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  He himself considered the eclipse and knew what to do. Years ago the Fallen started to effectively lead night-time assaults, better suiting their senses and dark dress. Their dull white eyes however were very sensitive to light and it was at Bennam’s initiative that Lanston started using the Sekhaimogists to create dazzling displays of light so to incapacitate the enemy. With this in mind Cid continued:

  ‘Things are going to get pretty dark ahead; we’ll try to use it to our advantage. I want the magi to create spheres of light the moment we make impact. Direct them at the bulk of the enemy and proceed to create convergent barriers to redirect as much of the light as you can back unto the Fallen. If they want to fight in darkness, then so be it… ’

  The convergent barriers would be another endeavour by the Sekhaimogists, often called “gates of light”, adjusting the magical curtains to alter its admittance of light; reflecting it rather than letting it pass through.

  ‘We’ll blind them in their own nightfall. As for the rest, keep to my instructions and we might get out alive. If we panic and break ranks the majority of our group will invariably die!’

  They were running now, the air was cool and the sky dark. Scant sunlight was piercing the forest enough for every soldier to enjoy a modicum of detail. There was nevertheless a gloom that gave a sinister edge to every aspect of their surroundings.

  Cid took comfort in sensing the focus of the soldiers. It seemed they understood that the only way out of here was direct victory in combat and that by saving Olum’s company they would save themselves.

  In the absence of daylight the soldiers now became dark silhouettes, swerving around trees and trailing each other like a cascade of shadows. Only the enhanced shield bearers, a rough two dozen men, carried some light about them as the magically strengthened shields glowed in soft luminance as though it held embers beneath its plating.

  It won’t be long now.

  Cid had barely completed the thought when they heard a parade of hooves thudding on the forest floor. Cid called for the formation to face west and the men instantly formed in protective clusters. Relief was obvious as four of the five original Lanston riders appeared, who had evidently been sent to find Cid’s satellite.

  ‘Kallas, what news?’ yelled Cid at one of the riders, pushing aside the question of Alex’s whereabouts.

  The man responded immediately, ‘Olum’s regiment has just made contact, they are less than half a mile from our position. They are on slow retreat and the Fallen are advancing!’

  Cid’s heart hammered at the news.

  He processed, and then yelled, ‘alright men, we continue in a straight line north and then turn west to hit them on the flank. Kallas, go back and join Olum’s cavalry, I want you to run routes when we separate their forces!’

  Kallas acknowledged, the four horsemen turned face and galloped away.

  Cid shouted his own men on the move again and as they ran he counted his paces. After awhile it was no longer necessary to do so as their progress allowed them a tree-filtered sight of the battlefield on their left. The Fallen had chosen wisely and stationed their force in a massive glade, which allowed them full use of their numbers.

  ‘Face left, make contact, and then retreat on my command! Charge!’

  The infantry burst into a mad dash, breaching into the glade. Cid, the magi and the archers remained behind.

  The magi called to life their globes of light, their focus manifesting as growing spheres of illuminations, like tiny suns. The archers spaced themselves in a two column pattern and readied their arrows.

  With the specialists backing the shields, the charge stamped right into the ribs of the body that was the Fallen army. In the darkness the Fallen barely realized what was happening and it allowed the soldiers to get in a few quick kills.

  Cid strained to observe and called the retreat only seconds later, realizing the Fallen had started to respond to the new threat. The men made a sound return to the glade edge and Cid was heartened to see the Fallen directing their attention on them, alleviating the pressures on Olum’s company.

  ‘Archers, fire first volley!’ shouted Cid and the archers let fly a solid barrage of arrows loftily over their own retreating men’s heads and into the Fallen numbers. The arrows became invisible in the darkness but evidently struck as some dozens of Fallen collapsed on the spot. The infantry returned to position and formed tight ranks in front of the archers.

  At this the magi gestured and sent forth their globes of light, hovering speedily like some type of insect, each of the brightest white light and a foot in diameter. The globes came to a steady halt among the first few lines of the approaching Fallen soldiers, illuminating them lonely. Already annoyed by the contrast created by these lights some of the Fallen vainly tried to cut them down. As fast as they could the magi weaved convergent barriers all around, the translucent films of magic palpitating forward to circle where the lights hovered. Like one the magi shaped the barriers to reflect.

  Suddenly the Fallen closest to Cid’s company was caught up in a torrent of light, bright enough to be seen for miles. They were instantly blinded and those human enough to feel pain yelled as their eyes burned.

  Lanston did not let up. Again and again Cid called the volleys and it became an eerie cycle of standing in almost complete darkness as arrows whistled overhead only to strike the Fallen who were revealed to the last detail. It was only moments later that Olum’s company mimicked the gate of light trick, and Cid could see them gaining an edge also as the Fallen faltered.

  And that’s twenty. Cid counted the volleys, knowing that each archer carried 60 arrows, allowing a safe estimate of 45 volleys given their previous encounters. Cid halted the fire at 24, seeing that they had carved a sizable gap into the side of the Fallen advance.

  ‘Prepare to charge! Magi, keep those lights up and direct it to the north! We‘re going to cut through the head of the march!’

  Preceded by a war cry Cid and his entire company ran wildly, coming in as a whirlwind of Lanston weapons, tearing through the Fallen. Cid took his second kill with Mindevhier, driving the spear effortlessly though a Fallen's armour. He continued moving with his men and the tight melee that occurred forced him to more frequently whip out his sabre, Mindevhier going static in his left hand like a spiked tail as his right hand slashed up from his hip as the sword licked.

  The Fallen did not know where to attend to as Olum’s company pressed forward also and the nine horsemen rode a routing pattern through the numbers, the speed of their mounted swords deadly against the disoriented enemy.

  The advancing Fallen from the north were kept blinded and thus cut off, while the head of the black march was suddenly outclassed and surrounded by Lanston men. It took but a few minutes to dispatch them, a cadence of stabbing and bludgeoning thinning their numbers by the second.

  The sweat grew cold on Cid’s skin and his tunic was blood-drenched. The familiar rush of battle was on, a heart pounding painfully in his chest despite resolve and experience, the only question ever left to answer whether one would meet it out with courage or the fear that came so naturally.

  A cheer of acknowledgement went up on both sides as Cid and Olum’s companies met in the middle, their victorious boots trampling the Fallen underneath. With the intensity fading, Alex quickly caught up to Cid through all of it, swerving around the men.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here captain,’ said Alex out of breath, ‘doing some of the fighting then?’

  ‘Ha, I was worried you were captured and gutted. It’s good to see you are well,’ said Cid.

  ‘Yeah, I decided to stick around and see if I couldn’t make a nuisance of myself until you guys show up,’ said Alex.

  Cid nodded. ‘It’s going to get worse though and I’m fairly certain we’ll come to face some Priests. I want you to take two of your best archers with you and sneak along the glade perimeter. Find yourself a nest and if those robes dare get close enough you take them down. When I sound the horn we will prep
are to escape to the northwest, understood?’

  ‘You got it captain,’ said Alex as he disappeared again in the throng of men.

  In the clear for a moment, Cid set out to find Captain Olum. He spotted the man’s long beard and called him over.

  ‘Keep them blinded, form combined ranks and volley them till there’s nothing left?’ suggested Cid in a pant.

  ‘Right you are sir,’ said Olum with a barely visible grin.

  They turned to their men, both Olum and Cid’s voices rang out. The magi continued their effort and the two companies used the time to join ranks. Moments later Olum was calling volleys as almost a hundred archers fired now, taking out scores of the Fallen ranks, their advance slow and vain. The magi kept adjusting their gate of light depending on how the Fallen moved, giving them no chance of recovery. The combined effort of the magi created a gate so bright that Cid and the others could not claim to see much past it.

  14 volleys...

  And then the inevitable happened.

  Cid snapped his head to his right as he saw Ariman and the other magi grunt in sudden alarm, some of them actually stumbling. They lost their control and the gate of light vanished.

  The sight beyond now crippled the hope of every single Lanston man. While they had just killed hundreds of Fallen, no one had been able to see that hundreds more had trickled into the glade from the north. Amongst their ranks now were Shadow Priests, mounted on dark horses, their hands spread open above their heads, engulfed in the violet flames that was their magic.

  No one had to wonder why the gate of light suddenly failed; the Shadow Priest evidently disrupted it. The Fallen march was strong now; postures rigid, weapons held firm and menacing white eyes from within their skull helms enough to inspire the greatest of fear.

  ‘Magi keep them illuminated, don’t bother creating barriers!’ shouted Cid, knowing that any attempt to create a gate of light now would just be counteracted and essentially waste the magi’s energy. The best they could do was maintain some light as anything more ambitious would be thwarted.

  ‘Retreat?’ suggested Olum softly next to Cid.

  He seriously considered it for a moment as a few globes of light came into existence again, lighting up Lanston and their perimeter.

  ‘No, keep ranks. When the time comes we can escape right past them,’ said Cid

  ‘They are still hundreds! And collectively we have only twenty volleys of arrows left!’

  ‘We have two hundred shields still and we’ll use them to entrench,’ said Cid.

  ‘Their numbers will weigh right through us!’ said Olum angrily.

  ‘And we’ll let them! We’re going to funnel these bastards, besides, if we retreat and by some miracle get past the strike teams behind us we will still have lost the war. What happens here is but a portion of what awaits the force in the canyon!’ said Cid.

  ‘I… what do you want us to do?’ asked Olum, clearly showing that he could not fathom the best interest of his men any better than Cid had to offer.

  Cid shouted loudly, his voice easily carrying to each man.

  ‘I want two turtles, perfect division! Mirror a crescent formation at the first line of trees, eight yard gap! We’re going to funnel them into our melee specialists who will keep in rotation. Archers and magi stay tightly behind the turtles! Fire only at the bulk, leave the funnelled men! Front most infantry to wield spears, all enchanted shields stay mobile and watch for those priests! If they start tossing spells at us hurry to intercept them!’

  Cid’s command became law as the men scrambled to obey.

  He watched in a mix of anxiety and satisfaction as the two crescent shaped turtles formed and the rest of the men lining up behind them. Cid’s plan used the natural surroundings to create a perfect killing ground. The woods circling the glade were dense, yet at intervals leaking out of it were corridors with few-to-no trees, the ground hard and barren.

  The melee specialists were to man the corridor while the infantry guarded its entrance and let past so few a number of Fallen as they could. This way the Fallen’s advantage given by numbers were eliminated for a while at least.

  The turtles settled while Cid, Brunick, Olum and the rest of the specialists spread out through the corridor, a rough three or four yards between each of them.

  ‘Me and Brunick will be the central pair, the rest of you rotate every three kills and get the bodies out of the way if you can!’

  Cid held his spear in the serpent stance; tightly in one hand, elbow high and bent, and loose in the other, arm extended. Even though out in the open he was, as ever, consolidated by Brunick’s presence.

  Then the Fallen charged. The eclipse becoming complete.

  It was fearsome. No longer did the archers release lofty arching volleys, instead they fired straight line kill shots at the passing Fallen. As predicted they first clattered against the shields of the infantry but was quick to be directed into the path of least resistance; into the corridor with the full fury of a stampede, the nuisance of the archers’ arrows and the infantry’s protruding spears keeping them from aligning their weight enough to overpower the specialists.

  The onslaught was instant, most melee specialists wielded heavy two-handed weapons and the resultant impact and wounds that followed made the arrow wounds seem polite. As the swarm approached Cid and Brunick moved ever so slightly to the fore to help the first line of specialists.

  Cid lunged and suddenly his view of the battleground faded away as he focused on the task before him. He remained rhythmic, his spear a partner of dance. The elongated blade of the spearhead allowed him to cleave and slash just as well stab. At times he would twirl the spear through his fingers, slashing far and wide at any Fallen that dared came too close, and once it came to it the steel butt of his spear smashed the face of an enemy flanking him.

  When a fallen came in with speed, Cid launched the spear at his belly, halting him in his tracks while whipping out his sabre to kill the follow-up. He would retrieve his spear even before the man could collapse and strike again -and again.

  So effortlessly did Mindevhier pierce the armours that it allowed Cid to indeed lash like a serpent; ready to attack again in a moment’s notice.

  The bodies already piled and the position of the Lanston soldiers was only strengthened as the scores of Fallen killed by arrows became further obstacles at the corridor entrance. Cid could feel how the specialists around him rotated; only he and Brunick remained at the front, serving as a foundation. He could even tell how some of the specialists were dragging the Fallen bodies out from under their feet. Stumbling over a corpse will ever be a sad mistake in battle.

  It was peculiar then, fighting perpetually, driven by death and beheld by the motionless infantry who could do nothing but remain firm and watch the specialists do battle while bathed in artificial light. It was indeed like fighting in an arena, and fittingly Cid drew strength from their watching eyes, as though he could react on their wishes for him to strike harder and faster.

  A turning point came when Cid spotted a fallen encroaching an occupied Brunick from behind.

  ‘Brunick, behind you!’ yelled Cid in panic, entangled with his own set of enemies.

  Brunick decapitated the fallen at his front and then, in an instant, turned on the spot and swung his axe in an overhead arc with lightning quickness. What followed elicited a raucous cheer from the infantry.

  Brunick’s blood dripping axe blades struck right onto shoulder and neck, the strength of the blow collapsing the fallen soldier in upon himself, going down in a spray of blood and shattered armour. Cid was crudely reminded of once seeing a construction worker downright crushed by a falling segment of wall. Brunick’s axe had done much of the same effect. A surge of energy resonated among the men, the shields pressing a step closer without command, tightening the corridor eagerly, and Cid could feel the charge of the Fallen losing its persistence.

  The eclipse had proven to favour the men from Lanston much more than the F
allen, but with the wide-spread darkness Cid knew it was only a matter of time before the Fallen made full use of it, sending in their assassins.

  The shadowlings were some of the most despised magic that came from the arsenal of the Shadow Priests, lasting but a few hours, but intended to cause great damage in that short time. They were a conjuring, dark magic that replicated living things, attaching themselves to a Fallen soldier, and the soldier itself would burn out and disappear into the void at the end of its life, doomed to an shorter lifespan than the already cursed Fallen. The shadowling came to human eyes as dark cloaked beings, bent and hunched, but as fast and whimsical as the root of its name. They disappeared from sight quite easily and preferred to use long knives to deadly effect. They could not enter light or be exposed to the sun directly, being solely effective during night-time or in shadowy areas. But with the eclipse above them this was their day and with their speed they wreaked havoc in Lanston ranks desperately trying to keep the integrity of their formation.

  They were kept at bay with light, and only the steel of a soldier with great nerve could find its mark and kill it. Cid organized his men to cut down the movement of the shadowlings with the light of the Sekhaimogists, and eliminate them the moment they were trapped, not taking a risk until they were.

  Even with that behind them the odds worsened again within moments, the few shadowlings only a distraction it seemed to pre-occupy Cid’s magicians . Dark violet flames crashed into the Lanston men, seemingly as though the eclipse above had started spitting fire. The enhanced shield-bearers did their best to position themselves with their golden shields overhead, yet all that followed were a multitude of dying screams shrouded in thick black swirls of smoke as the flames rolled over men and foliage.