It was almost sudden the way he came upon the site for the wildling settlement, his thoughts being focused on the battle ahead and running through the likely options for engaging with these unknown warriors. Any sturdy enough to have survived the poison would not be trifling, even if they were semi-impaired by the toxin's lingering effects.
"This is fucking stupid." Ulric reminded himself, coming to an even baker's dozen in recriminations for the shit show that he was walking himself into.
Ulric Einar wasn't some kind of goddamned hero. Last he'd checked, he'd never considered wearing a cape. But these motherfuckers up here were in his way and he'd said he'd try to see about that catkin's beau, lost cause that he was certain that was, the ginger mage was probably dead as hell by now. Bitching about how he'd ended up saddled with a bunch of dependents and with a squad of soldiers crawling up his ass wasn't going to do anything to push the needle in a good direction.
"Suck it up, Buttercup. Just make sure when the dust settles it's only you that still has his legs under him." He whispered to the trees.
Up ahead, some fifty meters was the periphery of the encampment. Smoke no longer trailed upwards from just the cook fires, shelters had been burned and some half dozen men and women were tied to posts in the clearing that made up some kind of village square. Probably some captured would be freemen to be executed or some barbarism or another. Wonder of wonders, one of the figures tied to a post had red hair so it would seem the young turn coat had survived his bout of good conscience.
For now, at least.
The forty or so other villagers sitting on the ground lashed together like fish on a stringer, hands of one to feet of another were just an added wrinkle. They were the lucky ones though, another score of roughly dressed men and women were thrown haphazardly into a pile, already slaughtered by callous hands. Of the survivors, many of them looked to have been subdued rather roughly and the attendant warriors did not look well pleased at having had to run their rebellious countrymen down. The vengeful expressions on those garrison faces were no doubt further curdled by the line of eight dead men in kit matching some of those still standing, dead in the assault on the village. All of the slain soldiers bore remnants of vines, roots, and thorns on their persons, many still tangled in the evidence of their killer's workings.
Not too shabby there Red, Ulric congratulated the rebel mage silently. He'd done a number on his former comrades, the powers of a mage in their element were not to be underestimated.
Ulric spent little additional time examining the prisoners, given that they weren't going anywhere in a hurry. It was the soldiers that had his devoted attention now. Seven of them, each armed and armored. Unlike many formal militaries that had standardized equipment these were all of them attired and equipped to individual specification.
The furthest to his left was a black-haired human man of middling height and a lanky build that carried a halberd that looked to be a great axe with a two meter handle. He was wearing light chain armor, dark orange leather jerkin, of some creature unknown, greenish metal gauntlets, greaves and breast plate.
The next was a dirty blond of impressive stature, easily a hand taller than Ulric. The great, square chinned Swede bore a claymore almost as long as Ulric was tall. The large warrior wore a simple dull bronze suit of full plate, its rough workmanship nevertheless providing formidable protection, and a slit visored great helm was hung from his belt.
Next to him were a pair of front-line fighters with sword and shield, wearing matching light scale armor similar to those men who had been guarding the former Baron of Bartala, so, these were regulars from the Prespang common defense forces. Not so regular, now he thought on it. Probably stout lads, if they'd lived through the poison attack.
A woman with burred hair carrying a long estoc with a rather fancy gold gilt cross guard, her armor was so light it was near to nonexistent, being merely thick padded coat with leather bracers and shin guards, small metal plates riveted at regular intervals to stud those pieces being the most robust part of her gear. She wore a half cape thrown over her shoulder and stood as the obvious commander of the group.
The last two were dark skinned archers, long bows slung over their shoulders and leather armor with a steel breast plate was their gear, their hair hidden by a steel skullcap. Those arrows had broad heads like a small spear tip, easily ten centimeters long and were thick as his thumb.
Having approached with caution, Ulric was fairly certain he was, as of yet, undiscovered. The motley assortment of troops made him nervous, something probably important putting his hackles up. That village square wasn't so much a trap as it was just a bad time waiting to happen. Ulric was under no illusions, he could be real nasty in a dustup. But this here was different and his instincts were warning him not to take chances. Especially not with the woman. Anybody wearing that little armor headed into a fight had ways to make sure the lack wasn't going to be a problem.
"Myert." Ulric cursed in Elvish.
"Fuck." He repeated again in Human a few seconds later, when nothing about the situation in that clearing looked any better for him.
He wasn't sure if the villagers had been captured to be used as hostages but he knew he wasn't going to let them be used that way, any more than he would have left those Orlethrem behind from the Bane camps to be recaptured and shipped somewhere else. If those garrison troops from Kistalfer thought to use the freemen against him, they'd find out real quick that he really wasn't a hero. If he had to use them all as meat shields to kill these pricks that was exactly what he was going to do and maybe don't get captured next life.
A cold calculus, but if your rescuer gets killed because you need rescuing then that sort of defeats the purpose then, doesn't it?
He was hesitating. All this was just him trying to get his mind right before he threw himself into another scrap that might get him killed to death. Taipan wouldn't be here this time to get him out of trouble so he was all on his lonesome. Hell with it, time to roll the dice, he quoted from a great man long dead.
Ulric unlimbered the bow, gave it a few test-pulls from behind the tree he was using for cover, just to get the feel back for its draw, and nocked an arrow. His Shadow favored twenty-five centimeter long, leaf blade style, bone broadheads these days, as they were more easily replaced from the wilds. This one had barbs carved into it, a new twist and evidence that her scrimshaw hobby was being applied to make her a more lethal archer. The oily black tar coating said broadhead meant that whoever it got into probably wouldn't be too worried about the barbs for long. He had to appreciate his wife's attention to the details.
Go time.
[Ceraunoperception]
[Warrior's Instinct]
[Battle Rhythm]
Armored feet made less noise in the underbrush than they would have months ago and, while he wouldn't have called his rush silent, the forest did not yield sufficient alarm from his sprint through it to be heard over the moans of prisoners, the roar of burning huts, and the small leather and metal sounds of armor worn by tired warriors. These men had been suffering the effects of his mate's poison bomb while he was sleeping soundly in her arms, and then they had marched all the morning long and fought a battle only a few hours ago. He was going to hit them like a truck. There was a satisfying irony in that, given his circumstances.
As he hit the woodline that marked the edge of the razed freemen's village, Ulric pulled up and took a steady shot on one of the archers, his core singing its Ceraun song in his chest as he did. It was barely sixty meters, child's play for the mighty bow.
*Thimp* The muffled bowstring slapped. The spear-tipped dart carved an almost invisible arc barely past its apex before it met its target.
*Chuck*
Blinder claimed its first victim. The leftmost archer dropped, transfixed by the dart with its barbed tip jutting from between his shoulder blades. A second arrow was on the way as the soldier fell. Ulric's lack of practice in these last few months showed, he'd rushed the second shot and it flew wide, skipping off the side of the second archer's armor in its passage but doing no substantial harm as it passed just under his armpit. He took a second longer on his third arrow, sending it along as the men started, their slow reactions speaking volumes about the lingering damage of toxins inhaled. He was already gone from his firing position, having loosed before breaking into a sprint around the circumference of the village, putting himself behind a burning home. Three shots taken in five seconds, even his Taipan would have been impressed, though she'd never seen him shoot. He'd play a game of shoot off with her when he got back, the Reforged told himself, breathing slowly and smoothly from his place in cover. Focus, Einar.
"Guaaagh! Fuck! Knife ears' shooting at us!" Screamed the second archer shrilly, making Ulric happy, the elation muted by concentration as he readied another arrow. He hadn't waited to see where he hit the archer before running for cover, trusting a certain hostile lady's work with her grab bag of awfully toxic coatings to seal the deal. He had a dozen more where that came from.
Of course, the warriors weren't taking his antics sitting down. They'd scattered, as he'd taken off to break sight behind his burning cover, leaving their downed comrades where they lay.
"Saw the bastard go 'round that pyre! Not an Elf, unlessen he’s shaved his ears!" Called a gravelly voice.
Damn, sharp eyes on that one, Ulric had to concede. Well, not entirely unexpected for professionals. Ulric fled back out of the clearing into the trees, before circling back the way he'd come in, eyes focused on the terrain while trusting his electromagnetic sense to pick up any armored living forms that got in range. Somebody wasn't skipping cardio day, he felt the spearman enter his field making rapid ingress, the Ceraun field around him tracing the enemy's route along his trail while he ran. Possibly a rapid movement ability of some kind.
Ulric shouldered his bow and pulled his sword free, Xef'tocht's cyan edge almost hungering in its sharpness. He'd angled to keep a line of trees between him and the warrior coming with such celerity, making sure he stayed just barely sight, tantalizingly close, but offered nothing more concrete than a glimmer of movement amongst the foliage. He let the mercenary gain on him over the next minute, not a challenge given the impressive speed of his enemy, fifty meters, twenty meters, ten, five, abruptly, Ulric juked behind a wide old hickory and a [Surge] jump took him straight up nearly six meters into the lower limbs of the tree, one hand catching to throw himself up to the branch, using its trunk to hide his movement.
For a moment he felt like he hovered, when he toe touched a branch to stay up for just a moment before dropping back down, the floating step allowed a befuddled warrior to pass below the target that had simply vanished. It was a favored move of the Iriel'en and these Elf hunting warriors, had they had any right to the name, should have known that. Alas, the Deep Woods Elves permitted few veterans of encounters with them to share stories.
Ulric fell like a cougar from the tree, long blade point down, his core rippling to life at his call.
[Voltaic Riot]
Buzzing, snapping arcs of electric violence flowed through his artifact sword just before his plunging strike hit. Xef'tocht's point punched through the seam between pauldron and cuirass, running down into the spearman's chest and out from his groin. Along the blade's passage, the rampant spellform tore devastating wounds through the body in its passage. The man made barely a sound, cut off abruptly when Ulric's weight and magic smashed him to the forest floor. He took a moment to extract the enhanced cutting edge from the armor, the sword torn roughly out of the slain warrior's form. Ulric stopped for a moment and listened for pursuit, hearing none. Looks like his pals were smarter than he was. Only a complete moron chases Elves and Elf associates into the woods alone.
A toe underneath the axe bladed halberd and a quick flick of his boot tossed the weapon up to his hands.
"Can't be littering like that Krieger," Ulric told the corpse roughly, launching himself back towards the clearing, "Don't worry though, I'll give this back to your friends."
Now he took a straight run tracing the spearman's path, adrenaline and the howling of the Lord Instinct loud in his thoughts. His core was humming, sending negative after positive in the eternal cycle of Ceraun's chase through his magic, and he was never more alive. Once, not so long ago, he would have worried about that, but no longer.
He hit the woodline at a sprint and slung the spear like a javalin. The two shielders immediately stepped forward in front of their comrades, raising the barriers to intercept the projectile, training taking over despite its poor odds of doing harm. While his projectile flew, Ulric noted the twisted features of the second archer who appeared to have died in quite a bit of pain, his arrow stood proudly from the man's chest, a lung shot. Odd the things you notice at times like these. The projectile sailed in and their leader finally wised up.
"Idiots! It's a trap, dodge!" Yelled their captain, her harsh yet collected voice aggravated by her men falling for an obvious ruse.
They were too slow, as was usually the case when dealing with lightning. Ulric clenched his fist and let Ceraun do what it did, allowing the lightning bolt he'd charged into the halberd on his way back to the camp to seek its beacon.
[Lightning Javalin]
Scintillating light ripped into the pair of mercenaries, blasting them to the clearing soil and thunder pealed its glorious tone. Ulric couldn't help the laughter that came, bubbling from some rampant joy inside. It only lasted a moment before he was back in control, pulling Xef'tocht again, and dropping Blinder at the edge of the clearing, its job done. The bow would only hinder his movements now.
"Don't spoil the surprise now lass, how else will they learn?" He called to the woman who stared balefully at him along with her two remaining warriors.
"I'll crucify you, you blood traitor!" She returned, coldly furious.
He was about to tell her to blow him when he realized that there was some kind of glitch in the Akashic language embedded in his brains. The female captain had literally said "I will nail you to an arbor" but his brain automatically retranslated that to "crucify" since this world, clearly, had not had to endure the worship of the Christ cult. Neat. But not important. He got his shit together and responded to her threat with fire.
Three gems made of solid fire spiraled into existence before him and streaked towards the Captain, little comets trailing flame.
Her eyes widened with surprise but she smoothly side stepped his attack, the burning gems erupting behind her, setting that half cape on fire as they passed, to her displeasure.
"You! You're the one wanted by Prosper! The monster responsible for destroying Bartala and Prespang's ports!"
The big claymore wielding guy lifted his visor and squinted before grinning.
"It's a Tun Servant to the man what hauls his ass before a Magister, dead or alive." He said, avarice naked in his voice, and he clamped the visor back down, hiding his features.
A Tun Servant? That was a godsdamned fortune! That kinda made him a little proud. Too bad nobody was going to collect. The claymore wielder and his leader were already working on separating to come at him from multiple angles. Too many bystanders for [Stormfire], the blast would probably catch them. The angle was bad for [Galvanic Mistral], it would pass through into the captured townsfolk. The Captain was too quick for his [Cinderpearls] and he had a feeling she would be able to keep the big guy from taking hits should he target the man. He couldn't afford to waste his mana here, he needed something they wouldn't see coming. "Valin never look up" came Taipan's admonishment, whispered to him as he lay on his back from an unexpected loss in one of their spars. So they don't, he agreed, his next move decided.
Ulric's core sought the sky spinning the winds above to his will to create a [Cloud Hammer], bringing Caelum into a concentrated mass high up above. If these assholes were going to give him time to work, then work he would.
Damn, Ulric cursed to himself. One of the shielders managed to climb to his feet, jerkin smoking, likely bearing hideously painful electrical burns across his body, but still holding his arms in a firm grip. The other one stayed where he was, stone dead.
Chattering still from residual shock to his nerves, Shielder One stammered, "H-He's d-doing something ag-again, let's fucking k-kill him before he fi-fi-finishes."
Not a moron, then. Ulric nodded sagely, leaning on his sword a bit, addressing the three remaining warriors calmly, dragging this out for as much time as he could, "He's probably right you know. I really am up to something and you're probably not going to like it. But the first person to move toward me is going to be the one I give it to, so you might want to draw straws or something."
That was mostly a lie. He'd already figured that Captain over there was too quick on her feet to get hit by his little love tap and he certainly wasn't going to waste it on the half dead guy who could barely stand up, which meant that William Wallace over there was going to get to eat three tons of compressed air moving at about forty meters per second. He was just saying that to make them think for another second or two while his construct came together. To some extent it worked, the three remaining garrison soldiers traded looks before they started advancing on him in unison, at the leader's command.
[Cloud Hammer]
Ulric's core heaved on the weaving, initiating the working's fall, and he [Surged] forward to meet the great sword wielding man head on.
No rookie was this man, in spite of Ulric's speed he got his weapon up and parried the rising cut, before also blocking the reversed overhead Ulric had twisted his blade into fluidly from the parry. They held the clinch, straining against one another, armor plate grinding against armor plate while they worked their weapons to find an opening for a clean short stroke from the bind. Shielder One was shambling over towards Ulric's left flank and Captain was circling to his right, only temporarily blocked by his angle of attack.
"Strong bastard," William Wallace grunted at him, before he shimmered red and a sudden burst of strength shoved Ulric back, nearly lifting him from his feet.
“Not stronger than me, though!” Boasted the powerful warrior.
Ulric regained his balance, returned to the Undan ready just in time to duck under a brutal cross slash at his neck. Another red flash and the great sword whipped overhead, forcing Ulric to sidestep the vertical cut, unblockable in its fury. He circled left, putting the nearly crippled sword and shield garrison trooper to his back but keeping the more dangerous estoc wielder in front of him, continuing to evade the series of enhanced strikes from William Wallace's combat skill. His movement was also keeping Wallace standing in about the same place as he'd been when Ulric engaged him.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
"HRUAARR!!" roared the man, the empowered shout carrying mana laced potency.
The shout hit Ulric like a physical thing, blasting his ears and stunning him briefly, like that bastard Ravager but less concentrated. He was only staggered a moment, but the warrior was already leaning into a vicious diagonal slash that would either cleave his head and shoulders free or maul him through his armor. Ulric pulled on his class and turned the flat of his blade to intercept the strike, barely turning his shoulders to try to shed some of the incoming blow.
[Maxwell's Parry]
Ulric lifted his blade into the attack and braced himself, a tiny arc of lightning sparking to catch the warrior’s blade and reject it with his own class’s ability, rolling to the side the stroke. Vardan madness nearly undid him, more kinetic energy than should have been possible pounded his weapon, even while the claymore ripped easily through a meter of soil. Xef’tocht bounced back into his breastplate from the strength of the attack and he was knocked flat to his back, rendered breathless for a moment from the impact.
Unable to draw a breath momentarily, Ulric rolled to his feet painfully and saw the claymore rise up high overhead, it's wielder preparing the killing blow before he could ready his sword to try to block, the other two closing in to make certain he had nowhere to go, their shuffling having left him almost exactly where he’d initially met the giant man. All according to Keikaku.
Fruits of the one time engineer's calculated labors were rewarded with horrific effect. The warrior abruptly smashed into the ground, a sight akin to that of a giant that stomped a can of tomato paste, gore and gibbets flung wide under the impact of a multi ton piston of solid air moving at half the speed of sound. A two-meter wide crater a meter deep held the crushed remnants of the warrior's armor in its bottom, along with his compacted armor. The almost unthinkable abruptness of the warrior's death froze the clearing. All except for the man who had put that awfulness into play.
Ulric turned and whipped his sword with deceptive speed and even more deceptive range, Xef'tocht's cutting aura reaching out that extra centimeter, catching a shocked Shielder One across the eyes, who had thought himself out of reach. The man shrieked and dropped his arms, grabbing for his ruined face and Ulric swiftly pulled an arrow from his quiver in a hammer grip and ended the man's suffering, stepping forward and driving the arrow down into the man's forehead before turning back to his last enemy, confident that the poison tipped projectile would prevent any Akashic horseshit from creeping up behind him.
Captain had pulled up short in her attempt to charge him, while her vanguard had Ulric on the ropes, leaping aside when she detected the incoming Caelum missile. She saw her last man dispatched almost casually and considered, briefly, fleeing. Then she eyed the bow at the edge of the clearing, not so far away, and discarded that option. Running would only get her an arrow, or fiendish magic, in the back. They were committed to this, both of them.
"So. This is why they sent a Battlemage adept after a single man hiding in an Elf fortress." The Captain drawled, her estoc waving menacingly in front of her as she approached cautiously.
Ulric scanned the clearing, looking for any signs that the ones he'd thought dead might show signs of getting up. Taipan insisted that a man wasn't dead until you opened his throat. Or, you know, cooked him with lightning or crushed him to paste. It looked like it was just the leader left, she was probably the most dangerous but, without her tools, she was less likely to be able to contest him than if he'd ignored her minions and let her drag this out by evading his attacks while they surrounded him. The Dance of One Thousand steps dictated victory by advancing your position, not charging in to overwhelm without thought.
"If it makes you feel any better, that asshole came really close, before I rendered him to vapor." Ulric offered mocking consolation, "You know, if you people had just left me alone, I probably wouldn't have come all this long way to find out who gave the orders. All you sonsofbitches had to do was play your games with the Aes'r the regular old way, and leave me out of it, but we're well past that now."
The Captain spit and leveled a disgusted glare at him, "Filthy blood traitor! You raise weapon against your own people for those knife ears?"
That comment very nearly made him angry.
"Lady, you bastards used the Bane, you don't get to call yourselves my people. Besides," Ulric added glancing suggestively towards the captured freemen, the corpses of the slain villagers, and the ruins of their humble town, "I don't think anyone that does this to their own folk for the crime of not wanting to be ruled by Magisters on the payroll of a gang of Oligarchs in some far away fortress gets to tell me shit about raising weapons against their people."
Her snarl and lack of answer to that accusation were proof enough to him that she was, in the nature of jackboots across history, just another cog in the machine, too busy enjoying the harvests of their cruel crop to worry about the pain they caused sowing its seeds. Just one more tool of a despot, using their "orders" to hide their lack of empathy and the secret joy they took in carrying out their enforcement of oppression.
People like this were the ones that killed his world. Oh, there was always some fucker behind the scenes pulling the levers, but it was men and women like this one right here that went out and actually made it happen. Ulric Einar could find no sympathy in him for this woman or her ilk, especially when he'd found hope that humankind were not beyond saving in this world, if one could but weed out the sonsofbitches.
The Captain's eyes flashed white and Ulric felt the pressure of her attention as she [Scanned] him. He might have repulsed her, the weight of her examination was intense, which wasn’t a good sign, but his attention was on doing the same. Concentrating on her essence, the feel and impression of her through the Akashic link to Varda. This was starting to take on the feel of some kind of Vardan ritual.
[Scan]
image [https://i.imgur.com/i1ibWtC.png]
Impressive. His enemy was strong, stronger than any sapient creature he'd been forced to fight that wasn’t Taipan, but there was a glaring weakness in her abilities: half her Akashic abilities were tied to her leadership and passive influences to those under her command, a type of magical fuckery with which he was entirely unprepared to try to comprehend, and she had no more minions. Looks like taking out the trash was the correct move, he was quite satisfied by the cheating of [Scan] and what it revealed about his foe.
The woman herself did not look as pleased.
"You're a monster." The Captain accused, bringing a smile to his grim features, mostly obscured under his helmet.
"Aye," Ulric agreed readily, "But one that eats other monsters." He clarified, which didn't seem to go over too well on the last surviving member of the troop that massacred and imprisoned a group of civilians and burned their village.
He reached deep on his remaining reserves, Ceraun screaming through mana channels, yearning to reach out and touch the world, to connect with something. Ulric obliged it, bringing the energies into his Artifact blade.
Red gold light snapped into place and the Captain lunged forward, her blade extended by hard light, the estoc now a lance and her gloved hand bearing a shimmering shield of mana.
Captain was fast, her lance flickered forward like an arrow. But Ulric had dodged arrows and he had handled faster thrusts than this one, as he did now, bringing his blade up from his low guard to shove the lance off course, whatever mana it was composed of ringing like crystal to his manasenses, immune to the arcing energy in his own weapon.
The Captain's form glittered and she stepped backward, although that understates the rapidity of the thing, one moment she was in range of the counter stroke he'd aimed at her head, one moment not, his sword passing through the space without resistance, forcing him into an awkward break in his form to adjust to the sudden chance in position.
More experienced, knowing her techniques disoriented and taking advantage, the lightly armored woman then screamed forward without pause, the lancing leading the way with incredible speed. Undan settled, his form polished, the attack came and not even from his ready he was able to pick off the stab cleanly, his blade pushing it up and away, where it caught his damaged pauldron. The repaired strap gave way with barely a hindrance and the shoulder piece soared up into the sky, to land somewhere outside the clearing, while Ulric retracted his parry just in time to catch an almost identical and similarly punishing stab. This one drew blood when it clipped the meat of his shoulder where the pauldron had been, but not without cost.
At the third lunge, Ulric twisted his wrists exactly as the aether lance contacted his blade, using the sheer speed of the attack against the enemy, his reverse blade flashed forward, diving towards her face and the Captain, her entire forward momentum being charged behind that sword tip, which had been pushed off center but not stopped. The Glade Chief felt a shock of victory at the maneuver, simultaneous with pain, as the lance of solar energy burned him across a collarbone.
His elation died swift death, a shimmering red-gold plate absorbed his counterstroke.
Ulric's blood flew into the air from the deep cut across his deltoid and the Captain's shield shattered, sounding like a brass gong before it broke, and she was launched to the turf roughly. Her forehead bled freely but she was already on her knees, rolling away and coming to a crouching stance.
[Surge]
Ulric came forward, grimacing against the pain of the wound that only just now reached his awareness, discarded by adrenaline and battle skills. Lord Instincts and combat training demanded he push the advantage, force his enemy to use their long weapon defensively.
His weapon led and the Captain swiped her lance strongly, despite from her weird posture she had the agility and strength to knock Xef'tocht's point high. Instead of trying to reposition his blade, Ulric let her weapon ride his own up and stepped through. Without losing the violence of his motion, he soccer kicked the downed warrior in the stomach, flinging her in a graceless arc to roll across the ground again. He'd heard ribs break and felt her light armor buckle under the power of the armored kick, boosted to inhuman degrees by his lightning imbuement.
Captain coughed blood up and levered herself to her feet, reforming her red and gold shield as she did. Tough cookie, Ulric had killed a guy with a kick like that before, and that was without [Surge]. They sized each other up for a moment, both now more fully aware of the scope of what they faced, then again they came together exchanging blows.
His blade rang on hard light mana, unable to find the flesh of the enemy. Ceraun sparked and flashed, carving rents into the constructs that healed themselves at each brief lull when they parted to find a gap in their respective defenses. The speed of the Captain's thrusts and slashing cuts made channeling his magic into an effective spell impossible while he empowered his sword to defeat the hardlight armor, so he concentrated on funneling his mana into his weapon, occasionally using [Surge] to launch a single devastating stroke from which he knew she was only by thinnest margins avoiding catastrophic wounds. Together they danced on the edge of disaster.
Twice, he unleashed a [Crackling Draw] that shattered the shield and lance, only to find them reformed from sunlight before he could find the killing strike and once he only narrowly avoided a thrust to his throat from the hardlight spear that materialized from her hands within a breath of being broken. The difference between offense and defense was found between eye blinks, but the woman was skilled, more skilled than he in terms of swordplay. Only his magic, and the tactics trained under watchful Elven eyes kept him in the fight.
All the while he was trying to crack her guard, the Lancer's precise attacks and blinking step refused to permit him to disengage, striving to maintain the optimal reach of her weapon while he worked the Dance to keep her from getting good angles but taking several glancing strikes that packed a hell of a wallop nevertheless. He was bruising beneath his armor, the thrusts like sledgehammers, pounding into him while he turned them away or armored plates directed the forces away from his center. His life was saved a dozen times by Galed Uldin's talent, and the bones of the [Forest Lord].
Briefly they separated and he was drawing ragged breaths now, his fitness flagging in the face of the blistering pace of the fight. What the hell kind of condition could this warrior be in to match him, especially after the poison and the battle to cull the village? He was glad he hadn't had to face her fresh, short would have been his odds. This enemy he couldn't beat through sheer aggression, and the seasoned veteran refused to give him space to work his magic. A second's inattention to craft a working would leave him vulnerable. Too long against the Aetheric Knight.
It was disorienting, fighting someone that could change their range with such alacrity, something which he knew was one of his own favored tactics, and he wasn't having a good time trying to deal with it, especially not with that damned hardlight lance diving in at him with lethal intent, while his own attacks battered against solar mana shields.
Sparks flashed again as Ulric batted aside yet another pair of strikes, and he knew his mana wouldn't last for much longer. He could only hope his skilled foe, who used that wickedly fast skill to reposition far too rapidly to predict, was likewise finding the bottom of her tank.
Fortunately, as they met one another's attacks and defeated them, frustration mounted visibly on his opponent's features, the Captain was similarly unable to extract a fatal blow, her lance caught repeatedly by deflecting strikes that seemed to steal her force and she was now on guard against letting the armored limbs of her opponent be used on her twice, unable to completely commit to a thrust and risk another trade of blows that would favor her more powerful adversary. Especially when the once cyan edge began to glow dull red and her close calls with it revealed intense heat radiating from the blade, increasing its destructive potency when she tried to block and parry, forcing her to evade more than receive the weapon. The vicious kick from earlier radiated brutal pain from ribs cracked through her Aetheric defense.
Ulric almost managed to force his enemy into a bind and put the [Inpulsa Soaked] weapon to her hands and face but she realized the danger in time and became more measured in her spacing. For another half dozen exchanges they sought to find vulnerability in the constant motion, the flow of battle taking on a ragged edge of exhaustion.
Suddenly, his enemy withdrew, her lance changed shape, dissolving and reforming into a winged spear. Her form glittered again and that ridiculous frontal acceleration put her on the offensive, with Ulric branch side stepping to keep his blade free for a counter to her legs that she evaded with that rapid backstep and charge skill, only she vanished to the side, instead of directly backwards. Ulric had been suckered, the veteran fighter was training his reflexes, had him assuming instinctively that she could only move directly forward or backward, when she could evade to the side and attack his flank all along.
The flicker step put the winged blade coming toward his face with him unable to affect a counter or dodge and he cursed when the weapon rang off the visor of his helmet, throwing brilliant sparks, and rocking his head back. Only her prior injuries kept the attack from defeating his helm, from being able to make the micro adjustment at the final moment to reach that blade through his visor. The Captain's strength was flagging, the agony of her battered side and the aggressive movements of her combat style piercing the veil of her [Aetherial Lancer] class's body reinforcement abilities.
A sweeping strike, the first truly committed attack in a dozen, meant to cripple him before her body gave out, sent the side blade hurtling for his exposed knee and Ulric took a chance, trusting Uldin's artifice. Instead of compromising his stance or losing time repositioning his blade all from all the way across his body, he reached down and caught the hardlight spear with his gauntleted hand, iridescent sparks flying. The gauntlet held, his fist gripping the wing blade protected by the overlapping bone plates shaped by a genius smith of a super beast's remains.
Ulric twisted, wrenching the lighter opponent to one side then turning his body, he [Surged] slinging himself to the opposite way and flung the lancer into the burning remains of a hut some four meters distant.
She'd been trying to back him into that hut to pin him for a solid minute, and he used her tactic against her now.
Ulric wasted no time, drawing most of the last of his reserves, Caelum and Ceraun wound together, six hardened scythes of air chained by arcs of violet, that he sent blasting into the inferno. The burning shack exploded, cinders and smoldering debris scattering widely across the village square, and the sound of a brass gong rang loudly, twice in succession.
"Was ist los?!" Ulric shouted, knowing victory was his even while the Ceraun bound Cealum aether screamed through the air.
The figure of the Captain flew backwards from the wreckage, trailing smoke and embers, her shield broken again, and, this time, it had not saved her completely from Ulric's attack. She hit the clearing floor limply and ragdolled for a few meters before she came to rest, unmoving. Stalking in slowly, keeping his guard up, Ulric saw that he'd removed the shield arm at the shoulder, her lance was gone, along with half the hand that had held it and the estoc that lay beneath her magic was nowhere to be seen. Several of the lacerations that streaked her body and legs through the light armor looked like she'd run into a boat's prop. Tough or not, nobody walks away from those kinds of injuries. What blew him away though was that she was actually still alive. So far, whatever he'd hit with the [Galvanic Mistral] had been pretty much turned into chum, yet here his enemy lay, alive and, relatively unblendered.
Classes are some powerful bullshit, Ulric realized again, trying to wrap his battle juiced and exhausted mind around Varda's complex weave of magical and physical, the twining of Akashic experience that fused with those who had the core to wield its powers.
Slowly, Ulric released a deeply held breath, his aching body relaxing, the additive damage of multiple [Surges] having accrued, though not greatly enough to slow him down overmuch. Yet. It was coming though, once the adrenaline faded he would be mostly crippled from this day's work. The female war leader might be alive, but she wasn't going to be happy, not missing an arm, most of her other hand, and with a fair savaging of her once imposing figure. That light armor had done her not so much good against his hybrid spell, though the radiant solar mana shield had blunted its impact.
Speaking of impacts, he realized his own armor had gotten fairly well abused, and he not a little in spite of its protection. Those lance strikes had been heavy, never mind that he'd kept them to only glancing hits, for the most part.
Looking down at himself, Ulric saw the scorched impacts that had mottled once pristine matte black enamel, revealing the polished [Forest Lord] ivory beneath. His old design wouldn't have held up, the former engineer knew that immediately. Each of the blows was targeting a gap or edge of plates, hoping to force its way to vulnerable flesh below. Only a master smith's craft in shaping and contouring and layering the armor to defeat such attacks had kept the combat prowess of his enemy at bay.
Close calls echoed behind his eyes. Desperate parries and last moment turns of his body keep thrusts from finding purchase. Too fucking close, Ulric realized suddenly. If he hadn't managed to peel off those others first, he'd have ended up skewered. Any distraction, any interference from total focus on the [Aetheric Ranseur]'s unbridled offense would have killed him. He'd need to sit down with his Shadow and reconsider any such future engagements. Which made him think of the bow he'd dropped
Watcher's tits! If he hadn't had Taipan's bow and had been forced to use spellwork to take out the first two archers he might not have had enough mana to outlast this strangely powerful garrison leader and her incredibly effective combination of movement and straightforward destructive assaults.
Ulric wasn't above admitting that this woman here was certainly a better warrior than he was, all things being equal.
Which was why you damned well never let things be equal. His enemy was still suffering the effects of Taipan's little trick, the poison suppressed but not cured, they had force marched through the night to try to catch their attackers returning to their "home" at the encampment, and then they had been forced into battle against one of their very own mages, who had taken his kilo of flesh before being captured. Needless to say, it was almost certain that she'd lost a step from being fresh. And Ulric was a proficient spell caster using wyrd arts that forced his opponent into an almost reckless aggression, because she could not let him have space to cast, limiting her room to maneuver to just outside the reach of his blade, where she could not truly maximize her weapon's reach or fight a gradual, measured contest.
Once her comrades were out of the picture, it was Ulric who held the tactical high ground, and, even then, he'd come just *this* fucking close to losing the use of one arm and getting impaled through his visor.
If there were three or four like her and he had to take them simultaneously, it was going to be a bad time. Shuddering slightly, Ulric dismissed such thoughts. Nothing was gained worrying about might be's. Deal with what is, which, right now, is a bunch of captured villagers in a burned out freemen's settlement, and you actually managed to take one of the big players from the enemy's forces alive for questioning. If she didn't bleed out, which, come to think of, he should probably start doing something about if he wanted to extract anything useful from her.
Shaking himself out of his addled post-fight meanderings, the somewhat reluctant Glade Chief put his sword in one of the burning shacks and mercilessly applied it to the stump of the woman's right arm, before reheating it and cauterizing the crippled left hand, saving two fingers and the thumb, before he moved on to repeat the task on the deep lacerations across torso and legs. He hoped his enemy hadn't been vain, because those scars weren't going anywhere for a while, and he should know. There was no Doc Yessiree here to work his miracles.
Regardless of the wounds closed, Ulric figured his fallen enemy maybe had an even chance of coming out of this. If not for those sort of crazy vitality bonuses in her status, creepy bullshit that that was, he doubted she'd still be here now. Odds were good that the only ones who'd survived the poison were those with particularly hardy constitutions, similar to his own. Still, Ulric wasn't taking chances with this one.
Anybody that could summon hardlight armaments that rivaled his sword for toughness and challenged the integrity of Galed Uldin's armor work was someone that you made sure of.
Toward that end, Ulric went and cut the villager's loose with a terse, "Get your folk ready to travel, and salvage what little you may." and bound the woman's crippled arm behind her before he lashed her legs together and tied her to a pole, such that he could just plant her like a flag wherever he wanted her without worrying about her running off somewhere or rolling towards a butter knife or something stupid.
With that done, Ulric went to go find his damned pauldron, which the former Captain had launched into the woods. It took him half a round of the twins to find the thing, nestled in a tree branch. By the time he'd returned, the freemen had appeared to have sorted themselves out, somewhat. The ginger mage had taken a thrashing, his face battered, an arm in a sling now, and one leg splinted at both the thigh and the shin, but he lived, which Ulric hadn't even considered as an option when he set out this morning.
Hell of a day, he remarked to himself. Not done yet, either.
Sitting on a rickety chair that had, somehow, survived the ransacking of the village, Ulric was watching the villagers finish gathering what remnants of their attempt at a peaceful life here that they could. He turned to Red, who was slouching uncomfortably, being unable to sit with his leg broken, and unable to get up by himself with the arm similarly disabled. He was forced to lean on an improvised crutch, formerly a shovel for cleaning Oxen stalls, by the smell of it.
"So," Ulric began more lighthearted in tone than he felt, "Now what?"
The mage shook his head slowly, visibly dampened in mood compared to the sort of puppyish enthusiasm he'd had when last they'd spoken.
"I do not know,” Slurred the rebel battlemage, eyes swollen almost shut from the beating he’d been given, “This place…We only wanted to be left in peace, we did not so much as bring arms with us. There were mostly just women and children and a few old gaffers who wanted to see their grandchildren live a life free of the Magister's litanies of laws, edicts, shalls, and the corruption of Barons with their hired thugs." Red said sadly.
"I was the only one among these that could field any resemblance of attempt to fight. Little good that it was, they took me and put the elderly to the sword, along with all the grown men, before they razed the settlement." The despondent mage told him.
Ulric hadn't paid the villagers all that much attention before, but, now that he did, he saw that the young plant manipulator was correct. Only adolescent men and boys remained of the male portion of the would be township, and none, man or woman, that could have been considered beyond their prime of life. The fucking butchers had slaughtered anybody that couldn't be brought to market, Ulric realized.
"You know, I once thought that I would be satisfied with the death of the man that ordered my friends hunted, and who made the attempt on my life, using Prespang's people as his tools," Ulric began, voice husky with controlled rage, "But now, I think I will not be finished until I rip this rotted empire apart at its seams."
His anger, and the matter of fact declaration of his intent brought a short laugh from the injured mage.
"Hah! I would have said that you were a loon, had I not just watched you decimate the elite warriors of Kistalfer, including the Sunlight Lance herself. Bethania Termelain was regarded as one of the finest soldiers in the region." the Germain Adept confided, somewhat incredulous.
"My superiors bragged that she would be tapped to serve as one of the Merchant Lord's personal guards within the next few years, an honor granted to only the select of Prespang's forces. They were wrong, she was promoted this very season. How in the Hells did you manage to take her, if you don't mind me asking." the junior battlemage asked, wishing dearly he had not been blindfolded in addition to bound.
Ulric opened his mouth to answer when some measure of the youth's exuberance returned and he chattered, "I mean I watched as best I could through the cloth, but the two of you were moving so swiftly, with sudden explosions of motion, counters and strikes, it was almost more than I could follow."
The reforged man narrowed his eyes at the interrupting youth, waiting for a distinct few extra seconds to be sure the man was done talking.
"Sorry." The young man offered, some of his more familiar sheepishness returning.
Goofy kids, the man far older in his own mind than in actual fact bitched internally.
"As I was saying," Ulric responded, making sure to eyeball the mage just a bit longer for good measure, "My partner and I poisoned the lot of them day before yesterday, in the wee hours with gaseous toxin. They pushed on without rest to take this place, thinking it the source of the assault, for which I guess you have my apologies, even though they were coming regardless. So far as taking little miss Sunshine here, she's only fifth or sixth scariest thing I've fought this year past. If I didn't have to worry about killing the whole lot of you, I'd have just cindered this entire clearing and been home in time to pinch my wife as she bent over a lunch stew kettle."
He was definitely fibbing a little, but he didn't know this former Prosper mage that well and it didn't due to let a maybe one day enemy know you were on your last friggin legs.
"You wield a Ceraunic core, do you not?" Red asked with interest.
It was Ulric's turn to be surprised, few of the people he interacted with made the connection, what with the somewhat wide variety of different elemental forms he typically employed.
"I do. How did you know?" He asked, intensely curious to know more about the root of his Adeptal powers.
The young man scratched his nose, grinning lopsided as he answered, "You threw the spear and it felt like it carried lightning with it all the while it flew, even before you unleashed the bolt. I have met only a scarce handful of practitioners or fully classed warriors that could bind lightning to their attacks. It is notoriously dangerous and challenging to master, few to manage it except for experienced mages. Only the Ceraunic attuned classes really have the kind of control you demonstrated."
Fascinating. So, there were other classes out there that shared some of his inclinations. Shouldn't have been too surprising, he'd met a fairly wide variety of different elementally awakened warriors and mages. None had possessed his particular manaform though. The closest he'd come was those goddamned sheep.
"As much as I'd like to pick your brain about these others, daylight's a burning, and I have people to see to. It seems that you have your own people to take charge of, lad." Ulric addressed the youth, who returned to his somber demeanor, now that he looked at the survivors of the assault.
"I do not know where we will go, Ulric Lord of the Glade." The Mage admitted to him.
After a brief pause and a bewildered look around the burning village, the young man continued, "The wilds are dangerous enough in normal times, and scouts are swearing that this year is one for the ages, they almost refuse to leave the established trails for fear of Greater beasts. Where will we go that is safe? We are marked for traitors now, no city state will take us in, nor will Prosper allow this challenge to their rule to go unanswered, not with the blood of their soldiers upon the ground, justified or no."
Ulric had to stop himself from sighing, having a feeling this was going to, somehow, end up being his problem to solve. There seemed to be a lot of that going around these days. His glade felt awfully far away right now.
"For now, lad, let's just go back to my caravan and see about getting these folk settled. At the very least, there's probably food in the cookpots." the [Lord of the Ancient Glade] offered, compelled by rules of hospitality to offer succor.
The freckled mage managed a brief smile of thanks, despite his beating, before he limped away to gather his charges and herd them towards the Eastern edge of the village. Ulric raised himself from his seat and picked up his prize, who had not yet expired, carrying her like an unusual flag as he left the destroyed village. He made his way to the head of the gathered freemen and began walking to lead the way back towards the waiting Orlethrem, and his no doubt worried wife. He looked forward to showing her the fruits of his labor.