The Foolhardies 189 Turn of the Tide

Despite our earlier losses, we were now five hundred and ten souls up against the vanguard of ten thousand enemy soldiers and whatever remained of the two thousand foes we'd faced at the beginning of this battle.

While Edo and Thom maintained the defensive line on the northern slope which at this point was located between the midpoint and summit of the hill-sized sand dune, Luca and Xanthor's cavalry alternated with attacking the enemy formations via a horizontal charge from both the west and eastern slope.

They aimed for the enemy's formation that was just below our remaining and barrelled their way through the defenseless lines of soldiers while hacking at their unprotected flanks.

The tactic worked pretty well at the beginning as the enemy was unprepared for our cavalry maneuvers. However, our foes eventually got used to our mounted warriors. And as a counter, they reinforced their sides with heavy infantry whose tower shields wouldn't yield to a cavalry charge.

But, there was a flaw in this counter plan. Heavy infantry worked very poorly on soft terrain like desert sand which made these soldiers easy prey for the kobolds that could run up and down the steep slope at top speed while managing to keep their footing.

Thor had split his squad in two and sent them down either side of the enemy formation. Thor himself had taken to the right side, and with his twin scimitars in each hand, he cut a bloody line down the slope.

As our cavalry proved ineffective, I sent word to have Luca's and Xanthor's squads recalled back to the top so riders and mounts could take their fill of the oasis' watering hole.

"Qwipps!" I called. "Time for Operation Valkyrie."

That's what I called the carpet bombing strategy I'd cooked up using Talons squad's pixies.

"Send word to Edo and Thom… Tell them to take cover!" I ordered.

Qwipps and his fellow pixies took flight, each of them with a small satchel that was filled with the Black Powder Grenades Zarz and I developed. They flew over the northern slope, and once their flightpath placed them directly over the enemy formations, they dropped their payloads and carpet-bombed the lower half of the sand dune's northern slope.

Explosion after explosion rocked the sand dune, flattening portions of the northern slope considerably. The screams of dying fairies accompanied the symphony of bangs and booms that reverberated across the surrounding area.

It was painful to hear, but my resolve to keep my soldiers alive as long as possible outweighed my guilty conscience.

However, it wasn't a clean win for our side as many of Qwipps' Talons fell to an onslaught of arrows and ranged spells.

As I watched them circle back to our oasis, I knew there would be no repeat of Operation Valkyrie tonight.

"Aerial bombardment?" Azuma asked in a tense voice. "There's no finesse to it… just ugly death."

I looked to my right and noticed the grim expression on his face.

"You realized you've just changed fairy warfare for good?" he scowled.

I shook my head. "They've got spells that could rival a nuke…"

"But you're causing the same kind of devastation without magic," he said, still scowling. "That's significant."

"Let's think about surviving the night first before discussing the ethics of warfare," I answered with a furrowed brow. "Are you ready for round two?"

Azuma had already draped his spear across his shoulders.

"Bring Edo and Thom up so they can rest… I'll go wild for a bit…" Azuma turned around and stepped past our makeshift wooden barrier. Then he glanced over his shoulder to look at me. "Let me remind you how a true warrior does battle."

As he walked away, I yelled, "Take it easy, old man! Don't pull a muscle or something!"

Azuma was true to his word. He did go wild, and there wasn't soldier on either side of the line who saw him do battle and didn't think they were witnessing a god of war slaughtering poor fools who had the misfortune of getting in his way.

Later, when this battle was over, Azuma's name would be whispered in awed tones all over the Westmarch region, and his fame would skyrocket even more than when he was a thousand-man commander. But that was later. Now, we were content to watch him conduct his symphony of death.

"I still don't know how you beat that man, Dean," Edo said while he watched Azuma from beside me. "He's a true warrior."

"Sometimes, I try and look back to our duel and wonder that myself," I chuckled.

"You probably cheated, Commander," Thom suggested.

He was standing on my other side and looking through the same murder as us.

"Probably," Edo agreed.

"If you guys consider my fairy gift a cheat then sure," I reasoned.

They both eyed me, and at exactly the same time said, "It is a cheat."

Honestly, I couldn't argue with that, and not for the first time, did I thank my lucky stars for the gift of insight.

"They should be here by now," Edo said as he looked over his shoulder. "Didn't you say they would arrive at twilight, Dean?"

I raised a finger up. "I said Ty would arrive at twilight… but Aura's Mage Hand squad should be here soon... they were the last group the gliders picked up along with the remainder of Ashley's Shield squad."

"I would have thought you'd want the shieldmaiden and her troops here first, seeing as you've dedicated our efforts to a defensive stance throughout this battle," Thom noted.

I didn't feel the need to tell Thom why I left Ashley's squad behind with Aura's because I didn't want him to know how worried I was with leaving Aura behind where Garm could get her. I was almost certain that he wouldn't miss an opportunity to abduct her if he knew who Aura really was.

No sooner had I thought this when a report from the rear told me that gliders had just been sighted. Only, these gliders had come from the west and not the east. That meant only one thing. Point Alpha was gone, and Al Sheridan's hundred-man unit was in the midst of their escape.

I expected Al and his crew to glide past our oasis, but the half-elf had decided to help out with what few men remained to him.

"Good job back there," I clasped his hand. "You really caught them off guard."

"Wish I could have done more, really," he shook my hand with a firm grip. "Lost a fourth of my men at Point Alpha."

"You guys hang back then," I said reassuringly. "We've got this."

Al glanced down below to where the fighting was so fierce that the front lines had blurred together.

"You sure about that?" he asked in concern.

I nodded. "We'll need your gliders for the escape, but you don't have to worry… the chosen one's coming."

"Ah, the chosen one, huh," Al mused. "Wish he'd joined my unit instead… He might as well be a squad of tanks."

I wasn't taken aback by Al's comparison because I knew he'd lived part of his life on Mudgard.

"I actually think Tiberius is more of a destroyer-class ship," I revealed.

"What are you two fools talking about?" Edo asked.

Both Al and I looked over to him and together, we said, "Modern warfare."

It was a while later when the Mage Hand squad finally arrived on our sand gliders. At this point, the line was once again getting closer and closer to the top, and Azuma had switched out for Edo and Thom.

"You climbed up here pretty fast," I noted.

"Thanks to the footholds your engineers placed on the southern slope," Aura explained. "I assume it'll be just as easy to climb down later."

"It better be," I chuckled. "We're going to need to make a quick getaway when the time comes."

I looked over at Ty who was panting behind Varda as he walked and waved him over.

"You up for some landscaping?" I asked.

"Um, it looks like you've done a lot of landscaping already," he replied.

Ty was obviously referring to the craters that peppered the lower half of the northern slope.

"Oh, did you use Operation Valkyrie already, Commander?" Varda asked. "Mudcrap, I would have loved to have seen it for myself…"

"Qwipps and his men did a good job," I answered, my brow furrowing as I remembered pixies falling from the sky in a lifeless heap. "Why don't you go check on them… they're by the west side of the watering hole."

Varda gave me the salute before trailing off to see her old friend.

I turned my focus back on Ty. "I'm going to need you to make the sand dune smooth again, dude…"

Ty sighed. "I'd hit our own men if I used that…"

"Not if you go closer," I suggested.

Ty's eyes widened in alarm. "You want me to wade into that?"

"Ash," I called.

Ashley had been standing wordlessly beside Aura and acting the part of her bodyguard. But now the shieldmaiden turned her gaze on me, and then on Ty.

"You want my squad guarding the chosen one while he does his thing?" she guessed.

"Can we please stop calling me that," Ty pleaded, blushing as he did. "It's really embarrassing…"

"Yup, why don't you take the chosen one down there," I answered Ashley while ignoring Ty's plea. I loved teasing him with that name. "Good luck, chosen one."

"Fine," Ashley said. "Let's go, chosen one…"

"Seriously, stop calling me that, please," Ty whined.

Ashley ordered her squad to follow, and after a nod to Aura and me, she push past our wooden barriers and led the way down to the battle.

"This is new," Aura said in a curious tone.

"What is?" I asked a little distractedly.

"You're not covered in blood," she answered.

"What?" I turned my head toward her in confusion.

"You haven't joined the frontlines like you usually do," she explained. "Are you finally conscious of your position?"

"I… I just haven't found a reason to go down there," I admitted. "Everyone's doing their best already…"

"It's not criticism, Dean," she said, patting me on the shoulder. "I actually prefer you leading us from on high rather than where the fighting is fiercest."

Whatever rational I was about to give to counter her argument for me playing it safe instead of standing by the men was lost to the sound of Ty's voice echoing around us like Gandalf shouting out a spell on the mountain top.

"Freezing wind, scatter your breath across the sands and turn all you see into frozen lands," Ty chanted in a voice brimming with power. "Ice Age!"

Ashley had put Ty right at the fore of our defensive line, squeezed between her shield squad and the enemy soldiers who'd been momentarily dumbfounded by the appearance of an unarmed human.

Their mistake was giving Ty the chance to place his hands on the sand, and after he'd cast his spell, the ground in front of him turned to ice along with many of the enemy's vanguard.

Suddenly, what was once a sandy slope was now a frozen hillside peppered here and there with unfortunate souls that had been turned into living ice sculptures.

"Yup… Ty's definitely a destroyer," I whispered. "Maybe even a battleship."

"Dean… I don't think Ty's power is enough for this," Aura said in a worried tone.

I couldn't blame her. We may have just turned the battle in our favor with Ty's stunt, but the thousands of soldiers below us on the desert floor was about to be reinforced by another ten thousand.

"I think we've done enough and bought enough time for Garm's forces to take control of the battlefield," I said.

Aura nodded wordlessly.

"It's time to go," I finished.  

Chapter end