“When one attempted to assault the tops of city walls during a siege, those who first reached the walkways would always be most at risk, as they would have to fend off enemies who were greater in numbers. As such, such a task was often reserved to the daring, but not the elites, because the attrition rate of soldiers who attempted such tasks were almost always atrocious.” - Gregorian Aurelius Secundus, famed general and later Second Emperor of the Elmaiya Empire.

All thoughts of strategy and tactics fled the young mind of Alycea Edelstein during her very brief flight towards the walkways at the top of the palisades.

Instead, survival instincts and reflexes honed by a decade’s worth of harsh training took over as her body moved more by ingrained habits than by conscious thought. Her glaive swept past the necks of two Podovnian soldiers who still sported looks of surprise on their faces in passing as she soared past the top of the palisade and began falling towards it.

Her landing couldn’t be called perfect. Alycea almost twisted her left ankle as she had to step on the stomach of one of the men she had just slain with that foot, but managed to keep her balance and even launch another slash from her glaive at the shocked enemy soldiers. To her left she heard the sounds of more footsteps in landing, as those who had volunteered to accompany her during the first charge made their own respective entrances.

Larissa landed the closest to Alycea and only crouched briefly upon her landing before she sprung back up and viciously cut down another pair of enemy soldiers with her axe and machete at the same time. Her sudden ferocity also attracted attention away from Alycea and she managed to take down another enemy with a return slash of her glaive in turn.

Further to Larissa’s left were where the twins Ciel and Leece landed in tandem. The twins each wielded a saber and a spear in tandem – though on opposite hands for some reason – and had an unnerving teamwork between them. When the two fought together, it felt almost as if they were a single four-armed being instead of two separate people, so seamless was their coordination.

Which was what the Podovnian soldiers fighting against the half-elven twins found out, albeit the hard way.

Ciel would parry a strike using her saber, often creating an opening that her twin Leece would then exploit using her own saber, while in turn Leece would block a blow aimed at Ciel using the shaft of her spear, allowing Ciel to finish off the attacker using her spear in turn. The two fought almost as if they were dancing a duet together, albeit one tinged with blood and death.

Larissa fought in a much more crude and savage method in comparison, the mixed-breed girl utilizing her better-than-human strength and dexterity to the utmost. She simply beat her opponents by striking faster than they could defend, with more force than they could block properly. It was a somewhat reckless way of fighting, sure, but that was also why she was part of a platoon instead of fighting on her own.

Alycea took care to cover Larissa’s openings as the mixed-breed girl was definitely garnering more attention out of the two of them. She herself fought more calmly and methodically, as she had been taught. Her weapon’s flexible Willow Heartwood shaft bent and swayed under her touch, which often sent the blade of her glaive whipping around in a seemingly unpredictable manner.

Yet that blade struck away attacks headed towards Larissa or Alycea with eerie regularity, and even the wobbling shaft itself often ended up being an obstacle for their opponents. Where Larissa fought in a straightforward manner, Alycea’s strikes were deceptive and absurdly hard to predict. All too often an enemy soldier fell back with a baffled look on their face, their lifeblood spilling out from a lethal wound they thought they should have been able to block yet failed to somehow.

After what felt like an eternity of fighting but couldn’t have been more than a few short seconds, more loud thumps sounded in the area of the walkway Alycea and the other three had cleared behind them. Alycea breathed a sigh of relief, as that sound only meant one thing, namely, the arrival of more of her people. Sure enough, moments later two more figures stood beside her and Larissa and joined the fight on the walkways.

Kev seamlessly slipped in next to Larissa, using his own shield to cover for his friend’s openings as he fought alongside her. The boy mostly fought defensively, allowing Larissa to deal with the brunt of the offense for him, like how they had always fought when paired up.

As for Alycea, she noticed Roven’s slight form standing a bit behind her, to the side. The quiet boy almost looked ignorable even in a battlefield, yet what was far less ignorable was the pole-flail that he swung viciously in between Alycea’s own strikes. Roven had been blessed with particularly sharp eyesight but had no talent in archery, so he chose to make use of his abilities in this manner instead.

On Ciel and Leece’s side, Alycea caught a glimpse of Boris’ large, imposing form and Skuljd’s shorter, yet equally broad form as they supported the twins in the fighting. Boris took to the outer side of the walkway and swept several enemy soldiers away using the shaft of his halberd, sending the enemies plummeting down to a hard fall.

A fall from “only” five meters up might not kill those soldiers, but it would definitely take them out of the fight for a good while, since the nearest staircase was a good distance away.

On the other hand, Skuljd kept close towards the palisade walls and covered the twins from that side. The dwarven maiden was clad from head to toe in thick, heavy armor and wielded a tower shield almost as large as a door with her left hand, while her right hand swung a hefty mace. Neither her armor nor her weapons were things a human would have been able to wield properly at all, barring certain exceptional individuals.