The strain of holding the sorcerous working for so long and the stability needed to ferry more than himself had Rhain wanting to tear his hair off his head. But it worked. An army of five thousand ferried across nearly eighty longstrides from Lardel Keep to Matahil in a matter of hours instead of days.

As soon as he received word that the advanced force had flouted his orders, he rushed his reinforcements. The enemy would likely assault the entrenched forces and it wasn’t as if the Lucentians were blind. But he still managed to steal a march.

Unfortunately, he was exhausted. Urgh.

He could see the advance forces routed from their hasty fortifications and he could see that he had been a smidgen too late--or just the right time depending on whose goals he was looking at.

Slowly, he released the Animus patterns held in the air and in the rolling earth. The undulating dirt settled to the ground and the Vizugmon forces staggered to their feet.

“Well done, Great One,” Elder Haxe of the Tigris said.

“Exhausting work, Elder,” Rhain nodded, “and it looks like we’ve just missed the battle. I suggest we gather the survivors and harry the enemy.”

“I agree,” the Tigris man nodded back. “You are tired, Great One. Let Elder Naoko and I test the enemies’ Elders.”

“As you wish.” Rhain turned to his aides. “Advance at a steady rate, take in the survivors and harry the snakes!”

They saluted and began marching.

Rhain had undone his Spell when they were still half a longstride from the battle. Too close would have been dangerous. Now to see what they would do.

_______

“A Sorcerer!” Otlaca hissed. “No wonder Lardel fell so easily! Elders, we have to neutralise the Sorcerer before he can recover!”

“Sorcery?” Yuriko muttered. “Can it do that?”

And more. Damien said. That’s a simple Jade Circle spell, though the caster overreached. The snake boy is right; this is the only time you can catch the Sorcerer off guard. Actually, which fool told him to use that kind of spell on a battlefield?

Yuriko glanced at their men. The fight against the advanced forces was short but intense. What about this one?

She spun her sunblade in her hand while their men tried to repair the broken palisades. The ditch just outside it wasn’t too deep and didn’t really stop her attack but maybe it would help now. Or maybe it would be better to return to their own fortifications. At least those were still completely intact.

She turned to suggest to fall back but before she got a word out, Otlaca had already issued his instructions.

“Forward!”

Yuriko clicked her tongue but could do nothing other than advance with them. At least they had the higher ground.

The reptilians formed ranks just past the western walls. The enemy was just a couple of hundred paces away, advancing at a slow walk. She couldn’t see the Sorcerer or any of the Elders. Oh, no, no, the Sorcerer was at the rear. She could see a concentration of ambient Chaos over there, one that was thick enough to be visible even without channelling Chaos sight.

The concentration of ambient Chaos rapidly thinned and soon enough, it was no thicker there than anywhere else on the plane.

While she watched for the Sorcerer, the warriors on both sides had formed into proper ranks and slowly closed. Yuriko looked for Akko and Rhox but she couldn’t see them from where she was. Maybe they had rejoined the greater group.

As soon as they were a hundred paces from each other, both sides stopped and started shooting crossbow bolts at each other. The front ranks huddled behind their shields and fired opportunistically. That was it. They stopped a hundred paces from each other and exchanged bolts. In the meantime, Otlaca stood over at the side, his Animus reformed back into the four-headed serpent and he started screaming. On the other side, one of the tigermen stepped forward and his Animus flared up into a giant bull.

A stone auroch, Yuriko thought. The image shrunk back into the tigerman and his fur changed colour from orange to steel grey.

“Otlaca! You cowardly snake! Come and face your doom!”

“Haxe! You stubborn cat pretending to be a bull! Come here then!”

They strode towards each other and both armies avoided the two Elders, flowing towards the side while they exchanged bolts.

Irseso returned to the air, her gossamer wings buzzing like a wasp’s. Yuriko hadn’t seen how the L’tik Elder fight as there wasn’t a need before. But now, she hovered over the troops protectively.

Another Vizugmonian Elder stepped forward, a Kutin, and roared a challenge at Irseso. The lizardkin scoffed but she moved to the opposite side where Otlaca and Haxe were posturing.

“Well, I suppose it’s my turn,” Yuriko muttered as she jumped from the wall and trotted to the enemies. Except when she came close, there was a ripple of disturbance amongst them. A moment later, they shifted the attack from the Lucentians to her!

“Chaos!” she yelled as she dodged out of the way.

The catkin were crazy! Why focus on her? Because of that, the Lucentians suddenly gained an advantage since they weren’t forced to duck behind their shields and could shoot more often. Yuriko fell back while she used her sunblade to knock down as many bolts as she could. Some still impacted her Shell and a few created minute cracks that were barely visible to the naked eye, though she could still feel them.

When she retreated, the Vizugmonians hesitated for a moment. She half expected them to follow after her but they returned to shooting at the Lucentians instead.

On one side, Otlaca and Haxe had stopped screaming at each other and began their duel in ernest. The snakekin opened up by shooting fire at the Tigris, who jumped out of the way. The snakehead fired a stream, not a bolt, so it simply swung its head towards where the tigerman jumped.

A foolish way to wage war, Yuriko thought. Why did they find the need to send champions towards each other? For that matter, maybe she should help Otlaca in his fight, or Irseso. Whichever of them needed her help, she supposed. Though that would leave the Sorcerer free to do whatever he wanted.

From the few lessons Master Alfein had given regarding Sorcery, she knew that it was nearly impossible to hide it when someone used it. The act of imposing their Will on the ambient Chaos wasn’t subtle. If the Sorcerer attempted it, the onrush of Chaos would be quite obvious. So…should she hold back until someone needed her help or the Sorcerer revealed himself or should she jump into the fray?

The Vizugmonians were fresh and rested while the Lucentians were not. Ah, Otlaca did say they needed to strike at the Sorcerer before he recovered.

Haxe roared and punched with a fist covered in grey Animus. A shockwave of air blew the flames back and he rushed through the gap, seeking to close the distance. A second snakehead shot a spear of crystalline ice at him and the tigerman shattered it with another punch.

Otlaca moved backwards and to the side while shooting lightning then venomous gas at Haxe. Each time, the tigerman blasted the attack away with a punch or kick except for the venomous gas which somehow clung to his grey fur. A flare up of Animus pushed the buildup away though.

The snakekin Elder continuously pulled back, shooting streams of varied energies at the tiger-kin. Haxe, for his part, seemed to expend as much Animus to repel Otlaca’s assault. Then, he crouched down into a runner’s start and exploded into a leap. Otlaca’s panicked yell filled the air even as his snake heads darted to intercept the missile.

A powerful swipe, a somersault kick, then the heavily muscled Haxe was practically on top of the snakekin. The tigerman was taller than the other by half a head and though Otlaca’s materialized Animus tried to bite down, a layer of grey light repelled the fangs.

Haxe tackled the other to the ground, straddling him by the waist. Ferocious claws sprung from his paws and he started to rain down swipe after swipe while Otlaca covered his head with his forearms. In the meantime, the snakeheads gathered to his left and blasted Haxe at an angle, finally knocking him off.

Otlaca rolled backwards, heels over head, and once he got to his feet, leapt away.

Yuriko could see blood dripping down from Haxe’s claws. He growled and gave a feral grin, even as he rubbed the side that got blasted. A little bit of smoke rose from his side, and his armour, leather and chain identical to the regular warriors, looked torn and shattered.

For a moment there, Yuriko had almost gone to Otlaca’s aid but she held back.

“Ahhh!” Elder Irseso screamed.

Yuriko’s eyes snapped towards the voice and found the L’tik woman entangled with some sort of webbing similar to what Rhox produced with her fingers, except this one consisted of a dozen times more fibres. Irseso’s wings beat frantically as she tried to escape. The one holding the other end of the webbing was the other Vizugmonian Elder. She had wrapped the webbing around a tree and used it as a pulley to yank the flyer from the air.

At some point, the felinekin decided that they’d wasted enough crossbow bolts. The front ranks advanced, while the flankers tried to wheel around. The clearing wasn’t really wide enough to hold everyone, and a significant number was held in reserve. The rear guard angled their crossbows up and arced their shots over the advancing infantry. From her vantage, they looked like a quillboar with its spines held up. The gleam of the poleaxes was quite menacing.

For their part, the Lucentians continued to shoot their crossbows until it was almost too late to switch weapons. Ah, no, there was a thin front rank that quickly picked up pikes and shields. The two armies halted within stabbing distance and started poking each other with the ends of their weapons. The Vizugmonians’ initial poleaxe smash took out a few people but they were shot in the face as a result.

Yuriko channelled Animus to a pattern between her eyes, activating Chaos Sight. The ambient Chaos concentration had dropped to normal at the rear but was building up around the frontlines. The expended Animus denatured into ambient Chaos and she could see the particles swirling vigorously.

Otlaca was holding his own, somewhat, while Irseso struggled against her bindings.. No sign of the Sorcerer.

Yuriko took off running. She flared her Anima and allowed it to deflect and absorb the crossbow bolts that came close. She went through a gap in the Lucentian ranks and emerged at the side of the conflict where Irseso and the other Elder fought. The Kutin Elder, female by the shape of her body, reacted by shooting a white oblong from her palm. Yuriko intercepted it with her sunblade and the thing burst into flames, nearly dazzling her with the flare.

She flung the sunblade at the webbing between the two of them and was gratified when it snapped and burst into flame. Irseso shot up in the air, then started peppering the Kutin with needles.

Yuriko veered towards the Vizugmon lines, calling the blade to her hand. She could see a build-up of ambient Chaos off to the side. The catkin shot at her again but she swatted what she could off the air while ignoring the rest.

She could see the Sorcerer now! It was a human…

The man’s eyes burned with green flames even as his Animus streamed from his fingertips. Sonorous words that faded from memory as soon as they touched her ears rolled off his tongue. Through Chaos Sight, she could see his Animus twisting into runescript words around him, and the ambient Chaos clumped against the words until only they formed different runescript words on their own.

The new words writhed as they drilled into the foliage, the bushes, and the trees. Leaves rose and danced around him even as they stiffened. A chance collision by one of the leaves against a stone left a deep gouge.

Even as the Sorcerer cast his spell, his bodyguards rushed at her. They had separated from the main body of the troops to give the man a clear shot. Yuriko hurried. She didn’t know how long it would take for his spell to finish and she didn’t want to find out what it did.

About a dozen rushed to her, holding up spears and poleaxes. She spun and cut their polearms at the haft, turning the deadly weapons into staves. Animus protected the weapons, but her sunblade and the third dance cut through their protective layer as though it didn’t exist. That hurt them too, and they stumbled and turned pale.

She pushed under the shafts, grabbed hold of one, and yanked. The warrior let go, but that only meant she gained another weapon. Most polearms had a spike on the other end of the haft, to aid in bracing the weapon and as a backup. She used it to stab at the guts of another warrior. The spike penetrated through his chainmail with an ear-piercing squeal and a disgusting squelch. The man clutched at the wood even as she kicked the haft and used him as an impromptu hammer to knock the rest of the warriors away. She threw her sunblade at another, but that one managed to dodge.

Still, the way was clear. She summoned the blade back to her hand and charged the Sorcerer. He met her eyes with a disgusting grin even as the wind and the leaves rose up against her.