Suddenly, a swarm of arrows flooded the troops, but the ranks held firm, ignoring the lost soldiers. Just then the charging Cloud City soldiers came into view and stormed into the Bladenheart ranks.
“Set off the signal, Kara!” Garis shouted as he tore through a patch of Bladenheart soldiers. Kara, riding with a line of horsemen, held up a hand to the sky, and a beam of light shot out from her hand. The beam soared through the air and ended in a burst of light that people could see for miles. Next Kara set her spear and shield as she, too, fell into the battle.
Ezekiel hurried behind a group of soldiers, only to find them being bowled over by a crashing boulder. He turned his attention to the western hills to see a group of giants happily tossing rocks into the battlefield. He turned back around to see a cannon of water crash into a group of Bladenheart soldiers. Faux had met the battle as well.
Garis, noticing the boulders as well, turned to regard the situation. “We’ll need to subdue those giants or we’ll be overwhelmed!” he shouted to Ezekiel.
“Leave it to me!” Ezekiel shouted back.
“Are you sure you can do it alone?! There are five giants,” Garis said incredulously.
“You don’t understand…over my years of travel I’ve picked up a bunch of nicknames. One of them was ‘Giant Breaker’,” Ezekiel explained with a grin, and with that he charged off towards the hills, dodging another crashing boulder.
Draven moved amongst the chaos, easily taking out Cloud City soldiers. As he took care of another soldier, he noticed a paladin from Rullenfay doing massive damage to his troops. Determined to stop the girl, he picked up the glaive of a dead soldier and charged towards her. When only 10 feet remained between the two, Draven launched the glaive through the air, right at the paladin’s horse.
Kara slashed and jabbed with her spear in any attempt to defeat the many foes around her while Schiroi trampled anyone on the ground. Suddenly, a glaive slammed into the side of Schiroi, knocking the horse to the ground. Kara managed to roll off her mount before her leg was crushed. She stood up and looked down at her beloved horse sadly. Schiroi was already lifeless. The Guardian of Light picked up her shield and spear and looked into the crowd of soldiers, but the culprit of Schiroi’s death was nowhere to be seen.
“Sorry old friend…I will continue fighting for you…” Kara said quietly, giving a silent prayer for her horse. With that, she looked back up to the battlefield with a new found determination.
With a cry for justice, Kara launched her shield into the last place where she saw the glaive strike from. Many a soldier was decapitated by the sheer force of the shield’s toss, and many others were knocked to the ground by the blow. Draven managed to dodge the shield, diving to the side just in time. Surprised but hardly worried, he picked himself up and continued with the battle around him.
Kara planted her spear in the ground and drew her bow. She began to lay waste to soldiers all about her with arrow after arrow. A particularly hapless soldier turned just in time to take an arrow to the chest. Luckily, he survived the strike and charged towards the angered paladin, but a second arrow pierced through his foot, tripping him. The arrow that was in his chest was pushed in deeper and then broken off. It hardly mattered, though, for three more arrows to his back finished his fate.
Faux twirled and spun swiftly through the rows of soldiers, clearing a deep line in their ranks. Whenever a blade tried to strike him, he parried it with one blade while striking the foe with his other. Garis saw the dancing rogue from the corner of his eyes and was thoroughly impressed. He had never seen someone wield two blades so proficiently. A new respect for the water adepts grew in the hardened captain’s heart, but the moment would be short lived, for more enemies were ready to attack.
Faux, seeing that Kara had fallen from her horse, made his way towards his friend to see if she was alright. Seeing that she was taking out enemies easily with her bow, he decided to stay close but keep a fair distance so not to accidentally take a shot. Kara easily noted that random soldiers surrounding her, particularly behind her, began to drop. An appreciative smile formed on her face, knowing that her rogue friend was nearby.
**********
“There’s the signal,” Thalys pointed out, showing the flash of light in the sky to Rowe.
The lieutenant nodded his head in agreement and looked at his troops. “That’s the signal, men! Let’s get this fog out of our faces and start the real fight!” Rowe shouted. With that, his troops formed the same formation as Garis’ earlier and they charged forward.
“For the good of Liteo,” Rowe said to Thalys, tapping the nobleman’s shoulder.
“And all of Koanye,” Thalys replied, grinning. The two nodded to each other and headed off to battle.
They found a surprisingly large group of Bladenheart soldiers waiting for them, but it didn’t matter. They swarmed over the soldiers with promises of victory.
**********
Voyse looked down at the battle starting in the south eastern fields of Tier Bastion. “So…the Bladenheart army wages war with the wind people? Perfect, this will make my job so much easier. You better prepare yourself Draven Bladenheart…I’m getting that Adept’s Stone back!” Voyse promised to himself as he darted down the hill.
As soon as he could, he leaped into the shadows of all the soldiers fighting and swam through the darkness until he was on the other side. He leaped out of the shadows and hurried down the eastern bridge to Tier Bastion.
**********
Omurai and Asher made it to the same hillside that Voyse stood at moments ago, surprised looks on their faces.
“Do you see this, Asher? Those are my people fighting down there!” Omurai said in disbelief.
“What is going on…?” Asher asked.