When we got back to our group, Goran called a strategy meeting with the elites of our hunting party, which I was graciously invited to. We huddled together in the snow, turning an unusually large stretch of road into our meeting ground. As the leader, Goran was the first to speak, articulating himself in the human tongue since the Maegar elite were fluent in it as well:
“We have little chance of driving them off with a simple frontal assault. Their chieftain, especially, will be a difficult opponent.”
“Why not try liberating them through the back entrance?”
One of the younger Goran elites questioned. Rather than answering immediately, Goran looked first at me:
“Every shelter like this has an emergency exit. We would be fools to let ourselves be trapped simply because we had only one way in or out of our shelters. This shelter should have a cave that leads from the back of the shelter and out through the side of the mountain. The problem here is that the Harai also know this. The messenger indicated that he had escaped through this exit, but only after his entire team was killed by the Harai waiting in ambush at the mouth of the cave. The Harai in the valley below should be the bulk of their forces, but the Chieftain has allocated a detachment of 50 or so to prevent escape through the rear exit. The team itself should be no match even for the remaining survivors, but an attack on them would bring the rest of the horde running.”
He turned back to the younger Maegar elite, saying,
“Your thinking is reasonable but incorrect. If we attacked the tunnel surrounding the rear, we should be able to make short work of the Harai there, but they would signal to the others for help. Extracting the hunting party within the shelter should take time, and we would be surrounded by the main force in no time. I am not looking to fight that mob down there on unfavorable terrain while we need to protect the scavenging party.”
He stroked his beard in thoughtfully as he spoke, remaining mostly impassive as he indicated why the younger Maegar’s plan wouldn’t work. One other older lieutenants, a man by the name of Gomlar, also spoke up at this point:
“We will have to lure their main force away if we can. They can’t besiege the fortress and come after us at the same time. If we can draw them away, that could give the team in the shelter the chance they need to break out.”
That sent the rest of the meeting into an uneasy silence. What Gomlar said seemed to make sense, but it relied on too much. It relied on the Harai chieftain to make the mistake of deploying too many troops in order to chase down our relief crew, not to mention having the hubris to follow us away. The Harai band was large enough to fend us off and keep the people in the fortress bottled up at the same time. Time was on their side, as those doors looked like they wouldn’t last more than a few more hours of besiegement. So long as they divided their forces well and didn’t get overconfident, that type of conflict was theirs to lose. But there was another option.
“Why not split our forces?”
I questioned, ignoring the suspicious and irritated glares some of the Maegar gave me. Our party of humans were still largely untested and untrusted by the Maegar people, but Goran motioned for me to continue:
“If we send a small party to attack the Harai who are guarding the back exit, we could take them by surprise and defeat them. If we do that while a larger force distracts their main band, we could evacuate the scavengers while avoiding any encirclement.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Goran responded, fairly, “But it depends largely upon coordination and secrecy. The longer the main force doesn’t know that you are there, the larger your chances of success. We can distract the chieftain from any message that smaller force may try to send to him, but if we try to communicate by fire, then it will be obvious what’s happening. Without something like a fire signal, coordination is difficult to impossible since we cannot see the secondary egress from this mountain top.”
This rejection only brought a smile to my face, though:
“If what we need is subtle communication, then I have a solution for that…”
…
Around two hours after the meeting, a contingent of around 30 Maegar, joined by Ann, Julia, and me made its way toward the rear exit. We moved as stealthily as we could down a remote mountain passageway that snaked to the east of the mountain where the fortress was. One of the younger Maegar was responsible for guiding our party to the location of the secret exit, and we followed him as surreptitiously as possible, hoping to avoid detection.
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After another 30 minutes or so, we arrived at our destination. The cave was a relatively small hole in the wall that was ringed by roughly 30 Harai warriors who watched the tunnel intently. 4 smaller paths snaked away from the snowy clearing they stood in, and 5 enemy sentinels stood guard for each of them from the ground. We saw all of this as we crept atop a small ledge just above one of these lesser paths. Peering down at all of this, I did my best to signal to the others what my intentions were for the assault.
I needed to come up with a plan of attack on the fly, but I had spent the past couple hours questioning the Maegar about their capabilities. I had gotten a rough idea of what their fire manipulation could do, and now it was time to see it in person.
I ordered half of our allies to stay on the ledge behind me, while the other half made their way back and waited further down the path on the ground. I took some time to gather my bearings, ensuring that no other enemies lurked in the background to the best of my knowledge. Then, I gave the signal.
A long, solemn whistle echoed through the mountains, almost like the cry of a mourning Wingen. I kept things as quiet as I was able, but the call still alerted the enemies below, who looked around warily. But I didn’t care much about them. What I was truly concerned about was the perception of the main Harai force, who were just a few miles away. But if they heard us, it was likely a faint whistle that was drowned out by the other sounds of the siege. Not worth taking notice over. Our Maegar allies on the other side of the fortress definitely shouldn’t have been able to hear it.
Al, on the other hand, was a different story.
I waited for a few minutes and watched the Harai below us slowly settle down, having written off the whistle as just another mountain animal. However, they were thrown into another bout of confusion, when the distant warcry of a Maegar warband echoed across the snowy planes, far from our position. Satisfied that things were going to plan; I hopped into action.
The signal for our people to attack came in the form of me leaping from my perch and down onto the 5 confused enemies on the path below. Ann and Julia followed me, pouncing down on the unsuspecting Harai. I landed right on one of them, using my momentum to drive both blades into the shoulders of the enemy, knocking it into the ground. I used my speed to transition into a combat roll, drawing my swords out of the first opponent as I flowed smoothly into a duel frontal stab. Both of my blades found the gut of another opponent, and I felt my enemy’s surprise as I promptly eviscerated it. Julia and Ann landed simultaneously on their own targets, their falling speed allowing both to strike decisive blows on their own opponents.
The final Harai got its wits together enough to attack me, but I blocked the overhead slash with ease, lashing out with a central kick that sent the unfortunate creature stumbling back into the rock wall behind it. Ann pinned it against the wall with a stab from her saber, decisively finishing off the last of the guards. These five had been mostly lesser Harai, with robin’s egg blue claws, only one of them possessing the bronze claws of the middling rankers.
Still, though, our easy victory against the guards gave us some momentum as we charged out into the open space, 15 Maegar warriors charging down the trail behind us. Above us, the other half of our squad scrambled along the ledge up above, rounding the curve of the trail and looking down on our enemies from above. All of our allies were the standard Maegar spearmen, and they spread out in a horizontal line in the clearing and on the perch above. Us humans scrambled out of the line of fire as they pointed their spears directly at the enemy, holding them mounted on their shoulders in a strange stance. The Snowwraiths scrambled to mount a defense, but they were off guard.
A curtain of fire scorched the enemy from the front and above.
Streams of fire flew from the tips of their spears, a concentrated wave of death that rolled over the distraught enemy. Some of the more elite Harai managed to use their bloodline abilities, which I had only learned of recently, to conjure sky blue shields of pure cold to try to defend against the onslaught. But it was no use, as the flame came from above and from the front, and they could only block in one direction at once.
Guttural cries rang out in the snowy air as the Harai were slowly cooked by the fiery deluge. The guards that were waiting in the wings came to reinforce their flailing brethren, ten of them moving in from our right flank. The other five on the far-left path had disappeared, presumably to go and warn their other kin, and I knew we had a time limit. The reinforcements forced the Maegar on the ground to abort their attack early, swinging their spears around to engage the new enemy, who had mostly conjured spears of their own.
But us humans had not been idle, and we also rushed to put down these reinforcements as quickly as possible. A brief and bloody battle ensued as our comrades on the ledge did their best to keep the main force pinned down as we duked it out with the guards. Blue blood splayed onto the snow as the Maegar next to me impaled one of the weaker Harai in the stomach. I couldn’t afford to be distracted though, as I faced a bronze clawed foe who used his superior reach to keep me at bay. I was resilient, though, as I batted away its probing stabs. It grunted fiercely, as it found me a slippery and infuriating foe, and picked up the pace. I deftly weaved around a flurry of jabs and ducked under a sweep that was meant to catch me off guard. That left my foe wide open, and I took advantage of my window and drew close, holding off the haft of its spear with one sword and cutting its throat with the other.
I whirred to face, and swiftly dispatch, a lesser Harai that tried desperately to avenge its comrade, and soon found that the reinforcements had been defeated. 10 Harai corpses lay in the snow, and I noted that we had only lost 2 of our own warriors.
Things weren’t over yet, though, as our supportive fire from above petered out, the warriors unable to keep up such a concentrated stream indefinitely. Twelve charred Harai corpses littered the ground, and more than half of the ones still standing were burned badly. Things were not all sunshine, though, as it was most of the weak Snowwraiths that had been culled in our initial salvo. Most of the remainder were bronze clawed, with five silver clawed elite standing relatively unharmed.
The remaining Harai let loose their guttural roars and rushed our position. One of the silver-clawed elites put me on my toes as it rushed me, conjuring a single blue longsword that it swung with deadly grace and speed. I saw out of the corner of my eyes that the two girls had also been targeted by elites of their own, and all three of us fought to stay alive. I heard a strained yell from Julia, and yearned to go help her, but my hands were tied. We all might have died there and then, were it not for reinforcements of our own.
The Maegar on the ledge may have been forced to cease their fire attack, but nothing stopped them from jumping down and joining the melee. Now, it was 18 mostly wounded Harai vs 28 mostly fresh Maegar. With the three of us humans holding back the elites, the remaining enemies were soon slaughtered. I didn’t even need help with my own fight, as I managed to outfox my opponent and cut off one of its hands after a brief and difficult struggle. After that, it was only a matter of time before I planted my sword in its head, winning the fight.
I looked around to see Ann finishing off her own opponent as well. Both of us were injured and exhausted, but ours were some of the last enemies to fall. I looked over to see Julia’s own opponent, skewered by three Maegar spears.
And Julia herself, blood pooling as she lied in the snow, the shattered remnants of her weapon scattered around her.