Zan saw the automotrons approach — slowly, though with a rigor unmatched.
He held his sword in hand and saw the blade's sharpness as unmatched. He was happy he and Jiehong sharpened their weapons before they departed for the front.
I am going to need every edge I can muster, Zan thought.
Slamming his feet to the ground as an extra-large wrestler might in some far-flung ring, he screamed a war-cry loud enough for Jiehong to hear. He saw Jiehong some ways away, standing down the enemy alongside a group of soldier veterans. The town leaders decided how for every greenhorn among them, they should be close to a trained professional, so as to show them the 'ins' and 'outs' of live combat. Jiehong shouted back a war cry of his own.
"I can do this," he repeated to himself like a prayer. He looked ahead: four troops stared him down, walking in formation. Two in the front, two in back, the world’s most conventional cube shape.
Each of the wooden soldiers, their bodies little different from a bulky training dummy, and made from questionable trees, had swords inserted into their wooden pommel-hands with blades so sharp they glinted in the dim afternoon storm. Slow-moving though the automotrons be, he understood how even a single slow move on his part could result in his instant death if the enemy's blade were to make contact. Swords with legs attached were still swords, after all. He considered their large numbers, and the always swaying limbs seeking flesh, their legs meant to kick, their arms to slay. "If they overwhelm me," he thought, "I will die."
Someone could argue it was nerves getting the best of him, but Zan refused to wait anymore for the battle to start. Why should he wait for the enemy to lumber their way to him? That would deny him space for strategic maneuvering.
Taking the initiative then, he ran straight into the field. He clutched his simple saber with both hands as he charged into the first automotron. Up close, he saw the wooden soldiers as lifeless as any inanimate object: pungent sorceries wafted off their cheaply hewn oaken bodies, Zan saw into its lifeless, featureless face. Emptiness.
But that observation happened, seemingly in slow motion. Now, the battle was upon them when he brought his blade to bear after swooping in wide for a powerful swing.
When the blade made contact, Zan did not feel the reverberations in his arm. He witnessed the manufactured soldier cleanly be cut in half.
Instantly, the magics dissipated.
With its severed half fallen back to the ground, and no more arcane energies flowing through its surprisingly empty form, the lower half of the automotron, containing its legs and part of its back and abdomen, fell forward, not unlike an improperly balanced weight. He glimpsed inside the wooden machine to see most of it hollow except for a few iron rods and copper pieces. Their function unknown and irrelevant, he pulled his attention away from the recently destroyed golem.
He smirked, confidence roaring through his body, as he shouted, and brought himself upon the remaining three automotrons.
Glancing sideways and seeing another scout patrol come upon them, he realized something: he had claimed his first kill.
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Two remained. Four incoming.
Zan called to Jiehong: "Got my first splinter! How ‘bout you?”
Smashing his gauntlets on his buckler, Zan heard Jiehong shout even though they were far away from each other. Jiehong yelled, “Already have three! — Keep up!”
Smiling, Zan redoubled himself: bringing his sword down in a curved arc, Zan cut cleanly in half another automotrons. Sidestepping its jagged remains, Zan brought his sword up, then down, in a similar cutting motion, cleanly severing the fourth automotrons head from its shoulders. Alas, Zan had to then stab several times its still functioning wooden body as — evidently — slicing the head did not matter to lifeless war-machines.
Looking at the destroyed automotrons, Zan saw four fallen enemies.
He swelled with pride.
Four foes — four invaders from beyond the borders — and they were dead before him. Slaughtered by his blade. Him.
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It was an unusual feeling. Knowing he handled the defense of his homeland in such a visceral way. Images of grand rewards fluttered through Zan’s youthful imagination.
Yet setting his sights on the next group of four enemies — and another group further beyond them — Zan realized he had broken a sweat.
Physically willing to fight until his body broke down, Zan realized his spirit outweighed the capacity of his muscles to keep him up. Zan knew he would fight until he physically couldn’t, but with more foes weighing down upon him, he wondered, before they arrived, could he rest his legs?
Yes, he could. So that’s what he did. Rested on his haunches. His sword plotted into the ground tip-first, his hand on the pommel. He did not for long. Only a minute, if that. Just enough time to give him back an ounce of stamina.
Although Zan was ready for the battle to last all night, he had to be smart if he wanted to live. Automotrons like these were the most basic infantryman of the Wooden Expanse. Seeing their ultra-sharp scimitars plopped and glued into their hands, though, he reminded himself how easily his life would bleed away if one of those blades caught him on a slow buckler draw.
Looking over to where his best mate Jiehong was fighting, he saw an impressive physical display. Powerful smashes, brutal kicks, and the finesse of a dancer all rolled into one. Jiehong was an impressive specimen of a man. Someday, he would make something great out of himself. "Trying to make me fly into a rage so I de-comm more of them?" Zan yelled to his brother. He received no response. Which was fine. He had yelled it more for sportsmanship in battle than anything else.
Rest is over, Zan thought. With the next detachment of wooden soldiers upon him and seeing another couple emerge from the woods, Zan had to take action if he wanted to keep up with Jiehong. Drawing himself from his quasi-sitting position, he grabbed hold of his sword's handle and worked it from the soil with a single yank.
Practically flying into the next automotron group, the leader's melee attack he easily blocked. He heaved his blade back and stabbed the leader through its head, splinters and shards of wood flying out, covering the ground with a sawdust strangely reminiscent of blood. He slammed his body into the next automotron. He sent it to the ground where a few hacks to its blubbering form made quick work of it. The third golem he attacked from its side with a similarly powerful stab; unlike that first golem, however, this golem resisted destruction with a stab -- its abdomen, clearly, a position where no valuable magical interfaces existed. He finished it by yanking hard on his sword and vertically cleaving the soldier in half from its side straight through its head. The final golem of the group he torched with a flame attack.
Outrunning himself, he thrashed his body into another group of automotrons. He slew this new group using the same strategies as the first group. By the time he ended them, and resumed his resting haunch, the battle had become (for him) practically routine.
It was a lie, of course.
Already, he was feeling mighty tired.
As a youngling, Zan knew many of the people from his town. Yet some villagers lacked a certain connecting thread to them and Zan never learned who they were… an older man to his side, fighting as valiantly as any man half his age, and who must have seen him at rest, yelled to Zan. "Don't burn yourself out, lad!" The man then sprinted close to Jiehong where Zan saw his mouth move a mile-a-minute.
He did not know how the old man knew the Woodland Expanse's battle tactics. Perhaps he was insane? But Zan smiled his way to be polite while bearing his thumbs in an 'up' and positive gesture. Turning to Jiehong, who had turned to Zan in a similar state of confusion, likely in curiosity at what the man was going on about, simply shrugged his shoulders, clearly not knowing who the man was either, despite the man's intentions on lecturing them both.
Not having the time to think about the man, however, the situation forced him to bear his attention back to the battle. He had oak automotrons to slay!
And with many sword slashes and slices, half of which were experimental — he found himself taking a martial delight in slaying the invading, and relatively speaking, low-threat golems. He continued to destroy many. Several hours from whence the battle began, the field between the lumberyard and the town became strewn with the wooden dead.
Checking along the perimeter using his seeing lens, he saw the line had held! People, then turned as smudges in the distance, lined the circumference of the small town. None of the enemy managed to break through!
He darted his gaze nervously to the sky. Still no slipstream. What gives!?
Sometimes the gods could be finicky with their blessings. Now was one such time. Without the slipstream, prolonged magic use was impossible. And some magic was definitely needed. Much of his magical reserve had drained by now through either natural evaporation through his skin or through his limited magical use while deployed against the enemy. Nice as the Slipstream would be, he had no time to dwell on what would be nice.
Screaming while he surged forward, he felt a jolt of adrenaline enter his consciousness for, if not the first time in his life, then for the only time he could recall in recent memory. The adrenaline gave him a second edge. Crucially, this was what he needed as he was now at the point where his legs felt heavy and weighed down as though stuck in mud.
Having finished a group of the soldiers off, he rested on his haunches in the now familiar stance. Sweat poured from his face. Seeing the next few groups of enemy soldiers' approach, Zan realized he wasn’t ready. Not yet. So, he… retreated. But only by a slight distance further to the trench line. A few (dozen) steps, at most. With the energy he would gain from letting himself rest longer, he would make short work of the automotrons. They wouldn’t have any chance to screw around with the village.
And as he thought, it was so. He did, in fact, slay the group of approaching golems. As well as the one after that. And that...
Several squads of golems later. however, and he again felt the sting of not feeling battle ready when the golems neared.
Panting, soaked with sweat, it was now when Zan felt a twinge of fear.