56 Chapter 56 - Scourge by Fire (1/2)
”Keep falling back, hold ranks - right flank brace for the charge!” Phillip roared, a dozen screaming satyrs flinging themselves from a wall of flame to crash into Warden Company's flimsy lines.
The crusaders held, as did the woodsmen, but those village folk that were brave enough to fight were cut down like lambs. Phillip waved to the bands of hunters to focus their fire, arrows bringing down the enemy reinforcements.
Despite the burning landscape, the satyr and their monstrous servants continued to push through and attack. Despite being burned, despite choking on ash and dying to falling trees the enemy were seemingly immune to fear as they launched harrying strikes.
Damage continued to be dealt, and their company had taken yet more losses. Turning, Phillip eyed the fortified village of Armsworth, the last such village to go on their path to Tariak.
”Warden! Defend your warden!” Phillip yelled, seeing Jack fling tongues of flame into the enemy ranks, the blaze behind them scarcely holding off the near suicidal goatmen.
With their ranks spread thin to catch those zealous goatmen that managed to make it through the inferno, Phillip was forced to charge himself or see his Captain overrun.
”Rally to me! The Warden must not fall!”
To either side appeared a battered squad of villagers and crusaders. Together they charged Jack's position, all the way at the rearguards most forward line. Where the fighting was thickest.
Alone he had held off an army by copying the Pyromancers power to wield flame, but he was no god. They pulled him away a wounded man, drenched in red, burned across his face and arms, breathes rasping in Phillip's ear.
Arrows sung through the air, pegging Phillips' warriors to the ground. Jack's retreat broke the balwalk, the enemy commander sending fresh troops accompanied by starved monsters.
From their flank came a trio of Minotours, the half bull men cleaving through entire men and throwing broken bodies high in the air with horns drenched crimson. Hunters bravely held their ground and fired a volley, the arrows tinkling aside as they were too weak to pierce the monsters hide.
From the battle appeared the Flower Knight, her blade piercing one Minotours through the side of the head. By drawing away the Minotours attention, the hunters could escape to higher ground.
”Come on fellas, it's just little old me,” the Flower Knight giggled as the other two swung their axes in wide arcs. Dancing past their guard, she thrust her blade through one's head and nlew dust into the face of the last.
Roaring the Minotour swung wildly, it's powerful strokes screaming through only air as twin daggers were thrown to plunge into its eyes. Maddened and blind it thrashed and crashed, the Flower Knight giggling as she led it away to attack it's own allies.
The Satyrs were thrown around just as easily as the humans, more then a few parted in two or sent howling back into the burning forest. As for the dead pair, sparkling yellow flowers burst from their mouths and were added to the Flower Knight's flowerbed mane.
Retreating back to the village, Phillip found the squads neatly arranged. His priests were out of blessings, and instead busied themselves by organising the defence. Several villages had been contacted on their retreat path, the fastest horses and runners despatched to send families fleeing to Tariak and available fighters here.
Warden Company now stood several hundred strong, and under the banner of the Inquisition Jack addressed his warriors even while the battle continued behind him. Pushing aside those that had been holding him up, Jack forced his damaged body to stand proud.
”Today, we will inspire a legend. Thank you heroic people of this land for heeding my call, we will show these monsters that humanity is not so easily cowed!” a roar of men, a clatter of steel and the banshee shrieks of the experimental all female contingent.
While the inquisition allowed female crusaders, even Phillip had balked at first in allowing the women to fight entirely on their own. Yet the 'Wiltedwives' as they had so affectionately called themselves had proven a potent tool. Widows, filled with the rage of lost love ones, they fought tooth and nail against the enemy with a resolve of a hardened crusaders and the ruthlessness of the criminal competents of Warden Company's forces.
Their leader strode back to meet then after another days work, the Flower Knight welcomed by her followerers. Perhaps to copy her, they too wove flowers into their hair, and while such activities could be considered pagan, Jack has given the order to let them be.