A light green Dracani stepped up next to the one Ashur had been fighting, interrupting his line of thought. Dracair were greedy and selfish by nature, rarely willing to share a kill. Unfortunately for Ashur, the two Dracani in front of him didn't seem to know this, and seemed perfectly fine with working together to end his life.
Ashur had learned many years ago that combat in such close quarters was not the best place to use his weapon of choice, so his greatsword's pommel still protruded from the sheath on his back. Instead, he held his longsword in one hand and one of Dunnagan's throwing axes in the other. Neither was his ideal choice of weapon against the massive battle-axes that the Dracani Warriors seemed to favor, but they were all he had at the moment and would have to do.
One of the first things Ashur learned during training was that the best defense was to not get hit, but that was easier said than done in such tight quarters. Ashur was slightly broader than most front line troops, and had learned to make do with the limited space available so he wouldn't get in the way of someone else dodging a blow. The one advantage of fighting two Dracani was that the size of their weapons made it difficult for them both to strike him at the same time. That wasn't as much of a strategic concession as one might think, because no matter how much Ashur and Dunnagan joked around, the Dracani were anything but slow.
Dodging the incoming swing of the light green Dracani to his right, Ashur quickly ducked and felt the wind from the white Dracani's axe as it sailed past his head. Snagging the head of the white Dracani's axe with the throwing axe in his left hand, Ashur tugged, bringing the white Dracani's torso downward long enough to poke the creature in the eye with his longsword. In the second that it took him to pull off his maneuver against the white Dracani, the light green Dracani was preparing to chop Ashur in half. Letting go of the throwing axe—which was still engaged with the white Dracani's axe—Ashur dropped and rolled to the right, managing to score a gash along the light green Dracani's forearm before ending his roll on the beast's left side. In a rage, the white Dracani swung at Ashur's head, connecting with the light green Dracani's already wounded arm when Ashur ducked the blow. Howling in pain, the wounded Dracani removed his left hand from his axe in order to backhand the white. The green Dracani's anger was cut short a moment later as Ashur aimed his blow at the creature’s right wrist, its axe falling to the ground with the creature’s hand still clutching the weapon.
Ashur was preparing to move in for the kill, but the white Dracani beat him to it, shearing the light green's head from its shoulders with his mighty axe. Ashur rolled his eyes as he watched the headless body hit the ground. He managed to pick up the throwing axe in time to dodge the next blow from the one-eyed white Dracani.
For the next few minutes, Ashur toyed with the battle-raging Dracani, scoring several minor hits and aggravating the creature by moving into its newly acquired blind spot. The Dracani Warrior got a little more frustrated with each near miss, putting just a little more power behind each blow. Ashur dodged to the left, leading the creature's swing into a thick support beam in front of the store to his right. The Dracani's axe ripped through the wooden pillar, barely slowing the swing's momentum.
Ashur heard a slight groan overhead as the porch on the second floor began to bow when it lost the pillar's support. At the sound, the soldiers in the street fell back a little quicker, and even a few of the Dracair stopped their advance, although the majority of them continued pressing the Protectorate Knights, like predators scenting wounded prey. The white Dracani continued his advance, taking one wild swing after another, his good eye glazed over with hate.
Ashur goaded the white into another wild swing after a few more steps back, rushing to the right and then immediately hopping backwards into a roll. The Dracani sheared through the post at the other end of the patio. It didn't realize its mistake until the whole thing buckled with a loud groan, sending the second floor careening into the middle of the street on top of several Dracani, including the white.
The men and women fighting beside Ashur let out a loud whoop, taking a deep breath and enjoying the moment of rest before the following Dracani stepped over the rubble that now covered several of their comrades. Ashur looked towards his old friend, noting several cuts and dents on the Dwarf's armor.
“I hope we can find a few more as stupid as that one was,” Ashur said, checking his weapons.
“Aye, haven't seen one that lost in the blood rage for years. Let's hope that they are all that easy to deal with,” Dunnagan huffed, before a slight glow surrounded him, healing several of the Dwarf's wounds.
Ashur grunted in the affirmative as he met the incoming Dracair's attack.
Nim was ordering the retreat into the inner wall when the monks from the Order of the Griffon arrived. As the monks ran out of the transport room, Nim began issuing them orders, sending the monks to where they would be the most use. He was issuing a set of instructions to the fourth group to come through the portal when he realized that one of the monks was the Grand Master.
When Nim had seen the man earlier in the morning, he had been wearing large, loose robes; that man had appeared old and frail. The man who stood in front of him was in superb condition, his age only telling from the neck up. To Nim's surprise, the Grand Master simply bowed slightly, confirming the orders that he had just received, and took off at a healthy gait, heading towards the battle with the rest of his monks.
The retreat went relatively smoothly with the help of the monks, who engaged the enemy long enough for the other troops to retreat behind the wall. When the Knights, Wardens and the few remaining Guardsmen were behind the gates, the Grand Master ordered them closed. Nim was about to countermand the order when the old man winked at him and went back into the fight. Wanting to see what the old goat had up his sleeve, Nim had the men close and secure the gate before he quickly ran to the top of the wall to watch the monks work.
Half a block remained before the Dracair would be at the inner wall. The monks seemed to be combining offense and defense into one nonstop motion. The Grand Master redirected an overhead blow from one of the Dracani, twisted his torso, hit the weapon hand of the creature that had just attacked him, and then kicked the creature solidly in the groin. As the Dracani dropped in agony, the Grand Master delivered a round house kick to the creature's chin that twisted its head around backwards. Seeing the brutal efficiency with which the old man had just dispatched the warrior in front of them, the remaining Dracair hesitated.
The Grand Master let loose a shrill whistle, and the monks split off from the front line, climbing the buildings on both sides of the streets like monkeys. It took them about three seconds to reach the top of the second story, where they ran along the edge of the building, their legs moving so fast it was hard for many of the soldiers' eyes to track them. When they reached the end of the building nearest the wall, they leapt the twenty feet from the corner of the building to the top of the wall as if it were a small stream.
The Dracair began climbing the buildings, apparently thinking that they would be able to duplicate such a feat. Nim signaled the Mages before the first Dracair reached the roof, and fire rained down upon the buildings all along the wall. Several of the Dracair were able to attempt the jump before the flames became too dangerous for them to navigate, and one of them would have even made it had it not been for the Grand Master's foot catching the thing's head on its downward arc, sending the Dracani sprawling to the ground in a boneless heap. It would be a while before that one recovered enough to be any trouble, if it ever did.
As the sun began to descend on the western horizon, Nim thought that they might have a chance at holding the line until reinforcements arrived. The monks of the Order of the Griffon had turned the retreat from a hopeless gambit into a viable option. A lot of men had died, and a lot more were sure to in the coming days, but they had held the line—maybe it wasn’t such a terrible day after all.
It took the better part of four months to break the will of the army that the Dra
cair and the Blood Mages had assembled. Reinforcements had started arriving from Safeharbor and some of the outlying townships of the Protectorate during the weeks after the initial battle, but a large portion of those troops were diverted to the battle to the north. Winter came on in full force as well, playing no small role in the enemy's retreat.
With the onset of winter, the Protectorate forces reinforced the wall, sending only small engagements into the Dracair controlled portion of the city. Spring brought with it a new frenzy of activity, with both sides preparing for the battle that was to come. The Protectorate forces waged a block by block extermination of the Dracair controlled eastern portion of the city of Asylum.
The Dracair had been busy looting the city over the winter, and much of what the Protectorate took back were empty, defiled husks. Much of what could be burned, had been, and anything delicate and not worth packing back home had been broken. The systematic removal of the Dracair forces took the greater part of the year, with the last battle ending seventeen months after the first engagement.
The death toll was staggering, and thousands died in the first few days of the war alone. The Wardens took the heaviest casualties during the withdrawal to the inner wall, losing a full third of their fighting force. By the end, more than one hundred thousand of the Protectorate's fighting forces were killed or missing in action. Estimated losses for the enemy forces were estimated at more than triple that of the protectorate, but only a small portion of that number were Dracair, and only a hand full were Blood Mages.
The Protectorate's lightest casualties had been among the Mages and the Monks, both groups able to choose their engagements well. The greatest hit to the Monks came in the last month of the battle; the enemy that took the Grand Master's life was time itself, his body finally consumed by the ravages of age.
They had pushed back the enemy and retaken the city, but there would be no celebration. Too many comrades had fallen, and there was too much left to do.
Year: 3044 AGD
Month: Year's End
Third Fifthday
Continent of Terroval
Asylum
“I have never heard of the like,” Dunnagan said as the group enjoyed their first night of real rest in nearly a year and a half. The battles had ended a few eightdays prior, but between taking care of the dead and the wounded, securing the city, and making sure that the enemy was well and truly gone, there was still much work to do, and it had taken them this long to all gather around a fire together.
Dunnagan looked haggard. Nim was sure that they all looked more or less like the walking dead, but the dwarf was nearing his sixth century of life. The old cleric still had at least a few good decades left in him, centuries if he was lucky, but the years were beginning to take their toll. To have survived and thrived in a land like Terroval for so long was a testament to the old Dwarf’s tenacity.
“Nor have I,” Zander Halcyon said as he looked up from his book. “I have been reading as many of these books that contain records of past engagements as I can get my hands on, but I cannot find anything to compare to this assault. This book is from before the Great Disaster that forced our people into the caves below Safeharbor. There are many tales of full-scale battles, but oddly enough there are relatively few that mention a large contingent of Dracair.”
Nim wasn't used to seeing Zander shaken up. Zander Halcyon, Tetriarch of the Sorcerers and perhaps the most powerful Battlesorcerer that had ever lived, had few reasons for doubt.
“Why, if we have been fighting a War with the Dracair for more than five millennia, are there so few reports of full-scale encounters with actual Dracair?” Ashur poked at the fire with a stick, obviously perturbed by his thoughts. “Furthermore, why has no one thought of this before now?”
Nim was glad to have Ashur around. Twenty years before, David Theromvore had been on the fast track to becoming a great military commander. Luckily for Nim, however, he had managed to drag the man along on one journey after another, where he had become a stalwart companion and ally. The man still possessed the keen military mind that had been drilled into him ever since he had been able to hold a sword, but he had seen more things in his travels with Nim than he would have ever seen had he served with the Knights for those twenty years.
“I like to call it positive thought, wrapped in a layer of pride, with a coating of ignorance,” an unexpected voice intoned from the dark expanse of night that blanketed the city.
Moments later, the slight shape of Stewart Cantel materialized beside one of the stone-worked walls at the edge of the firelight. The High Commander of the Knights of the Protectorate looked more haggard than anyone else Nim had seen in the last year. It was no surprise, really: the man had lost more than a hundred thousand men and women since the war began. There was nothing Stewart Cantel could have done to prevent those deaths, but they still fell heavily upon his shoulders. Not only did the deaths of those men and women weigh down on him, but a city of the Protectorate had nearly fallen to the enemy on his watch. Nim knew that trying to console Cantel would do little good, but he might buy him a pint or two the next time he was able.
“What do ye mean by that?” Dunnagan asked as the heads around the campfire turned towards their newest arrival. Several of the men had to resist the urge to snap to attention.
“We never wanted to face up to the truth,” Cantel said as he found an empty spot, joining the circle of friends around the fire. “Oh, we thought about it several times. I have found the question posed a handful of times in my studies of history, but I don't think any of them truly wanted to answer the question.”
Looking at his friend's face, Nim knew that these thoughts had been plaguing the High Commander's mind a lot recently, and Nim thought the man might have settled on his own answer.
“What question?” Nim asked.
“The question being, have we truly been fighting a war all this time, or have we simply been cleaning up the table scraps that have been left for us?” A long knife appeared in Stewart Cantel's hand, and he began to whittle away at a small piece of timber.
“Ye think we've been fightin' whatever the Dracair haven't had a use fer, in order to make us think we were fighting the good fight?” Dunnagan asked, clearly bothered by the prospect.
Cantel sat quietly, staring at the piece of wood in his hand for some time before looking up into the eyes of each person sitting around the fire. “I do.”
Ashur stood quickly, throwing a rock at a nearby wall. The stone bounced off the wall, hit the side of a nearby wagon, and ricocheted into his shin. The litany of curses that he had been spewing forth intensified as the rock hit home. Everyone around the fire was feeling many of the same emotions, but they seemed content to watch Ashur vent enough for all of them. Enraged, Ashur seemed to come to the conclusion that the wagon and the wall had conspired against him with the rock. Nim had been around the man long enough to know what was coming, so when Ashur stalked towards the wagon he began to erect a wall of force between the wall and the group around the fire.
Ashur kicked the wagon into the wall, surprising everyone around the campfire except Dunnagan and Nim. Pieces of wood, metal, and stone rained down on the invisible barrier. As the dust cleared, Nim noticed that one of the axles from the wagon was lodged in the wall with one of the wheels still connected.
“I wish you wouldn't do that, David,” Cantel chided. “We really need every wagon we have.”
Ashur turned back towards the group around the campfire, a long sliver of wood sticking out of his hair. As Stewart Cantel's words sunk in, he turned back to the wall, raising his hands as if he wished he could take back the gesture, before dropping his head in defeat. “I'm sorry, Stewart, I don't know what came over me. I haven't lost it like that in...”
“Five years,” Nim supplied. “Five years and three months. We were in Freeport and...”
“Ok, ok, we don't need to tell that story now,” Ashur said as he regained some of his composure.
“Oh, I
don't know, I'd have to say that it was the finest reason that I’ve ever had to be in jail before.” Nim laughed, trying to add as much cheeriness to his tone as he could muster.
It worked. The grin that took over Ashur's face released a lot of the built up tension in the man. “It was a fun night, wasn't it?” The two shared a quiet moment as they relived an old memory, but the reason for Ashur's anger slowly reasserted itself in the atmosphere around the campfire, and the talk turned back to the Dracair.
“So, what exactly are you saying, Stewart?” Zander asked.
“I'm saying that for our entire history, we have been fighting only those troops that the Dracair deemed expendable, and I have a feeling that this last attack was no deviation from that plan.”
“A force to soften us up a little before the real push?” Nim's voice came out in a whisper, but it was loud enough for everyone around the fire to hear.
Several deep breaths accompanied Stewart Cantel's nod. “And here we are, a fifth of our fighting force dead and another two fifths not fit for duty. Our second largest city lies partially abandoned and in ruins. Who knows how long we have to prepare for the real push.”
“Probably a few years still, knowing the Dracair,” Nim said, before adding, “maybe not even in our lifetimes, but it will come, and I’m willing to bet it is closer to the few years than the lifetime.”
“That is my thought as well. They will likely consider us comfortable in the fact that we have once again repelled the vicious aggressors, and plan their attack accordingly. They seem to be in no hurry to crush us, however. From what information I have been able to gather, the force that attacked and held the city was one or two clans at best. My guess is that they were told that more clans would be on the way, and when no other clans showed up by summer, they realized that no one else was coming. This is likely why they began to filter out of the city around that time, taking what they could pilfer with them. Whoever sent them was more than likely trying to get them out of the way of some internal struggle for power, and now they are quietly pecking at each other, feeling that we have been culled enough for the time being.”
Vitiosi Dei (Heritage of the Blood Book 2) Page 2
