Post by Dead Greyhawk on Aug 9, 2007 22:32:30 GMT -5
Maximilian heals Otto the best he can, pouring Pelor's grace into Otto's weakening body. It is like staunching the tide though, as the pick-wielder lays into Otto unceasingly, each blow healing some of the damage Otto does in return. As Maximilian reaches out to heal Otto once more, his feet fly out from under him, and he is dragged upwards into the air. Looking around, startled, he spies the night-haunt glaring at him, small horns on its head glowing a sickly green color.
The loss of Otto's healer is devastating. With two quick blows, the pick-wielder drives Otto down onto the ground. Before the shocked eyes of the rest of the Company, he raises his pick high and drives it twice into the top of Otto's skull, leaving two huge holes through Otto's head.
The night-haunt swoops after Oaklock, who quickly changes shape, healing some of his wounds. The battering Oaklock takes from the beast is brutal, and he barely holds onto consciousness. Instead of standing and probably dying, he takes to the air, flying high up and away from the battle.
Diego learns from Otto's death. Whatever heals the pick-wielder, it comes from the might of his blows. Diego stays outside of the pick-wielder's range, feathering him with arrows and retreating. This tactic is mostly successful, except for the odd charge by the pick-wielder, until Diego finds himself floating up off the ground.
Diego glances around, searching for what has torn him from the earth, and sees the vile, ichor-dripping night-haunt standing over an unconscious Winthrop. Large rents are torn through Winthrop's robes, the marks of the creature's great blade. From this distance, Diego can't see if Winthrop still breathes. Diego cries out in anger and sends a series of shafts winging at the creature, none of which penetrate its black and silver plating.
The night-haunt's immunity to Diego's weapon of choice is unsurprising, but it drives Diego into a fury. He calls out at the night-haunt, insulting its progeny and lineage with great verbosity and skill. Adding injury to insult, Diego reaches back over his shoulder and draws out the javelin found in the lair of the great blue dragon. With a strong throw, he sends it into one of the paralyzed priests, where the javelin transforms into a bolt of lightning, long enough to pass through the night-haunt. While the priest's frame jerks about, the night-haunt seems barely scratched. Diego has recaptured its attentions though, as it turns to look up at him with black, beetle-like eyes.
Unlike with Maximilian, the creature seems less inclined to leave Diego alone. It menaces him, giving him barely enough time to drop his shortbow and pull out his bastardsword. Diego strikes once, and not even deeply, before the creature guts him. Adding insult to fatal injury, the creature pulls one of Diego's arms and legs off, tossing them to the ground, and setting Diego's corpse into a spin, spewing his blood in a spiral onto the battlefield below.
The battle of the priests finally concludes, mainly in the Company's favor. The last of the Dead God's priests, except for the golden-clad one, is paralyzed, but so is Adrienne. Only Hugh remains free of motion on the charnel field. For a moment, Hugh is paralyzed with indecision. Diego is dead, Maximilian lost, Winthrop collapsed in a pile, Oaklock fled. Should Hugh retreat or continue the fight?
Suddenly, Pfiffwin appears out of nowhere, driving his shortsword into the groin of one of the paralyzed priests of the Dead God. The gnome grins a bloody grin, transforming his jester's face into a psychotic leer, as the priest falls down dead, blood gushing. "Just the right height!" he hollers with a cackle before he disappears again into the smoke of battle.
Hugh is oddly comforted by the sight. Trithereon has given him a clear symbol of the power of vengeance and the might of the small against the mighty. He charges for Winthrop, laying Trithereon's blessing upon his broken, but breathing body. Winthrop's wounds are so great that Hugh pours his prayers over him like water from a pitcher, and, even then, Winthrop barely stirs. "You've got to reach deep," urges Hugh. "Feel the need for vengeance or the battle is lost for sure."
Winthrop blearily looks across the battlefield, in time to see the golden-clad priest stride over to his champion and, with a single word and a light touch, heal him of all of the wounds Diego inflicted on him. "Help me up," gasps Winthrop as he reaches into his belt pouches. He draws out two wands of power, one of steam and vapor used with such effect in Nosnra's steading and one of magical bolts, and leans heavily on Hugh. "If I fall over, push me back up. Make sure I'm pointed in the right direction. I can barely breathe," pants the wizard, his wounds leaking blood and serum.
The night-haunt, having removed two of the magi, now focuses on Dell, chasing after him and striking him. The brutal power of the creature's weapons punishes the half-elf, almost laying him low. Like Oaklock, he is forced to change shape and flee the battlefield, flying up into the sky high above. Oaklock, in turn, returns, sending a bolt of lightning through the night-haunt and one of the paralyzed priests on the battlefield below. The priest silently convulses and falls to the ground, smoking, but the night-haunt is entirely unharmed.
As the pick-wielder closes in on Hugh and Winthrop, ready to send the mage and priest to their avenging god, Hugh summons the last of his binding prayers. He stares at the charging warrior and reaches out with Trithereon's grasp. Surprisingly, his prayer is successful! The warrior lurches to a halt in mid-stride.
Hugh gasps in relief and clutches Winthrop's arm raising it at the stricken warrior. "Steam! The steam! Do it now!" cries Hugh. Winthrop speaks the words of power and sags in Hugh's arm, the wand belching a cone of steam that flows over and settles on the frozen warrior. Winthrop sways like a drunken sailor, but does not lose consciousness, his head, but not his eyes, lolling back. Hugh draws him up again, thrusting the wand in Winthrop's hand forward at the warrior. "Again, again!" he cries, seeing the skin on the warrior's face bubble and boil.
Winthrop speaks the words of power again, belching a second cloud of steam over the warrior. The magic of the wand places such a great strain on Winthrop's fragile form that he can no longer stand and instead slides to the ground, staring glassily at the man slowly boiling to death in front of him.
Behind them, Oaklock and Maximilian both fall from the sky. The night-haunt, finally bored with playing with the Pelorite, cuts the strings that held him aloft. Maximilian screams the hundred or so feet that he falls, before landing in a broken pile on the ground. Oaklock, in contrast, barely makes it to the ground before being spitted on the sword of the night-haunt. Blood frothing from his lips, Oaklock crawls pitifully away from the evil creature, trying to find succor somewhere. The creature balefully gazes at the slowly fleeing elf and then turns away, pausing to again send Maximilian's broken form sailing upwards into the sky in some burst of otherworldly humor.
Dell flaps downward as a gargoyle and summons a vile miasma over the golden-clad priest. The priest coughs and wracks his lungs as the gas flows over him. "Winthrop! Now or never!" shouts Dell, as he levels the ice wand at the golden-clad priest. Large blocks of ice cascade out of the sky onto the nauseated priest, pummeling him. Winthrop stretches out an arm and stutters forth the words of power, sending a cloud of scalding vapor over the golden-clad priest, before falling into a stupor, the last of his energy consumed by his actions.
The flow of the larger battle ebbs around them, and ghouls reappear. Hugh, still staring at the warrior, who is now quite charred around the head and neck, is able to destroy many of them. The remnants fall on Adrienne, gnawing and clawing at her paralyzed form. Before the avenging priest can close to combat with them, Adrienne has fallen, though she still lives. Again Hugh is torn between who to protect, the fallen mage or the fallen priest, but his hated of unlife wins out, and he charges into battle with the ghouls.
Another burst of ice from the wand slams into the golden-clad priest, but is the end of the wand. The golden-clad priest still stands, though he is doubled-over from the miasma and enveloped in Winthrop's cloud of scalding vapor. Dell looks around at the battlefield and realizes that only he and Hugh remain in the fight. Hugh stands over Adrienne's rigid body, his flaming sword carving great arcs through the pack of ghouls that threaten him, but Dell can see even more undead, and possibly the first of the giants, closing onto them.
Dell ponders the state of things and looks longingly at the villa, only a few hundred feet away. Resignedly, he reaches inside his breast pocket and draws out the delusional ring, the one that his magical investigations claimed would grant him his hopes and dreams, and dons it. As the golden-clad priest falls over, Dell intones loudly and clearly, "I wish that the Company of the Blue Sun and all its allies were restored and made healthy and whole."
A searing pain goes through Dell's hand and body, as if the ring had become molten and flowed into his body through his hand and out through the bottom of his feet. Beyond the agony Dell finds himself in, nothing suddenly changes. Diego and Maximilian's torn bodies continue to spiral upwards, the horrible night-haunt swoops down towards the glassy-eyed Winthrop, and Hugh narrowly avoids the fell claws of a particularly tenacious ghast. Then, with the sound of fine high pitched chimes, things begin to appear in the area, golden things.
Small, flying, golden-furred elephants appear through golden tears in the sky, a small chime ringing as each appears. Not one elephant, but instead a flock of elephants flits through the sky, trumpeting with a thunderous roar. The silver and black plated, green ichor dripping leviathan is beset by a clutch of the tiny elephants, each of whom trumpet golden light onto the leviathan. Overwhelmed by the light, the night-haunt shrinks and disappears with a violet light and a tearing sound.
Simultaneously, other small, flying, golden-furred elephants chase through the sky, recovering Maximilian and Diego, as well as all of his constituent parts. They bleat and honk over their bodies, as well as over the prone bodies of the rest of the Company, coating them with a bright, golden light. Like before, most of the Company feels peaceful, while a few feel a bit on edge, but the golden light is most helpful and healing. Diego and Otto's horrific wounds knit and heal, and both breathe again. The others who were direly injured feel as if they have been brought from death's door, and they quickly regain their strength.
The golden-furred elephants seem to have a similar effect on unlife as they had on the night-haunt, and the ghouls, ghasts, and undead warriors flee from them. The warriors scoop up the one surviving, paralyzed priest of the Dead God and bring him with them as they flee the battle. The backbone of the orc encampment has been shattered by the presence of these trumpeting creatures, and all organization and order, never a strong point of orcs, is lost.
Oddly though, the vast majority of the flying, golden-furred elephants do not engage the orcs that have besieged Longspear for so long. Instead they fly across the battlefield, away from the Company towards the southwest, in a long arc, like birds migrating for the winter. The Company is left in command of the battlefield, but swarming with riotous, retreating enemy.
"Grab the bodies," bellows Otto over the noise. "Grab the leaders and pull back to the catacombs. We can hold the passage easier than holding this ground." As usual, Otto's tactical skill is sound. While he and Diego, neither of whom have truly comprehended what has just happened, clear space for the Company to collect, regroup, and withdraw, the others grab the bodies of the mage, the golden-clad priest, the pick-wielding warrior, and several of the priestly lieutenants that came back to the battle.
Dell has a different target though. He whips part of a nearby tent off and tosses it over the withered hand wielded by the golden-clad priest. With a deft twist of the wrist, he succeeds in wrapping the hand within the tent cloth, avoiding laying hands on the object itself. He carefully drops it within the magical box and then closes the box tightly. Only then is he ready to withdraw with the others to the relative safety of the catacombs.
Raven, Frank, and Cathmandius ride through the Little Hills, their force of men large enough to dissuade all but the strongest patrols from engaging them, towards the siege of Longspear. The light of false dawn, reaching them at their higher elevation before those at the river's edge, is enough to lay clear the task before them. Giants and orcs camp in disarray before the city, throughout what was once fertile croplands supplying the city. The camps show no sign of warning or foreknowledge of the imminent battle to be fought. Instead, their inhabitants loll about or argue vigorously with one another depending on the temper of the moment.
"Over there," calls Frank, gesturing to his right, further south and east. "Looks like Al's come through." A short line of marching troops, carrying large banners and faintly chanting as they approach, is barely visible, and audible, approaching the siege. While barely outnumbering Raven, Frank, and Cathmandius's men, the dwarves hatred of orcs and special training against giants make them a valuable addition to forces freeing Longspear.
"We strike hard for the middle of the camp, to where the leaders may still be," begins Raven, speaking to his men. "Let Frank, myself, or Cathmandius and his men deal with any giants; the rest of you protect our flanks. Frank and his boys will peel off and meet up with Al and his cousins if they come into sight. The rest of you keep close and listen for orders. If I fall, Frank leads. If Frank falls, follow the priest's orders. The battle depends on us drawing enough attention for Sir Highrider's forces to muster out of the city in force and in coordination, so we don't retreat until that's done. Good luck, and I'll see you all on the other side."
Cathmandius smirks at Raven's words, turns to his men, and takes a deep breath. "These men are our allies today. We will crush their enemies. Hextor will know his own! What do we do today?" cries Cathmandius.
"Crush!" shout his men.
"Who will know his own?" cries Cathmandius.
"Hextor!" shout his men.
"We go to die for your cause," says Cathmandius to Raven. "Lead us to our doom."
"I've got to get me some troops like that," thinks Raven, appreciating the fervor of Cathmandius's men.
As the sun peeks up over the horizon, the side gates of Longspear begin to creak open, the beginning of Sir Highrider's gambit. Raven waves his frostbrand over his head and kicks Giuseppe into a canter, starting his attack. Welcomingly, his men and the others follow behind him, and the charge is begun.
The orcs and giants downhill are taken mainly unaware. Raids of this sort are not uncommon, but the orcs, typical of their kind, fail to maintain adequate pickets. Raven and his men are within the camp before an effective defense can be made. In contrast to past attacks though, this is no hit and run. Instead, Raven pushes Guiseppe deeper and deeper into camp, trampling over the sleeping, striking down those that get within range, ignoring the outcome of any attempt. "Blue Sun! Blue Sun!" shouts Raven and his men, each adorned, temporarily at least, with the patches recovered by Frank long ago.
Horns blare and commands are shouted in among the orc troops and suddenly resistance stiffens. Unlife, ghouls, ghasts, skeletons, and zombies, run through the camp to meet Raven and the others. Cathmandius commands them in the name of Hextor, turning them on their fellow unlife in a great melee. Their goal of slaying Raven and the others is unmet, but their purpose of delaying and blunting the assault is met. Raven and the others penetrate no further into the camp, but instead are increasingly surrounded by the weight of orcish troops.
As planned, Cathmandius's troops face into the camp and take the worst of the battle, but they are veteran troops, able to fight and hold their own. Raven's men hold their ground rather than collapsing, but are quickly surrounded. The sound of dwarven war chants to the east ring loud and clear, but the dwarves must be suffering a similar fate, as neither they nor the effects of their axes, hammers, and mauls can be seen.
Cathmandius orders his men into a semi-circle, creating a hole for him and his horse to stand in. Reaching into a large sack, he pulls forth what appears to be a blackened holy water sprinkler, oversized and set with a long, thick chain and a verdigrised handle. He pours something into the bell-shaped ball of the sprinkler and begins swinging it over his head in a great circle. Black and red mist sprays from the holy water sprinkler, creating a haze in the air over him and the others. "Malphas! Malphas! By the fifth arm of the Great Lord Hextor I call upon your might. Malphas, by fealty right I summon you upon pain of your single name!" shouts Cathmandius, blood pouring down from a large cut along the rim of his helmet. "Malphas, blood and souls! Malphas, I call upon you in the name of the Great Lord!"
With deep ringing chimes, black ovals spring into being over the whirling holy water sprinkler. Five black, glistening creatures spring to being through the portals, flapping great leathery wings that shine with iridescence. Each creature's shine is of a different color: blue, green, red, white, and a colorless black. With long razor-fanged snouts and sharp colored talons, they are fearsome to behold, especially as the light surrounding them seems to be drawn inwards to them, shrouding Cathmandius in a grey blankness.
"BLOOD! SOULS! MALPHAS!" hisses the largest of the creatures, the red-glistening one, at Cathmandius.
Cathmandius's horse bucks madly at the sight flapping above it, but Cathmandius calmly keeps his seat. Still swinging the holy water sprinker with both hands, spraying the material within in a great umbrella-like arc, Cathmandius shouts upwards at the things, "Only the Euroz are yours to reap. Touch no other or suffer banishment by your Lord and mine. Agree now, or return in weakness." Sweat pours down his face, though whether from the strain of swinging the huge holy water sprinkler or the negotiation is unclear.
The things hiss at one another and then wing their way forward into the combat, scooping up orc soldiery and tearing them apart. They are frighteningly fierce beasts, and the orcs flee them as they approach, like the fox before the hounds. Immediately the pressure on Raven's men ceases as the orcs break. "Did you just summon demons to fight the orcs?" asks Raven, agog at Cathmandius's act.
Cathmandius slowly lowers the holy water sprinkler until it lies slack beside him and his now-calmer horse. "Devils. They are devils. Neither I nor the Great Lord would deal with demons. They are scum. I said I would aid you to the utmost of my abilities, and so I have. Do not go back on your alliance. Word is bond," says Cathmandius from beneath hooded brows.
Raven reflects that now is likely a poor time to renegotiate his alliance with Cathmandius. "We are still good. Victory is more important than details at this point. We ride into Longspear as victors, together," he reassures Cathmandius.
The devils wreak havoc among the orcs, allowing Frank to ride his men towards the dwarves and provide them with cavalry support. Raven and Cathmandius's men push deeper into the battle, trying to reach a small hillock where a group of giants stand, lobbing stones towards the city. After a fierce fight, the giants retreat, leaving the victors a clear view of the battle.
While Raven's drive has been successful, the forces pouring out of Longspear have taken massive casualties, especially from the giant's bombardment. Worse, the unlife is in among the troops, and the depletion of Longspear's priesthood poses a grave problem for the troops. Ghasts drive their ghoul packs through the humans, paralyzing those that survive their attacks and making them easy prey for the orc soldiery.
Mounted troops, possibly Richard Coldheart and his men, repeatedly charge through the lines, reaching giants and ogres that make up those bombarding the troops. Unfortunately, too few of the knights remain, and their attacks are too slow and diffuse to sway the balance of the battle.
On the flank of the encampment, Alouicious and his brethren have made a bullwark of orcish bodies and press forward on a path parallel to Raven's. In the encampment's rear, a great fire burns and things rise up into the sky. Raven hopes that they are the mages of the Company, rather than something else to fight.
Behind him, along the path they have driven to the hillock, the sound of deep ringing chimes repeats itself as the devils summoned by Cathmandius replicate themselves, calling more of their brethren to their side. The destruction they wage is fierce, but Raven fears that their pact with Cathmandius is not as adamantine as it could be.
Back over the fire, a sudden blaze of gold appears, along with the sound of a trumpet. Raven's heart lightens, while Cathmandius scowls. Appearing at random throughout the battlefield are small golden flecks of light, their identity indistinguishable at this distance. The unlife is panicked by the golden light, much to Raven's pleasure, and even the orcs and giants seem unnerved. Before his very eyes, the course of the battle changes.
Cathmandius's devils fight through the orcs with ease, and now the dwarves of the Little Hills do so as well. Raven calls his men to him, preparing to charge back down the hillock into the fray, when Cathmandius calls to him, pointing before him. A flight of small, dog-sized, furry golden elephants appear over Cathmandius and Raven's troops, spraying them with golden light from their trunks and healing their wounds. Cathmandius and his men are visibly repulsed by the experience, though Raven finds it rather nice. The golden elephants react poorly to Cathmandius and rapidly disappear, but Cathmandius shouts with inchoate anger at what he sees in the distance.
The devils and the golden lights, visible now as small, dog-sized, furry golden elephants, fight among each other. The devils appear much the weaker and are swarmed by the golden elephants, who flee the other parts of the battlefield to engage the devils. With great trumpeting and the spraying of some golden light, the devils are harried and chased through the sky, forcing the devils back to their hellish plane.
As the appearance of the golden elephants destroyed the cohesion of the orcish army, the equally sudden disappearance of the golden elephants allows their leaders to turn a rout into a retreat. The orcs and their giant allies fall back to the northwest, towards the Little Hills and along the Javan River, leaving their unlife allies to continue the fight.
Raven gnashes his teeth in frustration. The Longspear militia appears too weakened to pursue the orcs through the undead, but Raven's troops are insufficient to pursue the much larger horde. Turning Giuseppe to survey the field again, he waves to Cathmandius. "Follow me or deal with the undead at your discretion. I go to see what is left of the Company, to gain their strength before pushing back to the city," he shouts, pointing towards the burning fire.
Cathmandius nods and wheels his men towards the city, choosing unlife over life, so Raven and his troops ride alone through the fleeing army. The pavilion and the surrounding tents are a veritable inferno, bits of flaming canvas floating through the air and lighting nearby tents on fire. Raven searches for the Company, but finds nothing but enemy bodies littering the field. Finally, he rides for the ruins of the villa, hoping to find the entrance to the catacombs. Instead, he more pleasantly finds a grinning Pfiffwin waving to him from behind a pile of collapsed masonry.
Out from the villa comes the rest of the Company, each hale and hearty, restored by the golden elephants. The Company is reformed, having won the battle, but perhaps not the war.
The loss of Otto's healer is devastating. With two quick blows, the pick-wielder drives Otto down onto the ground. Before the shocked eyes of the rest of the Company, he raises his pick high and drives it twice into the top of Otto's skull, leaving two huge holes through Otto's head.
The night-haunt swoops after Oaklock, who quickly changes shape, healing some of his wounds. The battering Oaklock takes from the beast is brutal, and he barely holds onto consciousness. Instead of standing and probably dying, he takes to the air, flying high up and away from the battle.
Diego learns from Otto's death. Whatever heals the pick-wielder, it comes from the might of his blows. Diego stays outside of the pick-wielder's range, feathering him with arrows and retreating. This tactic is mostly successful, except for the odd charge by the pick-wielder, until Diego finds himself floating up off the ground.
Diego glances around, searching for what has torn him from the earth, and sees the vile, ichor-dripping night-haunt standing over an unconscious Winthrop. Large rents are torn through Winthrop's robes, the marks of the creature's great blade. From this distance, Diego can't see if Winthrop still breathes. Diego cries out in anger and sends a series of shafts winging at the creature, none of which penetrate its black and silver plating.
The night-haunt's immunity to Diego's weapon of choice is unsurprising, but it drives Diego into a fury. He calls out at the night-haunt, insulting its progeny and lineage with great verbosity and skill. Adding injury to insult, Diego reaches back over his shoulder and draws out the javelin found in the lair of the great blue dragon. With a strong throw, he sends it into one of the paralyzed priests, where the javelin transforms into a bolt of lightning, long enough to pass through the night-haunt. While the priest's frame jerks about, the night-haunt seems barely scratched. Diego has recaptured its attentions though, as it turns to look up at him with black, beetle-like eyes.
Unlike with Maximilian, the creature seems less inclined to leave Diego alone. It menaces him, giving him barely enough time to drop his shortbow and pull out his bastardsword. Diego strikes once, and not even deeply, before the creature guts him. Adding insult to fatal injury, the creature pulls one of Diego's arms and legs off, tossing them to the ground, and setting Diego's corpse into a spin, spewing his blood in a spiral onto the battlefield below.
The battle of the priests finally concludes, mainly in the Company's favor. The last of the Dead God's priests, except for the golden-clad one, is paralyzed, but so is Adrienne. Only Hugh remains free of motion on the charnel field. For a moment, Hugh is paralyzed with indecision. Diego is dead, Maximilian lost, Winthrop collapsed in a pile, Oaklock fled. Should Hugh retreat or continue the fight?
Suddenly, Pfiffwin appears out of nowhere, driving his shortsword into the groin of one of the paralyzed priests of the Dead God. The gnome grins a bloody grin, transforming his jester's face into a psychotic leer, as the priest falls down dead, blood gushing. "Just the right height!" he hollers with a cackle before he disappears again into the smoke of battle.
Hugh is oddly comforted by the sight. Trithereon has given him a clear symbol of the power of vengeance and the might of the small against the mighty. He charges for Winthrop, laying Trithereon's blessing upon his broken, but breathing body. Winthrop's wounds are so great that Hugh pours his prayers over him like water from a pitcher, and, even then, Winthrop barely stirs. "You've got to reach deep," urges Hugh. "Feel the need for vengeance or the battle is lost for sure."
Winthrop blearily looks across the battlefield, in time to see the golden-clad priest stride over to his champion and, with a single word and a light touch, heal him of all of the wounds Diego inflicted on him. "Help me up," gasps Winthrop as he reaches into his belt pouches. He draws out two wands of power, one of steam and vapor used with such effect in Nosnra's steading and one of magical bolts, and leans heavily on Hugh. "If I fall over, push me back up. Make sure I'm pointed in the right direction. I can barely breathe," pants the wizard, his wounds leaking blood and serum.
The night-haunt, having removed two of the magi, now focuses on Dell, chasing after him and striking him. The brutal power of the creature's weapons punishes the half-elf, almost laying him low. Like Oaklock, he is forced to change shape and flee the battlefield, flying up into the sky high above. Oaklock, in turn, returns, sending a bolt of lightning through the night-haunt and one of the paralyzed priests on the battlefield below. The priest silently convulses and falls to the ground, smoking, but the night-haunt is entirely unharmed.
As the pick-wielder closes in on Hugh and Winthrop, ready to send the mage and priest to their avenging god, Hugh summons the last of his binding prayers. He stares at the charging warrior and reaches out with Trithereon's grasp. Surprisingly, his prayer is successful! The warrior lurches to a halt in mid-stride.
Hugh gasps in relief and clutches Winthrop's arm raising it at the stricken warrior. "Steam! The steam! Do it now!" cries Hugh. Winthrop speaks the words of power and sags in Hugh's arm, the wand belching a cone of steam that flows over and settles on the frozen warrior. Winthrop sways like a drunken sailor, but does not lose consciousness, his head, but not his eyes, lolling back. Hugh draws him up again, thrusting the wand in Winthrop's hand forward at the warrior. "Again, again!" he cries, seeing the skin on the warrior's face bubble and boil.
Winthrop speaks the words of power again, belching a second cloud of steam over the warrior. The magic of the wand places such a great strain on Winthrop's fragile form that he can no longer stand and instead slides to the ground, staring glassily at the man slowly boiling to death in front of him.
Behind them, Oaklock and Maximilian both fall from the sky. The night-haunt, finally bored with playing with the Pelorite, cuts the strings that held him aloft. Maximilian screams the hundred or so feet that he falls, before landing in a broken pile on the ground. Oaklock, in contrast, barely makes it to the ground before being spitted on the sword of the night-haunt. Blood frothing from his lips, Oaklock crawls pitifully away from the evil creature, trying to find succor somewhere. The creature balefully gazes at the slowly fleeing elf and then turns away, pausing to again send Maximilian's broken form sailing upwards into the sky in some burst of otherworldly humor.
Dell flaps downward as a gargoyle and summons a vile miasma over the golden-clad priest. The priest coughs and wracks his lungs as the gas flows over him. "Winthrop! Now or never!" shouts Dell, as he levels the ice wand at the golden-clad priest. Large blocks of ice cascade out of the sky onto the nauseated priest, pummeling him. Winthrop stretches out an arm and stutters forth the words of power, sending a cloud of scalding vapor over the golden-clad priest, before falling into a stupor, the last of his energy consumed by his actions.
The flow of the larger battle ebbs around them, and ghouls reappear. Hugh, still staring at the warrior, who is now quite charred around the head and neck, is able to destroy many of them. The remnants fall on Adrienne, gnawing and clawing at her paralyzed form. Before the avenging priest can close to combat with them, Adrienne has fallen, though she still lives. Again Hugh is torn between who to protect, the fallen mage or the fallen priest, but his hated of unlife wins out, and he charges into battle with the ghouls.
Another burst of ice from the wand slams into the golden-clad priest, but is the end of the wand. The golden-clad priest still stands, though he is doubled-over from the miasma and enveloped in Winthrop's cloud of scalding vapor. Dell looks around at the battlefield and realizes that only he and Hugh remain in the fight. Hugh stands over Adrienne's rigid body, his flaming sword carving great arcs through the pack of ghouls that threaten him, but Dell can see even more undead, and possibly the first of the giants, closing onto them.
Dell ponders the state of things and looks longingly at the villa, only a few hundred feet away. Resignedly, he reaches inside his breast pocket and draws out the delusional ring, the one that his magical investigations claimed would grant him his hopes and dreams, and dons it. As the golden-clad priest falls over, Dell intones loudly and clearly, "I wish that the Company of the Blue Sun and all its allies were restored and made healthy and whole."
A searing pain goes through Dell's hand and body, as if the ring had become molten and flowed into his body through his hand and out through the bottom of his feet. Beyond the agony Dell finds himself in, nothing suddenly changes. Diego and Maximilian's torn bodies continue to spiral upwards, the horrible night-haunt swoops down towards the glassy-eyed Winthrop, and Hugh narrowly avoids the fell claws of a particularly tenacious ghast. Then, with the sound of fine high pitched chimes, things begin to appear in the area, golden things.
Small, flying, golden-furred elephants appear through golden tears in the sky, a small chime ringing as each appears. Not one elephant, but instead a flock of elephants flits through the sky, trumpeting with a thunderous roar. The silver and black plated, green ichor dripping leviathan is beset by a clutch of the tiny elephants, each of whom trumpet golden light onto the leviathan. Overwhelmed by the light, the night-haunt shrinks and disappears with a violet light and a tearing sound.
Simultaneously, other small, flying, golden-furred elephants chase through the sky, recovering Maximilian and Diego, as well as all of his constituent parts. They bleat and honk over their bodies, as well as over the prone bodies of the rest of the Company, coating them with a bright, golden light. Like before, most of the Company feels peaceful, while a few feel a bit on edge, but the golden light is most helpful and healing. Diego and Otto's horrific wounds knit and heal, and both breathe again. The others who were direly injured feel as if they have been brought from death's door, and they quickly regain their strength.
The golden-furred elephants seem to have a similar effect on unlife as they had on the night-haunt, and the ghouls, ghasts, and undead warriors flee from them. The warriors scoop up the one surviving, paralyzed priest of the Dead God and bring him with them as they flee the battle. The backbone of the orc encampment has been shattered by the presence of these trumpeting creatures, and all organization and order, never a strong point of orcs, is lost.
Oddly though, the vast majority of the flying, golden-furred elephants do not engage the orcs that have besieged Longspear for so long. Instead they fly across the battlefield, away from the Company towards the southwest, in a long arc, like birds migrating for the winter. The Company is left in command of the battlefield, but swarming with riotous, retreating enemy.
"Grab the bodies," bellows Otto over the noise. "Grab the leaders and pull back to the catacombs. We can hold the passage easier than holding this ground." As usual, Otto's tactical skill is sound. While he and Diego, neither of whom have truly comprehended what has just happened, clear space for the Company to collect, regroup, and withdraw, the others grab the bodies of the mage, the golden-clad priest, the pick-wielding warrior, and several of the priestly lieutenants that came back to the battle.
Dell has a different target though. He whips part of a nearby tent off and tosses it over the withered hand wielded by the golden-clad priest. With a deft twist of the wrist, he succeeds in wrapping the hand within the tent cloth, avoiding laying hands on the object itself. He carefully drops it within the magical box and then closes the box tightly. Only then is he ready to withdraw with the others to the relative safety of the catacombs.
Raven, Frank, and Cathmandius ride through the Little Hills, their force of men large enough to dissuade all but the strongest patrols from engaging them, towards the siege of Longspear. The light of false dawn, reaching them at their higher elevation before those at the river's edge, is enough to lay clear the task before them. Giants and orcs camp in disarray before the city, throughout what was once fertile croplands supplying the city. The camps show no sign of warning or foreknowledge of the imminent battle to be fought. Instead, their inhabitants loll about or argue vigorously with one another depending on the temper of the moment.
"Over there," calls Frank, gesturing to his right, further south and east. "Looks like Al's come through." A short line of marching troops, carrying large banners and faintly chanting as they approach, is barely visible, and audible, approaching the siege. While barely outnumbering Raven, Frank, and Cathmandius's men, the dwarves hatred of orcs and special training against giants make them a valuable addition to forces freeing Longspear.
"We strike hard for the middle of the camp, to where the leaders may still be," begins Raven, speaking to his men. "Let Frank, myself, or Cathmandius and his men deal with any giants; the rest of you protect our flanks. Frank and his boys will peel off and meet up with Al and his cousins if they come into sight. The rest of you keep close and listen for orders. If I fall, Frank leads. If Frank falls, follow the priest's orders. The battle depends on us drawing enough attention for Sir Highrider's forces to muster out of the city in force and in coordination, so we don't retreat until that's done. Good luck, and I'll see you all on the other side."
Cathmandius smirks at Raven's words, turns to his men, and takes a deep breath. "These men are our allies today. We will crush their enemies. Hextor will know his own! What do we do today?" cries Cathmandius.
"Crush!" shout his men.
"Who will know his own?" cries Cathmandius.
"Hextor!" shout his men.
"We go to die for your cause," says Cathmandius to Raven. "Lead us to our doom."
"I've got to get me some troops like that," thinks Raven, appreciating the fervor of Cathmandius's men.
As the sun peeks up over the horizon, the side gates of Longspear begin to creak open, the beginning of Sir Highrider's gambit. Raven waves his frostbrand over his head and kicks Giuseppe into a canter, starting his attack. Welcomingly, his men and the others follow behind him, and the charge is begun.
The orcs and giants downhill are taken mainly unaware. Raids of this sort are not uncommon, but the orcs, typical of their kind, fail to maintain adequate pickets. Raven and his men are within the camp before an effective defense can be made. In contrast to past attacks though, this is no hit and run. Instead, Raven pushes Guiseppe deeper and deeper into camp, trampling over the sleeping, striking down those that get within range, ignoring the outcome of any attempt. "Blue Sun! Blue Sun!" shouts Raven and his men, each adorned, temporarily at least, with the patches recovered by Frank long ago.
Horns blare and commands are shouted in among the orc troops and suddenly resistance stiffens. Unlife, ghouls, ghasts, skeletons, and zombies, run through the camp to meet Raven and the others. Cathmandius commands them in the name of Hextor, turning them on their fellow unlife in a great melee. Their goal of slaying Raven and the others is unmet, but their purpose of delaying and blunting the assault is met. Raven and the others penetrate no further into the camp, but instead are increasingly surrounded by the weight of orcish troops.
As planned, Cathmandius's troops face into the camp and take the worst of the battle, but they are veteran troops, able to fight and hold their own. Raven's men hold their ground rather than collapsing, but are quickly surrounded. The sound of dwarven war chants to the east ring loud and clear, but the dwarves must be suffering a similar fate, as neither they nor the effects of their axes, hammers, and mauls can be seen.
Cathmandius orders his men into a semi-circle, creating a hole for him and his horse to stand in. Reaching into a large sack, he pulls forth what appears to be a blackened holy water sprinkler, oversized and set with a long, thick chain and a verdigrised handle. He pours something into the bell-shaped ball of the sprinkler and begins swinging it over his head in a great circle. Black and red mist sprays from the holy water sprinkler, creating a haze in the air over him and the others. "Malphas! Malphas! By the fifth arm of the Great Lord Hextor I call upon your might. Malphas, by fealty right I summon you upon pain of your single name!" shouts Cathmandius, blood pouring down from a large cut along the rim of his helmet. "Malphas, blood and souls! Malphas, I call upon you in the name of the Great Lord!"
With deep ringing chimes, black ovals spring into being over the whirling holy water sprinkler. Five black, glistening creatures spring to being through the portals, flapping great leathery wings that shine with iridescence. Each creature's shine is of a different color: blue, green, red, white, and a colorless black. With long razor-fanged snouts and sharp colored talons, they are fearsome to behold, especially as the light surrounding them seems to be drawn inwards to them, shrouding Cathmandius in a grey blankness.
"BLOOD! SOULS! MALPHAS!" hisses the largest of the creatures, the red-glistening one, at Cathmandius.
Cathmandius's horse bucks madly at the sight flapping above it, but Cathmandius calmly keeps his seat. Still swinging the holy water sprinker with both hands, spraying the material within in a great umbrella-like arc, Cathmandius shouts upwards at the things, "Only the Euroz are yours to reap. Touch no other or suffer banishment by your Lord and mine. Agree now, or return in weakness." Sweat pours down his face, though whether from the strain of swinging the huge holy water sprinkler or the negotiation is unclear.
The things hiss at one another and then wing their way forward into the combat, scooping up orc soldiery and tearing them apart. They are frighteningly fierce beasts, and the orcs flee them as they approach, like the fox before the hounds. Immediately the pressure on Raven's men ceases as the orcs break. "Did you just summon demons to fight the orcs?" asks Raven, agog at Cathmandius's act.
Cathmandius slowly lowers the holy water sprinkler until it lies slack beside him and his now-calmer horse. "Devils. They are devils. Neither I nor the Great Lord would deal with demons. They are scum. I said I would aid you to the utmost of my abilities, and so I have. Do not go back on your alliance. Word is bond," says Cathmandius from beneath hooded brows.
Raven reflects that now is likely a poor time to renegotiate his alliance with Cathmandius. "We are still good. Victory is more important than details at this point. We ride into Longspear as victors, together," he reassures Cathmandius.
The devils wreak havoc among the orcs, allowing Frank to ride his men towards the dwarves and provide them with cavalry support. Raven and Cathmandius's men push deeper into the battle, trying to reach a small hillock where a group of giants stand, lobbing stones towards the city. After a fierce fight, the giants retreat, leaving the victors a clear view of the battle.
While Raven's drive has been successful, the forces pouring out of Longspear have taken massive casualties, especially from the giant's bombardment. Worse, the unlife is in among the troops, and the depletion of Longspear's priesthood poses a grave problem for the troops. Ghasts drive their ghoul packs through the humans, paralyzing those that survive their attacks and making them easy prey for the orc soldiery.
Mounted troops, possibly Richard Coldheart and his men, repeatedly charge through the lines, reaching giants and ogres that make up those bombarding the troops. Unfortunately, too few of the knights remain, and their attacks are too slow and diffuse to sway the balance of the battle.
On the flank of the encampment, Alouicious and his brethren have made a bullwark of orcish bodies and press forward on a path parallel to Raven's. In the encampment's rear, a great fire burns and things rise up into the sky. Raven hopes that they are the mages of the Company, rather than something else to fight.
Behind him, along the path they have driven to the hillock, the sound of deep ringing chimes repeats itself as the devils summoned by Cathmandius replicate themselves, calling more of their brethren to their side. The destruction they wage is fierce, but Raven fears that their pact with Cathmandius is not as adamantine as it could be.
Back over the fire, a sudden blaze of gold appears, along with the sound of a trumpet. Raven's heart lightens, while Cathmandius scowls. Appearing at random throughout the battlefield are small golden flecks of light, their identity indistinguishable at this distance. The unlife is panicked by the golden light, much to Raven's pleasure, and even the orcs and giants seem unnerved. Before his very eyes, the course of the battle changes.
Cathmandius's devils fight through the orcs with ease, and now the dwarves of the Little Hills do so as well. Raven calls his men to him, preparing to charge back down the hillock into the fray, when Cathmandius calls to him, pointing before him. A flight of small, dog-sized, furry golden elephants appear over Cathmandius and Raven's troops, spraying them with golden light from their trunks and healing their wounds. Cathmandius and his men are visibly repulsed by the experience, though Raven finds it rather nice. The golden elephants react poorly to Cathmandius and rapidly disappear, but Cathmandius shouts with inchoate anger at what he sees in the distance.
The devils and the golden lights, visible now as small, dog-sized, furry golden elephants, fight among each other. The devils appear much the weaker and are swarmed by the golden elephants, who flee the other parts of the battlefield to engage the devils. With great trumpeting and the spraying of some golden light, the devils are harried and chased through the sky, forcing the devils back to their hellish plane.
As the appearance of the golden elephants destroyed the cohesion of the orcish army, the equally sudden disappearance of the golden elephants allows their leaders to turn a rout into a retreat. The orcs and their giant allies fall back to the northwest, towards the Little Hills and along the Javan River, leaving their unlife allies to continue the fight.
Raven gnashes his teeth in frustration. The Longspear militia appears too weakened to pursue the orcs through the undead, but Raven's troops are insufficient to pursue the much larger horde. Turning Giuseppe to survey the field again, he waves to Cathmandius. "Follow me or deal with the undead at your discretion. I go to see what is left of the Company, to gain their strength before pushing back to the city," he shouts, pointing towards the burning fire.
Cathmandius nods and wheels his men towards the city, choosing unlife over life, so Raven and his troops ride alone through the fleeing army. The pavilion and the surrounding tents are a veritable inferno, bits of flaming canvas floating through the air and lighting nearby tents on fire. Raven searches for the Company, but finds nothing but enemy bodies littering the field. Finally, he rides for the ruins of the villa, hoping to find the entrance to the catacombs. Instead, he more pleasantly finds a grinning Pfiffwin waving to him from behind a pile of collapsed masonry.
Out from the villa comes the rest of the Company, each hale and hearty, restored by the golden elephants. The Company is reformed, having won the battle, but perhaps not the war.
