Repel the Invaders

OOC: I'm confused. My actions will depend on the following.

I) I thought the commander was without a helmet, and I was ready to shoot her. IF this is so, I'll shoot her as soon she turns raises both her arms to put the helmet on. My squad does the same.

II) But if the helmet thing didn't happen and is a fiction of my mind : would it be possible for me to challenge her to a single duel? IF this is possible, then this is my PC's action. It would have to happen in the middle of your story, though:

IC:

Before you proceed, noble commander, listen to what I have to say. Death indeed does not matter - for warriors like us, only honor is important. I am an archer of the Silvermist, I am a man, and I'm wounded [points to a stain of someone else's blood in his coat]. Even so, I challenge you to a single duel, just like both of our ancestors used to do. If you win, I will withdraw my rangers until the morning. If I win, you will withdraw your guard for the same amount of time.

The challenge is given. As honrable and brave as you are, I am sure you will accept it. Or are you afraid of an archer - above all, a male archer? Just imagine what your troops would think of you?

Theo's strategy was risky. This time he could really die. But swords are his specialty, far more than bows and arrows, and his confidence was still high. It was simple: he wins, she dies. If he loses, his squad, previously instructed to do so, would use the opportunity to shoot her by surprise, and then she dies. She dies either way. The only problem is whether he would remain alive...

OOC: She looks dumb, I hope she buys it.

With anxiety Iskar watched the Veccavi regroup. Such a behemoth cannot be beaten by arrows and swords, he thought. Then he had an idea and the worried expression on his face gave way to a grim smile.

Cairngrove, take some men and bring the equipment carriage from our camp as well as all poles and cloth from our tents over here.

Addressing another squad commander he said:

You there, run to the rear end of the cliff and tell the three squads there to come here immediately and bring the oil and cloth they use for their fire arrows.

Quick now!

In short everything was brought to their position on top of the cliff.

Marcus thought. Clutching his side, he thought hard. He thought of the situation - there were only a few chances. Perhaps we could trap them on the beach. Yes, this is the best option... Silvermists and Eventide auxiliaries protecting our flanks, the mountains, while we hold the main road along with Eventides...

CATULLUS -He saw the bending corpse of Catullus on the cliff Oh SHIT! Lucius Valerius i want you to bring this letter to the silvermists, NOW! And keep your head low, be aware of the enemy!

Lucius Valerius departed immediateloy, running with his head low all the way up the hill to the southern Silvermist encampment.

He saw the ranger commander, and quickly ran up to him, breathing hard but speaking after every breath:
I... bring.. a ..message from.. Marcus Caldius... commander of Shadow Legion..

He used a few seconds to catch his breath, and then continued with more stability in his voice:

He has a plan. If we can trap them on the beach now and keep them there, they have no chance to break out. The lineout is following: while you Silvermists and the Eventide auxilia holds the flanks of the main road, also protecting it's rear and side, the Shadow Legion lines up to protect the main road from a direct assault. Be adviced, loosen your sheaths and go and take supply. You have to inflict as many casualties as you can. Every arrow must hit. Have them hit two or three enemies at a time, slaughter as many as you can and with any ways you can find. But - now is the real deal.

Lucius took a deep breath, and continued:

The Legion have some oil in it's encampments. Our men are already there to pick them up and to quickly oil that field just in front of the Legion. Then, set it afire and watch the enemies burn!

Lucius Valerius Poplicola, the brave legionnaire, gave a military greeting and stood awaiting the answer.


OOC: Take that, hope it messes everything up no not really. Hope you like that, Diablo you can do whatever you want with the oil btw.

Excellent, Iskar said, but you will have to get some of the auxilia to deal with the oil. We need every archer here we have. But ... a thought crossing his mind ... bring two of the oil barrels up here.

I will put them to good use, he added grimly smiling.

He then wrote a short message and sealed it. Handing it to his messenger he said:

Go and take this message to Caranthir, and fast!

OOC: Nice. If my duel indeed happens, I think I can stall them long enough for you to do everything you need.

OOC: nice thinking

With a smile Iskar replied:

Thank you, Lucius, we very much appreciate this. There will be plenty of time for friendly words afterwards, but now let us see what stuff the Veccavi are made of.

You over there, rush to the Legion's camp and get those two barrels of oil. Hurry!

Well, we have that indeed, but I have another task for you. Come over here and let me explain the plan to you.

Iskar whispered something into his ear while pointing to the empty carriage, the poles and the cloth.

Very well, you do that so that I can command the main archer line. This squad here is at your command.

The five rangers started working according to Lucius' orders while the rest formed up at the edge of the cliff, kneeling down to avoid being easy targets and awaiting further commands.

[OOC: I will take control of him for some time, if you don't mind, Marcus.]

At the Northern Silvermist camp, Caranthir received the message from Iskar.

"You three squads! Disassemble our supply carriages and tents! You! Gather the barrels of oil we left with the squads towards the sea! The rest of you, target those pathetic excuses for marksmen!"

He then began to draw some plans on a piece of paper as the rangers followed his orders.


'If this works, it should provide for a very exciting end to this battle,'Caranthir thought to himself.

OOC: I think Azlanek is online around this time, so not a long wait..


Marcus sat on a large rock on the left side of the Legion's phalanx, thinking again, now clutching his breast.

Centurion Scaeva... take fifteen horsemen and go tell the Eventide auxiliaries to assemble in two groups and support the silvermists.

At once, sir...

The Centurion organized fifteen horsemen and strode away, now leaving 277 elite legionaries on the wide phalanx.

While the Veccavi had reorganised their scattered and battered troops and had been hesitating where to attack the Silvermist rangers had finished their preparations.
Lucius Valerius stepped up to Iskar.

Everything ready and in place, he reported.

The five rangers under Lucius' command had emptied the carriage and fastened several long flexible poles at one end. At the top the poles were connected by some planks that formed a scoop to hold a projectile. The cloth had been drenched in oil and the remaining poles had been broken into sharp-ended pieces and tied to big stones with the help of the cloth. The construction was roughly to be called a catapult, but it would only be able to hurl the projectiles a few hundred feet far and it did not allow any aiming.
They pushed the makeshift catapult further towards the edge of the cliff behind the line of rangers and put more big stones on the carriage to prevent it from bouncing off the cliff when shooting.
Lucius had prepared some oil soaked ropes as fuses and had already examined how fast they burned down.
In this moment Theo of Janos and some more rangers arrived at the cliff top bringing with them two more barrels of oil.
Iskar looked around, obviously content with what he saw.

Ready for the test shot!, he commanded.

One of the cloth projectiles was put onto the catapult.

Ignite! A ranger put the oil soaked cloth on fire.

Fire! The catapult gave a loud creaking noise and hurled the burning projectile down at the Veccavi.

On impact it killed some Krom guards, but did not cause any major damage or confusion, but it had served it's purpose well, as Iskar had counted the seconds the flight lasted. He could not hope to tell the exact time the next projectile would need to reach the ground, so he had to be content with a rough estimate.

Eleven seconds, Lucius! he said finally.

Lucius immediately cut the fuses to the appropriate length according to his measurements how long they burned and the fuses were attached to the two oil barrels.

Now let us bid these Veccavi the warmest greeting Pendor can offer! Iskar said.

Reload! Two rangers put the barrel on the catapult.

Ignite! The fuse was lighted.

Fire! With another loud creak the catapult went off. The barrel flew through the air and with a loud cracking sound burst into flames some seconds before crushing into the ranks of Veccavi infantry. The Veccavi nearby were knocked over and burning oil spread in a large radius.

Fire free! Iskar yelled. The catapult crew quickly loaded the second barrel and fired it at the Veccavi. Then they continued firing the burning cloth projectiles.

Iskar took his place in the archer line at the edge of the cliff and raised his voice.

Rangers! Now we will teach these Veccavi a lesson in equality! Show them that men and women die the same way in Pendor! Fire!

With these words spoken the rangers started raining down hell on the Veccavi.

Sir Jugas had been grimly watching the enemy's advance when the unexpected bombardment from the Silvermist Rangers began. Although he just had about thirty riders left, he issued the order to signal Marcus their readiness to attack. He looked up to the cliffs, asking himself what the archers had come up with, when a second projectile bolted down from the Silvermist's position, too fast though for Jukas to determine its exact nature. This time however, it did not simply smash into the Veccavi ranks, but exploded with a deafening bang shortly before hitting the ground. The sudden noise frightened their horses. Most just nervously moved on the spot, restrained by their seasoned riders, but the mount of one of the youngest squires reared and he had to struggle for a moment to stay in the saddle.

''Holy mother of justice!'' exclaimed Jugas, baffled as he calmed his own horse. ''What was that?''

''A change in tactics, I suppose,'' answered Relatrion without any humour, looking up towards the Silvermist's position.

''A change in tactics!? I did not even know we had any siege engines.''

''Indeed. We do...did not.''

Jugas shook his head. All of a sudden he began to laugh.

''Well, we do know apparently! It seems, my dear brother, that the Silvermists are always good for a surprise.''

Relation had no choice but to agree. ''Amen to that, brother. Amen to that.''

At the southern Silvermist position, forty men belonging to the Eventide auxiliaries arrived, led by a mounted squire. Under the guidance of the young noble, the former slaves built a protective roof for the archers, lining up three shields on two spears and lifting them into the air with four men. The rest of the spears were pushed through the shields' handles to provide a little more stability. When all was said and done, eight patches of protection rose into the air, each one with one spare carrier, who placed the rest of the shields before their two comrades at the front of each team and then took cover right behind them (after the formation had reached its final position). The the squire dismounted and slowly led the formation forward, inviting the Silvermists to join him below the cover. The rest of the southern auxiliaries kept blocking the way that would lead the Veccavi to the Silvermist's position.

Their northern counterparts held their ground and waited for specific orders. One messenger rushed to the Silvermists to ask how they should support them.

Three messengers ran up to the Eventide Knights, the Order reinforcements and the silvermists.

Quote :

Do not charge, knights. We will change this field to a death trap soon enough.

At the same time in the Shadow Legion positions, Marcus was preparing to have the fields oiled.

You, Brutus, gather your horsemen and take those barrels with you! Oil those fields, and make sure the fire is spreading towards the Veccavi!

The Centurion strode away with the barrels and his fifteen horsemen. They began puring the oil down, skillfully avoiding the oil to hit their horses, and soon the whole field was oiled. Arrows began puring in the horsemen, impaling one man but the rest strode away when their barrels were empty. The horsemen made sure that the Veccavi could not see the oil or the barrels, they kept them on their backside when they came and on their front when they left.

The Veccavian forces didn't give the Pendorian troops time to set their trap. As soon as they were judges to be within the perfect range, all at once the remaining five hundred Veccavian royal archers turned towards the northern lines, held by the Eventide and Legion cavalry. They waited, until the order was given seconds later, and they let lose five hundred shafts in a volley towards the horses.

And then they fired another.

As the second volley left the bow strings, the Veccavian formation lurched towards the north, and four hundred Veccavian knights set their horses to charge the northern lines. At the same time, the front ranks of nearly two thousand Krom and Kral guard moved forward towards the main lines of the Pendor army, assisted by nearly five hundred dismounted Veccavian knights and their squired.

Behind them, the Royal archers began sending volleys into the main lines of the Pendor army, ignoring the Silvermists on the cliffs around them, and supporting their advancing infantry.

Finally, another group of one hundred knights charged out in pursuit of the first four hundred, their goal unknown.


The Veccavian army was committing itself to an assault, fully armed with the knowledge of their vst numerical superiority.

Believing strongly in the ideal of the warrior-scholar, Theo always carried some pieces of cloth and a pen at the bottom of his quiver. He analyzed the situation and came up with a plan. He quickly drew it in three pieces of cloth and sent it to the commanders. He sent one with a ranger to commander Caranthir; one with another ranger to commander Alzanek of the Eventide. The third he would deliver personally to the operation commander, Marcus.

Since they were already nearby, Theo and his three remaining rangers reached Marcus position in only a couple of moments.

Commander, I have a suggestion to make. Please consider my thoughts: we are outnumbered and the odds are terrible. Therefore, I've devised this plan: it uses all of our particular advantages, while putting the enemies' disadvantages against them - at least long enough for us to turn the tide. [delivers the written piece of cloth. Please look at the OOC thread, I explain it there] I've sent the same plan to Caranthir and Alzanek. If you agree with it, my men will shoot a signal arrow to both of them, indicating "proceed", and both will know exactly what to do.

Caranthir and the Northern Silvermists finished constructing a makeshift catapult, with several barrels of oil ready to be launched at the Veccavian force. Each barrel had a long fuse on it that would ignite the oil right before impact.

"Ready the catapult!" Caranthir commanded. A group of Silvermists set the catapult, put a fuse on a barrel, and loaded it into the sling.

"Fire!"

The catapult creaked and groaned as it launched the barrel of oil into the Veccavian ranks. The barrel hit a group of Veccavian archers, scattering oil everywhere, which then caught fire, giving the archers slow and painful deaths, and causing confusion in the ranks.

As the Veccavian army broke apart, so did the barrels that began crashing into them. Fire suddenly engulfed several women in the Veccavian ranks, and as they cried out in pain in died, their companions began looking for the source of the flaming projectiles. Instead though, they spotted members of the Shadow Legion out front... covering the ground in liquid. Orders began ringing out across the Veccavian lines, and slowly the charge of the Krom and Kral guards came to a halt.

A second flaming projectile crashed into the ranks, and half a dozen Krom and Kral were covered in burning oil, however, the women ignored them. Instead, they began ripping off pieces of their own clothing which they wrapped around their arrows. After wiping their projectile on the still burning oil, they began firing once more at the Pendor lines...

Or rather, the ground in front of it.

And then the flame wall went up.

*****

"Vcavians have lit the fire wall themselves!" Cried one of the Silvermists atop the cliff, while reloading the catapult.

"Nevermind that, we have hell to rain!"

As the last words left his lips though, a distinctive crack was heard coming from their makeshift engine of war. Followed almost immediately by one of the arms of the catapult snapping, and striking one of the reloading Silvermists in the head, with a crunch that indicated the man did not survive. The barrel that they were loading fell off, and began rolling towards the silvermist formation, still lit, but luckily did not explode.

All the while the rangers on the cliffs kept firing, intent on winning the day...

*****

"Sir? If we try to hold here sir... I fear it'll be the death of us, we're too far outnumbered, and the charge will just break out lines."

The man speaking was one of the Eventide knights, bleeding from a wound in his arm caused by the arrow storm that the knights were recently subject to. In front of him, five hundred horses were charging, kicking up a dust cloud as large as any the knight had seen before. They drew ever closer, and whatever the knights decided, they would have to do quickly.

"Your orders, sir?"

*****

"As if it wasn't hard enough to breath in the armor after standing in the sun all day!" Shouted one of the Legionaries near Marcus, followed immediately by a fit of coughing. A breeze had blown a large amount of smoke from their prematurely lit fire over the Legion's line, blinding them and making it significantly harder to breathe. They couldn't even see the Veccavian army, which at this point was on the move again.

*****

The mass of Veccavians, seeing the inferno rise up in front of them, stopped their charge towards the Pendor lines, and instead looked north. There, the fire wasn't nearly as bad, and the orders were given to charge once more.

A little less than five thousand soldiers began pushing towards the northern flank, intending to simply force their way out of the trap which was set for them.

Jugas angrily snapped the last of the many arrows that had buried themselves in his shield. He looked around. Although their heavy armour had protected them from the worst, the Veccavi's rain of arrows had still taken their toll on the Eventide's dwindling force and now a large cavalry force, outnumbering them at least ten to one, was heading their way.

Sir Relatrion, his own horse downed by three arrows, joined Jugas on the charger of one of their freshly slain brothers. The knight likewise glanced at the approaching enemy, but did not say anything. It would have been unnecessary. The consequences resulting from a confrontation with this force were more than apparent.

Sadly, another knight to his left did feel the need to state the obvious.

''Sir? If we try to hold here sir... I fear it'll be the death of us,'' he said. ''We're too far outnumbered, and the charge will just break out lines."

''You don't say!'' boomed Jugas, his voice dripping with suppressed rage. ''That fact had completely avoided me!''

The rider fell silent for a few moments, waiting for Jugas to calm down. When he spoke again, all emotion had left his voice.

''I beg your pardon. What are your orders, sir?''

Jugas cursed under his breath. There were not a lot of options. If they held their ground, they would be crushed and the enemy would break through the knight order's defences. A tactical retreat might have been the smartest choice for his men, but then the Eventide would have been responsible for letting the enemy through where the other orders had not. That was not going to happen, Jugas swore.

''We will attack,'' he announced fiercely. ''We will not be the ones who let that company of moody maidens pass beyond the cliffs, so that they can loot and pillage their way to Ravenstern. You hear me!? I will not have that! We will try and buy some time for the others to deploy and come up with something. Wedge formation!''

Without any hesitation, the knights moved to comply.

''So, this is how it is going to be?'' asked Relatrion calmly.

Jugas nodded. ''Any regrets?''

Relatrion did not answer. Jugas chuckled.

''Yes, me neither,'' he said loud enough for most men to hear. ''You don't know what my wife is like. I would rather fight every damned crone of Veccavia with both hands tied upon by back, before going home to that old dragon with news of cowardice.''

Several knights joined him in a healthy laughter. It did not matter that the lied. It was a last, little pleasure. His brothers deserved as much.
He returned his attention to the battlefield. The dust cloud of the approaching cavalry made it almost impossible to see anything that was going on. But suddenly flaming arrows darted through the air and ignited the firewall in front of the Legion.

So much for that, thought Jugas.

''Alright brothers. If that isn't a clear sign, I don't know what is!''

He addressed the two messengers present.

''You got all that, boys? Good.''

He fetched his small purse from one of the saddlebags and threw it to the closest of the messengers.

''I want a nice little story, understood? From a decent bard. And should you dare to spent that money on yourself, I swear to Astrea that I will haunt you and turn your afterlife into a miserable, unending nightmare! Go now. Tell the northern auxiliaries to block the enemie's path behind us. Let the Silvermists know what we are doing. Ask Marcus to bring the Legion here as well. The southern auxiliaries can move behind the firewall and watch out for any breaches.''

''What about the knights of the Legion; Milord?''

''I do not care about them! Glory has always been the privilege of the few. I have played ball long enough. If this is our end, it shall at least be an end of our own choosing. Go now!''

The messengers departed and, announced by a powerful horn blow, the Eventide finally charged.

"If the prey is trapped, it fights to the death", Iskar thought, "we must pretend there is another escape route. But first..."

Push that barrel off the edge of the cliff! he commanded a nearby ranger.

The man took one of remaining poles and shove the barrel over the edge. They could hear the noise as it burst into fire on hitting the ground.

Seeing the high officials of the Legion and the Eventide preparing to charge blindly to certain death, Theo ordered his squad to protect the commanders. They should aim at the cavalry vanguard and shoot all horses that showed braced spears and were riding in the direction of the commanders. "The point is to allow them to survive the first line of horsemen", Theo said.

OOC: Just to be clear, I was in the flank of the Legion, near Marcus.