----------------------------------------
The Secondhome war party could assemble at a minute’s notice; it was even faster when the Quarterchief was in charge, but with Kev acting as leader he had to rally his cousins together and raise their morale with bombastic oratory about their clan’s lineage and legacy. Their numbers were up to eighty by the time they made for the shore. The group moved along scarcely-treaded but well-mapped paths down to the coast in three spread out lines.
Those lead-slingers were going to rip the group apart, no matter how much of a numerical advantage the warriors of Secondhome may or may not possess. Maat cut between the lines, eliciting curt but muffled alarms from the raiders, on his way to find the acting chief.
“Chief Kev’kurien,” Maat said at a whisper. “There’s something you need to know.”
“You are too young to be part of a raiding party,” Kev said, not even bothering to look down.
“They have new weapons. Long rods that belch out fire and sling rocks.”
“Stormlanders have slings. Even our elderly can throw rocks with greater force than any outlander.”
“Not this fast,” Maat said.
“Return to Secondhome. Children jinx war parties.”
Kev entertained no further protests from Ma’at. The Outlander fell into the right flank’s line and continued the march.
Not a lot of other-islanders amongst the war party, despite shipwreck cases and wayfaring traders making up a fair percentage of the settlement. This wasn’t uncommon both for Stormlander kin-based martial doctrine and Kev’s general desire to avoid putting other-islanders against the mystery foes who were also from off-isle.
Try though he might, Maat couldn’t find any Outlanders at the head of the party. Of the remaining Outlanders, about half of them had run off with Quarterchief Michael to the north shore. Without Hector, there were maybe eight Outlanders left, three of whom were women. That’s five out of a war party of six-dozen, any of whom would’ve been able to know Maat by eye.
The war party gathered under the cover of the tree line. Late arrivals boosted their numbers to about eighty heads. Rising waters had flooded the left flank and transformed whole avenues around the temple into streams.
What’s more, one of the other-islander’s smoke-belching paddle ships had already arrived. The smokestacks were visible over the ruined temple. Other-islanders walked amongst the walls, already preparing fortifications out of pre-built wooden barricades.
Those from the other isles looked so much like his father and the Outlanders. They had round ears, just like Maat and the Quarterchief. They were shorter than most clans, though still taller than an Outlander by a head. Once more, Maat wanted to ask the Quarterchief about the difference between their clan and the rest of the other-islanders. There had to be some specific isle they’d come from at one time. And yet, even the ever-provincial Stormlanders considered the two groups wholly separate peoples.
Alas, this was another thing Maat would have to wait for the Quarterchief’s return to answer. With another of Kev’s mighty war cries signifying the beginning of hostilities, Maat was also going to have to survive long enough to ask.
----------------------------------------
The left flank charged first. They couldn’t hope to reach the temple with their path flooded. Instead, they ran up as far as possible and announced themselves by clicking out challenges. This got the enemies’ attention. It was also an attempt at misdirection.
The right flank, of which Maat was part of, let out cries of their own and surged forth earlier than expected. They had a higher, dryer path, though many potential avenues to the temple were already blocked.
Wherever these other-islanders hailed from, they’d most certainly been prepared. Someone among their number must’ve known enough about the temple to seek it out as a potential mooring.
Maat stayed behind as his flank charged. He wasn’t supposed to be here, it hardly counted as dereliction of duty. Besides, he had a sling. He could provide ranged support.
The other side weathered the assault in silence. Some skirmishers blocked the paths into the temple grounds, forcing the right flank into melee combat. Over on the left flank, a few particularly brave (or foolish) warriors had begun wading through the waters in their rush to earn a war-sash or two.
The middle band held their most well-armored and experienced fighters. Kev was holding them back, testing the mystery foe’s capabilities. Let the younger rookies and the most ambitious go first, earn some glory or have their haste lethally rebuked. Then, when the enemy is impaled on two horns, a fresh wave of more experienced warriors could march in and sweep them from the field. Among Stormlander clans, this was quite a common tactic. But it was usually done under a hail of stones, spears, and arrows. The other-islander’s party had yet to fire out any projectiles, be they slings or those boom-sticks.
Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Maat slung a few stones over the temple walls as a probing measure. If they hit or even managed to startle someone, he’d never know.
“Make way, Outlander!”
Kur had also snuck into the war party. He messed with Maat’s hair on his way into the fray carrying a spiked mace on a long club. Sam ran by right after, sling in hand.
A messenger crossed the field from where the fighting was fiercest over to the center column, to consult with chief Kev’kurien.
“Advance!” the acting chief said with a bellowing wail.
The central column advanced in tight ranks. The first row carried thick rectangular shields and long spears. A second row carried even longer spears, with additional rows armed with great clubs and smaller hatchets for the close quarters battle they would find within the temple grounds. Kev must have determined that the other-islanders had no ranged slingers.
Maat could only watch as the brunt of the war party advanced in relative silence. It was a tactic to unnerve Jean’in.
There was a bark in some foreign tongue from behind the enemy lines. An enemy commander counted down. It hardly took a translator to catch their equivalent to “three, two, one.” Another set of pop-bang explosions and accompanying smoke emerged from dozens of doorways, windows, and fissures in the outermost wall.
Shields were shattered in an instant. Eight, no, nine – no, fourteen! -- warriors collapsed into the mud, most dead but some still dying. Already, this would be considered a catastrophic toll among Stormland turf wars. Practically a massacre.
The Quarterchief remained standing, though the shields at his flanks splintered, their holders collapsed.
“Kev! Chief Kev’kurien – they’ll take some time to grab fresh slingers. Be hard to hit!” Ma’at yelled.
Amidst the din, Kev’s acute Stormlander ears focused in on Maat’s voice. He nodded to the right flank.
“Everyone, to the ground,” the chief ordered.
Most of the central pillar heard the order and dropped prone. Two foolhardy shield-wielders tried carrying on and were cut down by the second volley.
Of course. These mechanical rock-slingers fired in a straight line, or at least at such a long arc that it hardly mattered at these distances. Bows, hand slings, and thrown spears worked best on an open plain, from cover high in the trees, or at least when you had line of sight with your foe. Beyond that, they needed to be fired in massive volleys to be effective against fortifications. The mechanical slingers could poke out of any fissure or peep-hole wider than an Outlander’s eye. Combined fire was withering, yes, but even individual fire was more deadly and more accurate than most analog Stormlander projectiles.
Kev and the veterans of the war party were now hidden in relative cover beneath the reeds. They continued to advance, crawling over the dead at snail’s pace. But could they really take the fortified temple with the brunt of their force having lost a fourth of its strength and advancing up to a sheer wall at a sixth of its usual galloping charge speed?
Across the field, the left flank was still mired in the floodplain, completely exposed. They weren’t going to be joining the battle any time soon. They ought to retreat, lest the mechanical slingers turn on them.
“Break through. Break through this flank!” came an order from someone off to Maat’s right. “We need to break into the walls and prevent them from using these fire-slingers! Push! Everyone, keep pu-“
A point-blank blast from a mechanized slinger cut this would-be hero short.
The volleys from behind the wall became more sporadic, aimed shots. Still, their strongest veterans were picked off on occasion even from behind the reeds.
“Retreat to the tree-line!” Kev said once it was clear the central column would be decimated before any of them ever reached the temple, let alone broke through the barricades. “Cowards hide behind their fortifications. Meet us on the open field, other-islanders!”
Just as the left and center wings slunk back and the right flank was beginning to waver, another barking order from behind the walls drew attention to the waterline. The word “river!” was recognizable despite Maat’s limited understanding of the language of the other isles.
Sporadic fire from behind the barricades stopped.
“They’re retreating. Keep it up!” yelled some surviving commander at the front line. “Double back. Join in with the right flank,” Kev ordered.
The enemy barricade collapsed all at once. Maat surged forward, sling in hand. He passed into the temple, where a hectic melee had broken out. Kev’kurien was near the outer wall, beating an other-islander in heavy armor with his club.
“Kur, where’s Sam?” Maat asked.
“Dunno, got hit back by the barricades.” Kur got one last blow in on the armored man before the Jean’in retreated, more annoyed than anything, back towards their boat. “Somebody’s coming from the river. Got ‘em spooked. Think it’s the Laval?”
Maat took off towards the waterfront. He was mostly ignored by both sides. He got a running jump up to the temple wall.
“Sink” and “scuttle” were just a few of the words that came from the ship. It was connected to the dryer parts of the temple by a few wooden gangplanks. The waterwheel on the ship’s aft was dormant, but the smokestacks were still bellowing.
From upstream, a full-size Whitewood trunk, its branches sheared off, sailed straight towards the craft. It looked like the great dugout canoes the Laval used but crafted in haste with little more than seats or straddles on top. There were a few branches modified to keep the makeshift ram from rolling over.
The tip of the trunk had been intricately filed down to a fine point. Hector and Lloyd used some clubs as makeshift paddles to push the log like a canoe towards the ship’s stern. Scouts up in the sentry nest readied some mechanical slingers, but were too late, and the ram moving too fast and too low, for them to take proper aim.
Retreating other-islanders were thrown from the gangplanks when the makeshift battering ram hit the ship just below the waterline. It was a direct hit, between the armored plating in the vulnerable wooden hull.
Hector and Lloyd dived into the river, safe from any slingers on the boat or shore. They were safe – but Maat was wholly exposed, standing atop the wall right next to the boat.
The water wheel churned to life as some remaining troops waded through flood waters to clamber aboard.
“You again!”
A sentry – the same sentry from earlier in the day, shouted at Maat. He had a fresh slinger in hand, already loaded. Maat was dead in his sights, nowhere to run for cover.
No sooner did this sentry tip his hat up and take aim with the slinger, did a rogue wave dash the already-injured ship against the temple walls. The sentry dropped his gun to the deck.
Maat was safe again, thanks to the river.
----------------------------------------