Geron
The shield wall turned from an organized defense into a man-to-man slaughter in moments. Geron had only been part of smaller battles before, his biggest being as a squire against the beastmen many years ago, but he had to say that fighting with mages on their side was a very appreciated change in pace.
When Lord Grim breached the formation, the knight was the second to jump into the opening. He had gathered quite a tally, but the fight was not over quite yet.
These warriors definitely weren’t as green as those who had fought them before. To his right, Lord Grim was even fighting two younger-looking augmenters. Oathbound, Geron reminded himself of what they were called in the tribes. Something about them being oathbound protectors of their clans.
Geron glanced over just to see them being pushed back. The count didn’t need any help so no one would waste the effort if they could clear up the rest of the formation in the meantime.
He was currently fighting two scarred men armed with big round shields, one with an ax and the other a sword. His sword flashed as he struck again like a serpent. They were doing quite well blocking his strikes with their shields, but they were just ordinary humans in the end.
There wasn’t much time. They needed to clean up the remains of the defenders and continue on toward the center of the camp. According to their information, they had cleared over half of the way, and Lord Rowan would unleash his spell soon. If they were fast, they could reach the last line of defense just as it hit.
Geron pushed more mana and dashed at them. His stab was faster than they could react and found an opening right past one of their shields. The man yelled as blood began to spew from his pierced leg.
The other one suddenly sped up and tried to lunge at Geron. It was a good riposte for a non-augmenter, but Geron had expected it. He leaned back letting the blade fly past him. His free hand shot up and cracked the swordsman’s elbow with a loud crunch.
With one of them bleeding out from his severed femoral artery and the other one disarmed, quite literally, it took only a moment for Geron to finish the warriors off.
The remaining Rangda warriors pulled back from the fight and fled into the surrounding pathways.
Geron turned back to the fight between Lord Grim and the two augmenters just to see one of them being cut clean in half at the waist. The other one stared at his felled comrade and then quickly decided that this was as far as he went. He turned around and ran away faster than humanly possible.
A mana blade hit him in the back before he could make it far though and left a deep gash from his elbow over his back to the other elbow. It wouldn’t be enough to kill him, but he wasn’t going to wield a weapon anytime soon.
“Reform!” Lord Grim yelled while he started jogging down the path.
Geron grinned with pride as the knights managed to reform their ranks while still charging down the main pathway.
The men-at-arms had also managed to catch up while they were dismantling the shield wall and one group after another split from the main path to push into the camp from their wedge.
Little resistance met them for a while, it couldn’t be much farther to the center. The real fight was about to start. Even if they hadn’t met many augmenters yet, they would be there, they simply had to. It was the most logical place for the enemy elites to gather from all over the camp.
It didn’t take long for them to find their target. Another line of warriors, shields raised and at least twice as many as before. If their information was right, then the center of the camp had to be right behind them.
The sound of a clear horn echoed from behind them, and a guttural scream joined it from the front. Impossibly loud the scream threatened to drown out everything and a shockwave of mana followed right behind it.
Geron recognized that mana, he had felt it hundreds of times. It was wild and fierce. He understood why the enemy's response had been even worse than they had expected. If she was rampaging in their midst.
He sped up charging past Lord Grim and yelled, “PAN, LIFT!”
Someone called after him, but Geron ignored it.
The enemy line braced as he charged alone. Twenty meters, ten, five, and then he jumped. He jumped as high as his mana-infused muscles could take him and for a moment he thought he would crash into the enemy line. Just as he reached his zenith a torrent of air hit his back and catapulted him up and forward.
Surprised exclamations followed his path and even if they tried, none of the enemies reacted fast enough.
Geron sailed through the night and suddenly it stopped being night.
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Eydis
Eydis was exhausted. Not only that but she was exhausted, bleeding, and probably gonna die.
She was breathing heavily with every breath forcing more blood out of the hole in as she stared intently at the surrounding circle of Rangda warriors. The fight had become increasingly impossible to manage. In the beginning, her aggressive style had brought down two of the chieftains who had been in the command tent, but now she was surrounded by mages, oathbound, and normal warriors.
It was honestly a miracle that she was still alive a couple of minutes into the fight. In truth, it had more to do with self-preservation and clan rivalry than any divine intervention. Eydis had already slain two chieftains, six warriors, and one oathbound. Everyone was quite ready to let the warriors of another clan have a shot first rather than risk their own hide.
This didn’t mean that they were sitting idle, they had charged her multiple times already and only mind-boggling violence and a lot of mana had managed to drive them back.
They apparently finally had enough of this dance.
Five oathbound rushed from all sides, on the sidelines mana began to quiver from the dense orbs that made up Druidic spells, and multiple warriors followed their lead if only cautiously.
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If Eydis had time to think she would probably think about her impending death or that she was fine with it because she was happy with the decisions she had made or even think of a way out of there. Alas, she had no time for anything. All that remained was the fury of battle.
First was an ax to arrive, hurled in mid-sprint at her head. Eydis ducked to the side, deciding to let whoever approached her from behind deal with the projectile.
With a swing of her sword, she sent a mana blade toward one of the two oathbound who would reach her first and dove at the other. The ax in her other hand snapped at the woman but she was fast, dodging back and swinging at Eydis in turn.
The sword caught her at the hip and added yet another small drip of vitae to her impressive collection. She had driven the woman back for a moment though which was all she needed.
The man whom she had thrown the mana blade at came barreling toward her. His skin was rough and cracked, obviously an earth-affinity augmenters. He dove at her with all his weight and no weapon in hand.
Eydis whirled out of the way and aimed for his side with her sword. The blade managed to pierce his skin but only barely. The man was past her before she could try again.
A small tremble approached her from the ground and a root shot out to grapple her leg. Eydis jumped back again, painfully aware that they were starting to box her in. The root didn’t stop though and shot at her again.
She had no choice but to waste her time on slicing it apart.
With a loud bang and flash of light, a large mass of mana approached her from the side. She instinctually caught the lightning bolt with her mana-infused sword and smashed it into the ground.
Breathing heavily and smoking Eydis took a look around. The oathbound had surrounded her and were closing in slowly. Right in front of her was Sev hurling insult after insult at Eydis.
Traitor, disappointment, no worse than a Telios dog.
Eydis gritted her teeth. Who was he to talk? What kind of leader was he that he would willingly walk down a path that would cause the end of his clan? A leader’s duty was to ensure the prosperity and safety of his people and not their demise.
No, Eydis wouldn’t die here. She refused to be killed by a man like that.
The fury of battle had been burning already but now her own rage threw oil in the flames.
The oathbound charged.
Eydis screamed out her defiance, her anger, and disappointment. Her scream was not made of words, but the meaning was clear to all who could hear it. Like a gate, her mana well opened, and a deluge of silvery energy burst forth from her skin.
Multiple things happened in the next ten seconds. In the distance, a horn petered out. The earth-affinity oathbound was the only one not knocked back by the aura assault but he was staggered.
Eydis jumped at him like a feral beast and rammed her sword point first through his chest with her full weight. It wouldn’t kill a durable guy like him, but it would slow him down considerably.
The sword went in about halfway and he took a step back with a pained grunt. Eydis planted her feet and with another scream she kicked the pommel with mana-infused strength, driving the sword to the hilt.
The woman was starting to get up from where she had hit the ground but still seemed dazed.
Sev had recovered faster and charged her again. His ax shot past her nose in a reckless assault. Eydis countered with a swing of her own but when Sev moved to parry she struck out with her free hand. The air left his lungs as the fist knocked him back a few meters.
The remaining two oathbound, two brothers with spears lunged at her.
Behind them, something rose to the sky. It was a mote of light that threw violent ripples like a boulder dropped into a still lake.
Eydis charged the brothers, smashing aside one of the spears. The other man moved to cover his brother’s opening seamlessly but that wasn’t Eydis’s goal. She slipped past both of them and whirled around.
Most eyes moved to the mote of light. Some were experienced enough to guess what was about to happen but many more were not.
The woman didn’t care for the novelty, in combat your focus needed to be on defeating your enemy after all. She charged at Eydis, closing the distance fast.
That was when night turned to day in the blink of an eye.
Eydis flinched at the sudden brightness even with her back to the second sun. Her attackers weren’t so lucky. Screams of confusion and pain rose from those unlucky enough to have looked directly into the glowing star.
Eydis reacted instantly, jumping at the woman who was clawing her eyes in pain. She avoided a clumsy swing and planted her ax right into the oathbound’s head with such force that the heft of the ax splintered.
The woman stood there confused for a moment as her heart continued pumping blood into her crushed brain and then collapsed.
With an annoyed expression, Eydis snatched the sword from her grasp before she fell. She wanted her artifact weapons back; these pieces of junk just couldn’t hold up to her strength.
A dull sound nearly caused her body to swing at her back when a familiar aura pushed into hers. It felt sturdy and reassuring to her, and for a moment her muscles relaxed.
“Nice to see that you are still alive and kicking,” Geron said and moved to stand back-to-back with her. Eydis had much to say to the knight but right now she could do nothing but transmit her feelings of thanks and joy to him.
“Reinforcements are just one shield wall away. Let’s still be here when they break through. I take the brunt, and you kill everything that tries to stab me in the back,” he continued.
A few meters away Sev was groaning and rubbing his eyes. “Just fucking charge her, you cowards,” he yelled at no one in particular.
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Sola
“Lord Idas, Lord of Light, keep them safe for me,” Sola mumbled as she saw Geron sail over the line of barbarians toward the source of Eydis’s mana.
The quick prayer was all she could do for them now. She couldn’t even help the collapsing Pan next to her, the backlash of sending a fully armored knight flying at a moment's notice being too much for her after the strain of battle.
“Lord of Light. Your servants are surrounded by darkness and danger. Grant them the strength to push back the darkness, grant them the speed to avoid the foe, and grant them the endurance to see another sunrise,” she chanted and let her mana surge out of her palms in a steady flow.
The continuous flow of golden moats flew over to the charging knights in front of her. The blessing wouldn’t be much, distributed on so many targets but just an ounce of strength or a moment quicker move could save their lives.
The knights collided with the wall of shields a moment later in a deafening crash. The wall held this time, reinforced by magic and augments.
“Eyes down!” Lord Grim yelled and a moment later everything went bright.
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Michael
Michael watched the orb of light hover over the camp, his control over light enabling him to weaken the light so that he could watch it without problems.
It wasn’t perfectly visible from his spot on the edges of the camp, but the forest was much lighter closer to the former Rescar village.
He hadn’t been sure if he would be able to make the spell work due to its ridiculous mana requirement when his uncle had suggested it, but he had to admit it was a sight to behold.
The soldiers around him were even whispering about a blessing from Idas but Michael wasn’t arrogant enough to think of his magic as something divine.
The battle was going well, as far as he could tell from his position, standing on a plane of light a few meters in the air. To be frank, he could see very little; a battle in the woods made any kind of overview nearly impossible, at least from outside the camp.
“Milord!” someone yelled to his right, so he turned to see a man in the coat of arms of House Ragar sprint toward him.
Lance stopped the man from approaching as Michael stepped off his platform and landed with a thump.
“What is it, soldier?” Michael asked as he approached the out-of-breath man.
“Baron Ragar is requesting reinforcements. The barbarians are trying to break through his line in force. Multiple augmenters and mages and at least a hundred warriors,” the soldier explained after quickly saluting him.
“Understood,” Michael nodded and then turned to Lance. “Get the reserve moving, we are going to reinforce the northern flank.”
Michael watched them hurry to pass his orders along. He had hoped that they wouldn’t try a desperate breakthrough with the western opening in the encirclement, but it was easy to believe that they either didn’t know about it or were trying to win the battle by breaking through the line and attacking them from behind.
Whatever the case, if the line broke then this battle could turn into a chaotic mess very quickly.
“The reserve is ready, milord,” Lance announced a minute later.
“Follow me,” Michael shouted and began rushing along the line.