The Present...

Eight different warbands were taken out in one day. It was a new record for combats, and Sama or a Void Brother were present at all of them. Demons were Summoned, and the lesser ones Fed the Land all the way around. The Greaters were sent packing back to the Warp, howling angrily at such cheaty tactics... except for the two fights Sama was at, where their howls took on completely different tenors as the Land eagerly lunched them.

The Warped survivors spread all over the place, naturally some finding other warbands, or converged onto the great siege of Ironholme. The news spread quickly.

The besieging force was immediately caught in a quandary. They were clearly making headway against these Rockborn, tenacious as they might be, but multiple forces spread all over the place were encircling them, and their lines of reinforcements had been cut off. Further reports indicated that every warband gathering to them was being intercepted, one by one, and dealt with.

They had the choice of being the nut caught between a hammer and an anvil, or charging out and winning glory and freedom by their own strength, before their enemies linked up.

Naturally they sought glory, and the siege ended as the champions of the Warp slaughtered enough of one another to divide up their forces equitably, and so fell upon the armies surrounding them before such could gather together. The dwarves of Ironholme cheered to see them go, sallying to clean up the scavengers and demons left behind like an infestation to be cleansed, and to mourn their dead, and their lost king.

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“For now, we hold here.”

Briggs’ deep voice carried to every person there, and the holo that Maga Skycloud put up was clearly visible to those not Marked... which, in this force, were quite few.

His fighting force was eclectic and mixed, with human heavy cavalry, hyn stealth units, elven light infantry and caster, Rangers and Borderguard archers, Dwarven spears and bolt-throwers, and even all the Ancients of his tribe, pulling at new scaled mail wrought from Cleansed dragonhide.

“The rest of the armies of the Northguard Alliance are busy fighting the besiegers of Ironholme as they scurry across the lands. They’ll be here within three days, but in those three days, we will have at least three incoming warbands of our own to fight.

“Nobody is here who does not want to be here. Here are your preliminary assignments, as we deal with the Warp Mutants in the first band.” Unit assignments were visible to everyone on where to place themselves for the fight to come. The enemy was still an hour away, but those in forward positions immediately stood up and left, knowing they had to get into position early and lure the Warped into the rest of the army.

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The Warped were growing more cautious after the tales of the few survivors came back to them. Naturally, they disregarded the tales of their enemy’s fighting prowess as overblown complaints from the weak, focusing on their magic and shameless tactics and ambushes, and the like.

There were a lot of Warped scouts sent out to find the mortal watchers who seemed to be everywhere, dogging their moves and leading their enemies on. Eventually they always stumbled across some, and savage combat swirled between the trees. Ropes choked, tripped, and triggered traps of logs, spikes, and branches, cunning nets collapsed or drew up, and beastmen died in new and interesting ways as the scouts had fun with them.

The fliers of the main force eventually located them, riders of giant bats who soon found themselves with a certain crown of wild griffons not at all happy with their presence. The griffons ravaged the cauldrons of bats and scream of harpies accompanying the force. Driving them off was only temporary, as the griffons were very proud and very incensed at the intrusion. The head Warp shaman tried to bind one’s will, to use as a mount or slave, but the griffons were wary of his magic, and it failed utterly.

Unfortunately, to do so he had to reveal his position, and ten Arrows guided by True Seeking, boosted with Bane to the Warped and a bit of Holy power, found unerring homes in his chest, killing him from more than two hundred yards away in one conjoined volley. The Warped had to be wary of elven archery for a damn good reason!

The harpies immediately tried to attack the snipers, but that meant they had to get in among the trees, and the elves punished them mercilessly for it. The mutate avians straggled out with less than half their numbers remaining, none of whom included any who had actually dove on the elves to fight them. A great deal of rainbow voltage had done for all of those...

Briggs watched the fight from afar with the rest, pieces moving in place here and there, the appearance of scouts teasing this troop forward, but they hesitated on entering the trees. When the dwarven soldiers popped out of their little holes in the ground and hacked the shocked horned mutates down in close quarters, they were unpleasantly surprised.

The dwarves retreated into the trees, and the slavering dire wolves of the army were unleashed upon them. That wasn’t too bright, as the dwarves were merely running to get their spears. When the mutated lupines reached them, all they found were some very nasty steel thorns lunging for their throats and sides, in the hands of Rockborn who simply weren’t going to be moved by them. When the retreating elves caught up and showered the wolves with merciless arrow fire from the side, the lupines could only howl and retreat, almost all of them sniped down before both elves and dwarves withdrew at a comfortable trot.

The beastmen who ran in after them found more traps waiting for them, and quiet knives taking them down in moments of confusion. The hyn were like smoke, and in the face of the irritating losses, the Warped could only proceed slowly and let their opponents get away.

If they had known that behind one nasty wall of thorns two hundred heavy cavalry were waiting and listening as they trooped by, they might have been quite annoyed. The Knights of the Golden Hart were eager, but patient. They had more fights to win than just the one today, so casualties had to be minimized if at all possible, and the slaughtering needed to be as lopsided as possible.

The beastmen were quite pleased when they saw the assembled forces up ahead, and pressed forwards eagerly, ready for some bloodshed.

Briggs was serving as Warlord. Estemar was with the cavalry reserves, holding a lance and looking to Smite. Briggs didn’t have dual mind tracks like Sama, so he couldn’t fight and Warlord at the same level, and opted to just stand there next to the Chanter who was pounding out an empowering rhythm on his drums, while Endure sat under Briggs’ hands, beating in time.

With Courageous.

Briggs had advanced Endure up to +Veer Slots, enough for Bane, Enmity, and Soulbound. +3 wasn’t as good a boost as Tremble, but the dwarven Chanter was a Bard, and his TH/Dmg boost was +2, giving him a higher base. In addition, hundreds of Rockborn were chanting along to the tempo, drawing everyone else in with the solemn reverence of their voices, the calls to their watching ancestors giving everyone the feeling that limitless numbers of ancient dwarves were looking down from the vaults of the afterlife, beholding what their descendants and their allies were doing.

It was really impressive being under all those weighing eyes in the Markspace. Hearts beat with the drum of the Chanter as the tide of Warped beastmen came sweeping in.

Briggs feinted using the elven stag-riders, drawing over the centaurs. His eyes fixed on the massive horned cyclops (cyclotaur? minoclops? whatever) and its enruned Rock, a mobile siege engine that could definitely be a show-stopper.

Nine dwarven bolt-throwers of the new design came up. They were based on the compound wheel designs of the autobow, using the familiar x-fashion of the dwarven style, and all the ammunition was Infused to be Bane and Holy. They were also floating on Disks, and so were much, much easier to move around. The wagons that had formerly hauled them were now being used to store ammunition for them and the autobowmen now backing up the Ancients.

Nine elves stepped forward and laid hands on the shoulders of the dwarven gunners. Eyes lit up, minute adjustments were made, and nine heavy spear-sized bolts went screaming out, burning with blackened polycolored Banefire.

True Seeking was, after all, just a Valence I spell.

The cyclops could see the bolts coming, but it couldn’t do anything about it. Its thick hide was no defense against the massive power of the bolts, whose accuracy was pinpoint; none of them missed!

45d6+18d6 Banefire +18d6 Holy +36 or so.

The last bolt caught it square in the throat and drove through its twisted spine. Its Runerock thudded heavily to the ground, and Briggs’ forces didn’t have to worry about a living siege engine.

The archers opened up, and unleashed a dark rain from Hell as their shots smashed into the Warped. Sure, the beastmen had thick hides, but they generally only wore furs or leathers, only the most intelligent actually deigning to wear heavily modified metal armor. The Warped had never been under arrow fire this accurate and murderous, and were losing dozens every second, even with the shields they were using to try and protect themselves.

The bolt-throwers, of course, didn’t really care. They tore holes in the beastmen lines with impunity, impaling them haplessly.

The centaurs swept through a gap in the flanks as they ignored the stag riders and raced forward to get at the archers. The dwarves who had shifted over to meet the charge of some of the Warped beastmen couldn’t pull back in time to protect them.

But, the pits they had thoughtfully dug out ahead of time were right in place.

The centaurs crashed through the illusions covering the pits and were both impaled on the stakes at the bottom and crushed by those of their own charging madly after them. Their spears were out to reap the lives of the lightly armored Borderguard, and instead they found themselves the ones dying by surprise.

The stag riders pouring in behind them were not out of position at all, taking advantage of their panicked milling and crushing, while the archers on that side turned and fired point-blank into the mass of furred bodies remorselessly.

Briggs’ waiting tribesmen crashed into them with brutal force, and the centaurs weren’t long for the world against Ancients used to fighting ogres, trolls, and Jotuns. The pits were put to good use.

The harpies came swooping in onto the Rangers, but neighboring elves cast a joint Web spell that covered twice the normal area, completely fouling their wings and sending them crashing in tangles from the air. There was a slight interruption in the covering fire as hyn swords disposed of the broken bird-witches, and then the longbows of the Rangers got back to work.

The dwarves were more than happy to take the initial charge of the minotaurs, the largest and most aggressive of the Tauren, their longspears forming a three and four deep line of steel thorns that absolutely punished the massive beastmen trying to get through them. As they hacked with long axes at the thistle-hedge of spears, General Moonriver dropped his illusion once again, and the Knights of the Golden Hart slammed into the back of the Warped line, centered on the minotaurs.

The Tauren bellowed in pain as they were impaled and then shoved onto the waiting dwarven longspears. General Moonriver actually standing up on his horse to deliver two bolts of thunderous, snarling blue-white lightning down their lines, tearing through and wreaking havoc on the infantry units held in place by the rock-hard dwarven spears. The elven infantry flowed through the spears, their swords sparking and flashing with multi-colored lightning, and slashed through the stunned survivors.

Estemar’s cavalry reserves swept around the flank and collapsed it, while the Rockborn advanced on the heels of the elves, finishing anything that fell and giving them a perfect wall to retreat to if wounded or things went bad.

The stag cavalry of the elves had swung around and pulled out their bows. They were now busily engaged in riding down or shooting anything that was running away. The knights wheeled about and retreated, lining up for another charge as the Warped reeled.

Sixteen Burning Rays converged and burned the brawny commander down to ash in an instant as he tried to gather up and lead the survivors away, hastening the rout that was about to happen. The survivors hurried for the big gap between the knights and the cavalry reserves, and only realized how bad an idea that was when the two forces gathered up, leveled lances and rode them down. The explosive charge sent mutants flying in every direction as they were sandwiched between the cavalry.

The first of their three days of fighting was largely over. The remaining minotaurs were cleaned up by the hammering shafts of the bolt-throwers, what few were left after that rear charge by the heavy cavalry.

Briggs looked it all over, contemplating that he’d used less than half of the elven spell power he had available, and simply nodded. Casualties were light, more accidental than anything, and the healers were on the job. Except for maimings, every single wounded person would be restored to full for the fight coming tomorrow.