Whispering trees
The tongues of metal at the end of Khianron’s spear stuck out like shrapnel and the runes in his armor screamed in a pitch soundless to all but the magi, who heard it as a scream and flinched.
But it was too late. The arrow broke apart in the back of his skull before those magical defenses had sensed a thing. There was a crack and a hiss as the arrow tore itself apart in his head, and he fell with a dull thud to the forest floor, sounding no more majestic than a dead oak.
His death was the signal. Before the body had settled, the trees and thickets erupted and a flurry of projectiles struck the advancing force like an ocean wave. Arrows, bombs, spears, bolts, orbs of fire and pure concussive force fell upon the armored column with a slap, and the marching formation shuddered and shed fragments of itself in metal and gore.
To their credit, the enemy let less than a breath pass between the surprise volley and their own return fire. It came as bolts and bombs, harsh but blind, for the only target they had, was everything. Trees splintered into shrapnel. Leaves fluttered in a gust of arrows. Bolts bristled out of limbs and trunks and sunk deep in the soft forest floor. In some places, the blasts peeled back the forest and revealed the attackers hiding beneath. Lightly armored earth-colored assassins, they fell like leaves and shattered into pieces, their only defense, stealth, now lost.
The attackers let loose from the trees, threw back bombs, and in some places along the procession where terrain permitted, launched brutal charges. Armed with shields covered in bark and moss and hooked short swords and backed by bowmen who found the gaps in armor as easy as they threaded a shot through the trees during a hunt, they struck in and killed where they could, then vanished back behind the foliage, their tall shields blending into the forest.
The Shodai Sen sheildmen are notorious for their shield wall, moving like a hiveminded band of metal around whatever force they are assigned to guard, and maintaining their seamless barrier no matter the terrain or enemy, besides to let unsuspecting attackers in to surround and destroy, like a dragon absorbing an insect through its skin.
However, the soft forest floor, the pit traps dug by the attackers, and the speed and skill of the ambush, tested the limits of even the Shodai Sen, and something else broke it.
Paravel was one of the best druids Lindsey had ever fought with, and she had been giggling silently to herself (her soft leaf tent had shuddered and her white teeth suddenly flashed in Lindsey’s direction) since the Donra beasts had stomped into view. A few moments after the opening attack, Lindsey discovered why.
A large female Donra with distinctly Paravel colored markings burst through the trees and charged the columns beasts. Male Donra beasts will not stand against a female, and two of them turned around and barreled through their own ranks into the forest, leaving a gaping hole in the Shodai Sen’s carefully woven shield wall, and tens of enemy men dead on the forest floor. A storm of arrows and other implements kicked up like rain caught in a strong wind and sought out the newly exposed wound.
The Sappers condensed into ranks and the line became a slim serpent of shield faces and seeking spear heads, spitting arrows and bombs. Still, the attackers slipped arrows through the gaps, dropped thorn wrapped branches from above, and pulled the supports from buried pit traps.
The Magi had enough of it less than a minute in. Their song changed, increasing in tempo and taking on a shrieking quality, and the forest broke out in streaks of white like an unseen flaming sword was cutting it to ash one stroke at a time. The air filled with screams as the spells cut the attackers to pieces along with the trees. Wood and flesh fell with the same white scars, dissolving into the same fine dust.
The attackers acted immediately, in a way that revealed much foreknowledge of the Cloth magi. They charged in at the ranks and threw bombs of glass dust and smoke. The magi struck out just as violently when blind as when their enemy was right in front of them, and the Sapper infantry suffered the consequences. Now, both sides lost men by the dozen every time the magi screamed their musical spells, until the acting commander, Siegemaster Gharil, safe in his cart, gave orders in the tongue of the Cloth.
All Magi, compose yourself and clear us a way! Forward march southwest. Reach the clearing and form up. Then we will swat these flies.
The Magi returned to their deep slow song, though now with a waver at the edges, and the column pressed forward into the dust of falling forest, towards a clearing sighted by the Hawkhand.
With the column reformed, the Magi stood again at the front, and drew their swords, long blades like swimming snakes. The remaining Donra beasts walked in front, ramming and trampling the petrified foliage as before, but now pausing to throw a wild horn at enemies that materialized out of the forest.
Still, it was slow going, and they could only move as fast as the slowest element of the column. But when the men in the front ranks saw the orange light of evening glowing in the clearing, order dissolved, and they nearly abandoned the rear portions and the coveted rocket carts. Only the slow march of the Shodai Sen and the barking orders of Khianron’s two lieutenants, Quetzalfire and Doublerum, salvaged the formation.
Half an hour after Khianron had fallen, the Column came to a stop in the wide clearing and swelled into a dense formation. It was a long abandoned riverbed. Dust floated thick in the air from the last trampled trees, and the last ray of orange sunlight glowed through and set the Sappers shield wall on fire. There was an uneasy peace as the attack against the front of the column abated, but back in the forest, sounds of metal and death echoed without pause.
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Another order was given. Regroup in the clearing. Form up and get the rocket carts in the center. Break out the Balistae and close bombards. Speed will be sacrificed for a sure delivery to the front lines. A bird was sent requesting a rendezvous party from the front, though it wasn’t to be expected or relied on. They would march slowly, and everything that moved in the forest would be petrified, blasted, and stuck through with arrows and bolts until they were through.
Suddenly, the forest erupted again.
Thanks to the high branches of the primeval oaks that stretched over the river from the far bank, and held the tented, waiting fighters fifty paces above the clearing, the V formation remained unbroken, with the sappers now clustered right in the center of the bite.
Arrows fell among the disorganized mass of sappers, and the singing magi responded with wails that turned the high branches white in streaks. But the attackers had magic of their own.
A strong wind rushed down the riverbed, kicking up the white dust left from the fallen petrified trees, and cutting visibility down to a matter of inches. The magi took their wavering swords in both hands and the air around them vibrated the dust clear, giving them sight for a few yards, far enough to see the attackers a breath before they hit the shield wall.
The rear of the column compressed slowly into this new defensive formation, and every second cost them. Equipped with a wyrm’s-eye monocle that granted thermal sight, Lindsey focused her hateful lightning-obsidian arrows on the Shodai Sen, seeking out the gaps at the back of their necks. Her forces had been shown how to quickly extinguish the wicks of the enemie’s grenades with wet sand, and handed them off to the leafmen who walked across branches like solid ground and dropped the bombs, relit from their pipes, onto the retreating forces. The Magi could only scream blindly into the air, rending branches that fell among the retreating forces.
It was a beautiful chaos.
“This is some Teutoburg forest shit!” Quetzalfire’s voice floated up towards Lindsey as she stepped lightly across the flowing branch of a sycamore for a better shot. He stood next to a rocket cart, his hands radiating magic force, throwing back bombs and sending arrows end over end midflight. She dropped five more Shodai Sen before the Magi’s shouts got too close for comfort, and noted that Quetzalfire would best be dispatched by dagger.
Eventually, the rear of the column reached the clearing and the Shodai Sen formed up and closed their shields around the compressed column, now half its former size.
Once in full formation, the shieldmen earned their reputation. Not only did they resist any attack thrown at them, they let weaker thrusts in through the shieldwall, closing around them like quicksand and cutting the overzealous amateurs down. To Lindsey, it was like watching some big metal skinned monster eat people.
Suddenly, like a switch had been flipped, the attackers lost the momentum, and Commander Dirdon whistled for a halt.
Lindsey scaled a high oak and braced herself. Time for part two.
It became deathly quiet in the forest. The magi no longer sang, saving their voices for a final defense. The shields of the Shodai Sen stood quietly, no longer singing from blade and arrow head. Even the wind had stilled, the white dust of the fallen trees hung in the air, and red evening glow broke through at the edges.
A single horn sounded, wooden toned, and after a pause another answered.
The Shodai Sen braced for impact. Siegemaster Gharil ordered the flamethrowers and fire bombs brought out. Rolling ballistae were locked into the ground and wound back. Archers nocked and crossbows were shouldered. The column was ready for open combat, face to face, man to man.
But that’s not what they got.
It sounded like the wind, at first, but grew to a roar, and by the time every man in the column realized what was coming, knew there was nothing they could do to stop it.
A rolling wall of white water, bristling with shattered logs as thick as a man, tossing river boulders like bath bubbles, came galloping down the riverbed.
They had damned it a week ago, a force of half frogmen and half dire beavers. The resulting lake had grown under the cover of ancient Sobbing Willow and Silver Alder, escaping the sight of the Cloth forces rudimentary survey of the area. (for the most part, their mapmakers had been content to simply note, ‘forest, dense’). The river itself was only loosely outlined, left as one of countless mysteries of the primeval Xenshua.
Now the forest would have its revenge. The attacking forces had moved to the trees, where platforms had been prepared and even rafts and flatbottomed boats hung at the ready for this final stage. It was almost perfect, until the magi started screaming.
It was like a Gregorian chant sung by a volcano. The trees rattled. The river stones jumped up like frogs. The white dust vibrated in the air. Lindsey felt it in her teeth. The Shodai Sen’s shields rattled together with a mechanical machine sound like someone had smuggled an air compressor into this fantasy realm.
It was a massive sonic force field. The dust formed around it, revealing a solid dome of protection wrapped in front of the formation.
The wall of water was less than a hundred feet away when Lindsey decided to do something that would make her name and legend live on for years, and something that she immediately regretted.
She sheathed her bow, latched her quiver, took her two daggers in hand (one long and wide like a shortsword the other short and curved like a fang) sprinted across a high branch and dove down among the singing magi.
She broke her fall on one of them by burying the long knife up to the hilt, and drew his neck open with the other. The effect was fantastic. His blood sprayed out with arterial force and thrown out as a cone by the force of his song, blinding the three closest magi. Before the enemy knew she was there, she had cut two more magi down, and the dome of protection wavered.
A shout went up among her forces and many threw everything they had at the remaining magi. Most of the arrows and bombs glanced off the dome of force, but some slipped through the gap left by the dead magi, and the dome wavered violently.
Lindsey hooked a nearby swordsman in the brainstem with the clawknife and pulled him close to her as countless blades struck out at her. The only saving grace was that the collumn was so densely packed that her enemies got caught up on each other trying to turn around and kill her. She killed three infantry men as they stood there trying to bring their long lances over their heads. It was like fighting in the front row of some pop starlet’s concert.
One magi got fed up with watching her dance around the blades, and decided to make some room.
Lindsey dropped to the soft mud just as his scream broke out and cleaved a line in his own forces. They dissolved into dust, and Lindsey was left completely exposed, flat on the ground, with nothing but a gust of corpse dust between her and the mithril ringed maw of the Magi’s mask. Through the eye slits, she saw his eyes smiling.
She smiled back. Pressed to the ground, she felt like a fly on a paint shaker, and for some reason (perhaps because he was too busy staring at her ass as she lay there sprawled on her stomach with her cloak of twilight tossed sideways off her drake skin laminated form), he held the killing song in his throat for an extra second, which gave her enough time to sheath her daggers, rolled into a tight ball, and speak one of the only words of magic she knew. A spell of feather fall.
Then the water was everything.