Then, Katana was diving after Paladin, as if she could sense that her Rider was faltering. As they dove, Sage could feel the concussion when the buffalo, bears, and Giants met the Men and their rhinos. There were thuds, bellows, and clangs, the crunchings of war and the screams of dying animals. Her field of vision narrowed and the bigger picture and philosophical journey’s that had filled her sky-mind were pushed away until all she could see was a single rhino. The creature was charging, and the thickness of its body, augmented by its plate armor, seemed impossibly powerful. As they bared down from an attack angle, the great war steed of the south plowed into a buffalo, lashing out sideways with its horned head and lunging with its plated shoulder. The Northman crashed into the ground as the buffalo tumbled. The Man of the South punched down with his spear to finish his northern kin, then wheeled to charge into the flank of a trio of buffalo just as Katana’s talons pierced his armor, wrenching him into the air and tossing him dozens of yards to where he crashed into a boulder.
Sage waited for a breathe while her griffin returned to smooth flight, then loosed her arrow towards a Man where he was smashing his sword down into the helm of a knight that had been impaled through the thigh by a rhino’s horn. The knight was still fighting, trying to smash the eyes of the rhino. Sage didn’t have time to see if her arrow found its way through a chink in the Man’s armor before she was darting past, her practiced fingers reaching for a second bolt. Katana wheeled, and for a second Sage could see the Plainswatchers engaging the phalanxes, hopelessly retreating away from the more heavily armed, larger force. Her heart was already beating out of her chest with the sheer terror of the battle, but seeing her female comrades so hard pressed steeled her resolve, and she felt a hostile desire to kill that she had never felt before.
“AIIIIIIIIIIIIYYYYYYAAAAAAAAA!”
Turned back into the microscopic world of battle, she looked for a place where she could make a difference. The knights were coalescing, fighting their way through to where a small band of buffalo were forming up, pushing forward as one so that they could swarm over and outflank isolated rhinos. On the edge of the battle, three bears were being overrun, and she resolved to get them back into the fight. She knew that the war hinged on this battle, and this battle hinged on this single cavalry skirmish, and, perhaps, if she could bring these Dwarves back into the fight, it would turn the tide.
Ignoring other fights, she guided Katana up and over two of the other griffins, her eyes locked on the three rhinoceroses that were circling the much smaller bears. She drew her bow to its full length, feeling the rise and fall of her steed’s wings, and released. Her eyes tracked the bolt as it screamed ahead, arcing up and dropping down while she drew her kusarigama. It buried itself in the Man’s back, and she saw him arch backwards, reaching for the arrow even as he began to die. Without pausing to think, she began to whirl the chain in a small circle over her head. Faster and faster she spun the ball and spike until it was moving in a great arc over Katana’s head and in time with her wings so that it did not strike them.
She sent it out at the same moment that Katana knocked a second man from his steed. The griffin landed on the back of the rhino whose rider Sage had shot, her talons and claws digging in as her beak worked to cut into the exposed neck of the animal. Meanwhile, Sage’s chain wrapped itself around the leg of the third rhino and she allowed her momentum to carry her off Katana. She flew, jerking hard as she reached the end of the chain, wrapping both hands around the kusarigama to keep it in her grasp. The force of her body weight jerked the rhino’s leg out from under it, and the animal tumbled to the side, crushing one of the bears and his Dwarf. But then, in an instant, the grizzlies were on the felled animal, ripping off its armor and tearing into its side with their fangs while their riders ran to attack the fallen Southlanders.
Sage’s fingers felt the softness of the snow as she rose to a knee from where she had landed on her side. She looked up through strands of blond hair that had been knocked loose to see the Dwarves dueling the Men, bears covered in blood and guts, and Katana’s great wings flapping as she hacked away at her prey. In that moment, as she dashed over mangled bodies and past buffalo carcasses, she didn’t know what the North stood for, or who the South even was. She did know that if she did not keep moving, killing any who stood before her, they would be overrun, her sisters would be overrun, and her tribe would never be free of the panic she felt now. Go.
She was moving, dashing across the snow. Up, over the body of a rhino, she launched herself, the kusarigama’s handle held in one hand as the other hand swirled the chain up and over and around her body. The ball struck out, smashing into the helmet of a Man and allowing the Dwarf he fought to regain his feet before using two hands to drive his blade through the Man’s plate armor. She jumped from the dead head of the Rhino, springing up and toward Katana. Her chain spun as she flew, wrapping the bleeding horn and mouth of the rhinoceros. The creature bucked, trying to shake its head free while also freeing itself from the Griffin that was killing it from behind.
Sage pulled herself arm over arm down the chain, feeling herself lifted from the ground and shaken like a rag doll. Then, she was looking into the panicked, red eye of the creature and watching the kusarigama’s blade bury itself there. Katana screamed an eagle’s victory cry, and the Nymph felt the rhino’s head go limp, sagging to the snow so that it pinned her to the ground with its weight. The impact knocked the wind from her, and she lay, stunned, pinned to the earth and struggling for breath. After endless seconds, she felt a Dwarf hefting the skull of the creature off of her, his sturdy legs straining with the weight. Soaked from the snow and sweat, she rolled to the side, catching her breath and allowing the little warrior to pull her to her feet. When she looked up, he was already mounting his bear, nodding to her in recognition of her bravery, bravery that had saved two bears and their riders. It wasn’t bravery, but survival.
She felt a wave of panic suddenly, exposed on the ground with her precious companion standing atop a downed rhino. Sage dashed up the carcass and jumped into the saddle, urging Katana into the relative safety of the air. As they took flight, she noticed a puncture in the griffins front shoulder, a wound from the spear tipped horn of the rhino. Erithea, where is the armor? She sensed her anger towards Ignatius mother boiling out of nowhere. The armor for their griffins was taking far too long. Surveying the battle, she realized that she shouldn’t be mad at her fellow Nymph when the real enemy was here, now, on the field of battle. Insanity.
The Dwarves she had saved piled into the condensing fray, and she watched in grim satisfaction as they tore into the flank of the last rhino cavalry. The battlefield was littered with the carcasses of buffalo, bears, and Giants, but as a fighting force, the Men’s rhino’s were finished. All of the Men had been killed and more than half of their rhinos. The surviving rhinos ran wildly into the plains, unguided and lost in a hostile, cold terrain. The cost had been high, but, to the southeast, the reward was obvious. Several thousand Southlanders, in phalanx formation, were attacking what looked to be several hundred lightly armored, female Northerners that were trying to escape onto the plains with the Southlander’s herd. The bulk of the South’s fighting force was many miles to the northwest, preparing to continue their assault on Fritigern and the few remaining defenders of Fort Hope. With the phalanx beginning to engage with the easy prey of the Plainswatchers, the trap was ready.
Sage banked away to the northeast, up and over the plains and to the high bluffs that bordered the Canyon Lands. Below she could see Nicolo, hidden from sight just over a ridge. He raised his sword when he saw her and she responded by raising her bow. She watched him turn, motioning his buffalo riders forward and over the ridge. The Rider flew above, guiding their movements so that they would hit the phalanx at exactly the right angle. Her eyes searched the skies for Rondo, who would be guiding the Centaurs, and Onidas, who was collecting her own tribe. She saw them both, their weapons raised to tell her that their forces were in place. Th
en, to the west, she saw him. Ignatius, surrounded by a flock of Cherubim where they glided down from the mountains around the Pathmaker of the Riders. Seeing the six forces, Northmen, Nymphs, Cherubim, Centaurs, Giants with mounted Dwarves, and Plainswatchers, converge on the phalanxes of the South was like watching a pack of wolves close in on an elk in deep snow. Perfect.
In her mind, it was the perfect attack. Somehow, the North had come together to achieve this one extraordinary victory. She could see it now, in her mind, before it even occurred. Perfect slaughter. The strategy of maneuvering and waiting, baiting, sacrificing, and planning, had let to an opportunity to inflict more slaughter than any Nymph had ever imagined. The idea of mercy floated into her mind, but she knew the North was too weak for mercy. As she watched their forces close in on the unsuspecting Men, she knew they were not planning on showing her sisters mercy. Were it not for the other forces in the trap, they would surely kill as many of the Plainswatchers as they could. Another idea came to her as she thought about the victory of Men. Rape. How would the beautiful Nymphs, the exotic Cherubim, be treated by their capturers? She knew the answer, and the idea of an enemy that did not show mercy, that would surely rape its way through the villages of the North, hardened her for the coming battle.
The phalanxes were breaking off their attack on the Plainswatchers and heading for higher ground where they would be in a more defensible position to wait for reinforcements. As they withdrew, they revealed the broken bodies of Sage’s comrades who hadn’t been able to catch a horse from the stampeding herd. Sacrifices in vain unless we take advantage of the moment. Seeing their bodies there, watching the Centaurs and Buffalo riders flowing down towards the phalanxes, she felt that she understood Ignatius in a new way. She thought about the fast brutality of the moment, the savageness of each kill. So personal. Then, she thought about the higher view, the slow viciousness of plans that led to thousands of deaths, to slaughter on such a grand scale that it could move other leaders to say, “Enough”. So cold. She realized that the former was harder on her Cherub, but, to her, a warrior’s violence was more natural, more acceptable. The later, the kind of violence that Oberon had orchestrated here with the help of the other leaders of the North, was worse. Better to be passionately violent when confronted than coldly calculating before the battle even begins. She realized that the North needed leaders that could be so cold, warriors that could be so deadly, and that if she was to have a mate, she would rather a warrior than a leader.
She continued her flight, guiding Nicolo in, flying slowly so as not to leave the buffalo behind. Ahead, she could see the shield wall, now a perfect circle where the Men of the South had packed tightly together. With three lines of their brothers behind them and long spears sticking out at all angles, they looked confident. Perhaps they cannot see that they are surrounded. Sage knew they would only have to break through on one side, and with the Blood Born, the Men didn’t stand a chance. Behind her, she could feel the thundering hooves, sensing the courage of the Men as she flew over the shield wall. She could hear the crash of the warriors slamming into the Southlanders, and, as she passed Rondo and Onidas in flight, she exited on the other side of the phalanx where the Centaurs were fighting to break through as well. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted her people, hundreds of them, weaving their way through the spiked spears with grace instead of power. I fought the Rhinos for you. She knew that, because of her actions just minutes before, Taragon wouldn’t have to face cavalry as he tried to break through.
Then, she was turning, flying up into the bluffs towards a rocky peak where the Plainswatchers had hidden a new weapon. Onidas and Rondo were converging there, and the three of them landed together next to a small mound of snow. Onidas began to dig, unearthing a pile of kudzu vines. He pulled on them until he revealed three elk skins where they attacked to the lines. The other Riders each grabbed a skin, dragging them through the melting snow and placing them next to their respective griffins. Then, with practiced precision, they each pull a third vine up and under the chests of their griffins and tied them off to the pommel. Within seconds, Sage was back in the saddle.
She looked back, down the bluff towards the battle, and her eyes grew wide at the sight of it. The phalanxes were holding in their hedgehog circle formation, but on all three sides, the Northerners were making inroads. Buffalo carcasses were piled up and Nicolo’s Men were pushing in past the first row of Southlanders. It was harder to tell how the Nymphs were faring, but she could see the Centaurs battling their way in, taking heavy losses. Even as she watched, the circle of soldiers seemed to shrink, collapsing in around weak points to maintain its integrity, ensuring that the attackers would have to pay dearly to crack a new hole.
“Is she ok?” asked Rondo, pointing to Katana’s wounded leg.
Sage ripped her eyes from the battle and looked to the gory wound that was still bleeding in Sage’s shoulder.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe,” said Onidas, “one load only, then see how far off the rest of the Southlanders are?” Sage nodded, appreciating the wisdom of protecting the griffins in anyway they could.
She guided her steed to grab the Elk carcass in her powerful talons, then pushed her to take off into the sky. There was a moment of freedom, then a sudden lurch as the lines connecting the carcass to a basket of stones pulled tight. Katana was surprised but unfazed by the sudden weight. She pumped her tired wings, hoisting the stones as if they were a massive kill she needed to bring home to her cubs. Sage felt the drag as they flew higher and higher, and she wondered how much further she could push her mount. Thankfully, it was downhill and not far from the bluff to the battle. Katana had been trained for this very maneuver, trained until she was used to grabbing an Elk that was actually a basket of stones, then carrying it as far as her Rider required.
Below, Sage could see that Ignatius’ forces were bounding off a nearby bluff, flying up and over the battle so they could drop in just after the Riders released their payload. She could make out individual combatants, each fighting for survival according to the orderly lines dictated by the Southerners. A spear thrust here, the placement of a shoulder behind a shield there. Each move meant the difference between life and death with none of the combatants able to see the battle as she could, detached, from above. As she moved over her own forces, she looked to the kudzu vine wrapped around the horn on her saddle. Such a small thing. Sensing that they were in the window of time when the forward momentum would send their payload smashing and rolling through the orderly lines of soldiers, she unwrapped the vine and held it in her fingers for a brief second. Like a leader, to strike from such a distance, not having to look them in the eye. Then, as she watched, she let the vine slip through her fingers.
She felt Katana shoot upward suddenly as the kudzu vine rope she released opened the basket, releasing the stones from hundreds of feet up in the air. The Nymph looked over her shoulder as they powered forward, relieved of the weight. She saw the stones falling away, first directly beneath, than as the wind resistance slowed them they seemed to lag behind. They were round, carved to roll, and as she focused on them, the lines of Men beneath blurred. Then, they were hitting the earth, rolling, smashing, and the Men came into focus as her act of letting go came into fruition. She could see a trail of blood and limbs, torn and rent Men, lines of destruction in the path of the stones as their momentum tore through the ranks of soldiers. For a moment she was stunned at what she had done, not out of self-preservation, but from hundreds of yards above. Detached. She wondered for a moment if this was how all leaders felt in war, if they thought and wondered at the acts of violence that they released. She saw Centaurs pouring into the breech she had created, pushing into the emptiness where before had stood living, breathing, beings. And still the Southerners held, forming up ranks and pushing to close the gap. Such discipline.
She turned her head to see the impact Rondo and Onidas had made and that is when she saw them. The Blood Born. Ignatius was diving d
own on Kaizen, the alpha Griffins talon’s tearing through Men, tossing them into the air where they landed, killing still others. Albedo’s warriors were flying into the gap created by Rondo’s bombs and held open by Ignatius. She could see them, spiraling, swirling like feathers floating in a whirlpool on the surface of a creek. With Katana pulling away, back towards Fort Hope and the bulk of the Southlanders, she could see that the Southerners would not be able to hold with such a force cutting them to pieces from behind the line. So it is.
She turned from the battle, feeling the joy of victory but also the anguish of the Northerners she knew who would never return. There were hundreds of Nymphs in Taragon’s force, kin from her own clan within the larger tribe. Two brothers, a sister who had been among the Plainswatchers, cousins, uncles. Everyone. Flying low and hugging the hills so as not to give away her position, she though of her family pagoda, of the single kudzu plant that they kept alive through the winter. How many would be missing this year? Pushing the thought away, she tried to focus on the stories they would tell of this day, stories their ancestors could tell in freedom because of their sacrifices.
Ahead, she could see the orderly lines of tents through the canyons. She caught a glimpse of Fort Hope and marveled at the glistening sheet of ice that snaked down from the wall. There were more than ten thousand Men down there that had not come after the Plainswatchers or Griffin bait that morning, and she needed to find them to make sure they were not going to join the battle. Katana landed on a rocky outcropping with a good vantage and the Rider scanned the prairie, trying to account for the South’s forces. She spied Men preparing to continue the bombardment of the fort, others hauling timber for the construction of shelters, still others digging to root out Fritigern’s forces from their tunnels. Thousands more were in camp, resting, healing, burying their dead, and going about the business of a besieging army. Not enough.
Last Stand of the Blood Land Page 43
