I stared flabbergasted at the group of elders in front of me. “You all are telling me that the centaurs fight by using cavalry tactics, but you never thought to use a pike line and some shields to counter them? How else do you deal with cavalry?”
“Well silly human, …” the oldest elder spoke down at me. “… there is no honor in hiding behind spears! All our warriors are honorable men who fight with hands and claws!” I just stared at the group of elders in silence. After my conversation with Arto he made some calls. Many werebears started making their way into the hospital seeking safety from roaming angry centaurs. I was left with Arto, asking questions continuously, until the seven elders arrived to speak with him because he runs the hospital. In werebear culture they follow a pack mentality. There is one alpha who is the leader of the pack but there is also a council of elders that advise the alpha and are democratically elected by the pack. They are also all rather old and stuck in their ways.
“I don’t even think spears will work. This is just a silly human child, why Arto even listens to him is beyond me.” All the elders nodded and agreed with the statement. “This is our last stand against the centaurs, if we lose here we will have to leave Houston. They have been attacking us and pushing us away over the years. We have occasionally won against the centaurs in battle, but it only happens when we swarm them with numbers. There is no other way.”
With that I had had enough.
“Alright if you want to send your people to die when they don’t have to fine, but I’m leaving.” I wrote my cell number down and gave it to Arto, then walked out of the room and made to leave the hospital. Eve started following me, and when we arrived at the hospital entry way there were over 20 werebears siting around nearly naked (actual loincloths in the 21st century) with what can only be described as war paint on. All were currently in a human like form, very hairy, but human(ish). They had grim acceptance on their faces and looked ready to face death. While I was looking around, more warriors slowly made their way into the room. Still angry at the elders deeper in the hospital I scowl at the faces around me.
“Good luck, I’m getting the hell out of here.” The werebears around the room glance at me then look back at each other with indifference. It is not like they care about two simple humans.
“But why are we leaving John, didn’t you say we would help?” Eve asks me out loud. Part of me wonders why she didn’t just use the mind link between us to ask like she normally does, but most of me is too angry to care.
“We are leaving because the elders would rather preserve honor than life. If they want to kill their pack that is fine by me, but I won’t be part of it. Fucking old men being stupid and the younger generations pay the price. Always the same through history.” I finish my grumbling as we get to the door and as I am about to push it open one of the warriors puts a hand on my shoulder.
“You don’t get to speak poorly of our elders, human.” His deep bass voice rumbles out and his hand tightens on my shoulder. “They have lived many of your lifetimes and make the best decisions for the pack.” Then with a voice as cold as ice I hear Eve speak.
“You don’t get to touch John, weakling.” While saying this I hear the man gasp and let go of my arm. I turn around to see Eve holding the werebear above her head. “He knows more than any of those elders despite his age, and is rather good in the field of not getting killed. Blindly follow if you want, but if your elders used a magical thing called the internet they would be able to find many counters to mounted fighters besides just swarming the enemy.” Finishing her speech, the tiny human(ish) Eve tossed the huge warrior ten feet into his companions.
“The internet is a human creation, what would the humans know of fighting centaurs?” Some warrior askes while everyone gapes at Eve’s casual strength.
“I will show you right here.” I go to the receptionist computer and google ‘How to stop a cavalry charge’ and click on the first video. The video is about a strategy game and it shows that through using stakes or pikes close together, horses can’t charge though. After the video is over I ask the men surrounding me and Eve, “Think it would work against centaurs?”
The one Eve threw immediately speaks up,
“No, it wouldn't. If we clump up like that, their mages will decimate us! The only way to counter their mages is to get close so they would have to hit their own to hit us.”
“None of you can crate a magic barrier of any kind? I thought it was the most common spell out there?” The codex told me barrier spells were incredibly common. So common in fact, that almost all classes could make some form of barrier. This makes mages extremely hard to kill when they are on the defensive.
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“This is why the elders look down on you, you don’t even know that lycanthropes can’t cast spells. We are magic creatures and have enhanced reflexes and strength, but we don’t have any mages.”
“You are saying that if I can come up with a way to shield you all from their mages you will try using weapons and tactics to fight instead of a blind rush?”
“Yes human, I speak for the warriors here and if you could pull that off we might as well try.”
“Awesome!” exclaims Eve while dragging me out of the hospital. “Come on John, lets go get these dumbasses something that works as a pike."
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I drove to the nearest hardware store and bought all their 8-foot steel pipe, a bunch of gardening stakes and a bunch of zip ties. We were getting strange looks when checking out and even stranger looks when people saw Eve was doing all the heavy lifting. I was getting used to it though. I charged it all to my credit card and kept the receipt. I wanted to be reimbursed when my plan worked damnit. Loading the car took some creativity, but we did it. Loading 8-foot pipes in a hatchback is not easy.
Eve started working on zip tying the stakes to the end of the poles on the drive back. ‘John, do you think they will actually try to use the weapons? This is too tedious of a job to do if they decide they don’t want to use them.’
‘I certainly hope so, but you never know. I plan on shielding them from the enemy mages with my soul shield and making a deal that anyone who dies will let me use their souls to strengthen the shield and help fight the battle to save their friends. After that hopefully I can convince some of the souls to stay and help me longer.’
‘They seem to hold honor in high regard so if you make them promise beforehand, their souls hopefully won’t run… or float…or whatever loose souls do… away from you.’
Pulling back into the hospital parking lot, I notice it is empty. I park in a corner away from the building and walk quickly into the hospital with Eve on my tail carrying the makeshift pikes. Inside are all the soldiers, about 40 of them, the elders, and Arto. Many voices are shouting and arguing.
“We don’t stand a chance fighting them!”
“Fight like we always have, and we might be able to win!”
“Honor is not worth our lives!”
“Honor is worth everything!”
I cleared my throat and shouted as loud as I could
“I like shouting and getting nothing done too!” some of the people look my way but most keep arguing so I continue. “If only there were a way to talk about problems in a calm manner. Then there might be a way to get something done and think logically about problems.” Most of the room is looking at me by now. I continue anyway. “I mean, WHY WOULD WE BOTHER COMING TO LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS WHEN WE CAN KEEP SHOUTING!” At this point I am the only one shouting and Arto interrupts before I can continue.
“You have made your point boy, please stop.”
“Ohh are we not going to talk over each other anymore? I think that is….” Suddenly interrupting, one of the elders screams at me.
“Shut up you damn human and learn to respect your betters!” With that he transforms into a ten-foot grizzly bear and jumps and slashes at me with his giant claws. His claws smash against my chest, but instead of killing me his attack simply nocks me back into Eve. My soul shield took the blow and my mana and soul power jump down a small amount. The room is silent. Eve helps me up and I begin to speak again, with all humor gone from my voice.
“Eve, please remove his arm. He needs to learn there are consequences for being a condescending asshole when you don’t have the power to back it up.” The werebear in front of me just stared at the place he hit me in shock.
“No human mage should be able to shrug off a hit like that” Arto said in shock.
“John is no normal mage, and you just decided to piss him off. Probably not a good decision.” Eve said calmly as she walked up to the giant werebear in full bear form in front of us. She had dropped all the makeshift spears and calmly reached for the bears arm. The bear growled and slashed at her as well, but she caught his arm. She grabbed his shoulder with her other hand and pulled. A sickening sound was heard all around the room as the werebear’s arm came out of his socket. Then there was the even worse sound of tissue ripping and his arm came off with his blood flying everywhere. Every one of his heartbeats sent more blood squirting out of the wound. The werebear transformed back into his human form (minus one arm) and cried out in pain.
“wha… What have you done! My arm!” I couldn’t resist the chance, I immediately replied…
“Now that the situation has been disarmed, we should get to the important planning part.” The room was still in silent shock at the little human girl removing a giant werebear’s arm with ease… except for the crying of the one armed man bleeding all over the floor.
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After hours of talking, I only got half of what I wanted. Of the roughly 50 werebears that were prepared to fight, 23 decided to fight with me. Among them were Arto, one council member, and most of the warriors that were there when I left for the hardware store.
My job was to keep up my soul shield as a barrier to prevent magic and range attacks. Also, I was to do what I could to harass the enemy from afar. The only thing I made them promise, was that if they were killed their souls would come to me and help give me more strength to save more of their kin.
I gave my group the ‘pikes’ Eve had constructed and gave them rough orders. The plan was to line up, two deep, and point pikes forward. Then wait for the charge. The extra pikes would be thrown into the mass of centaurs by Eve. The pike men would hold the pikes during the charge and if a pike broke they would change into bear form and hold formation while swiping at any centaur that got close.
The idiot’s... rest of the werebear’s plan was to stay behind my soul shield until the charge, then just swarm the enemy in bear form. Their plan was to literally take a cavalry charge head on. With one okay plan and one terrible plan we were ready. All we had to do was wait for the centaurs to show up.