into one inevitable designated direction; to wound the beast in such a way that it had no other choice than to emerge from its cave, raging and roaring, to bring on the very worst so that it could be dealt with out in the open.
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 Elm
ira 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 least 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.
Remnant Pages Spearhead Page 40