Skybound

Claire Descroix let her eyes rest on the banners in the distance, hanging, wraith-like over the dark and shadowy forms of the mounted troops just passing the crest of the hill. What she saw was an impossibility: no force in the northlands should have been able to come so far so quickly -- and yet, here they were. Despite that, she was not unprepared: no matter the accident of birth, one did not rise to the rank of Maréchal without merit. As they had arrived to begin the siege, Claire had ordered her sappers to set mines on the only bridge crossing the river to the west. Now, as the oncoming force poured over the rise, she was already barking orders.

“Sapper teams to the bridge!” she shouted, not waiting for the approaching messenger to close the distance to her as she rushed down the hill. “The caltrops will slow them down, but don’t underestimate them.” As she approached, she could see the shadowed forms of her infantry, barely lit by mage-light and torch, move into position near their end of the bridge.

“They are slowing,” said one of her lieutenants, whose name she could not recall that had followed her from the scryer’s tent. “They have to be tired after such a long march; they can’t be fresh. We’ll bleed them at the crossing, then retreat and blow the bridge..”

Claire paused, then shook her head tightly. “Something isn’t right.” Her instincts were honed over a decade of raiding campaigns and skirmishes within the borders of the Empire, and they screamed dire warnings in the back of her mind as the new enemy came to a halt. The sound of the drumbeats, low and resonant, halted as well. “Make sure the sappers are in place. They can’t use some new trick against us if they can’t reach us, and we committed too many when the barrier faltered.” 

As much as she wished it weren’t, that was indeed the case. When the magical barrier protecting Expedition had fallen, she hadn’t wasted any time sending troops forward. Unfortunately for her, neither had the city’s defenders wasted any time re-establishing the barrier, and now her soldiers were out of position -- clustered around the southern and western gates, with only a token picket force by the crossing. The timing could not have been worse for the invaders.

“That bitch,” Claire breathed. “This is her doing…”

“Whose doing?” Intended or not, her lieutenant had been standing close, and had overheard.

“The [Oracle], of course. But careful timing won’t help them. We have six Corps, nearly a full Armée.” Claire smiled bloodlessly. “They don’t have enough to meet us on the field in a protracted engagement. They’ll hurt us, but we have the numbers-- and we only need to keep them away from the city itself.”

He opened his mouth to respond, but was cut off by a rumble of thunder so loud that it shook the earth, sending the powdery dusting of snow leaping into the air. In its wake, silence washed across the field for dozens of heartbeats. Claire snapped her gaze back to the head of the distant, waiting column, their outlines blurred even through her monocle. Atop the wagon stood a slender figure with one upraised arm -- an arm that suddenly fell to her side. As if summoned by that motion, thunder rumbled again, and lightning shot through the clouds over the column. In that moment, as the harsh glare cast into sharp relief the maniacally laughing figure at the reins of the lead wagon, she thought she recognized him.

“Blow the bridge!” Her voice broke the silence, somehow tinny and diminished after such a noise. If she had been asked in that moment, she wouldn’t have been able to say why those two figures shook her so, but a lifetime of service had trained her to listen to her instincts. Those instincts told her something was wrong, and her training told her one didn’t commit unrested troops to battle if one had a choice, as the enemy force seemed to be preparing to do. Separated as they were by the river, they could have -- no, should have -- stopped before the hill, to rest and prepare. A headstrong, tactless commander was a possibility, but no general who expected to keep her own hide put stock in her opponent’s stupidity.

Her eyes were drawn back to the wagoneer as another bolt of lightning shot through the clouds. It reflected off the figure’s axe -- a simple woodcutter’s affair -- as he raised it high overhead, and in an instant, recognition crystallized.

She turned and seized the lieutenant by the tunic, dragging him close. “I said blow the bridge! NOW!” The lieutenant, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He turned his head and let out a shrill whistle, and a messenger took off towards the command tents.

“Are we not to wait until they commit to a charge?” he asked, obviously unsettled by her near panic.

“...No. Something isn’t right,” Claire whispered, shaking her head as icy fingers of dread started to work their way through her gut. A nimbus of blue light arose around several of the wagons, casting them in sharp relief. Her gaze was drawn back, as if compelled, to the lead wagon and the familiar figure at its head. The icy fingers transformed into a solid spike as he brought the axe down, pointed straight ahead -- straight at her. She didn’t know how she knew, but the man was looking directly at her.

“...The Hatchetman is with them.”

“No,” her lieutenant whispered. “L’homme á la Hache? They killed him in the last war!”

Claire couldn’t take her eyes off him. “They failed.”

As the next wave of thunder shook the air, she would have sworn she could hear his laughter.

======================================

Stev Aras blinked, lowering the spyglass as another wave of thunder vibrated the stones under his feet, kicking up dust and small pebbles from the shield tower’s observation deck. Mana rolled out in waves from the chamber overhead, the city’s defensive barrier once again whole, and growing stronger now that the enemy bombardment had slackened. He mulled over what news the spyglass brought him as footsteps rose from below.

“I count nearly ten thousand,” he said as Taz and Xerrioth entered the room. “Three hundred wagons with them, and a banner I’ve never seen before.”

Xerrioth frowned, glancing toward the window as though he could see clear to the unknown force. “Those at the temple have been dreaming of what they call the Black Lance for several days now. Is that them--ugh!”

Taz had elbowed him in the ribs, and anyone who didn’t know them would be forgiven for mistaking her affection for aggression. “Since when do you hang out in temples? You certainly haven’t been acting pious and respectful with me all this time!”

“I go there to meditate,” he said. “It’s much quieter than most of the city, especially with all the rocks that have been falling. Everyone forgets a blind man can hear things, and I hear them speak in whispers of this Black Lance, who rides with thunder and darkness.”

“Do they know if he is friend or foe?” Stev raised the spyglass once again, panning across the ridge on the far side of the river. “The Deskren sure don’t seem to like them….they’re scrambling for the bridge, and runes are flashing along the support columns--”

The rumble that cut his words off was different from the thunder that the newcomers had brought. Flashes of angry red light backlit fountains of rubble bursting forth as the supports holding up the bridge suddenly exploded. The bridge itself rose several paces into the air before it began to crack apart and tumble into the rushing, icy waters.

“Enemy of our enemy?” suggested Xerrioth.

“The Deskren really don’t want them on this side of the river, so it really doesn’t matter. No one will be able to make a crossing under fire,” answered Taz, crushing her knuckles together. She was still partially shifted from the fighting after the recent breach, and Stev knew she was only a hair’s breadth away from berserking again. Thankfully for him, her recent dalliance with Xerrioth had proven the gravity mage could deal with her, and Stev would not have to subdue his sister for her own safety.

Harsh blue light suddenly lit up the new players on the field, and the low misting of clouds and snow flurries were suddenly the canvas upon which eerie, eldritch shadows were cast as horses stomped and banners waved. The light intensified, and the tower mage, Varkas, shouted from above.

“That’s mana, and lots of it!” he shouted. “I think they’re attacking the Deskren!” The man’s voice was optimistic -- a bit prematurely so, Stev thought -- as dozens upon dozens of blue orbs launched into the night sky from all along the column. Three heartbeats later, another wave followed, and then another.

“They’re aiming for the Deskren,” Stev corrected, “but they can’t possibly reach them at this range...” His voice trailed off as he eyed the mortars’ flight, watching the first wave start to descend.

“But why waste the mana…?” Varkas muttered, perplexed.

“Because they weren’t aiming for the Deskren,” Stev breathed, realization dawning as the orbs streaked downwards, their payloads unfolding into a fractal pattern that resembled nothing so much as enormous, cerulean snowflakes.

“It was the river...they were aiming for the river…!”

As the first glowing meteor impacted the water, it burst into a dense cloud of ice, creating a rough, jagged-edged disk that spun slowly in the water. The current grabbed the first wave of icebergs, pulling them downstream until the second wave bridged the gap between the first and the near bank. The last wave impacted in a cold, dense spray, and a pall of mist hung over the river. Thunder broke over the ridge; no longer the low rumble, now a harsh, discordant sound that shook the chest. Lightning crackled and danced across hoof and wheel alike…

...and the distant column charged.

===================================

Millie Thatcher took a deep breath, drawing the crisp arctic air into her lungs. It was finally time. She knew she should feel tired, after so many days, so many long days spent marching for endless hours. But playing on the march was a steady thing, an exercise in discipline that left her spending most of her waking hours in a trance as she kept time with what the other troops had come to call the Drum Corps. 

The Battlemaster had halted the column just before the road curved to follow the ridge to descend to the crossing. Millie could finally see the Deskren, after so long marching to face them. She couldn’t put words to the feeling rising within her, but she knew the wait was over. She was a Soldier, and now, at last, she had found her Enemy. All the rest seemed to pale in comparison and fade away as she watched the small figures in the distance scurry about around their trenches and trebuchets, illuminated by torches and mage-lights.

She had more than light. She had lightning, and thunder -- and while they didn’t strictly obey her, they always heeded her call to dance, and accepted the gift of her drumbeats. She could feel them in the air, the tingling as tiny sparks buzzed along her steel gauntlet and arced between her baton and the metal bolts sticking through the side of the wagon as her arm swung out to bring down the next strike. She forced herself to slow down, to hold a steady beat that the lightning strained against in heady anticipation. With every heartbeat came a strike, and soon every heart in the Lance beat in time with her own. Every strike rippled with power, into the air around them and the ground beneath their feet, and through this sea of power, the Battlemaster paced down the column, pausing briefly at every wagon to touch its horses.

Hett trembled with excitement. “He’s bringing them in,” he breathed. “He’s never brought the wagons in before…!”

Millie grinned in reply as she beat her drum, her own anticipation rising to match Hett’s. The mages and otherwise adept among the Lance, having already received their assignments, set to work; the electric-blue glow of charging mana rising up to cast long shadows back from their wagons. The [Thunderstrike Battle-Bard] didn’t spare a backwards glance, eyes intent on the enemy forces as they swung to address the new threat.

But they have no idea, Millie thought as she watched them rush for the bridge, we don’t intend to use the bridge…!

Hett burst into laughter, that cackly sound that seemingly only old men could produce. It swelled into raucous guffaws, then died into silence as he looked down the ridge, across the river, at a group of sharp-dressed Deskren with gold braiding at their shoulders. He leveled his axe at them, gesturing as if they could see, and laughed once more.

The briefing before the morning’s march had been clear, and now she understood their orders. The Icefall mortars, fully charged, launched their spells, and the mages were already charging them up for another volley. As the glowing orbs shot skyward, the Battlemaster returned to the front of the line with lance in hand. He turned, looked back at his Soldiers, and then he spoke.

==============================

Jacob Ward turned his horse, looking back at the men and women who followed him. He suppressed a twinge of guilt as his eyes passed over Corporal Thatcher, her arm halted mid-strike, quivering anxiously, as she sensed his intent. While it was true that the year was longer on Anfealt, he’d eat his boot if she were a day over sixteen in Earth years. The fact that she was by no means the youngest to bear arms, on Anfealt or on Earth, barely consoled him, but to deny her her chosen path now would have been an even more grievous sin, as far as he understood how a person’s class affected them. Hett had even taken him aside one day and warned him that, without a good cause to fight for, Soldier classes almost always turned to bad ones, caught up by this or that bandit group eager to make use of their skillset and take advantage of their need for structure. This he could understand, even if he didn’t like it -- and he had since resolved to make sure Millie never faced such a choice while he was alive.

He shoved such feelings aside for now; he could ill afford to wallow in self-recrimination now. His own skills had grown as he led his ragtag band of refugees across two nations to safety, and had grown still further as the hardest and most capable among them had flocked to his banner. As their skill grew, he felt it as a pressure that drove him forward just as hard as he was pulling them along -- a collective will, a unified urge that was soon to find its truest expression.

He was proud of them -- prouder than they could ever know. Prouder than he could ever show, for to show it would cheapen its value. But on this day, he could give back. Give back a portion of what they gave to him, give back this power and pressure that had built and built over their long march -- give back the expression of his unique Skill, of which he had found no record in all the books and stories that Hett could offer.

[Momentum], it was called. With it, the Lance had pushed harder, marched farther, and gone faster than he had intended. The [Oracle] had warned him of disaster if he didn’t arrive on time, and so he had tarried with King Geremas. They had spoken of his experience with the Lance, and he presumed a sharp-eared Luparan had been close enough to hear, and spread the word.

Ever since, he had heard the Deskrens’ whispers as he sat awake, long into the night: “I chose to be here,” they would say, in voices that trembled on the edge of reverence. The blossoming loyalty they held for their new commander threatened to become fanaticism, and Jacob knew he had a duty to temper that before it mutated into something awesome and terrible. Among his human troops, this sentiment was only barely more restrained.

Thus they had marched, with the pressure from [Momentum] only barely allowing him to check their pace. The feeling had built -- day after day, mile after mile -- until he felt like he had his back up against a door, or a floodgate, with something uncontrollable on the other side, threatening to break through. He’d barely managed sleep for the past week, and none at all the previous night.

He went from wagon to wagon down the column, pausing on his charger long enough to reach down and lay a hand on a mane here, a harness there. With each touch, he felt his horsemanship skills reach out and bring them into the fold, the same collective will by which he directed the lancers. Lord Davin and Lady Jenna moved beside him and gave commands -- he to the Luparans and mixed infantry, she to the mages. Those who were on foot clambered into the wagons -- and when those were full, they clung to the side, to leather loops and rope handles. Terror met anticipation and naked rage, locking tight against each other as they refused to fear what lay ahead.

The Icefall Mortars had fired their last charges as he stopped in front of the column once again, turning to look at his Soldiers. Millie’s thunderous power held itself in abeyance, and the banner, weighted down by broken collars, hung still in the frigid air. He couched his lance, letting it rest against his shoulder.

“I’m not much for speeches,” he said. “You’ll get enough of those from the nobles and their ilk.” He shook his head, ignoring the detonation that punctuated his sentence with an explosion of magic and stone. He threw his arm behind him, gesturing at the field that awaited them. “Our enemy is waiting! They outnumber us ten to one, but that doesn’t matter!” His voice rose, from a conversational pitch to a shout. “They are here against their will! But you... You chose to be here!” he roared, lifting his lance to the sky. “We ride!”

With that, he wheeled and plunged down the ridge, with hell’s own fury on his heels.

======================

Claire Descroix looked on in horror as the glowing orbs of light fell like shooting stars -- not on her troops, but on the river itself. The bridge had proven irrelevant, and all she had accomplished was to pull her troops even more desperately out of position. The ridge over which the riders poured was steep, far too steep for anyone sane to attempt -- and yet, they came.

Over the ridgeline came that monstrous stallion and his rider, as thunder shattered the night and lightning surged with every hoofstrike. The magical blasts slammed into the river, dull booming thuds that echoed with glacial rumbles in counterpoint to the thunder of drums and hooves. As the mortars fell upon the water, steam and ice and vapors billowed into thick clouds that obscured everything but flashes and shadow under the glare of the spells falling one by one. The charging horses and wagons plunged into that mist, and Claire thought she could hear screaming in the spaces between lightning and thunder.

She turned on her heels, dashing for the nearest siege engine. The trebuchets were merely wood, and could be reclaimed and rebuilt -- but her siege engines were works of enchantment and steel and blood, and their loss would be dear. “Shield walls on line!” she screamed, using her baton to scorch a ring around the spelltower. “Protect the towers! To me! Rally!”

Imperial infantry rushed in, but they were only her light infantry -- mostly human, with some Ma’akan units. She had committed her entire corps of heavy troops when the city’s barrier had broken, and they were still out of position. Most had shifted to battle lines closer to the destroyed bridge, and she didn’t have as many as she would have liked in position to defend the engines, but it would have to be enough.

Her own armor hummed, rippling with magic as she activated enchantments she rarely had cause to use. Her armor -- leggings, mail hauberk, chain skirt, and the half-plate she wore atop it -- started to weigh less heavily upon her, and it grew stronger as she pumped mana into it.

She took her baton and twisted it, extending it into a full-sized quarterstaff. As she planted its butt in the dirt, it pulsed, feeding a spell into the equipment of the troops around her, causing it to take a pale reddish hue. One of the crystals set into the bracelets she wore flickered and went dark, as its stored mana was depleted to fuel the spellwork.

As she finished her spell, she twisted the staff again and split it into twin rods. She took a defensive stance before the tower, watching the veiling mists with grim anticipation.

“Any second now…”

The ground began to shake even harder.

===========================

Stev Aras rested a hand on the stone windowsill, bracing himself against the thunder. It had, impossibly, grown even more intense, and even at two leagues, the ground shook hard enough to rattle every wall in the city. He watched, transfixed, as horses and wagons sluiced down the ridge, to disappear into the mists below.

“Madness!” he gasped.

Xerrioth stumbled as another wave of thunder rolled by, before dancing on the balls of his feet. “The thunder’s in the earth!”

“I can feel it too,” growled Taz.

The two of them faded into the background as Stev watched the field, slow understanding coming to him. “The trebuchets...the towers….they’re going to rake straight down most of the Deskren line…!”

Less than a heartbeat after the final orb hit the water, an awesome figure burst out of the mist and snow. A massive rider atop an even more massive horse; as the hooves struck, the earth flattened and lightning stretched like taffy from its legs, trailing behind the steel shoes until they met the earth once more with another burst of power.

Somehow, impossibly, the dread rider held steady a lance that was easily twice and a half his mount’s length. Where blue lightning wreathed his horse’s limbs, his weapon was sheathed in a kind of shimmering darkness that promised terrible power and almost hurt Stev’s eyes to look at. The black lightning seemed to writhe along the shaft, mingling and dancing with the blue lightning and washing over the armor of man and beast alike.

And where he rode, the storm followed.

========================

Private Dheigrar had been born clanless in a Deskren kennel, to a mother who had never had a name and from whom he had been taken before his eyes had even opened. Thrown to the testing pits almost before he could walk, his sheer ferocity had earned him a name and conscription into the Gendarmerie. He had since served under several different commanders under the Deskren lash, and while not all of them had been malicious and few had been incompetent, none had ever given the Collared a choice. Disobedience was death, as certain as the passing of seasons and the coming of the Dead Sands. The only thing nearly as certain to be a death sentence was failure, and being captured always ended with the collars of the unfortunate being activated by the overseers to exact that last punishment.

He was now sworn to one who had been an enemy, after failing to defeat said enemy. It was both a failure and disobedience, and the skin of his neck where the fur would never grow itched when he thought too much about it. The Battlemaster had eliminated the Overseers too quickly for them to use the Leashes, and the freedom that followed had been as frightening as it was exhilarating.

All Dheigrar knew was marching to fight, and fighting until he marched again. The Gendarmes were pitted against the strongest of foes, and the Luparan were their  light skirmishers. Yet, for all that he had once considered himself elite, even if only among slaves…

...the Battlemaster had proven that he and his brethren could be something more. They no longer stood in formed ranks; their new commander had let them split into smaller groups as their pack instincts returned without a Deskren lash to smother them. Small, fast, and faster still: the new ‘squads,’ as he had called them, could run down a horse at the gallop over a short distance, or harry them for even longer. The training the human had set them to had been strenuous, but satisfying, in a way only the scent memory of his mother’s fur had been when he was a pup. Stalking, tracking, hunting, and then the joy of the kill. Attacks in training used blunted or wooden weapons, of course, but the Duke merely raised an eyebrow when the Lancers complained of bruises.

“Did you think we are only training them?” he had asked the mounted Sergeant. “They are learning how to chase down and take on mounted units. You are learning how to avoid or fight Luparan pack-squads. And, Sergeant?” he had said, letting his charger prance closer. “They are learning faster than you and your men. I suggest you try harder.”

The training had indeed become more difficult as they marched, but Dheigrar did not care. He moved as one with his squad, executed his commander’s orders to the best of his increasing ability... and never once did he regret making his Choice: the first choice he had ever been given.

At least, not until this moment. The thunder crashed from the sky and the ground, answering the call of the Battle-Bard’s drum. The volume was many times greater than it had ever been on the march, even louder and more terrifying than it had been to charge into on the day of thunder and mud when he had been given his freedom. He could have endured the thunder, and even the lightning. 

But he could not contain his terror as he held onto the side of a wagon, desperately gripping a braided leather strap fastened to a riveted iron ring, with his feet braced on a wooden strut running along the outside of the wagon bed. The wagon raced forward, the drum beat the storm into submission, the horses screamed as the wagon plunged over the ridge, and Dheigrar…

Dheigrar howled as if all the demons of every hell he’d ever heard of were nipping at his tail.

============================

Calvin Descroix heard the wolf-men begin to howl, a mad cacophony that blended with the thunder of drums and crash of lightning. He had one arm looped under the back of the wagon’s bench, having long since crouched as low as he could on the wide drovers’ seat as the wagoneer screeched and yanked on the reins to no avail. The Battlemaster had the horses now, and no whip nor halter would stop them from running as he willed. One arm clung to the wagon while his feet braced up under the board in front of the seat, another held a crossbow at the ready. A half dozen soldiers were similarly armed and sat secured in the bed of the wagon to look out to either side.

The race down the ridge had given Calvin a fright, but the sharp upturn and the lurch that dropped his belly down to his ankles had been even more terrifying. The horses screamed, the wolves howled, and Calvin held on for dear life, wishing he was in the back of the wagon where he couldn’t see where they were going. The column raced away from the slope and didn’t turn at the water. The Icefall blasts continued to fall, and they charged under that eerie light with mist and the sound of rushing water and crashing ice on either side.

As suddenly as they had plunged down the ridge, they were across the river and charging up the opposite bank. He thought, for a brief moment, that the wagon might shake itself apart. The night was dark, but lit in steady flashes of lightning, like flipping through pages in a sketchbook by harsh candlelight -- and each burst burned into his eyes in time with the screams of the horses and wolfmen. They charged over the first hill onto the enemy camp, and as they passed, Calvin saw the familiar battle lines of trenches, trebuchets, and infantry, but instead of stopping the charge, all it did was give the Battlemaster a road to follow.

A road filled with targets.

The first trebuchet in his way, and the few soldiers guarding it, practically exploded as he drove his lance into them. Wood splinters and chunks of timber flew away from the impact, and fountains of blood from the doomed soldiers froze in mid-air as they met the winter-driven storm. What was left by the time Calvin’s wagon passed was a nearly unidentifiable paste, driven into and mixed with the mud and blood as the convoy passed.

Ahead, in the distance, Calvin could see a familiar red hue surrounding the armor and shields of several hundred infantry. He knew his sister was there by her signature mana and the pulsing light that bolstered her troops. Another trebuchet vanished in a hellacious impact, the pieces not trampled under hoof falling to either side of the charging forces as the red light grew more intense. He knew his sister, and knew her armor, better than almost anyone. The Lancers closed with the angry glow of her magic, and Calvin hoped the Battlemaster’s power would be enough…

============================

Claire Descroix watched the first trebuchet explode into kindling, and the soldiers near it get crushed into mist and paste. Surely they’ll start slowing down, she thought. Her heart fell as a second trebuchet suffered the same fate as the first, shattered timbers and broken bodies flying through the air. Power and shadow wreathed the lead Lancer’s weapon, lashing out in sinuous tendrils to almost caress the riders to either side, and the steel of those who followed. They didn’t seem to be slowing at all; impossibly, they seemed to be going faster!

With resolve bordering on desperation, she burned through three more [Bloodshard Crystals] on her bracelet, leaving just two in reserve. Her magic rolled out from her in waves, further bolstering the soldiers around her as she stepped back and knelt to drive the two pieces of her scepter into the ground. “Shielding!” she shouted to the defenders before the spelltower. They straightened, drawing strength from the dual gifts of lifeblood and mana. Two more trebuchets suffered the same fate as the first two, the onrushing force barreling straight for her. The air thickened with power as she burned through yet one more shard. “We hold here!” she snapped to her men. “We stop them here!” We have to stop them here, she added desperately. She took a breath, braced her body and magic, and hoped it would be enough. 

It wouldn’t be.

=====================================

Stev Aras watched the charging riders, followed by the wagons and more lancers to either side. They moved as if one single-minded entity, and first one, then two, then three and four enemy siege engines were destroyed, and troops by the dozens trampled under that grim inevitability. They simply rode along the Deskren’s back line, behind their forward pickets and trenches and defenses. Anything that could have stopped them was simply facing the wrong way, pointed towards the fortress city.

The Deskren had built a lot of trebuchets -- the local forest had been nearly entirely cleared of timber for construction and firewood. Now, that siege equipment was being systematically reduced to matchsticks -- and the men and women around them fared no better. The spelltowers were sturdier, and the attackers had shipped them up the river from some foothold they must hold in the southeast, or -- Oracle forbid -- Kosala. Reeking of blood magic and sacrifice, their destructive power was useless against the barrier, but had been devastating once part of that defense had failed. If not for the dwarven-made and fortified outer stone wall, they might have managed to destroy the damaged warding tower before the defenders could bring it back up.

Stev could see the Deskren commander on the field, her familiar reddish spell-light growing to envelop nearly a hundred soldiers in formation before her and the spelltower. Magic pulsed, angry and powerful to anyone with enough sensitivity, and he could see the enemy troops stiffen and stand straighter, backed up by magical power and the confidence it brought. Unlike when he had seen Taz and Xerrioth close with the woman, there was no chain lightning, not against a foe who made lightning dance to a drum. Instead, the magic traced patterns along the Deskren armor and equipment, outlining them in harsh red and gold.

Stev’s knuckles turned white as he gripped the edge of the stone window in front of him, but he didn’t notice. The black lancers closed with the enemy commander…

===============================

Millie Thatcher had not regretted giving up her voice for a single moment since taking her class, but if she could still speak, in this moment she would have laughed or screamed. The thunder beat with her heart and her drum, and the lightning danced in her bones. It was a savage glee, and since she had no voice to give it, she gave it a beat and let it ride. She could see the red light ahead, and a woman behind several rows of shield-locked soldiers. She couldn’t tell at this distance whether they were Hoplites or Gendarmes, and Millie didn’t care either way. She felt, in this moment, that they could not, would not, be stopped or turned -- not with a month’s worth of storm and fury stacked up behind every beat of her drum, every step of foot or hoof, and every turn of a wagon wheel.

The Black Lance may have been born on the day of thunder and mud, but today was the day of thunder and snow. Today, they would claim their name in truth. The Battlemaster had explained to the Lancers, the riders who trained for that role to the exclusion of all others He had explained, and she had heard from her seat on the wagon. “A lance moves forward,” he had said to them. “Into the enemy, and through.”

And so they did, over interminable weeks of marching, training, practice -- and while it had felt meaningful, it hadn’t been their purpose; merely preparation for it. Now, that purpose was before them, and they would not be denied. Forward, into, and through. Now, as if gravity had swung ninety degrees, the Black Lance fell towards their foes, and Millie gave them thunder as a battlecry. She grinned at the rooster, who was struggling to maintain its balance on the backboard of Hett’s seat. Some things needed no words, and even though the Gods had been silent since well before she was born, that didn’t mean they were powerless. After all, one had granted her an Aspect, and she would be a fool to deny what was before her own eyes after that.

The Battlemaster, at the tip of the spear that was the Black Lance and those that followed, smashed through yet another trebuchet and closed with the phalanx of shields and spears in front of the angry red-glowing mage in front of a savage and strange-looking tower of blood-stained iron.

Black Lance met red shields, and time seemed to slow between one heartbeat and the next.

Millie could see the Battlemaster lean further into the charge, his arm up and lance moving forward.

The lance met the magic.

The rooster crowed.

And Millie struck her drum with all her might.

=================================

Claire Descroix had a momentary flash of hope where she almost believed they could at least turn the enemy charge enough to save the tower. The lead rider struck the shield wall, and black lightning flared against pale red magic. Impossibly, the rider and his wagon train ground to a halt, the soldiers’ feet digging furrows in the earth as they held the line.

Then, a rooster crowed. Lightning surged under the horses and up into their riders’ lances, and the spell audibly shattered as a deafening crack of thunder split the night air and drove Claire to her knees. The loss of her hearing was a blessing in disguise, as it meant she was spared listening to the screams of her men as they were trampled under hoof as the riders surged forward. Grimly, she noted that despite the staggering toll, her forces had managed to take down some of the enemy riders.

Not that fearsome leader, however, nor his terrifying horse. She looked up through bloodshot eyes, trying to stand, to fight. To her credit, she almost made it back to her feet when he rode her down. She twisted, and the lance scraped past her breastplate -- but then caught on the buckle of one of her pauldrons, lifting her bodily into the air with a horrendous wrench.

Her vision spun, her world nothing but thunder and lightning and pain. Almost effortlessly, it seemed, the rider lifted his lance -- and her along with it -- as they slammed into the iron-wrought tower. She couldn’t hear herself, but she might have screamed when the tip of his lance punched straight through enchantments that would have beggared kingdoms, piercing through her body to pin her to the tower. For one brief moment more, she thought he might finally be turned from his cataclysmic charge.

It was not to be, however. His lance shattered with a sound like a thunderclap, and the shadows surrounding him and his men deepened as the stallion simply crashed into the tower next to her without slowing. The spelled iron couldn’t withstand the force, and it crumpled like paper to the groans and shrieks of tortured metal. All that Claire saw as her last defense activated and the amulet under her armor wrapped her in blessed oblivion was several tons of iron, and wood, and a screaming mage falling towards her.

And then blackness.

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Stev Aras stood in awe. The riders crossed another half a league, shattering dozens of trebuchets and siegeworks, trampling tents and troops alike while thunder hammered the earth and sky amidst a backdrop of screams and howls. A more terrifying sight and sound he had never witnessed, and hoped never to again. He could see, though, after the second spelltower fell, that the lancers were finally beginning to slow. They turned slightly, almost carried over the bank on the far side of the south road by their own inertia, and he could see that they were heading for the south gate to the city.

“They’re headed for the south gate, but it would take an hour or more to open it!” he exclaimed.

“They don’t have the numbers to hold outside the walls for that long,” growled Taz, eyes burning as she watched the continuing spectacle of rampant violence and destruction. “The Deskren will regroup, and they’ll be crushed against the walls. Xer, can you open the gate?”

The mage considered. “I can...but it probably won’t work afterwards,” he replied grimly, looking at Stev. “We don’t have much time,” he warned. “They’re coming, and they won’t stop.”

“Hang it all, just get that gate open!” snapped Stev. “Do what you must, and we’ll fix it later. We can’t let them be pinned out there!”

Xerrioth nodded, stepping to the window with a gentle wave of mana swirling around him. “Don’t worry about the damages?” he said, as he turned his back and began to fall through the gap. “I’ll hold you to that!”

His strange magic surged suddenly as he pushed off the window with his feet. Stone shook and dust billowed from the ground and the roofs of the nearby buildings. The gravity mage launched himself across the city, and Stev could only hope he would arrive in time.