“We’ve come to warn you,” Lauren replied firmly. She hesitated for a second before adding, “And to team up.”
“What?!”
Lauren closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Look, we don’t have much time, they’re not far from here - and they're hunting you!”
.....
“Who's hunting us?” Sven probed.
“Who isn’t?” Lauren laughed. “But seriously though, two 6th year teams have joined together, and they’ve convinced Cormac and Chris to join them. They told us when they tried to get us to join as well.”
“You said no?” Sven asked.
“Of course,” she scoffed, “as soon as we have your flags, they’ll turn on us in a heartbeat!” Lauren looked past Sven and whistled. “At least they told the truth about your flags. You do have six!” she added accusingly.
“Well…” Sven looked sheepish.
“They’re moving around the whole area as one massive force, looking for you. There’s nowhere you can hide.”
“Then why would you want to team up?” Sven asked. “You’d be putting yourselves in front of their spears.”
“We had an idea!” Li Na interjected. “You can win if we work together!”
Sven turned back to Lauren, looking at her inquiringly.
“Yes,” she replied, turning to glare at Li Na, “we had an idea. If we join you, we use our combined team to attack just one part of their line. They have four teams, but they’re spread out all the way to the boundary. As long as we hit hard and fast, we can take out small sections before they know what’s going on. They can choose to bunch up and make it impossible to pin you down, or stay spread out and get picked off piecemeal.”
“And…?” Sven prompted.
“And in return you give us three of your flags.”
Sven snorted, joined by a lot of murmuring from his team.
“How about this? We’ll give you two flags, including yours if it’s one of the ones that we already have. If we beat these teams, and they have both of the missing flags with them…”
“They do.” Lauren interrupted.
“Ok, if we take those flags as well, we’ll split them with you.”
“You give us two of those flags, we split the other two flags when we take them, and you explain how you managed to get six flags to begin with!”
“And why these guys hate you so much!” Li Na added from behind Lauren.
Sven looked around at his team, lined up behind him and ready to fight.
“There are three teams closing in…”
“Four,” Lauren interjected, interrupting Sven and causing him to hold his hand up, indicating for her to hold on.
“There are three teams closing in on us, and we don’t have any meaningful advantage. Two of those teams are 6th years. We have to give up two of our flags if we join up with this team, but I’m inclined to believe that it’s the only way we’ll get to keep any of them. Three on one in an open battle simply isn’t winnable. Keep in mind that it really could be four on one if we say no, since Lauren might join them instead.”
Team Flagbearer didn’t look happy. Most of them were starting to complain amongst themselves.
“We’ve beaten two teams at the same time before! What’s one more?” Anton asked indignantly, receiving a loud chorus of approvals from most of his teammates.
“Yes, we have fought two teams at once before,” Sven replied, drawing a startled look from Lauren and her delegation. “But we caught them in an ambush, where we picked the spot and spent a lot of time preparing. Do you really expect to stand as you are now, against one hundred and fifty students? In an open battle?”
That caused a ripple through his team. Most of his teammates looked very concerned about their chances.
“But how much difference will one extra team make? It will still be one hundred vs one hundred and fifty,” Anton queried, much more calmly than before.
Sven turned back to Lauren. “I take it you mean for us to join together and attack each of those teams one at a time? One hundred of us against fifty of them?”
“As many times as we can before they catch on to what we’re doing.”
“Then the way I see it, we can either fight on our own and stand against an enemy team in an even battle, until the others join in and overwhelm us. Or… we can stand against an enemy team with overwhelming numbers of our own, and wipe them out quickly, before moving on to the next team.”
No one was happy to be losing some of their hard-earned flags, but they all knew that there wasn’t much of a choice. Getting a chance to crush a few more teams also helped, and everyone quickly began supporting Sven’s decision.
Sven smiled as he started walking forward, coming to a stop in front of Lauren and holding out his hand.
“Add in a 24-hour truce for when we part ways!” Yaric called out, before they were able to shake on the deal.
“What for?” Sven asked.
“To ensure that there isn’t any backstabbing - if we’re going to do this, we need to be able to trust each other. It won’t work if we’re all on the lookout for a sudden betrayal.”
Sven sounded amused as he called back, “You know that betraying someone involves breaking their trust, right?”
“Yes, but it’s different if we actually agree not to do it to each other!”
“How so?” Lauren asked, tilting her head to the side.
“We can trust each other. We might be competing, but if both sides commit to not betraying each other, we both know that everyone here will keep their word.”
Lauren and Sven both smiled.
“Deal!”
They shook hands, after which Lauren sent two people off to fetch the rest of their team.
Marlon came forward with the flag collection for Lauren to pick from. She immediately grabbed an olive-green flag. It was very different to the other flags, with the bottom of dark grey clouds extending from the upper edge and bright yellow lightning bolts extending down.
“That’s your flag?” asked Sven.
“Yes. We lost it to the Bulwark team,” she replied, pointing to another flag with a large, stylized castle on it. “They took it from us on the 8th day. I want their flag as our second choice, by the way.”
Sven watched Marlon hand over the other flag with a bitter taste in his mouth, but he knew this was the smart move. Both of the flags were from their most recent fight, taken from the Mighty Dragons and the Ravens.
“Just so you know, Cormac won’t be fighting against us.”
“Oh, he switched sides?” she asked in surprise.
“No, he isn’t in the game right now. Their entire team is gone.”
“What? But they used him to approach us when they offered the deal! He was about to go with the other three teams to launch an attack! They said they were going to go after the only other team that had any flags, before chasing you.” Lauren was taken aback by the news, shocked by how much had changed.
“They probably did help with the attack,” Yaric added when he joined them. “The camp was taken out by a very large force and completely destroyed in less than an hour.”
“Of course you were spying on the Falcons too!” Li Na grumbled.
“That would mean that they turned on Cormac before they even found you guys though,” Lauren commented.
“That’s not a surprise,” Sven said, shrugging, “it’s easier than turning on Cormac and Chris together. Now there are two 6th year teams to turn on Chris, instead of two vs two.”
“But why even bother?” Yaric asked. “What do they gain?”
“One, they get to take the other two flags with less effort and less casualties, and two, they get Cormac to drop his guard and leave his camp, so it’s easier to defeat them. Now they don’t have to worry about one quarter of the competition, because they’re both wiped out until the next supply drop. Six teams are left; the Ravens, Mighty Dragons and Chris are working together, leaving Lauren’s team, who refused their offer, and us, their target. The only question now is who the 6th team is.”
“The Mighty Dragon’s aren’t part of the group,” Lauren informed them. “This was all organized by the Ravens and the Bulwark. The Mighty Dragons are your missing 6th team.”
“Hmmm…” Sven mused, “that’s not surprising I guess. The Ravens did betray them when we saw them last. Sort of, anyway.”
“Sort of?” snorted Li Na.
“Well, there were only three of them left when they got betrayed - we’d already taken care of the others,” Yaric laughed, causing Li Na to grin and throw a high five his way.
The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the rest of Lauren’s team. Team Flagbearer was still on edge and had just been listening to how multiple teams had joined forces to hunt them down. They all raised their shields when they saw the group of fighters coming through the trees.
“Easy,” Sven called, waving them down. “These are our allies for now. You all heard the terms of our agreement.”
Lauren’s team hadn’t, so she called them all together. Every one of her teammates were eying Team Flagbearer suspiciously.
“We struck the deal,” she informed them, smiling widely. “We got our flag back, and the flag from the Bulwarks. It’s the same deal we discussed, but it includes an extra commitment from both sides. Neither side may attack the other until 24 hours after our agreement is over. Until then, we are all effectively one team!”
Li Na took both flags and waved them in front of the group, making her team cheer.
“Welcome to our alliance!” Sven announced. “Together, Team Flagbearer and Team…” Sven trailed off, embarrassed. “What’s your team’s name?”
“Team Thunderstorm,” Lauren retorted.
“Team Flagbearer?” Li Na exclaimed at the same time. “The team with all the flags had already called themselves Flagbearer?” Li Na seemed stunned.
“We’ve never had all the flags,” Yaric teased.
“Welcome!” Sven called, talking over everyone else. “Team Flagbearer and Team Thunderstorm need to work together to keep these flags. If things go well, we might even add another flag to each team!”
Sven was forced to pause when both teams began whistling and cheering.
“I know this is going to feel formal and awkward, but from what Lauren has told me, we don’t have much time. Both teams need to know what the other team’s current situation is, and how we can best work together. We also need to discuss everything that’s known about the teams that are hunting us.”
Lauren walked in front of her team and turned to face the Flagbearers. “Thunderstorm is at full strength, forty with spears and ten with sword and shield. We…”
“Ahem…” Li Na coughed.
“Forty of us are armed with spears,” Lauren continued, “nine with sword and shield, and as will soon be obvious to everyone, one of us has a mace and shield.”
Yaric and Sven both smirked at Li Na, who seemed completely oblivious as she proudly beamed back at Team Flagbearer.
“We also know that there are three teams hunting you, well, hunting us now, and they are lined up across a wide area. One of their teams was spotted moving in a full battle line. Based on what they told us when they asked us to join them, they’ve divided the entire area into eight sections, centered on the camp locations, and they’re searching one section at a time. They won’t stop until we’re found.”
“That’s great!” Sven asserted. “The more spread out they are the easier this will be. From our side, we’re all armed with swords and shields, and half of us have bows. We lost three scouts recently, probably to these ‘hunts’, but we still have forty-seven fighters. I’m sure the others took more than three casualties when they took their flags, so we will outnumber them by more than two to one. If we can hit them individually, anyway.”
Flagbearers and Thunderstorms soon started mixing, discussing the last few weeks and the things they’d experienced. Team Flagbearer definitely had the advantage there, with many reveling in the reactions they received as they recounted their previous fights. Sven, Lauren, and several others worked on a plan while the rest of their teams caught up.
“We can form a triple line if you guys join us,” Lauren suggested.
“But we don’t have spears,” Sven countered, “your line will only be ten people wide.”
Lauren smiled. “Yes, but we’ll have five of our mobile fighters on each flank, and you guys can have half your team on each side. Think about how that will work in a fight!” she insisted enthusiastically.
Sven and the others still seemed hesitant.
“Our center will flatten anything in front of them! And you guys will be a single line, so you will easily flank any other team, so long as we only fight one at a time!”
“But our archers are often the difference when we fight, and you want us to all join the line?” Yaric queried.
“No! I thought of that too! Some of your archers can stand behind our mobile fighters. They will have the space to move between the mobile fighter or fire from right behind them, and they can reinforce any area’s that come under pressure. We’ll combine your archers and flexible sword wielders with our shock troops and a triple line of spears!” she enthused.
“Alright,” Sven happily agreed, “but we need to practice. How much time do we have?”
Lauren grimaced. “Not long, less than half an hour.”
“Do we know where each team is on their line?” Yaric asked.
“No, Kaeden only saw one of the teams, the rest were too far out. He thinks the team he saw was The Bulwark, but he wasn’t certain. If it was them, they’re in the center of the three.”
“In the middle?” Sven asked hesitantly. Lauren just nodded in reply.
“That’s odd, I thought the 6th years would have Chris there, between their two teams,” Yaric remarked.
“Same, that’s why I asked. But then they are probably the team moving around the boundary. That position has to travel the furthest to get into position, and when they search as well.”
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“And they have to pass every other team on the way back,” Li Na added.
“True. So, we can be reasonably sure that Chris is on the outside, the Bulwark is in the middle, and the Ravens are on the inside,” Sven concluded. “So where do we attack first?”
“It obviously can’t be the middle, we’ll be surrounded,” Anton mentioned.
“Chris would be the easiest,” Yaric pointed out, holding up his hand when he noticed that Sven was about to interrupt, “but, he’s also too far away for us to get into position in time. And then we’d be caught between the boundary line and two 6th year teams, after already fighting in a battle. I vote we go for the inside first, the Ravens.”
“It would cut off the other two teams,” Lauren acknowledged. “They’d have to go through us to get back to their camp.
“And we can eliminate one of the strongest teams before we suffer any casualties,” Sven concluded, both surprised and impressed with Yaric’s decision to move away from Chris and his team. “It would make the last two easier.”
“Actually…” Yaric stammered, turning red. “I think it would be best to gang up on the Ravens, and then to turn around and retreat as quickly as we can.”
“What?” Li Na blurted.
Sven and Lauren followed suit immediately after.
“We might outnumber them, but it would still be three consecutive fights. And these fights aren’t ones where anyone is likely to be able to retreat. They will all be battles of annihilation. Besides, I think you’re forgetting that we aren’t able to choose the battleground this time.”
“Yes we are!” Sven asserted. “We’ve just decided to go after the Ravens.”
“Yes, but we’re being forced to attack now. And we have to attack them where they happen to be. We are choosing our target, but not the time or place. Our only real advantage is they think they are hunting us, so there will be some surprise when we attack them. And obviously we will outnumber them at the start. But every fight after that will put us at more and more of a disadvantage.”
“So you want us to hit and run?” Lauren prodded.
“Not exactly. I’m suggesting that we move on the Ravens first, then run back to the Bulwark’s camp and burn it to the ground. That will leave us with more or less equal numbers, even if one of our opponents are a 6th year team. Even better, that team will spend the whole day marching around looking for us, only to find all of their provisions gone when they get back. I doubt they’ll be so eager to leave their camp again!”
“Why can’t we also go past Chris’s camp while we’re at it?” Li Na asked, warming up to the idea of creating raging infernos.
“And we can clean out the Ravens camp again, so they come back to ruins after the next supply drop!” Lauren proposed.
“Don’t forget that this idea will mean missing out on one of the flags though,” Sven reminded everyone.
“Not really,” Li Na assured him. “We just need to agree to team up until we have the second flag as well. The Bulwark won’t have a camp to hide, and there are twice as many of us. We can attack them tomorrow. What can they do to stop us?”
“Ok, I’m in,” Sven grinned.
“I agree as well.” This time it was Lauren who held out her hand to confirm the deal, and soon both teams were committed to working together until they had all the flags.
Testing the combined battle lines went surprisingly well. There were issues the first time they tried, but everything went smoothly once Team Flagbearer has their sword wielders split into two groups with a specific flank assigned to each. The archers were soon split as well, each of which were to follow a specific group of shock troops.
Lauren led the spear wall, Sven led the left flank, and Anton was given the right. Yaric readied his bow and joined Li Na with her little section of mobile fighters.
“Ready to see how real fighters win battles?” she teased.
“Why, are we going to offer to help the Ravens in exchange for their flag?” Yaric smirked, dodging the kick that was sent his way in reply.
The combined teams jogged toward the center of the exercise area, then set up a small screen to keep a lookout. Keeping the screen slightly to the side, in the direction that the Ravens would be coming from, worked to ensure that they could get into position before they passed.
Sven had initially wanted to let them pass, so their own teams could line up and follow to attack from behind, but Lauren had firmly rejected that idea. They would need to keep their lines organized while they chased the Ravens, which would slow them down and reduce the closing speed. The Ravens would be sure to spot them long before they made contact, allowing the entire team to prepare.
Attacking their flank, however, would let the Flagbearers and Thunderstorms launch their assault before the Ravens could react. They could knock several fighters out before anyone realized what was happening, and then move down the line. Ravens on the far side would take time to get to their other flank, allowing the teams behind Sven and Lauren to fight the Ravens almost one at a time. It was really just a repeat of the overall plan, tailored to fit a single battle. Lauren had even pointed out that no one in Team Raven would be likely to run and leave their teammates to get crushed, avoiding the possibility of The Bulwark Team being warned.
Everything started perfectly.
The warning came down and Team Thunderstorm moved forward, with half of Team Flagbearer on each side. They caught the Ravens just as they lined up with the spear wall, creating instant panic.
Spear walls relied heavily on maintaining cohesion, so Lauren had naturally slowed slightly just before engaging. This caused the flanking teams to move ahead of their center, creating a slightly curved line, with the flanks moving past the point of contact.
It was entirely unintentional, but the Ravens immediately in front of the spear wall saw more enemy fighters moving past them, creating the impression of being surrounded and prompting them to make a stand.
It was catastrophic.
Lauren led her group right through the Ravens, not even slowing down. The solid wall of spearpoints devastated the desperate hunters, who now found themselves facing an attack launched by their supposed ‘prey’.
The Ravens never managed to get more than seven or eight of their fighters engaged at any one time. More and more fighters kept arriving, but Lauren had dispatched those in front of her before they could be reinforced, then turned her attention to the newcomers.
Team Flagbearer were shocked to find themselves with very little to do. It was Team Thunderstorm that cut down most of the Ravens, leaving Sven and his team to chase the two scouts that they’d spotted.
Finally, with just over a dozen fighters left, the Ravens realized that there were two enemy teams where the rest of their friends were meant to be fighting, and turned to run, giving Sven the chance to join the fight. Both flanks moved in, closing the net.
PHWWWWHHHTTTT!
A shrill whistle pierced the air, climbing high above the trees.
‘Damn, they have those stupid arrows!’
Yaric spotted the Raven’s flag. It was still in the arms of a Raven, who was desperately trying to get away before Sven and the others closed off his escape route. He had very little chance of making it, but Yaric had contributed nothing to the fight, so he fired off a single, desperate shot.
The arrow arched through the air to strike the runner right between the shoulder blades. The Raven dropped instantly, covered in a flickering amber shield, which changed to a glowing red before anyone could get to him.
“Yes!” Yaric shouted, jumping into the air in victory. He laughed when Li Na started imitating him, mocking him good naturedly.
Sven fetched the flag while both teams started stripping the weapons off the fallen. Lauren quickly moved around both teams, checking casualties.
“Four wounded, nothing else,” she called out, smiling as she joined Sven. “They are light enough that can still fight once they have bandages on.”
“And here’s their flag,” Sven grinned, before appearing to hesitate.
He seemed conflicted for a moment, before thrusting the flag toward Lauren.
“Here, you guys take this one. We’ll take the next.”
“Are you sure?” Lauren asked, confused.
Sven shrugged. “Your team did most of the fighting, and it makes no difference anyway.”
“What do you mean, ‘it makes no difference’?” Anton retorted, having heard the entire exchange. He hadn’t let the flag out of his sight from the moment Sven had picked it up. “What happens if we don’t manage to get the other flag?”
“Nothing. We’re all on the same team until we do, so it doesn't matter. And once we do have the flag, we have 24 hours until we fight each other. Afterall, only one team can win, and only when they have all the flags. Whoever wins our last fight will win every remaining flag, whether there are two of them or three.”
“True,” Lauren mumbled.
“Shouldn’t we go on,” Li Na asked. “We hardly even fought.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think having double the numbers would be such an overwhelming advantage,” Lauren admitted.
Yaric joined walked up at that moment. “It wasn’t,” he informed them. Lauren raised her eyebrows, prompting him to elaborate. “Ok, the numbers helped. But we caught them in a really bad position. Your spear wall fought them, what, four or five at a time?” he asked. “What difference would it have made if there were fifty of them or five hundred? So long as they all run at you while they’re still lined up, you could just keep knocking them down.”
“Yeah, why were they so stupid?” Li Na asked.
“They weren’t, not really. We know what’s going on because we know where the rest of our team is, even though we can’t see everyone. They could only see people who were around them, but they’d lost track of where the rest of their team was because of our attack. None of them realized how they were coming at us until it was too late,” Yaric explained.
“Speaking of…” Lauren murmured, turning to face her team.
“You all saw how the Raven Team ran to help their friends, without getting organized first. From now on, if any of you ever hear one side of our team getting attacked, you run the other way! Let everyone know what happened and get all available fighters to join you before rushing to help! Understood?”
Team Thunderstorm replied with a chorus of yeses, and Sven immediately repeated the same thing for Team Flagbearer.
“So do we go back or keep pushing?” Li Na asked insistently.
For some reason, most of the others turned to Yaric. “Ahhh…” he stammered, surprised.
“I don’t think we have a choice. They fired one of those signal arrows, so the Bulwark Team will already be on their way. We might be able to run, but we won’t be able to go and raze their camp.”
“So we prepare the ground here,” Sven asserted.
“Actually, I don’t think we could do much to help,” Yaric noted. “The spear wall works best when they’re on the offensive, so we can’t trap the ground. There’s no time to build a wall that would actually be useful. In fact, the only thing I can think of would be to build small mounds so the archers can fire over our lines.”
“But you also said that we can’t run,” Sven protested. “We can’t fight them on even ground!”
“No, but I think the best we can do is to get back into formation right now and start moving toward them. We can still catch them by surprise.”
Seeing the blank expressions on their faces, Yaric rushed to explain. “They know where the Ravens are meant to be, and they’ll expect to find us there. I’d bet that they don’t even know that we were the attackers, the arrows are probably meant to signal that we’d been found. If we move toward them, they will run into us much earlier than expected, and we will still catch them by surprise and in marching formation.
Sven, Lauren and Li Na all grinned. Anton was still too put out by giving up yet another flag.
“All right Team Stormbearer, back into position! We’re advancing on the next team!” Sven called out, to loud cheers of encouragement and excitement.
“Team Stormbearer?” Lauren asked, pushing Sven away.
“What? I put your team’s name first!”
Lauren walked away laughing, joining her spear wielders in the center. Then the combined teams marched off in full battle formation.
“Halt!” Sven shouted less than a minute later.
He stepped out of the line and addressed the teams, his face red.
“Take a minute to eat and drink, all of you! We won’t get another chance for a while, and we have a big fight coming up!”
Despite his embarrassment, there were no complaints or jokes. On the contrary, both teams seemed relieved, and they quickly started pulling out rations.
It took more than a minute, but Team Stormbearer was soon finished and ready to move.
“Team Stormbearer, ready?” Sven called.
“NO!”
It was Li Na, who stepped forward herself.
“What’s this ‘Stormbearer’ business? We’re obviously team Flag Storm!”
“What’s wrong with ‘Stormbearer?” Sven asked, perplexed.
“Everything!” Li Na asserted confidently. “How do you bear a storm? That’s just stupid… I expected better from you!” she added, shaking her head in disappointment. “No, we’re taking all the flags, so we’re team Flag Storm!”
Sven glanced up and down the line, looking for support. Many of those in Thunderstorm had the same disappointed look as Li Na, and Sven was stunned when many on his own team refused to look him in the eye.
“Ok,” he stammered, before continuing much more loudly. “Team Flag Storm, ready?”
This time Team Flag Storm replied in unison, setting off once again.
They marched for almost 20 minutes, causing Yaric to start to worry, before they finally ran into Team Bulwark.
They were not in marching formation, and they were not alone.
Chris had his team in a two-row spear wall, almost twenty-five spears wide. A slightly thinner 3rd row was made up of Bulwarks, along with the fifteen tower shields that anchored each flank.
They were already in battle formation.
Their spear wall was over twice as wide, since Lauren had placed thirty people into the three rows, leaving it ten spears wide, while their opponents had used almost one and a half teams worth of spearmen. Flag Storm did have a slight advantage on the flanks, but the tower shields that the Bulwarks had adopted would still make life difficult for them, while their center would be hard pressed by the opposing spear wall. The Mighty Dragons would have been proud.
Chris was clearly being used as a shield as well as a wall, since his team made up the front two lines in the center. The Bulwark Team would control the flanks and the rear.
Yaric felt the adrenaline start to pump when he saw the flag at the back.
‘The last one!’
“Quick!” Yaric whispered urgently. “Be ready to fire when I call out. We’ll step forward when I do and fire together. Target their spears!” Yaric turned to pass the same instructions down to the other side.
The flanks were well protected against projectiles, but the center was very exposed. They had almost no protection and were tightly packed. It would take real skill to miss. Moreover, they were also the biggest threat, and therefore the biggest priority. If archers could thin their numbers enough, the battle might swing entirely their way.
“Halt!” Yaric shouted, stepping through the front line of mobile fighters, his arrow already nocked.
He quickly raised his bow, drawing back fully. Twenty-five more archers joined him up and down the line, all of them training their bows on the opposing spear wall.
CRACK!
TWANG!
The buzzing bow strings were only audible after the near instantaneous shattering of arrows on mage shield. Every single arrow caused a shield to flare amongst the tightly packed wall. Simply aiming at torso height was enough to ensure that the vast majority of those shields were red or amber, removing those targets from the fight.
The second volley was fired just as one of the Bulwark Team members started shouting orders.
“Advance! Quickly!”
There was only so much that a tightly packed spear wall could do. They couldn’t move too quickly, or they’d break cohesion, and communication between themselves was very difficult, at least when it came to anyone more than two people away.
Five volleys were fired, decimating Chris’s team, before the archers were forced to retreat back behind the shields.
‘Why are we still the only ones using bows?’ Yaric wondered, bewildered. They had used large teams of archers in most of their attacks, and they had been a major factor every single time. A large part of the reason for that was the other team never having archers of their own.
‘Gerrick used my bow to take out 20% of the Dragon team the first time they attacked us,’ he was startled to realize.
Yaric was still trying to figure it out when the two lines made contact. Shouts started to echo up and down the lines as spears began thrusting through gaps and shields began intercepting steel.
Despite the realizations of the last few minutes, Yaric knew that his bow was now useless. There was no way to carry it into battle without it getting in the way and getting damaged, so he tossed it behind himself, along with both quivers.
Yaric strapped his shield to his arm, drew his sword, and jogged along the back of the line, looking to join Li Na.
She was easy to find, as you could hear her before you could see her. Not that she was saying anything. While the archers were bombarding Chris, Li Na had deliberately moved her mobile squad further out, leaving Team Flagbearer to move in and plug the gap.
Li Na didn’t engage until she’d made it all the way to the end of their lines. She had run all the way down the line and turned into their opponents without slowing down.
CRACK!
The sound of her mace splintering wood was like a beacon, leading Yaric straight to her. The shattered remains of three tower shields already littered the floor in front of her.
Two others had joined together to press her, constricting her movements too much and denying her the space she needed to properly swing her mace.
Seeing this, Yaric decided to pull a Li Na, and turned right into them without slowing down. His shield bash staggered the tower shield on the left, creating the opening Li Na needed to smash the other with a fully augmented swing.
Her mace struck like a meteor, splitting the wood vertically and causing a cry of pain.
It was only after hearing the shriek that Yaric noted how two others, both without shields, were cradling their shield arms as they fought with just the short swords in their other hand.
This fight was tough, harder than any Yaric had fought besides the first two defensive battles at their base camp.
There was also no room to retreat.
The Bulwarks were pinned between Flag Storm and the boundary, and Flag Storm were in possession of seven of the eight flags. One side would be taking it all.
Five furious minutes of fierce fighting stretched everyone to their limits. It wasn’t a long amount of time, but every second was spent putting everything you had into every movement, whether you were trying to take out your opponent or desperately defending yourself.
More than that, the shield Yaric was moving into position was there to stop a razor sharp point thrusting at his lung, the shift of his weight to his back foot was to avoid another swipe with a steel blade aiming to slash his sword arm, his shift back to his front foot was done with everything he had in an effort to put his own blade through his opponents exposed shoulder.
Yaric knew that his medallion would prevent any real harm, but that did nothing to protect from the fear and adrenaline when facing an opponent blade to blade – not sparring and holding back but aiming to kill.
Then suddenly, it was over.
Someone stabbed his current opponent in the back, and looking up, Yaric saw the last of the Bulwarks making a desperate last stand on the opposite flank. They didn’t stand a chance.
Holes had opened up in the spear wall, and some of Lauren’s mobile fighters had rushed through the gaps, swords flashing as they ran along the sides of the remaining spears. Soon the entire line began to collapse, accelerating as the numbers slowly shifted in Flag Storm’s favor.
The momentum shifted permanently, creating a death spiral that Bulwarks could not escape.
Hands still shaking with adrenaline, Yaric watched Anton tear through the few Bulwarks still standing, chasing down their flagbearer as he tried to make a run for it.
Everyone not involved in the fighting paused to watch, laughing hysterically when Anton tackled the hapless runner and began bashing the guy’s head with the hilt of his sword. He was too close to be able to get the blade between them, and too single minded to stand back up to create space.
No one interrupted him or pointed out his other options, just watching as Anton pummeled the Bulwark. He was panting when the mage shield turned red, but grinning like a deranged butcher, short sword still clutched in a white-knuckle grip.
Anton stood and stumbled over to the flag, which had been flung forward in the tackle.
Flag Storm had lost almost two thirds of their team, but they all cheered exuberantly as the last Bulwarks fell and Anton began to wave the flag wildly. He was still jumping up and down and flourishing the flag when he froze in mid jump, turning white.
Yaric only had a moment to process Anton’s reaction, and had just opened his mouth to call out, when his shield flashed briefly, and his left leg gave way.
The crack on registered after Yaric hit the ground, followed immediately by a high, annoying voice.
“Fire again!”
Arrows flew over him as Yaric rolled to his side, looking behind his team.
Lauren and Sven were already rallying their remaining fighters, pulling everyone into position as yet another volley of arrows arched into his teammates, creating more flashes of color as mage shields flashed to life.
Reaching instinctively for his medical kit, Yaric began pulling a bandage out while watching the surprise attack unfold.
The same voice called again, grating against his teeth as he began to wrap the bandage around his paralyzed leg.
“Move forward, don’t let them escape!”
It was Asshole.
The Dumbass Dragons were here to take their flags. All of them. They were about to take all eight flags in one fell swoop.
Yaric was still in shock, making him doubt his own eyes for a second.
‘Why are Sven and Lauren running here? This isn’t a real injury, I’m not dying. It’s not even bad.’
A moment later, an overwhelming feeling of injustice almost drowned Yaric where he sat.
The Falcons were wiped out in a four on one assault, followed soon after by Cormac and his team, when they were stabbed in the back. The Ravens had been eliminated an hour ago, and both Chris and the Bulwark Team had just joined them.
Flag Storm and the Dumbass Dragons were the only teams left…
Once the Dragons got all eight flags back to their base camp, all they had to do was hold on to them for 72 hours. Or in their case, party for 72 hours.
Because if Flag Storm fell now, they wouldn’t just be leaving the Dragons to take all eight flags. They would also be leaving them as the only team currently in the competition.
Until the next supply drop...
In around 96 hours…
“Advance! Don’t let them escape! And get me those flags!”