Knights of Anathaeum War? No! A Skirmish!

[Saskia Kerraelas]

She gritted her teeth and tolerated the pain building pressure upon her head, golden eyes set on the skirmish ahead of them all. Saskia broke away with some riders, heading for the flanks on the right. Her shadows laid in waiting, sharp points growing from the snow and reaching for the sky above. Her hand gripped her sword tight as her will loosed the shadows as if they were arrows shot from a bow. They soared, piercing into armour, shield, or flesh. The cries were unanimous; brave as they watched the translucent shadows careen towards them at the very last moments.

Her bones ached and protested as she lifted her sword to strike down a dazed soldier, hissing as the collision of steel struck up her arm. Her shadows reached from the sea she had created, pulling down anyone in her way before they had the chance to combat her advances.

The shadow sea had begun to deplete; growing smaller and smaller as she became relentless in her endeavor to dismount as many enemy riders as she could before herself or other knights and soldiers could finish them off.

 

[Byanka Valkas]

With Arbok officially taken care of and the wagon off, Byanka moved back towards the medical tent to see if her horse was still there. She was surprised to see he was; someone must have tied his reins to the stake of the tent while she had been inside it. She undid the reigns and swung back onto her horse to rejoin the other riders.

Saskia's shadows shifted as she fought the pain in her head, not only from injuries but from the strange, many-armed creature. Byanka added her sword to the mix as the two armies clashed and she wondered briefly how it had gotten to this point.

She did not have much time to wonder, however, as they charged forward once more. Light and shadows followed them, taking out enemies in a surge of power Byanka had rarely seen. She added her own to the mix. Hers was a magic that could not be seen, rather felt. Across the Knights' front, they would be able to feel a sort of invisible wave rising in front of them, trembling. In a moment it released, making no sound but rather the opposite, similar to the effect the creature had, but lesser.

The similarity needled at Byanka's mind but she was so focused she paid it no mind. Cold sweat dripped down her back and she squeezed her eyes shut, gripping the reigns tightly with one hand, her sword in her other. She could not see it, but any enemy soldier who was still alive found themselves frozen in place, their eyes glazed over. Her horse bucked beneath her, but she did not slide from the saddle. In their heads, she painted a picture of the knights, doubling and even tripling their original numbers. The fear that everyone had that these soldiers had tried to hide surfaced on their slack faces, leaving them open to the Knights' charge.

It was a sort of dream-weaving Byanka was performing; a waking nightmare. She could only hold it over their front lines and not for much longer; her grip slackened on her reigns and her sword arm dropped. Blood dripped from her nose and over her lips. The metallic taste of it grounded her. She hoped that her fellow Knights would take advantage of the opening, so they could get to the orb the creature was holding and destroy it.

 

[Hector]

Again. Again he would ask his horse to do more. Again he would have the beast fight against its want to flee. Its instinct to live.

How it resisted. Pulled at him. Half trot away. But Eironmar's light, crash down against the construct, Saskia's shadows, wreathed and washed like waves of ink against their foe, and the flow of dreams, swirled at the edge of Hector's mind. Nightmares, there for but a moment, as Byanka's magicks wove into the web of their enemy's sanity.

There would not be another time like this.

The air so thick with the ring of magick's power. Eyes bleary from the pressure of the storm. The construct's weave, his sworn kin's pact. All raged as one great flare of magick's power. A furnace, in which their mettle would be proven.

So into the crucible of his own heart, Syr Hector dug deep, and pulled forth a shape that burned white as star's light in the eye of his mind. Sprang forth from the ashen pit of his soul.

A sword of white flame sparked into existence with a sound like hammer come strike against hot steel. Hector's eyes were ablaze with magick's light, transfixed upon the construct's orb, his blade-wand raised high, its runes alight with power. He struck down, and the sword of white fire obeyed his command.

Like a star come fall, the magick blade struck down toward the orb, and crashed against its silvery surface in a horrid swirl of slag and furnace fire.

 

[Faramund]

They hit and hit hard. Men flew, brushed aside by horse and rider to be trampled under hoof. Weapons sang their keening sound, striking off armour and flesh. A soldier caught Faramund's sabre beneath the cheek piece, pirouetted away in a fountain of blood. Another made to grab his reins and lost an arm.

'Through them!' Syr Eironmar bellowed. 'Do not slow down!'

Momentum carried the charge clean through the line, scattering men like chaff across the snowy hilltop. It was only as they circled that Faramund saw the Construct.

An immovable mountain upon which the charge broke, it stood, staring as he came within arm's reach. Its attention had been focused past him, drawn that way by another. Whoever it was, the dawnling hoped they yet lived. Drawing back his sword arm, he made to slash the orb in the creature's hand.

His blade was practically touching it when the Construct's probing senses found him.

Impact lanced up the knight's arm as Merrycourt's darksteel sabre clove the orb clean in half. Or so he thought. Pewter shards exploded outwards, pinging off helm and gauntlet. One piece of shrapnel embedded itself in his thigh, half an inch beneath the hem of mail. Burning, it set Faramund's blood to flame.

Then, the wall of psychic energy hit him.

Blacking out, the knight slumped limply across his horse's neck. Only the intervention of another kept him from falling.

Swinging about, the surviving members of the charge left the battlefield to join their comrades. The Enemy chose not to pursue.

All but one.

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OOC: Okey dokies, that's that! Thank you to all who chose to join in. I hope you all enjoyed writing as much as I did, and expect to see more from this somewhat colourful cast of characters in the near future.

Toodaloo! ​