by Adam Drake
But there was no point lamenting what was a moot point.
Amara was on the way to my base, and she had to be stopped. But how?
Quickly, I rode Smoke through the dense throng of units cramming the platform area. My mind was no longer on the battles raging nearby, just the fluttering red banner at my base.
“Out of the way!” I shouted with frustration. Since I was the idiot who jammed them all together, I was now the idiot who had to get past them.
“Commander coming through!” soldiers shouted as they jostled each other to make room.
I navigated my way through the units until I emerged past the densest part of the formation. With a kick at Smoke, I headed down the southwest curve.
Enemy spotted!
It was one of the Lookouts at the Keep. Amara's icon appeared above the trees due north of their position.
Analyzing my map, I was alarmed to see that all buildings had each just started training units. Previous units had already moved on and were halfway to the middle. All of those were slow moving footmen save for one cavalry unit.
Grumbling curses, I selected the cavalry unit and ordered it back to base at top speed.
The only other defenders present at the base were the lookouts as well as one archer and one footmen unit. The latter two having been assigned to guard the banner.
For some reason I didn't think this would give Amara much cause for concern. If she felt she didn't have a chance to get the banner, this attack wouldn't be attempted.
I passed footmen units as I raced southward, and each one cheered in kind. I didn't feel celebratory. This had taken me completely by surprise, something Amara was good at. I needed to be the one full of surprises, for a change.
Halfway there, I got the footmen's leader onto a chat screen.
“You see her coming?” I asked, rhetorically. Of course he did. They all did. I just needed to hear him say so.
“Yes, Commander!” the footmen leader said. “And we are ready for her!”
I wished that were true.
“Let me see what she's doing,” I said. By now, Amara's icon was slowing down as it sidled up next to the Keep.
The leader turned around giving me a view of the base.
The great eagle was hovering high above, with Amara peering downward, assessing the situation.
The Lookouts atop the Keep fired their crossbows, but their bolts came up short. I noticed with dread that reloading these weapons took the Lookouts forever.
My archer unit stood nearby, bows at the ready. They didn't even attempt to fire since Amara was well out of their range.
The footmen were assembled around the altar, eyes on the aerial invader.
What was she going to do?
I was still too far. Less than two minutes out.
The eagle adjusted its height and came in closer to the top of the Keep. The Lookouts were still loading their crossbows as quick as they could.
It wouldn't be fast enough.
The eagle reared its head back then opened its massive beak. Thrusting forward it let out a terrifying shriek.
It was using an ability.
The shriek emanating from the eagle was like a physical attack. The air in front of it shimmered like a heatwave. The Lookouts were enveloped in a torrent of deafening sound.
The Lookouts were knocked back and sent flying over the battlements. They tumbled screaming down the vast height of the Keep to the ground.
With this problem eliminated, Amara brought the eagle around the Keep and landed.
The archers moved close and loosened their bows.
But as the arrows zinged toward their mark, the eagle stood tall and flapped its mighty wings creating an incredible wind.
The arrows were knocked out of mid-flight as the wind intensified. In seconds, the eagle generated hurricane-force winds.
The archers tried to stand against this, but were sent flying to the ground, or tumbling into the trees.
While the great eagle maintained the attack with its wings, Amara jumped off its back.
The moment before she touched the ground she vanished.
Shadow Form.
My footmen, shocked by the attack on the archers, but still rooted to the spot I commanded them not to leave, looked about in confusion.
Oh, for the love of...
“Watch out!” I shouted at the footmen leader. “She's in Shadow Form!”
I rounded the final bend, and the Keep was in sight, but I was a good thirty seconds away.
The footmen looked about, apprehensive. They knew an enemy was nearby, but had no idea where.
Yuinnick continued its attack, buffeting the archers with the horrific wind. When one archer managed to get purchase and stand, he was immediately sent sprawling to the ground.
Your Banner Has Been Taken!
No, no, no, I thought. This cannot be happening. Not again!
Amara had snuck by the footmen in Shadow Form, but the moment she grabbed the banner she became visible. Crouched on the altar itself, banner grasped tightly in one hand, she killed the nearest surprised footman with a sword swing.
The other eleven footmen reacted, whirling to confront her.
The great eagle immediately stopped flapping its wings and charged forward at the footmen formation, shrieking loudly.
As some footmen engaged Amara, others turned to face the frightening champion moving in to attack.
I was ten seconds away.
Amara's sword was a blur of motion parrying sword swings from her perch on the skeletal altar. Surrounded and outnumbered, she appeared in a desperate fight to keep them at bay.
This attempt at the banner had been a tremendous risk to take. But fortune favors the bold, especially on the Battle Field.
Yuinnick snapped at a footman with its beak, slicing him in two. Then it crushed another with its massive talons while flapping its wings to keep balance. The great eagle moved in closer, forcing the footmen to scramble out of the way.
Amara noticed me galloping toward her and grinned while slicing the head off a footman.
“I'm coming for you!” I found myself shouting. My heart raced as the distance between us shrank.
Then Amara moved. She dodged a footman's sword swing, then rolled under another's attack.
Yuinnick brushed three footmen away with a giant wing, as if they were toys, and squatted down.
“No!” I yelled, changing my direction toward the great eagle.
Amara jumped and stepping off a fallen footman's back, leapt up and into Yuinnick's saddle.
The huge bird flapped its wings and launched up from the ground.
Unperturbed, I took Smoke directly under the eagle, its massive form blocking out the sky. Wings beat around me and the wind threatened to knock me to the grass.
But as Yuinnick ascended, I still had a chance at one desperate attempt to stop them.
I shifted from my saddle to my feet, and using my enhanced leap ability, jumped straight up from Smoke's back.
The next second, I found myself clinging to a leathery leg of the eagle as it ascended northward into the sky.
Below, I saw Smoke running about in confusion. The remaining footman looked up at me in amazement.
For a few moments I could only marvel at my own folly. What had been the point of this?
It didn't appear that Yuinnick noticed my presence, so large was the creature.
We sped northward, and the dense forest below moved past at an alarming speed. Did Amara intend to go to the center altar?
A quick look showed that my forces still firmly controlled the platform and the area immediately north of it. But her own army was pressing forward. They were closer than before.
Not waiting to give her any more satisfaction at snatching my banner, again, I decided to try something really stupid. There were few options for me, anyway.
My legs and arms were wrapped around the thick leg of the eagle. I released my grip with one hand and summoned my sword. Then I stabb
ed upwards.
Yuinnick shrieked with pain and its flapping wings lurched in surprise.
As if in answer to my attack, the eagle started to descend. I stabbed again and blood flowed from the wound under its huge feathers.
Now Yuinnick tried to use the talons on its other leg to swipe at me, but it couldn't reach.
When I stabbed again, I felt us falling faster.
I looked down just in time to see us fly into the tops of the trees.
The branches smashed into me at horrific speed. I tried to hide behind the eagle's thick leg but it appeared to be willing to take more damage if it meant I would be knocked off.
It worked.
I couldn't hold on while being attacked by speeding trees, and I was smacked hard again, losing my grip.
I had one last glance of the eagle's mammoth form flapping away, a gold beam of light shooting upwards from its back where my banner was being carried away.
Crypt, here I come, I thought morbidly.
Then I plummeted through the forest canopy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My avatar bounced unceremoniously from branch to branch as I fell through the trees.
Reaching bottom, I did a hard face plant into the ground, and my screen went black.
Well, that didn't work, I thought. Various alternate scenarios played through my mind as I waited to be reborn, but none would have ended well. Perhaps I should have waited until we were closer to the platform before attacking the eagle? My archers could have lent some support.
Mentally, I shrugged. Didn't matter now. Amara had the banner, again. While I...
I looked curiously at my view-screen. Nothing had changed, the blackness remained. Then I noticed the icons still on the edge of my vision. They usually vanished while I was being reborn.
My health indicator was at 2%. Oh, crap. I wasn't dead!
Pushing forward, my avatar lifted her face out of the thick loam of the forest floor. I blinked in confusion at my surroundings. Trees, lots of them, crowded around me like towering guards.
Looking upwards I could see the blue sky high above. The path of my fall was clear from all the snapped branches.
Feeling like an idiot, I stood and brushed myself off.
Then I looked to the map.
Amara appeared within view of my fighting units at the middle. She circled the platform once, but my army were still firmly in control of it. If she landed, she would be swarmed.
Then, as if deciding now was not the time, she flew northward, and her icon eventually vanished as she passed out of view.
My army still fought a protracted war. Units crashed against enemy units. Formations on both sides morphed as the battle situation changed. Amara's army was gaining some ground, but my double block of units kept them back.
Still, it was only a matter of time. Now that she had my banner, she could sit back at her base and funnel a constant stream of trolls south. Eventually, she'd break through or simply wear me down. Then the platform would be hers.
And the game would be over.
Getting angry again, I started to make my way west, the shortest distance out of the forest according to the map.
This terrain was not meant for travel, at all. Most of the way I had to climb up from the cramped forest floor with its huge root system that intertwined to make a living barrier. Carefully, I leapt from branch to branch.
I was mindful of my health. Yeah, I could purposely take a tumble and be back in my base in thirty seconds. But Amara would get Battle Points for it. Even if she didn't directly kill me, her big bird was the one that dropped me. She'd get 100 points, and I wouldn't let her have them.
Before I emerged at the forest's edge I had called on Smoke, who ran up from the base to meet me. When I finally escaped the forest gymnasium he was there, nickering in welcome.
I climbed up into his saddle. “Let's get to the Keep.”
As we headed south, I looked over the perpetual fight in the middle.
My units were smashed up against Amara's units and although she had more cavalry than I, more of my own horsemen were heading north or lined up down both approaches.
Grax still sat back from the main action, guarding the altar. His health had actually increased a little, perhaps to an innate regeneration ability for champions. But he still was not strong enough to move closer and assist. A single volley from an archer unit would do him in.
I was genuinely at a loss as to what do to next. Fight until Amara gained the platform through attrition?
As we arrived at my base, both the defending archer unit and footmen unit had retaken their positions. All their faces were sullen. In their minds, they had failed and lost the banner.
The cavalry unit I had redirected to the base stood by. I simply sent them north again.
“You fought well,” I said to the defending units as I dismounted. “And against difficult odds.”
This only seemed to mollify them slightly.
What else could be said? The banner was gone.
Before entering the Keep I looked northward. Far in the distance were two thread-thin beams of light.
Wonderful.
I also noted my scout had been spotted and killed by archers. Great.
I entered the Keep and sat in the middle of the floor. Above, a Lookout waved at me from the trapdoor and returned to duty.
At least the Lookouts respawn on their own, I thought absentmindedly.
As I watched my health regenerate, I glared at the unit icons on the map. This was not fun. Losing, that is. Worse, the knowledge I was going to lose, regardless, sucked even more.
Amara was in possession of both banners.
I could attempt to fight my way to her base. Even if successful, it could take forever to get there. I'd also have to secure both approaches because while concentrating on one, the other could be a threat to my advancing army's flank.
I looked at the map with its figure-eight formation and the grass plains which funneled units around like circles of death.
The trees were more than just a resource they were an impediment, too. So thickly packed that even a footmen unit could not pass through them.
Suddenly, I was struck with a thought.
I scrutinized the map more closely. Could it work?
Only one way to find out.
With my health bar at 100%, I left the Keep. Outside, I mounted Smoke. To the footmen and archer unit leaders, I said, “Hold fast while I'm gone.”
They snapped a salute. “Yes, Commander!”
Part of me blamed them for letting the banner be taken, but really the blame was all mine. Inexperienced and completely unprepared, I'd let Amara have the upper hand this entire time.
I rode northwest at a hard gallop. By the midway point of the bend I passed units who were waiting in line to get to middle and more were still coming from the base. Crazy.
One giant grindfest.
Maybe I could change that.
As I approached the final northern bend toward the middle, I kept Smoke close to the outer tree line. It was possible an enemy scout was watching me, but I decided to minimize the risk of being seen.
Roughly fifty paces before the turn opened up to the middle clearing, I jumped to the ground and dismissed Smoke.
Several of my units were in line here and everyone gave a wave and a cheer.
I grimaced. So much for keeping a low profile.
Then I slipped into Shadow Form.
Keeping to just within the trees I continued around the bend and headed east.
The mass of units got more dense as everyone crowded toward the platform, the only river crossing.
As I approached the last few trees before the clearing I could hear the ferocious fighting taking place just ahead. Screams of men dying, horses in pain, arrows zinging about, sword and spears clashing.
But there was another sound, just a short distance past the tree line.
Rushing water.
Carefully, I entered the forest a
t the western edge of the middle – the pinched waist of the map's figure eight.
I climbed over bulging roots and ducked under thick branches. Then the trees opened up to the river which flowed from somewhere deeper in the forest to the west and continued on to the middle platform to the east, just beyond my view.
