I felt the earth shake under the force of so many hooves thundering in our direction. “Hold your ground!” I shouted over the noise of the charge. I glanced back at my wife and Kiara and saw they were in the middle of casting their rooting spells.

I looked back at the stampeding rams and saw they were a mere fifty feet away already. “Hold!” I bellowed again.

The rams had already lowered their heads, massive spiraled horns glinting metallically in the sun, a cloud of dust rising behind them.

Thirty feet away and I was beginning to sweat. Will they get the timing right?

Just as the rams crossed the twenty-foot mark, two slightly overlapping circles of roots, each about twenty feet wide, sprang up from the grassy field. Like grasping tentacles, they surged up. Anything the roots could touch, they tried to entangle. Hooves were caught, bundles of wool were ensnared, and in a few cases, even some of the horns that had been lowered too far were grasped.

The entire first row of nearly a dozen rams were caught in my trap. En masse, the first rams practically flipped ass over teakettle, reminding me of the faceplant the manticore made when we brought it out of the sky. The air was filled with startled bleats and, I was certain, the crack of several broken bones.

The second row of charging rams hadn’t had the time to react to their fellows getting caught and also fell to the entanglements. We weren’t so lucky with the rest. The third row, over a dozen rams, gathered themselves and sprang majestically over their fallen comrades. They soared like the mythical golden ram of Greek legend, until they hit the peak of their jump and came down right at us, hooves first.

“Scatter!” I shouted. There was no way I was going to try to get everyone to tank the flying hooves of death. I leapt backwards, just past where I saw they were going to land. Magnus didn’t even bother jumping out of the way. He swung his hammer around and brought it over his head and slammed it into the skull of the ram right before it landed on him. It was brought up short while in midair, and the force of the blow forced its head down into the ground, hard. Its neck was left at an unnatural angle, legs twitching spasmodically.

Slate triggered one of his innate spell-like abilities, conjuring a ten-foot wide and ten-foot-tall wall of hardened earth nearly two-feet-thick. The wall managed to arrest the momentum of three rams, though it did crack, then crumble from the severe impact.

Just as a ram touched down in front of me, I swung my axes together from left to right, twisting my whole body with the attack. They buried themselves into the coarse wool, and I felt the strands bind up my blades, absorbing the impact and resisting the cutting force. I had managed to cause some damage as I ripped my weapons free, blood staining the grey fleece, but it wasn’t as devastating as I had hoped.

I hadn’t wanted to use Ki to enhance the cutting edge, but I saw that I didn’t have much choice unless I stuck to head and limb attacks. With reluctance, I channeled the stored Ki towards the sharpness bindings. I knew the Ki would be used more efficiently than if I tried any energy attacks or triggering the burning effects.

I dodged to the side, avoiding the retaliatory hoof strike, then brought my axes back around, slashing deeper gouges into the animal’s shoulder. The leg attached to the shoulder buckled as it tried to swing around to mule kick me, letting out a bleating cry of pain. I took swift advantage of its stumble and quickly severed its spine just below the head, blood spraying everywhere, showering me in a coating of gore.

I glanced up and caught sight of Sparks. The small lightning dragonling had just finished strafing all of the beasts that were entangled. The cone of lightning breath attack left most of the rams twitching, while a few seemed to suffer full paralysis. Not a bad move. Keep them from escaping too quickly, I thought. Then I saw past Sparks and noticed that the last eight bachelor rams had managed to divert their charge and had split up, half going each way around the field of roots while the Alpha had stopped entirely and was glaring at us past his entangled brethren.

“Ow, gods damn son of a bitch,” I swore as I took a pair of rear hooves to my lower back, sending me sprawling. The ram hadn’t managed to break through my Ki armor, so the ow was more reflexive than actual pain. I felt the impact though, and these mother fuckers kick hard.

I rolled to the side and just managed to avoid having my skull stomped on. These fuckers are almost as fast as I am, and they definitely pack a bigger punch, gahhh!

I had to roll again, this time as I rolled onto my belly, I shoved hard against the ground and managed to get my feet under me. As I stood, I caught sight of Cody and Malakai. He had his full paladin on, Soul-Bound mace glowing with a golden light and his Embersteel shield on his arm. The boy managed to fully tank a charge of a ram and smacked it in the head, leaving it staggered for a moment, which he capitalized on with a full powered swing right between the horns, the flanges in his mace digging in and causing a small spray of blood. Malakai followed up with a Divine Strike, finishing it off.

Another ram charged at me. I barely managed to divert it to the side by striking it in the horn with my left axe as I stepped to the right, quickly followed by a downward strike by my right axe. Unfortunately, the accuracy penalty for dual wielding reared its ugly head as the strike landed just off enough to twist in my hand and glance away, failing to do any real damage.

I growled in frustration and leapt at the nearest ram, swinging both axes overhead in tandem. Swinging them together seemed to work better as the enhanced cutting edge sheared through the wool armor and cut deep into its spine. The beast’s hind legs buckled as it lost all control over its rear half. I followed up with a strike against the back of it’s neck, finishing it off.

A small explosion made me twist my head. I saw a ram with an arrow sticking out of a small crater in its shoulder, blood pouring out. I realized the people on the wall were coming into play as I saw a streak of gold light hit another ram and bolts of arcane energy and fire flew as well. I glanced at the wall and noticed a swarm of small glittering insects coming out of a small portal-looking thing between my wife’s hands.

My attention was wrenched back as I heard a plethora of snaps. Most of the entangled rams were getting back to their feet, and boy, did they look pissed. I felt a surge of Ki from them and spreading out in a wave. The flood of energy coalesced into multiple streams, heading towards each of us. They contracted into small spheres before erupting out of the earth in the form of metallic spikes.

“Look out!” I called, but I was too slow in recognizing the danger. I’d just managed to avoid one spike aimed at my inner thigh. Magnus knocked his to the side with a blow from his hammer.

Cody wasn’t so fortunate. A spike shot up through his foot and managed to pierce his knee at the same time. His conjured armor shattered as he let out a scream of pain, fell over, and the spike tore sideways out of his knee. His foot was split nearly in half and blood sprayed out of the vicious wound. His guardian angel, Malakai, wasted no time and bombarded Cody with his healing power. It took three of the golden rays before all the wounds closed up and looked as good as new.

The flying Aeons were well beyond the three-foot-long spikes. One tried to penetrate Slate, but his rock-hard skin resisted the spikes and only managed to scratch him while he was pushed to the side.

Rukia, having felt my alarm before I could even think of vocalizing, had immediately leapt to the side and had avoided the disemboweling.

Where the hell is Kassandra? I thought as I scanned the battlefield. I had managed to keep a general eye on most of the combatants on my side, but I hadn’t seen my ex-wife since I’d hopped over the wall. I tried to find her by extending my spiritual sense, but all the Ki, Mana and Faith being thrown about caused a spiritual clamor similar to being in the middle of a metal concert, but one where every musician was playing a different song at the same time. In other words, I couldn’t feel out shit over the mess.

I saw one group of rams that had gone around the root spells break away from the fighting area and were charging at the walls. It looked like either Rose or Kiara had tried to catch them in another casting of her Root spell, but they hadn’t accounted for the speed of the animals, and by the time the spell went off, the beasts were already out of the AOE.

Fortunately, before they got too close to the walls, Rowan’s newest Aeon had saved the day. Aquarion opened his mouth wide. A miniature whirlpool of blue water-like light swirled around the gaping maw and a pencil thin stream of super high-pressure water shot out and he swung his head from left to right. The stream of water cut through the rams with amazing ease, penetrating their high defense and dealing critical levels of damage.

John: Damn, Rowan, why didn’t you open with that?

Rowan: It has almost a thirty-minute cooldown. I had to save it for emergencies. Look out!

In my distraction, I hadn’t noticed one ram breaking free and charging at me. I’d turned around just in time to have its horns slam into my chest.

-50

I felt my armor crack, or was that my ribs? I flew back nearly a dozen feet and landed hard. The wind was knocked out of me and I struggled to pull in a breath. It was then that I noticed a stunned debuff that was counting down from three. Unfortunately, I didn’t have three seconds. The ram that had knocked me on my ass was running right at me, and by the look in its eyes, it wasn’t planning on stopping. I couldn’t breathe. Hell, I couldn’t move as this thousand pound plus beast came ever closer to trampling me.

Two seconds…

One second…

Out of nowhere, a gigantic ball of black and white fluff with blue highlights lunged in from the side. Rukia clamped her jaws around the ram’s neck, and using that grip as a fulcrum, allowed her own massive body to fling around, wrenching the beast’s neck and forcing it to flip over and slam on its back, less than a foot from my side. In that moment, my girl’s savage and deep-throated growl sounded like the sweetest song I could imagine.

The ram tried to struggle for a brief moment before it gave up the ghost, went limp and died. By that time, my stunned debuff timed out, and I could struggle to my feet.

I looked around for my axes; they had flown off somewhere while I was in mid-flight. Not seeing them, I reached through my bond to them and invoked the command Return. In less than a second, they appeared in my hands and I charged back into battle, allowing a bit of my elemental Ki to flow into my ribcage. The hot sensation sank into my bones and I swore I could feel the cracks mending in real time.

The rest of the beasts were breaking free of the roots, their raw strength sufficient to snap the fibrous plants holding them down. The Alpha stayed where it had been during the entire fight so far. Watching everything with an imperious air, studying everything we did while we slaughtered its kin.

It was then that I saw Kassandra make her first appearance. She rose out of the Alpha’s shadow, directly under its belly. Her Ninjato was heavily coated in viscous shadow. With her whole body, she shoved her sword directly up, clearly aiming to disembowel the thing.

A ripple of steel-grey light ran over the alpha Steelhorn’s body, solidifying in a coat of solid metal. Kassandra’s blade barely scratched the surface as it glanced off to the side. I could clearly see her startled expression when her sneak attack didn’t work. The look transitioned into fear when the gargantuan beast turned its eye to her. She tried to drop through the shadow, but before the shadow managed to cover her hips, the ram’s hind leg kicked out. She was launched out of the shadow and leaving her to crumple into a limp heap over thirty feet away.

I started sprinting over; I turned my head to call out to Magnus for aid, but I changed my mind when I saw Cody, curled into a trembling ball, Magnus standing over him while he used his hammer to fend off the beasts seeking to take out the vulnerable target. Instead, I surged my elemental Ki in my Bone Meridian and ran as fast as I could while pumping more Ki into my Dragon’s fangs.