Interlude 3 - The Spoils of War (1/2)

Mastoya hated fighting giants.

The big sons-of-bitches (and daughters of bitches,) hit hard, took a lot of hits, and scared the shit out of troops that weren’t expecting them.

Which was why, instead of beating ass, Mastoya was stuck behind the lines, charging Petunia up and down them, and yelling ”Rally Troops” to rally her soldiers.

Honestly, if she hadn’t had Goliathan in her battlegroup when the blue bastards had popped up out of a suddenly-opening tunnel, she wouldn’t have bothered. Just sounded the retreat, and moved north, turned the feint up that way into a real strike.

But no, the Steam Knight had reached the level where she was Named and Feared, and also the giant she’d battered to pulp with her enormous flail still lay there, crushed, in mute testament to her might. The giants had lost momentum then, fallen back and played keep away with it, tried to get at the troops behind Goliathan instead while a few of their smarter sisters barraged him with rocks.

That was one anchoring point.

The other was Emmet.

With Inquisitor Layd’i just behind him, Emmet marched across the battlefield, and things died. When the dwarves came out to support the giants, Emmet was there. When Goliathan faltered, caught between three axe-wielding giants at once, Emmet was there.

Whoops, no, Emmet is here, Mastoya realized, reigning Petunia in as the massive armored shell loomed out of the lines. The daemon followed in his wake, frowning. “Why are you taking prisoners?”

“Why are you not on the front lines?” Mastoya bellowed, waving her sword between the two of them. Anise stepped back, eyes opening wide. “My battle! Fucking get back in position!”

“This is against the King’s direct wishes-”

“GET BACK TO IT!” Mastoya bellowed, riding directly up to the inquisitor, and rearing Petunia’s hooves over her head.

Anise backed up quickly. Then she looked to Emmet.

Emmet who was moving back to the front lines.

“What?” and oh, the daemon’s face was beautiful to see in its outrage.

“The General gave us orders,” Emmet said, moving through the ranks of the archers, and Anise followed, complaining, her voice fading as she chastised the golem.

Not that Mastoya listened for long, she was already moving again. Explosions northeast meant mortars, and the advance was slowing there.

“Unyielding,” Mastoya whispered, protecting herself against critical hits. She sheathed her sword. “Lancer,” she said, reaching into the air and pulling a steel spear out of nowhere, twirling it between her fingers before snapping it into place. “Last Crusade!” She yelled, passing through her front line, bellowing it, and hearing her troops roar as they followed her, straight towards the thin line of dwarves and the mortar teams behind them. “CHARGE!” she commanded, and Petunia sped up, sped as the bombs fell around her, as her troops crumpled from shrapnel and concussion, charged straight through the fire, leaped OVER the double-line of axemen, and landed amongst the first artillery nest.

She wanted to rage. She NEEDED to rage. It was there, it was hungry, and this was its feeding ground. Blood would sate it, she knew, more blood, even if it ripped through her like a glorious storm, even if her own blood spilled…

…but no. No, she had to keep to the plan or all was lost.

And in the split second before Mastoya landed, she sighed, fought her rage down, and said “Pommel Strike.”

Lance reversed with a quick flip, she STILL knocked the poor bastard with the telescope back about fifty feet. Then lashes took down the rest, and before the axemen could turn she was galloping hell for leather towards the next nest, and her troops were roaring, too close for the axemen to turn anyway, unless they wanted seventy-five riled up infantry up their asses.

Mastoya beat down the artillery crews, or sent them running, running back toward the newly-opened holes that they’d come from.

Once it was done, she allowed herself a moment of respite, looked around. Took stock of her battle.

She’d started with a wide advance, putting the northern forces out in front. The Wark Knights made it look like a regular assault, like many she’d tried before. Then enough of the line troops that it looked like both fronts were even.

All this had been to mask the major push that she was with, the one moving up the southern front now. The plan had been to draw the bulk of the dwarves’ forces north, retreat the northern front west, and push hard with the southern front through the diminished dwarven forces, and straight on to the mountain. Once there the siege engines could do the work.

But she hadn’t counted on the Hand tearing north, and leaving the forces they were supposed to support in the lurch. She hadn’t counted on the dwarves having artillery that could reach that far, or the loss of most of the Wark Knights. Hadn’t counted on fliers, fucking fliers, with swarms of tiny monsters that had driven off the Dragon Knights she’d deployed to cover the northern flank’s withdrawal.

So instead of pulling their forces north, then having her troops do a disciplined retreat back, to threaten the dwarves and keep them from rejoining the battle in the south, she had been forced to put everything on the southern push, while the dwarven forces held firm to the east, and were starting to tunnel in and drop off their troops from the north. The western rally point was full of injured soldiers, and broken warriors. They were no threat to the dwarves, not anymore.

The dwarves were way off script. Fliers, long-range guns, and giants. Three wild cards, she’d known nothing about. Combined with her own unreliable elites going off on a wild bear chase, the plan’s chances of success were dropping by the minute. Too many more surprises, and she’d have to order a retreat. And then, if she was wrong, the Inquisitor would ensure she had a long, painful death.

One chance, Mastoya knew. Once chance to win this.

She looked back to the very rear, to the massive wagon, animated and driving along under their own power, the drills and cannon and catapults, and the carts of explosives that would crack the mountain wide open, break open the dwarvenhold to the point where the dwarves would be forced to surrender. All they had to do was get them intact to the mountain. Five more miles, and they could do this.

She shook her head, threw a Greater Healing on herself, and headed back south-

-only to be brought up short as a figure loomed out of the dust on the horizon.

Reason.

Battered, covered in seams, staggering, it moved with ponderous speed, smokestacks still for once. Its arbalest was a shattered mess, but the monstrous machine still gripped its sword in one hand.

Mastoya stared at it for a second, something niggled in the back of her mind, but… it was gone.

No time to think. She had a battle to run. “You all right in there, Ragandor?” Mastoya bellowed.

“I’ve been better,” the heir spoke, her voice faint, barely audible. And again, something niggled at Mastoya’s mind.

No. It was Cecelia’s voice, or the voice of the thing pretending to be her, if Mastoya’s suspicions were true. Either way, it was in no shape to take on giants. But… “Go guard the engines!” She shouted. “Protect them with your life!”

There, that should keep her happy. She spent the last couple of weeks fixing those damned things anyway, she’s invested in them.

Without another word or thought, Mastoya turned and wheeled Petunia away, back to the lines.

The giants were in full rout, she was pleased to see. She was less pleased by the stream of casualties heading west. This is going to be close. And we haven’t even hit the main dwarven force yet.

Their lines were just ahead. She could see them spilling out of the tunnels their elementalists had opened, see them dressing their musket lines, braced on the shields of the axemen in front of them. So few, compared to her troops, but that didn’t matter. Each one was a veteran. Each one had been here from the start. She’d need to drown them in numbers to win, and she wasn’t sure she had the numbers.

But she did have a Goliathan. And an Emmet.

Then the cannons started, from the cliffs above, and she winced as Goliathan rocked under heavy fire. It held its shield up and forged forward, and she bit her tongue. The giants had battered her up pretty badly already… and the damage hadn’t all been mended. Was the pilot low on sanity?

She cast a look over to the Inquisitor, who was waving her hands, as Emmet’s wounds healed.

Mastoya activated the voice enhancer in her helm. “Emmet! Front and center! Goliathan, fall back!”

Goliathan hesitated. The helm turned to her.

“THAT’S A FUCKING ORDER!”

Unlike Sir Grayson, the Steam Knight of Inkidoo, Goliathan’s driver was a far more reasonable person. Less prone to outrunning his support, more willing to listen to orders. Which was always a tough one with Steam Knights, because they were charismatic enough to argue the point if they felt like it. Goliathan tipped the dwarves a jaunty salute with the handle of his flail, and trudged backwards, soldiers scattering to let him by and reforming around the titan.

“I don’t like this,” Dame Genya spoke from Goliathan’s visor as she passed Mastoya. “They’ll need me.”

“I don’t give a flying fuck. Go back to the siege engines and get one of the menders to patch you up.”

She spared a glance north, saw the force she’d led to swarm the artillery position on their way back, escorting battered dwarven prisoners with them. “Then get the latest bunch of captives back to the fort. Make sure nobody gets stupid.”

“Yes ma’am!” Goliathan left.

The cannons rolled, the muskets fired, and Mastoya drove her troops forward, shields up. But even with the lines running Shield Saint, even with their heavy armor, the bullets still ripped through into the troops behind. Add in the cannonballs raining from above, and it was a slog just to get to the dwarves.

This was why their small numbers didn’t matter. What mattered was what got across the field.

And Emmet, thankfully, was drawing the fire she hoped he would. He was half the size of the Steam Knight, a much smaller and faster target. Musket fire sheeted off of him, in rains of zeroes and ones as he stomped forward, Juggernaut powers active.

For her part, the Inquisitor was just as brave, give her that. She moved along behind, almost birdlike, shifting in microscopic increments, zig-zagging, dashing unpredictably. She kept her arms behind her.

“Incoming!” Sergeant Tane called, “Graves? Graves!”

“The fuck is a…”

Screaming, clinging for dear life to a cat the size of a great dane, a man in armor burst out of the dwarven lines, rode through her own, leaping over everything in his way. He was CLEARLY not in control of the great black cat.

The bizarre sight was immediately followed by a smaller, tan cat, with a very familiar little bear riding on it.

She slowed as they loped past her, stared… then her breath caught in her throat as she realized where they were going.

The Siege Engines!

“Fucking…” Then, to her amazement, she saw Sergeant Tane gesture to his squad, and start backwards. “TANE! KEEP IN LINE! REMEMBER YOUR ORDERS!”

The veteran knight yelled back, but she couldn’t hear him-

-and then he was gone.

She blinked, looked to the side, found him on the ground, his shield in fragments, and the cannonball that had caught him rolling on the ground, glowing red.

He had Unyielding up. He didn’t take the crit. His squad clustered around him, shielding him from musket fire, and then he moved and Mastoya wheeled.

The next part was the melee, and it’d be up to Emmet and her troops, now.

They’d win the fight.

She had to win the war.

Mastoya rode like mad, spurring Petunia on. An ordinary horse would have been exhausted long ago, but Favored Mount buffed her, and Horsemanship buffed her more. “Lancer,” Mastoya said as she went, pulling a spear from the air. Then she grimaced, and dipped into her sanity and fortune. “Ritaxis’ blessing of strength upon me. Shield of Divinity. Holy Smite.” The lance developed a halo, was outlined by light.

She arrived to a scene of madness.

Reason, broken and scarred Reason, was standing over the shattered form of Goliathan.

Beyond it, the siege engines were in full retreat. Three wrecked carts lay scattered nearby, cleaved in half by a massive blade. Overhead, a tiny dragon wheeled with a horned rider on its back. The catriders were, oddly enough, not heading toward the wagons. They were heading toward the battlefield where she’d broken the giants.