Traveling time in Reality...

-Up, you two,- I /informed the dozing lads. Briggs’ eyes snapped open instantly, and Estemar grunted and blinked a few times, coming out of his Meditation. -They’ve found two more Warpbands. We’re off to make some contributions.

-Well, you’re contributing, I’m playing sniper and director.- I had stacked up Carrier with Cabinets already, and was ready to go, having taken my rest after Renewal at midnight.

The boys moved to Forge, this time Estemar tossing a cloak over it in consideration of its workmanship. A moment later, we were in motion.

“What are we looking at?” Briggs asked aloud, but after getting a Tat, it was a mental thing too.

“Beastmen, about two thousand. The elves are already setting up to pincer them, but they’ve got Warp wolves out to scout out victims, so they may or may not be revealed in time.”

“None of those centaur rip-offs?” Briggs found that pretty weird.

“Warp harpies.” Briggs rolled his eyes. “Hey, no enchanting song is something!”

“They think they are dangerous,” grunted Briggs. “Just tell the elves to Web them, their wings are fouled, and down they’ll come.”

“Yeah, they kind of snickered when they saw them, just have to get them out of line of sight of support, then ambush the wolves when they come in to investigate. If they split up, the elves will just poke them out of the sky.” A couple arrows laden with spells would do the trick to any harpy.

Briggs just hummed. “Any special reason we’re heading there?” he asked.

“Nope. Just kill a company or two of them, and we’ll move on to the next one.”

Briggs gave me a funny look. “I might be, but there’s no way they’re going to stop you Marking them once this battle starts and they see the results. You’re going to be Tatting for hours.”

I inclined my head in acknowledgement. “Yeah, but I need to Tat multiple forces working together, not all in one unit, until we’re all linked up. If they want me Tatting everyone, then they wait until we’re all one big happy family.”

“Plus, it is far more useful for you to be on overwatch against a truly terrible being appearing, yes?” Estemar chimed in.

“Paladin thinking like a Mitharn is a dangerous first step,” I winked at him, and he grinned despite himself.

----------

It was probably a sign of how seriously the elves took the incoming force of beast-men that they had no problem rotating in their elites to get Tats in the middle of the fight. It didn’t seem to affect my ability to track and command at all, either.

General Moonriver became a true believer after a series of formation rotations presented him a perfect firing line for an Energized Lightning Bolt down the full length of the beastmen line, cooking dozens of them with one spell. An illusionary line of brush completely screened out the elven lancers, who plunged into the beastmen’s right flank with basically total surprise. A Warp shaman there died to three arrows arcing over a hill and burying themselves in his chest, the shooters completely out of sight, borrowing the eyes of a scout up in a tree to guide the True Seeking One Arrows in faultlessly.

Rains of arrows messed up enemy movements, minor spells were cast together and tore apart the minotaurs and manotaurs that were the toughest of enemy troops, as eating thirty-some Shards at one time was not conducive to long life. Overlapping and ever-shifting lines broke the wild and overconfident beastmen out of any semblance of formations that they might have had, and they were punished for it with sweeps, surrounds, pincer movements, and abrupt charges that rapidly shattered any sense of cohesion they had. They turned into just a savage mob going up against a disciplined wall of shields, spears, and swords, with the pinpoint archery only making things worse.

Another enemy shaman only got to display one use of his Warped battle magic, a life-sucking spell that affected dozens of the elves… and pinpointed him for the waiting archers who killed him. The drained elves were relieved immediately, running over the Healing Trap to get rid of the worst of the interrupted spell, and moved into reserve positions with the archers… which position they were happy to punish the beast-men from.

Spell expenditure was pretty minor for what they accomplished, but even the best of their battlemasters were awed by the smoothness and synchronicity of what had happened. They saw how the coordinated movements had the beastmen ripping their own lines apart to deal with them, devolving into a mass of confusion as they didn’t know who was coming from where and when. Multiple groups were pulled into pincer movements and annihilated with speed, precision arrow fire delayed or blocked others, sending them in other directions or simply stopping them in place dumbly, awaiting the advance of the elves along precise lines that drew them even further out of formation.

There were only a couple instances that mandated using magic, mostly Shocking Touches through spears to totally obliterate a frothing mad charge. The minor spells still eliminated the first and second ranks instantly, which didn’t do the third rank much good.

I gave them only three hours of Tat-time, which was nowhere near enough, of course, before heading off to the ambush the Rangers were setting up nearly ten miles away. This enemy group seemed to have a more powerful trio of Casters with them, well protected in an ensorcelled Chariot with a built-in Altar, and was regularly sweeping the forests with units of Warp wolves and riders to sniff out any ambushers. They had a powerful fellow up in the air on a manticora, the scorpion-tailed version, just brimming with arrogance and looking for a fight.

======

“How’d you do?” I asked Briggs, as I booked for the next fight. Despite the terrain, I’d be there in twenty minutes, tops.

“Got to take on the chief’s main company. Didn’t get to kill him, he ate thirty Shards to the face. Good targeting, but I did for all his bodyguards,” Briggs answered calmly. “Estemar got himself a couple solo kills, too, while he was watching my back.” Briggs gave the young prince a friendly elbow.

The Paladin was holding his new Sword and Shield, made for him the night before by both Briggs and I. While they were only starter Gear at the moment, they were easy to build up, and fairly exuded a level of Quality he’d never had for his own before. “Carefully chosen Smites!” he responded promptly. Both of us nodded.

“Should I tell you what the elves think of you after witnessing your Hammer at work?” I asked archly. Elves were born finesse fighters, considering axes, hammers, and the like brutal and crude.

Then they got to watch Briggs at work, hearing bone crunch and meat distort, metal rend and bodies go flying with impacts that made their hearts flop, tearing open paths into the beastmen lines with Estemar right on his heels. The elves, trying to keep their jaws up, had hurried in behind them.

“Eh, a bunch of lady-boys who need hair on their chests,” he grunted, and even Estemar had to grin at that. “I’m not built for hoity-toity. When they can smack a seven-foot bull satyr ten feet through the air, they can comment on me using a hammer.”

I had to laugh, but then trailed off as my eyes narrowed at what was being passed on by a Marked Scout liaising with the Borderguard. “Ah, dammit. Amouraen Fanatics.”

Briggs’ cheek twitched. “Pincer hands? Tentacle faces? Both?”

“Both. Can’t do hentai shit without the tentacles.”

“Please tell me there’s no hermaphroditic shit.”

“There wasn’t, until they Summoned a unit of Spinner demons in a moment ago.”

Briggs muttered something under his breath, while Estemar looked a little wide-eyed. “Bastard things are drawn to virgins, right?” Briggs asked.

“Damn right they are.” Estemar pursed his lips at my confirmation.

“If they can pull in Spinners, they can pull in a Vile Dancer, right?”

“Damn, I hope so. More meals for the Land, and marilith-wannabes can go whine to Kali.”

“Fighting start?”

“No, he was using some sort of divination magic and detected the presence of enemies.” My lips thinned as I watched some six-legged caterpillar-spiders slither up out of the burning ground. “Damn! Pattern Weavers too! They must have heard about warbands getting butchered somehow… Better warn them about watching too closely…”

“How far?” Briggs would have risen to his feet, but kept his crouch thoughtfully.

“We’re two minutes out.”

“Drop us by the pincer-handed dumbshits, and take out the demons. Can they alpha strike the Caster?”

“Spinners and Dancers both have True Sight. But that doesn’t help with pure Stealth Ranks and line of sight…”

“The Brothers are there.” Briggs chuckled low and hard.

“Spotter number one.” My eyes widened slightly. “They let them Summon in the demons, the bastards!”

“Aw, they like you!”

“Suuuure. Hold on!” Golden light pulsed around my feet, and I began to sprint. Mikle’s weeeeeee of glee sounded down behind my ear as I juiced my run speed with Hasty Soul.

“+25 to base movement speed when only moving, and x5 when sprinting instead of x4,” Briggs explained over his shoulder to the astonished Estemar. “800 feet every six seconds. We’re doing about 90 mph. If it weren’t for my Vajra, the wind would take you right off the Disk.”

The wind was indeed protesting that it couldn’t affect me as I ran a forty-second mile, dodging and weaving through the trees and openings.

The skies, already curdling ahead of us with the presence of the demons, opened up with falls of lightning, tearing through the lines of oiled men in not-really-heavy armor… all of it gaily painted in pastels of mismatching hues.

I zipped around to the side as the merciless arrows of the Borderguard Rangers began to lance out from the shadow of the trees.

The ground began to writhe beneath them, long tentacles emerging from the earth as a soporific pink gas blew through the air. The Casters among them instantly vented a Dispel into the center of the magic, and negating waves dismantled the portals and dispersed the gas almost instantly.

Thornsprays, the most common single-target Druidic magic, deluged the lightly-armored and fast-moving Fanatics, peppering them with steel-hard spikes that dropped a few of them before they reached the forest.

I literally flashed by the edge of their formation, slowing to a near-halt right in front of them to deliver Briggs and Estemar forward.