Chapter 1.24

Ax

We marched down the hill, the myrmidon phalanx on my left. I didn’t actually march in formation, for I had no shield or spear and would be casting magic if it came to a fight. The formation was five across and five deep, with the fifteen archers behind them in five rows of three. Antiope and Xia Fang rode on our flank behind me, the warhorses for Zahra and her bodyguards tied in a string behind Xia Fang. Anchoring the formation on the far side was the remainder of Karson’s Vanguard, swords at the ready.

Each of the myrmidons was armored in cuirass, greaves and bracers with an unadorned helmet. They carried a spear and short sword, and a large round shield with the double-kappa symbol embossed on it. The archers wore leather armor breastplates that included a left-shoulder pauldron, not unlike Karson’s Vanguard, but no helmets so that their vision would remain unobstructed. They carried a bow, a quiver with twenty arrows, and a long knife in case the situation got desperate.

I intended for each soldier to carry a pack with their own gear much like the Romans did, but we’d not had time to procure that many bags, nor had we the time to make them. Instead, each soldier had a small bag with day’s worth of food and a waterskin. I would be adding support squads much like the Romans, also. I didn’t know a lot about the ancient Greeks, but I’d loved watching both seasons of Rome and done a Wiki search on legions once or twice.

The refugees from the camp were all crowding the gates, trying to get in. As we approached, it became clear that the gates were open. To my surprise, the militiamen were doing their best to calm people and let them through the gate in an orderly fashion, so that no one got crushed in a stampede. It was also equally clear that not only were we not getting in, Karson wasn’t going to be coming out.

Harpies were now obvious in the skies by the dozen. Their horrible laughs and screeching taunts filled the air. Fresh meat! This did nothing to help soothe the terrified refugees. We approached from behind them, but now that we were here, I didn’t know what to do. If the harpies were in the skies, then the enemy army was marching across the field on the opposite side of the town. That gate would have the militia mustering in front of it, if they weren’t already marching out. There was no way they would open for us now.

Then it got worse. I spotted a giant rock fly through the air, and heard the crunch and screams as it landed somewhere in the town. Harpies began to swoop out of the skies, knocking militiamen from their platforms along the walls. I even saw where two, working together, managed to grab a random civilian woman from the streets, carry her up thirty or forty feet into the air, just to drop her again.

We ended up stopping and watching the madness. Behind us, I could see the last of our wagons rolling down the hill, with a force of myrmidons as rearguard. Each wagon had several slingers standing on it, eyes on the skies with their slings loaded and ready. It had wound up that we had more slingers than archers, as a sling and a stone was simple and easy to make. Many peasants had learned how to hunt small animals with them, as it was a good way to supplement their diet.

“I need to get in there,” fumed Antiope. “I should never have let her go without me.”

“She’ll be fine,” I said. “She’s got Karsos and his Vanguard with him, and they’re behind the walls.”

Antiope scoffed. “I could single-handedly take out all five of them, even after Karsos’ magic boost.”

“That’s hardly an accomplishment for you. They’ll be fine against townsfolk.”

Antiope didn’t have an argument for that.

“Should we send out a scout to see where the enemy is?” I asked.

“No, at this point we need to be ready for… that.” Antiope pointed. I turned to look. It was centaurs. Honest to goodness centaurs. An entire band of them, maybe thirty or forty, rounding the city and coming up behind us. They all wore bronze breastplates, only with strips extending down the entire front, and carried swords and large shields. They also wore helmets that covered the tops of their heads, but did little to protect the face or neck. This was the very definition of heavy cavalry, I thought.

“Formation! About face! Archers to the rear! Antiope, you and Xia… do what you do.”

The myrmidons did a remarkably swift job of turning around and forming up, letting the archers run through their ranks before locking their shields in place. Few spears tangled, and everyone was able to get into position.

By now the centaurs had spotted us, and were looking to charge. They had the numbers and speed to try and flank us. With the town wall to one side, and a double-row of spears to the front, they were going to circle around to my side of the formation. Antiope and Xia Fang were headed out to do some circling of of their own.

I immediately started casting fireballs at the left side of the centaur formation, directly in front of me and to my right. I hoped this would discourage them from circling, and drive them towards the waiting spears of the myrmidons. The new bracers worked wonders, allowing me to rattle off a half-dozen fireballs in just as many seconds.

As I anticipated, the centaurs moved closer to the walls, away from the blasts of fire. They didn’t slow down, however. They plowed ahead, hoping that mass of numbers and momentum would break our formation. I began to walk my fireballs through the middle of their charge.

A half-dozen centaurs fell to my flames, further breaking up the charge behind the fallen and slowing them down. But then my fireballs started vanishing out of the air. I saw an older centaur at the back, gray haired and unarmored.

“Archers! Full rate of fire!” I shouted. Fifteen arrows arched through the air, and a second later, another fifteen followed. Then the centaurs were upon us. I switched to my flamethrower spell, roasting several centaurs coming at me. I spotted Antiope and Xia Fang circling behind the enemy formation, Antiope’s lance at the ready as she charged in.

“Archers! Hold fire!” I hollered, but the sounds of battle drowned me out. I hoped we didn’t hit our own people. But at this point, the archers had fanned out towards the wall, firing directly into the enemy.

An enemy centaur loomed up in front of me. I blasted a fireball right in his face, but he managed to dodge. The seconds it took for him to dodge and come back at me gave me time to draw my own sword, and then we were fighting. The bastard had to be at least nine feet tall, but his reach was barely longer than my own. It still was hard, because he had a better angle to hammer down at me from, keeping me on the defensive. I stabbed down toward his legs, which were unarmored, forcing the centaur to dodge back. I blasted my flamethrower spell, managing to catch one of his legs. He hollered in pain, hobbling on three legs as he tried to come at me again. This time I didn’t wait. I began rapid firing fireballs, but now he couldn’t dodge nearly as well. He ducked a few, and managed to even smack one aside with his shield. But I had numbers on my side and he was injured. The fourth fireball struck him in the center of his chest, blasting into his armor and rocking him back as he screamed. The fifth struck him in the head, bringing him down.

Then a shrill whistle sounded, and the centaurs broke off, darting away from the wall at a ninety degree angle from where we’d been fighting. There were easily a dozen dead centaurs left behind at our lines, and another eight or nine that had fallen during the charge. We’d cut their numbers by half.

But it had cost us. I could see at least eight of our own were dead, and six more were wounded. But where had the enemy centaur mage gone? Antiope and Xia Fang rode back over to me as I saw the centaurs ride up the hill towards our house, before turning back around and restarting their charge.

“Half-Turn Right! Protect the wounded!”

We struggled to get into position. A phalanx didn’t move swiftly, even if it was a small one. The archers ran behind, pulling the dead and wounded back behind the formation. Now with the shift, fresh troops were on the line, and I was now on the left side.

Antiope drew her sword, as did Xia Fang. I didn’t see Antiope’s lance, so I assumed it was sticking out of one of the dead centaurs.

“Where’s the mage?” I shouted at her.

Antiope’s gaze turned toward the charging centaurs. “There! In the back! He’s casting something!”

“Archers! Full rate of fire!” I shouted. Again, fifteen arrows fired out. A gust of wind blasted the arrows from the sky, and another took out the next flight. That damn mage was controlling the wind! That was what he’d done to my fireballs. He’d pulled the oxygen out of the air around them. But he didn’t have a geothermal mana pump within a half-mile of him feeding him endless mana.

I began my barrage once again, hoping to catch more of them before they reached us. But the centaurs changed course and began to run towards the backs of the refugees. My archers continued to fire, and some of them began to land. I launched more fireballs between us and them, because there was no way we could physically get there in time.

The refugees began to scream and panic. Their flight into the town had continued without end during the first skirmish, but there were still easily dozens of them outside the walls, perhaps more. A scant half-dozen militiamen armed with swords and helmets, but no armor, were along the perimeter of the refugees where they’d been trying to help people line up to enter.

My fireballs did little to slow the charge. A few centaurs were hit, and the archers hit a few more, but only a couple fell. I felt impotent rage as they bore down on the defenseless refugees. I decided to cast fireball, but actually cast it instead of relying on my gauntlets, and pushed as much mana into it as I could manage.

The fireball flew across the field, the largest fireball I’d ever cast. I felt a huge gust of wind, but it was too small to blow my fireball off course. It struck the centaur at the furthest back end of their charge, literally exploding the centaur into pieces before tearing into the ones in front of him. The explosion blew half the centaurs off their feet, and staggered the rest. I spotted the centaur mage running around, trying to put himself out.

“Aim at the shirtless mage!” I shouted. Fifteen arrows streaked towards the mage. Easily half fell short. But the other half didn’t. A few hit the centaur in the back, two hit him in the torso. But it was that last arrow that hit the magic spot - in the spine, right below the neck. The centaur mage collapsed, still on fire.

Suddenly leaderless, the centaurs milled around for a few moments. I caught a glint of metal in the distance, on the far side of the gate. The centaurs must have spotted it, too. They scattered in several directions away from the town and away from us. The last of the refugees continued filing into the city.

Then, just as the dusk began to turn dark, I saw movement. There was another enemy army was marching along the edge of the city. It was pretty far in the distance and the terrain was unfriendly to seeing what was happening. But even still, I could tell. There were hundreds of them. The tell-tale glint I’d seen was moving armor catching the last rays of the sun. By my guess, they were going to reinforce the army assaulting the other side of the city.

The gates of the city clanged closed behind the refugees. A mere few seconds later, a rock the size of a minivan smashed the gate out from the inside and rolled down the road for a few dozen yards. I couldn’t begin to guess how many refugees and townsfolk had gotten crushed by that boulder, or the force it took to throw something that large.

I had thought the stone wall design I’d come up with for our house on the hill was pretty strong, hopefully strong enough to shelter people if the fight had come to our hill. I was very thankful it hadn’t, for that single giant stone was terrifying proof of how weak our position up there really had been. That stone would have flattened the entire building. At least our people were on the road and moving away from the battlefield.

But that didn’t mean that we were in the clear. We still had two enemy armies, a growing swarms of harpies, and something throwing giant boulders. On top of that, Karson and Zahra were still in that madhouse of a town somewhere.

I looked up at Antiope on her horse. “We are so screwed.”