Al

Soon after I heard Steve’s whistle, I told the archers to open fire.

I had stayed with the contingent of long-range fighters, around 40 strong, up in the high mountain pass from which our party had initially seen the enemy below. Goran had taken the remaining fighters down to the ground level and was waiting on us to give the signal. Just after the Maegar archers opened fire, I heard the roar of a battle cry below and saw a small army of dark scaled warriors sprinting towards the mob of Snowwraiths. Their long legs plowed through the snow as they ran to challenge a force several times their size.

The archers were already working to thin the herd, however. The obsidian arrowheads of their flying projectiles burst into flame before they were fired. They stayed alight as they flew through the air and bore down on their victims below, a dark mass of flame tipped judgement. Fired in harmony and aimed at a dense crowd, they inflicted heavy casualties with the first and second volleys, the unsuspecting enemies too surprised to defend themselves before they were cut down. They eventually managed to conjure various ice shields to defend themselves, but just as they turned their shields up to catch the arrows, they were hit from the front by the sprinting warriors.

Gouts of flame spurted into enemy lines as the Maegar spearmen unleashed their natural gifts on the Harai at close ranges. The swordsmen waved flaming blades as they cleaved their way through enemy lines with uncompromising courage. Most impressive was Goran himself. The old warrior was a beacon of flaming defiance in an ocean of dangerous monsters. Each of his slashes destroyed up to a dozen enemy combatants with a wave of fire. His sword blazed like a star as it flew around him in a blur of pyrotechnic death. Even the cool air around him burst into flames, such that he was a dome of fire moving through the enemy army, consistently spitting out walls of crimson doom.

Though many casualties were inflicted in this initial charge, it was nowhere near enough to achieve parity in numbers. No matter how many Goran or the others killed, there were plenty more moving to take the place of their fallen brethren. Undisturbed by the deaths of their fellows, the Harai moved swiftly to combat their new assailants. Soon, the Maegar advance ground to a halt as they were matched in bloody hand-to-hand combat. Only Goran went unobstructed, the Harai warriors backing away from the dangerous senior warrior. The ball of fire was momentarily left in a clearing where his enemies were either lying dead around it or cautiously retreating.

But before Goran could run after them, a blur of white hurdled through the air right towards him. A wave of fire leaped out and struck the projectile midair, causing a great CRACK to ring out through the mountain pass. There was a great explosion of white mist on the battlefield where the collision happened, and a massive shadow appeared within the mist’s depths. Galloping through the fog of war, a mounted figure barreled towards the Maegar’s chief warrior, picking up speed as it charged him. It was the black Harai with golden claws on an Eirblaidd mount. He lacked the white spear, but he still wielded the dark sword that seemed almost a mirror of Goran’s own blade. The sword was beginning to emit a strange white dust now, and I suspected it had lowered the temperature surrounding the enemy elite as well.

I hadn’t exactly been sitting on my hands and watching the show as all of this happened, of course. After I had given the signal to the archers to begin the attack, I had started making my way down a trail towards the battlefield. It was much safer staying with the archers, of course, and close quarters combat wasn’t exactly my specialty, but I could help with the medical side of things. I had convinced Steve to leave me twenty berries, so that would be at least three or so friendly warriors back on their feet even if they sustained serious injury. Maybe if I was feeling feisty, I could use the improvised explosives I had made with the Neidyr glands, though that would be literally playing with fire. I was keeping an eye on the battlefield as I made my way down the mountain trail, but I lost sight of the fight as the Harai chieftain was swinging his sword down at Goran’s head and Goran was bringing up his own blade to block. I could easily hear the BOOM of their collision from all the way over here, and I prayed that I would get there in time to make a difference.

Goran

Hot met cold as I brought Corra up to meet the enemy’s blade, the resultant noise rattling around in my chest. I had heard rumors of the combat prowess of this new chief, but I was still unprepared for the crushing force he brought to bear with his first strike. I stumbled backwards, bones creaking under the pressure of the hit, but I managed to fend him off well enough that I managed to take his second and third strikes as well. He sat atop his mount and used his superior height to strike down at me as the Eirblaidd brought him to circle around my position. I tried to move and block the attacks, but the mount was moving too swiftly.

I was forced to perform a no-look block, bringing my sword directly behind me to defend against a strike on my back. I used to force to pivot around and strike at the flank of the mount. My blade struck true, and I severed one of the Eirblaidd’s clawed back legs. The beast let out a howl of anguish and tried to hobble away from me. It didn’t get more than a few paces away before it collapsed. The chieftain hopped down from his now dead mount and charged me on foot. There was no way that my attack had killed the mount, and I realized in shock that the chieftain had stabbed his own crippled mount in the neck as it limped away from me before he jumped down and charged me.

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I barely had time to get over my enemy’s callus behavior before I noticed another spear hurtling right at my chest. It had been conjured and hurled at me in the space of a few breaths. I managed to shoot off more fire to intercept it again, but I found myself surrounded by more white mist. Before I could move to dispel it, I sensed rather than felt a grave danger from my left and barely managed to parry the shadowy strike from my enemy who had approached me under the cover of the fog. I was thrown on the backfoot as the chieftain inundated me with a barrage of vicious attacks. He breathed a fine white stream from the void where his face was supposed to be, grunting out a basso rumble as he tried to dismember me.

I twisted and turned as swiftly as I could as I turned aside his brutal onslaught. Physically I was outmatched but I quickly came to see that my enemy was substituting skill for bestial speed in an attempt to overwhelm my defenses. I was on the verge of having that happen before my decades of ingrained experience re-asserted itself. I dug my foot in the snow and fought to hold my ground. I took each slash at an oblique and I used my enemy’s momentum against him as he tried in vain to end this fight quickly.

We formed a new stasis, blades flashing as we blocked and cut at one another in air that was growing increasingly unstable as it heated and cooled all around us. The battlefield rippled as we danced around one another, white mist and red flame locked in a duel to the death. I sidestepped a vertical swing and struck back with a viper quick thrust of my own, but my opponents superior speed allowed him to turn that aside. I was forced to take his follow up blow directly, our blades crossing close to my chest, the force pushing me backward as I gave a few steps of ground. I blocked a sequence of diagonal follow up slices with perfect economy of motion and struck back with a perfectly timed counter. The chieftain struggled to narrowly dodge, the heat of my blade clearly scorching his dark hide.

We went back and forth in a battle of momentum, the roar of our battle striking fear in the hearts of ally and enemy alike. Eventually, something had to give. But that something came in the form of outside reinforcements.

The mounted Harai, who had remained in reserve as they watched our conflict, suddenly surged forward at the call of what I imagined to be their chief’s second in command. The Harai on foot scattered to allow their elites passage towards the front lines. They had waited for our people to be softened up by their underlings before deigning to sweep in and destroy us all. It would be around this time that I would call for a retreat, trusting in Steve to succeed as we provided our distraction. I hadn’t counted on their chief getting involved so early, so I only hoped Makar had the good sense to call the retreat as I was distracted. But things were only slated to get worse.

Some of those mounted elites moved towards our position and I saw ice blue projectiles flying right towards me out of the corner of my eye. Distracted as I was by my fight, I did my best to dodge the incoming attacks, but I couldn’t avoid a flying blue knife whistling through the air and lodging itself in my thigh. I didn’t have time to yell in pain as my opponent swung his sword horizontally towards me. I was too off balance to block, but I did manage to lean backwards and evade the worst of the blow. The tip of the blade still scraped across my chest, its wintery chill causing my whole core to go numb. After that, I was in no shape to avoid the follow up kick to the stomach.

My world went airborne, and I found myself on my back, staring up at the grey sky and totally disoriented from the pain in my chest, thigh, and back. My energy was being sapped from the cut to my chest, and I felt the last of my strength leaving my body. Utterly beaten, I stared up at the sky and waited for death. I heard the mounted elite surrounding my fallen body and the footsteps of the Harai chief. They were the footsteps of a confident executioner, coming to claim his victory. My life flashed before my eyes and I allowed myself a single moment of sorrow.

And then the world turned orange.

Al

The moment I entered the clearing, I began putting the finishing touches on my Neidyr bombs. I had been mulling over the design ever since we had gotten our hands on the unstable and oily glands. This stuff lit up so easily it made Firelily powder look like water. My initial plan, to act primarily as medical personnel, had gone out the window as I realized how catastrophic Goran’s battle was shaping up to be. He would need more from me than a few more warriors back on their feet to turn the tide of this fight. I held my newly minted explosives somewhat gingerly as I surveyed the battlefield and looked for the best opportunity to use them. There had been enough fluid to make 4 bombs, and I would make them count.

When I saw the mounted elite approach our position, I fumbled to light the Firelily fuses. When I looked up and saw that a contingent had peeled off and helped bring down Goran, I made a split-second decision and took careful aim. I hurled one, then another of my homemade explosives and watched them hurtle through the air with bated breath.

The results were better than I could have imagined.

A fireball bloomed in the midst of the riders approaching our position just before another engulfed the riders surrounding Goran. The Snowwraiths were thrown into a panic at the twin suns that had been born within their midst. Confusingly enough, it was at this point that the Wraiths at the rear managed to break through the shelter’s defenses and start pouring into the dome. Their command structure temporarily shattered, many of the Wraiths began running from the Maegar warriors and towards the shelter, searching for easier prey. I saw a contingent of the now free Maegar warriors making their way towards the place their leader had fallen, but that didn’t stop my heart from sinking into my stomach.

We hadn’t managed to draw the Harai away, only distract them a little. Now, they would attack the exhausted scavenging party, rendering our efforts largely fruitless. Even so, I dutifully pushed my way towards the fallen Goran, pockets of fighting still present all around me. But even in the overwhelming din of battle, my senses were good enough to help me avoid any flying icy projectiles or other battlefield dangers. If nothing else, I hoped to help Goran survive.

And then, the dome of the shelter began to crack.