On the Glade
Walther Theodoric St. Helier had fought a couple of duels on this world since the Weltensprung. He never intended or anticipated doing it on the battlefield. Battles were serious things and Walter would do whatever was necessary to win them. There were more lives at stake than his own and glory would never pay for a single soldier under his command. If he had not dropped his revolver this would have been over by now, he would have to rough it out then. The other guy was good, pretty good indeed. He could make that heavy cavalry sword move fast enough to be a match to his modern weapon. And he had the power to push his blade aside when he could catch it. And while his weapon was as good as the people who had given a world the Industrial Revolution at the height of their Empire he was not sure if it would not break if caught by the crossguard in the wrong way.
On top of that whoever was before him and impersonated a Rebel was pretty decently armored. The chest piece, the gloves and the vambraces were proof against his blade, the Gambeson parts would not be able to stop his sword point though. At the moment it was best to keep the distance as his opponent favored slashes. No big surprise there, his sword could do that, he could not. Both men exchanged a couple of attacks with Walter slowly giving up space. There was enough of it and there were no points for style here.
And then came the moment when he initiated an attack at the same time as the other guy. The blades slid upwards and past each other till crossguard met hilt and both went into a corps-a-corps. It was then that Walter could finally see what had bothered him about the fake Rebel. His eyes were indeed lit from within, and he realized that he tried to fight a bleeding Grail Knight.
Walter was in top shape for his age, well trained and experienced. In the end he was human and a Grail Knight was not. The realization caused him to drop backwards into the snow, rolling with all his force and the push by the Knight. On less slippery ground the Knight might have kept his footing, on the ash-covered snow both men fought and with a shifting weight on his back he had no chance. He stumbled forward one and a half steps, stopped by a sword that entered his body from below. The triangular blade was good for thrusting only, but that it did very well. It slid under the chest armor and made its way through intestines, stomach and diaphragm. All of this would have killed the Grail Knight sooner or later, the pierced diaphragm stopped his breathing immediately.
Walter pushed the arm that still tried to kill him aside till all strength waned from his opponent. He had to struggle to free himself from the dead weight on him and in doing so covered himself with blood all over. He made it unsteadily to his feet and needed a long moment to regain his breath. He spotted his revolver lying in the snow and made his way towards it. The heat that came from the conflagration around him had become worse, by a lot. When he took up the old Webley Walter made sure that the lanyard was around his wrist this time, no need for repeats. He needed to get back to the Rebel lines, see what needed to be done and…
A shadow. There were many, flickering in the light cast by many flames, but something made that one special. It moved jerkily, moved into other shadows and emerged from them while it got bigger. He half turned and his mind froze when he saw the bloody figure that moved his way. Nobody and nothing could have survived what he had done to that Knight and he still moved. He moved like a puppet on a string guided by an inept puppeteer, but nevertheless came closer with each second and the sword in his hand would cut him up one way or another.
Not this time. His sword dropped when he gripped the old revolver with both hands. Adrenaline, exhaustion and a flickering light made aiming chancy at best and the first bullet missed as did the second. The third went into the knight's chest and caused him to stumble before he resumed his advance. Walter lifted his revolver a bit and the next round missed again. There was a punch to his chest and he nearly lost his breath when the sword crushed a ceramic witness plate in his armored vest. The Webley nearly touched his enemy's face when it went off. The heavy lead slug combined forces with the hot gasses that emerged from the barrel behind it to obliterate the head and showered Walter with even more bloody bits. The knight dropped into the ground before him.
The wooden box on his back broke open on the impact and something dropped from it that Walter did not see fully. He just knew it was something bad, really, really bad and that he should go now. Stumbling, swearing and hardly believing his luck he made his way to the next break in the fire that might lead him to his own forces.
In the shadow of the World Oak
Pierre Troisieme had not yet used his firebombs, but he had been about to do so twice now. The Dryads had fallen like ninepins to the Stormtroopers guns, but like ninepins there were new ones after each round. They were so fast and seemingly without fear. Both times they had advanced to less than 30 meters, a distance when he could see baleful eyes and wooden claws that would render him into pieces if they closed. Both times the rapid fire from had turned the tide, now this was about to fail. A group of Treekin had shielded the Dryads for most of the way across the Glade till machine gun fire from the flank had felled them. Now there were too many Forest Spirits to stop in the time allowed, now the Stormtroopers were about to get it. Pierre`s Sergeant had his section lit the fuses already, a gutsy move as they would have to reprime the bottles in the midst of battle if he had called it wrong. He had called it right though and so Pierre threw two of the nasty bottles before lifting the shotgun again.
He barely had it up when a burning, screaming mess threw itself at him. The bayonet went through the twigs and branches and struck whatever held them together. He was pushed back half a meter before his heels found purchase again. He managed to push the Dryad as far back as his arms reached while wooden claws tried to reach him. Pierre looked into red eyes full of hate and pain while holding to his weapon like his life depended on it. He never learned how long this struggle lasted, yet learned that he would never forget those eyes, no matter how long he lived. Something in there hated everything made from flesh with a vengeance and even while the fire consumed the Dryad the hatred remained till the last second.
When he could push the charred remains away he found that most of his section were still alive, but for the Sergeant who was buried under a pyre that was made from formerly living wood. The section to his right, maybe even the one after had either been annihilated or pushed back so far that it did not matter either way. Forest Spirits of all kinds streamed into that hole and into the Rebel`s rear. He took a deep breath during which he realized again how much this was not the Rebel`s battle, or was it?
"You two, over there, you, here, you all over here. Form a line to the right, now damn it. Form up, form up good. And now give it to them."
It was always amazing how people jumped to obey if one had an idea of what to do and the voice to project that. The survivors formed up quickly enough and stood straight. Former serfs, despised by all, surrounded by inhuman horrors and immortal warriors known for their fierceness stood and fought. They still had a lot of ammo in their pouches and they would not carry it home. Pierre had never heard of the word "enfilading" and no idea what it would mean if he did. Yet he had positioned the Stormtroopers just right for exactly that. The fire from a double dozen shotguns went into the Dryads from the flank. The heavy lead slugs might miss their intended targets easily enough, there were more behind they would not. The first double salvo blew the enemy from the vicinity of the breach and the ones that followed had an impact far out of proportion. Even at the height of their madness the Dryads could not help but to notice the destruction that reigned on their flanks. For a long moment they milled about, screaming and confused. Then order emerged from chaos and the Dryads stopped going into the breech. Instead they made their way towards Pierre.
Pierre could see how this would end. The Dryads would overrun his thin line in a moment, his few men had no chance in the world of stopping them. He thought about running for a moment, thought about Colette and knew it would make no difference. Instead he did what he was trained to do and pushed two more rounds into the hot shotgun. He would take two more with him. His shots connected the very second he heard the crash. Something heavy made its way through so much brushwood, snapping twigs and crushing branches. Spears found vulnerable spots, the hooves, antlers and broad chests of Great Stags crushed Dryads. The Wild Hunt had found enough space to mount another charge and Pierre had offered them an ideal target, clustered together and facing the wrong way.
The Asrai were fighting under the World Oak, protecting their sleeping gods. They would not be denied and were not. The momentum of the charge was enough to push them straight through the Dryads, dividing them into small groups. The Hunt came back as a mob, hacking, stabbing and slashing with a ferocity hard to match. The Dryads held for a second, trying to pull down Stags and jump riders only to be hacked to pieces.
And then it was over. Besides the Rebels and the Wild Hunt there was no living being before the World Oak. Pierre could just stare at the Asrai, beautiful even when streaked with blood and sap. Their even features were contorted by the ferocity that had gripped the Wood Elves. They were the epitome of the former serf's fears during the night of solstice. Pierre became aware that he was a human standing in a place that no man was allowed to be, very much so. That was the same moment the Asrai stopped and stared at the humans who had slaughtered so many Forest Spirits. Their spears and swords came up in unison, past the vertical, to the point where they were upright before the faces. Pierre Troisieme needed a moment to suspect that this might be a salute.
Under the World Oak
Silva ad`Garrolin had watched the battle that ranged so close to her through the Empyrean. It had been a close thing and she doubted that she would have been able to extricate herself from the Warp in time to flee if it had gotten wrong. She had guided this Englishman to stop the doom sent by the false Lady and now it was far from her. Currently it gave off a huge amount of pure magical energy and she hoped it was consumed in the conflagration in the Glade.
Still, even without the doom things might still go wrong. The Asrai and their Rebel allies had killed many Treekin and Dryads, but even more were behind the fire that raged in the middle of the Glade. If they found a way around it or if the fire burned down too soon the exhausted defenders might still be overwhelmed. And while the doom might or might not be destroyed beyond redemption the World Oak might still be burned down or simply felled. She felt the madness of the Treemen and Forest Spirits, it exceeded their fury at the start of the battle many times over by now. They had nurtured their hate during their millenia-long captivity, had it grown from deep-seated to soul-devouring. They had decided to murder the gods that protected Athel Loren, had decided to give the Gestalt that was the sacred forest a lobotomy that would change it to their liking. And when they had finally been given the opportunity to do all of this they found themselves hampered by the Wood Elves they hated and the humans they despised.
Even worse they were confronted by the very thing that they all feared on an elemental level, fire. They had to choose between living and burning and that drove their madness to new levels. They were reminded that there were things they should fear and they did not like that at all. In their rage and madness they would do things that they would not have considered hours before and that they might rue a few days later, when it would be too late. The Treekin and the Dryads that were beyond that burning barrier could not be allowed close to the World Oak, they could not even be allowed to leave. They had to die.
Silva ad`Garrolin, sole survivor of the Garrolin clan, sole Asrai ambassador and Spellsinger had murder on her mind. She certainly had the motive and she had been given the means by two very different sources. The light that had blinded her so much had turned out to be the Leah, the Rebel Lady of the Lake. And she had told Silva something that frightened her very much.
"You need power. Take what you need, as much as you need."
There had been no demands, no price as for and no warnings given. Just the offer to take what was needed to do what needed to be done.
Oh yes she had all the might she needed, but she also had been given a lever by the most unlikely of sources. Aeolus, her Asurian lover, as much not a mage as an Elf could be, had provided it. He had explained why the Empire's mages and even their inexperienced German counterparts could all of a sudden work such miracles. It was not that they had discovered way to extract more power from the Empyrean. They had found better ways to apply them when the Germans showed them how the world really worked. When they understood the laws that rule the physical world, when they could name the players and their moves with so much greater precision they gained a lever that could move great things indeed.
Silva had listened, had not believed, had tried despite that and entered a journey of discovery ever since. Thinking of her lover brought tears into eyes who had not seen the physical realm for hours. The Spellsinger would have loved to speak to him, to hold him and knew she could not. And then she went to work.
The molecules that made up the air were engaged in their age-old game of three-dimensional billiards , colliding in random ways and with speed and energy according to pressure and temperature. Something interfered in the dance. Energy not from this world manipulated chance and all of a sudden things changed. One direction became the favored result of the collisions, the other lost more often than it should. The energy of the collisions that usually canceled itself out but for pressure gained an outlet. In the first moments there was nearly nothing visible on the level perceived by humans and Asrai. Twigs started to move a bit more energetically and the snow that dropped off them tended to fall mostly in one direction.
A light breeze ruffled the treetops and wind began bending the trees. Gusts pushed snow and ash in the eyes of all present. A gale-force storm, peculiarly localized, fanned the flames of the barrier once more and drove them into the Forest Spirits behind them. Turning on itself like a snake the storm kept the conflagration mostly inside the Glade of Kings. Providing more and more air it allowed the fire within to rage with primal fury. The flames swept past Robert de Grail`s body and finally melted the black ice relic he had brought such a long way. The fire incinerated Treemen who remembered the first Elves in their lands and Dryads who had killed children of dynasties long forgotten. Many raged, other tried to flee only to find no way from destruction. Drycha welcomed the flames that ended her long life while she hunkered over the body of Coeddil, oldest of Treemen and her one and only love.
The conflagration burned the few remaining warrior-mages sent by the Royal Lady into figures smaller than children and blacker than the night.
And when the firestorm had run its course the same force that had given chance a hint managed to restrict the flow of air. Instead of a fiery gale silence gave pause to all who witnessed it. The hot air above the fire rose to the heavens, but no new air rushed in to replace it. Oxygen molecule by oxygen molecule found some carbon to attach itself to, only that none replaced it. In a few minutes of terrifying silence the fire that had burned so fiercely had extinguished for a lack of air.
The magical energies that had brought this about, those released by the destruction of so many Treekin and the destruction of the relic rose far above the normal state of things even in Athel Loren. Many beings, all powerful and some wise saw what had happened in the Warp and paused for a moment. A satellite and a reconnaissance plane registered both the thermal outbreak as well as the magical spike. Things were getting into motion soon thereafter.
And then there was a sound like a thunderclap, like a pane of breaking glass and like none of them and the old dance resumed. Glowing cinders covered what had been the rebellious Forest Spirits and fighting died down now that there was no longer a point to it. The few remaining Forest Spirits, the Asrai and Rebels looked at the destruction in disbelief and near-silence.
It was only that silence that allowed the pair of running feet to be heard, they crushed the snow below them. The silence allowed the shouts and calls for help to be heard, the sobbing went under the attempts to help and to console.
Aeolus had seen what his lover did and had been unable to leave his post as long as there was still a danger. And when he had finally reached her all his fears were realized. Silva ad`Garrolin had channeled the power of a goddess through her to keep them all from being overrun and to keep Athel Loren from the fire. Even a Spellsinger is not made for that and only a trickle of the energies she moved in the Empyrean had leeched into her body. Even this small part was too much by far, every protein in Silva`s body had denatured and decomposed. The too-hot body in Aeolus arms had the consistency of a boiled egg and her eyes matched that in color.
It took Aeolus' team nearly an hour to pry him away from Silva`s body.
