The Power Of Ten: Sama Rantha 134 Chapter One Hundred And Thirty-Four – Warlord Briggs

The survivors spread all over the place, naturally some finding other warbands, or converged onto the great siege of Ironheim. News spread quickly.

The besieging force was immediately caught in a quandary. They were clearly making headway against these Rockborn, tenacious as they might be, but multiple forces spread all over the place were encircling them, and their lines of reinforcements had been cut off. Further reports indicated that every warband gathering to them was being intercepted, one by one, and dealt with.

They had the choice of being the nut caught between a hammer and an anvil, or charging out and winning glory and freedom by their own strength, before their enemies united.

Naturally they sought glory, and the siege ended as the champions of the Warp slaughtered enough of one another to divide up their forces equitably, and fell upon the armies surrounding them before such could link up. The dwarves of Ironholme cheered to see them go, sallying to clean up the scavengers and demons left behind, like an infestation to be cleansed, and to mourn their dead, and their lost king.

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"For now, we hold here."

Briggs' deep voice carried to every person there, the holo that Maga Skycloud put up was clearly visible to those not Marked... which, in this force, were quite few.

His fighting force was eclectic and mixed, with human heavy cavalry, hyn stealth units, elven light infantry and caster, Rangers and Borderguard archers, Dwarven spears and bolt-throwers, and even all the Ancients of his tribe, pulling at new scaled mail wrought from Cleansed dragonhide.

"The rest of the armies of the Northguard Alliance are busy fighting the siegers of Ironholme as they scurry across the lands. They'll be here within three days, but in those three days, we will have at least three incoming warbands of our own to fight.

"n.o.body is here who does not want to be here. Here are your preliminary a.s.signments, as we deal with the Warp Mutants in the first band." Unit a.s.signments were visible to everyone on where to place themselves for the fight to come. The enemy was still an hour away, but those in forward positions immediately stood up and left, knowing they had to get into position early and lure the Warped into the rest of the army.

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The Warped were growing more cautious, as the tales of the few survivors came back to them. Naturally, they disregarded on the tales of their enemy's fighting prowess as overblown complaints from the weak, focusing on their magic and shameless tactics and ambushes, and the like.

There were a lot of scouts sent out to find the watchers that seemed to be everywhere, d.o.g.g.i.ng their moves and leading their enemies in. Eventually, they stumbled across some, and savage combat swirled between the trees. Ropes choked, tripped, and triggered traps of logs, spikes, and branches, cunning nets collapsed or drew up, and beastmen died in new and interesting ways as the scouts had fun with them.

The fliers of the main force soon located them, riders of giant bats who soon found themselves with a certain crown of wild griffons not at all happy with their presence. The griffons ravaged the packs of bats and dirge of harpies accompanying the force. Driving them off was only temporary, as the griffons were very proud and very incensed at the intrusion. The head shaman tried to bind one's will, to use as a mount or slave, but the griffons were wary of his magic, and it failed utterly.

Unfortunately, to do so, he had to reveal his position, and ten Arrows guided by True Seeking, boosted with Bane to the Warped and a bit of Holy power, found unerring homes in his chest, killing him from more then two hundred yards away in one conjoined strike. The Warped had to be wary of elven archery for a d.a.m.n good reason!

The harpies immediately tried to attack the snipers, but that meant they had to get in among the trees, and the elves punished them mercilessly for it. They straggled out with less then half their numbers remaining, none of whom included any who had actually dived on the elves to fight them. A great deal of rainbow voltage had done for all of those...

Briggs watched the fight from afar with the rest, pieces moving in place here and there, the appearance of scouts teasing this troop forward, but they hesitated on entering the trees. When the dwarven soldiers popped out of their little holes in the ground and hacked the shocked horned mutates down in close quarters, they were unpleasantly surprised.

The dwarves retreated into the trees, and the slavering dire wolves of the army were unleashed after them. That wasn't too bright, as the dwarves were merely running to get their spears, and when the mutated lupines reached them, all they found were some very nasty spears lunging for their throats and sides, in the hands of Rockborn who simply weren't going to be moved by then. When the retreating elves caught up and showered them with merciless arrow fire from the side, they could only howl and retreat, sniped down before both elves and dwarves withdrew at a comfortable trot.

The beastmen who ran in after them found more traps waiting for them, and quiet knives taking them down in moments of confusion. The hyn were like smoke, and in face of the irritating losses, the Warped could only proceed slowly and let their opponents get away.

If they knew that behind one nasty wall of thorns two hundred heavy cavalry were waiting and listening as they trooped by, they might have been quite annoyed. The Knights of the Golden Hart were eager, but patient. They had more fights to win then just the one today, so casualties had to be minimized if at all possible, and the slaughtering needed to be as lopsided as possible.

They were quite pleased when they saw the a.s.sembled forces up ahead, and pressed forwards eagerly, ready for some bloodshed.

Briggs was serving as Warlord. Estemar was with the cavalry reserves, holding a lance and looking to smite. Briggs didn't have dual mind tracks like Sama, so he couldn't fight and Warlord at the same level, and opted to just stand there next to the Chanter who was pounding out an empowering rhythm on his drums, while Endure sat under his hands, beating in time.

With Courageous.

He'd advanced Endure up to +Vier Slots, enough for Bane, Enmity, and Soulbound. +3 wasn't as good a boost as Tremble, but the Chanter was a Bard, and his TH/Dmg boost was +2, giving him a higher base. In addition, hundreds of Rockborn were chanting along to the tempo, drawing everyone else in with the solemn reverence of their voices, the calls to their watching ancestors giving everyone the feeling that limitless numbers of ancient dwarves were looking down from the vaults of the afterlife, beholding what their descendants were doing.

It was really impressive being under all those weighing eyes in the Marks.p.a.ce. Hearts beat with the drum of the Chanter as the tide of Warped beastmen came sweeping in.

He feinted with the elven stag-riders, drawing over the centaurs. His eyes fixed on the ma.s.sive horned cyclops (cyclotaur? minoclops? whatever) and its enruned rock, a mobile siege engine that could definitely be a show-stopper.

Nine dwarven bolt-throwers of the new design came up. They were based on the compound wheel designs of the autobow, arranged in the familiar x-fas.h.i.+on of the dwarven style, and all the ammunition treated to be Bane and Holy. They were also floating on Disks, and so much, much easier to move around. The wagons that had formerly hauled them were now being used to store ammunition for them and the Autobowmen now backing up the Ancients.

Nine elves stepped forward and laid hands on the shoulders of the dwarven gunners. Eyes lit up, minute adjustments were made, and nine heavy spear-sized bolts went screaming out, burning with blackened polycolored Banefire.

True Seeking was, after all, just a Valence I spell.

The cyclops could see them coming, but couldn't do anything about it. Its thick hide was no defense against the ma.s.sive power of the bolts, whose accuracy were pinpoint, none of them missing.

45d6+18d6 Banefire +18d6 Holy +36 or so.

The last bolt caught it square in the throat, drove through its twisted spine. Its Runerock thudded heavily to the ground, and Briggs' forces didn't have to worry about a living siege engine.

The archers opened up, and became a dark rain from h.e.l.l as their shots smashed into the Warped. Sure, they had thick hides, but they generally only wore hide or leather armor, only the most intelligent actually deigning to wear heavily modified armor. The Warped had never been under arrow fire that accurate and murderous, and were losing dozens every second, even with the s.h.i.+elds they were using to try and protect themselves.

The bolt-throwers, of course, didn't really care, and tore holes in their lines with impunity, impaling them haplessly.

The centaurs swept through a gap in the flanks as they ignored the stag riders and raced forward to get at the archers. The dwarves who had s.h.i.+fted over to meet the charge of some of the Warped beastmen couldn't pull back in time to protect them.

But, the pits they had thoughtfully dug out were right in place.

The centaurs crashed through the illusions covering the pits, and were both impaled on the stakes on the bottom, and crushed by those of their own charging madly after them, spears out to reap the lives of the lightly armored Borderguard and finding themselves dying by surprise.

The stag riders pouring in behind were not out of position at all to take advantage of their panicked milling and crush, while the archers on that side turned and fired point-blank into the ma.s.s of furred bodies remorselessly.

Briggs' waiting tribesmen crashed into them with brutal force, and they weren't long for the world against Ancients used to fighting ogres, trolls, and Jotuns. The pits were put to good use.

The harpies came swooping in onto the Rangers, but neighboring elves cast a joint Web spell that covered twice the normal area, completely fouling their wings and sending them cras.h.i.+ng from the air. There was a slight interruption in the covering fire as hyn swords disposed of the broken bird-witches, and then the longbows of the Rangers got back to work.

The dwarves were more then happy to take the initial charge of the minotaurs, the largest and most aggressive of the Tauren, their longspears forming a three and four deep line of steel that absolutely punished the ma.s.sive beastmen trying to get through them. As they hacked with long axes at the thistle-hedge of spears, General Moonriver dropped his illusion once again, and the Knights of the Golden Hart slammed into the back of the Warped line, centered on the minotaurs.

They bellowed in pain as they were impaled, and then shoved onto the waiting dwarven longspears. General Moonriver actually stood up on his horse to deliver two bolts of thunderous, snarling blue-white lightning down the lines, tearing through the infantry units held in place by the rock-hard dwarven spears, and wreaking havoc on them. The elven infantry flowed through the spears, their swords sparking and flas.h.i.+ng with multi-colored lightning, and tore through the stunned survivors.

Estemar's cavalry reserves swept around the flank and collapsed it, while the Rockborn advanced on the heels of the elves, finis.h.i.+ng anything that fell and giving them a perfect wall to retreat to if wounded or things went bad.

The stag cavalry of the elves had swung around and pulled out their bows, now busily engaged in riding down or shooting anything that was running away. The knights wheeled about and retreated, lining up for another charge as the Warped reeled.

Sixteen Burning Rays converged and burned the brawny commander down to ash in an instant as he tried to gather and lead the survivors away, hastening the rout that was about to happen. The survivors hurried for the big gap between the knights and the cavalry reserves, and only realized how bad an idea that was when the two forces gathered up, leveled lances and rode them down, the explosive charge sending mutants flying in every direction as they were sandwiched between the cavalry.

The first of their three days of fighting was largely over. The minotaurs were largely cleaned up by the hammering shafts of the bolt-throwers, what few were left after that rear charge by the heavy cavalry.

Briggs looked it all over, contemplating that he'd used less then half of the elven spell power he had available, and simply nodded. Casualties were light, more accidental then anything, and the healers were on the job. Except for maiming, every single wounded person would be restored to full for the fight coming tomorrow.