Bloodsword: War of the Leaf

Recruitment Interrupted

The lead Solavar, a grizzled sergeant, veteran of a number of border skirmishes with the Mardish, paused as a soft sound came to his ears.  Frowning, he slowed his pace to let the conscripts march past, herded by several heavily armed Solavar soldiers.  He glanced about. 

“What is that?” he wondered aloud in a soft voice as the sound grew louder.

Then he was jerking his sword free with a curse, as a strange, reddish fog appeared, drifting out of the trees towards the column.

“Halt!” the grizzled sergeant roared and the nearest group of Solavar pulled the shuffling conscripts to a stop with quick hands.  Jaw jutting forward, the non-com waited for the fog to hit them.  It had to be some sort of Mardish magic.  An ambush of some sort, he concluded.  His eyes narrowed as the fog abruptly picked up speed.

Then it was washing over them, caressing their skin with a moist warmth that made him want to tear off his clothes and furiously scratch his skin.  But, before he could do so much as twitch, the fog was gone, vanished into thin air.  It left behind stunned soldiers and conscripts alike, each looking wildly about themselves for the attack that never came.

Then the sergeant’s eyes bulged as he turned in time to watch the soldier in front of him abruptly lose his shadow.  What had laid close to the ground, cast by the body blocking out the sun, tore itself free to grow to full man size.  As the sergeant watched, unable to utter a word, the shadow form seemed to draw something at its waist.  Then, with a smooth thrust, a shadow dagger blade abruptly jutted out of the soldier’s chest.  Screaming, the soldier fell away, blood oozing out of the corner of his mouth, mortally wounded.

A cold chill washed down the sergeant’s spine as he saw several more of his soldiers cut down by their own shadows in much the same fashion.  Then he was whirling about, a curse still born on his lips, just in time to knock away the shadow dagger that his own shadow was about to thrust into his back.

“Burn me,” he hoarsely said as the shadow creature drew a sword whose shape mirrored his own.  Then he was frantically defending himself, trading sword blows with a shadow creature that wanted him very dead.

All along the line the same scene was being repeated, over and over.  If they weren’t killed outright by their shadows from behind, they were quickly locked in mortal combat, twisting back and forth desperately trying to avoid death.  But the only way the shadows stopped attacking, was with their quarry’s death.  After the elf fell to the ground, his life seeping away from their wounds, the shadow simply returned to its normal state, become reattached to the body to become inert.

Joran and Feral’Sath quickly took advantage of the chaos to move in close.  Slipping up to the end of the line, they raised fingers to their lips when several humans and Askannin cast questioning looks in their direction.  The conscripts nodded their understanding and went silent, going as far as shielding them with their bodies as the two Freeholders carefully used their daggers to slice through the chains that bound them.

As Tev had promised, the blood metal blades treated the forged steel like it was butter, easily shearing through it with one pass.  One by one the freed conscripts were sent scampering into the forest as quickly and as quietly as they could go.  There a stern Tev, who just as quickly organized them and had them hide, met them.

Keeping low, Joran and Feral’Sath worked their way up the line, freeing the conscripts as they went.  And, if a Solavar managed to push aside their shadowy opponent long enough to turn towards them, that elf was quickly engulfed in a cocoon of red fire.

And then it was over.  The conscripts, freed from their bonds, cheered loudly as a well-placed fire arrow cut down the last Solavar.  Tev grinned as he stepped out of the trees and onto the path.

“Well done,”  he said, giving Joran a hardy slap on the back.  “We’ve done it, my ...”

The pain washed over him in the blink of an eye, steeling away his strength and sending shards of black through his vision.  Gasping out loud, Tev fell to his knees where several more waves pounded him, an unrelenting surf on the shores of his mind.

With a cry of dismay, the leather-garbed woman ran from the trees, making straight for Tev’s side.  She reached it only steps ahead of Kora and Lax.

“Tev??”  the woman asked anxiously, looking with worried eyes into his pain-twisted face.

But, with a shudder, the human pushed the dragon’s hands away and, the effort freezing his face into a mask of determination, he stood.

“It has begun,”  he husked in a low, intense voice.  “Welcome to the Beginning of the End!”

                                    *                      *                      *                      *

The Mardish warship exploded into a thousand fragments as three Silver Hawk battle crescents darted through the smoke, peeling away to concentrate on the other dreadnoughts that were pounding their way past the harbor entrance fortresses with cannons that hurled rock-melting fire.  But it was already too late to stop the advance.

With a shout, the first landing barge beached on the northern shores of Abydos Harbor and the massive front panel was flung down to disgorge dozens of armored Mardish and Freeholder conscripts.  Even as they charged up the beach, the Mardish began changing shape, some become great cats, while others became razor-backed hammerheads.  All headed straight for the dug-in emplacements where armored Solavar grimly waited for them, weapons gripped in sweating hands.

Their jobs done, the galleys that had pushed the barges ashore, swung around to gather the next wave, the barges being towed behind the largest of the Mardish war barks.  Several of these died on their way back out into the harbor, hammered to pieces by streaking battle crescents, the Silver Hawk magic potent and deadly.  But those that managed to make their way back hooked up a second wave and the advance continued.

“How many have landed?” Botha asked quietly as the view globe in the emperor’s main chamber showed the second wave of Mardish troops nearing the shore.

“We estimate almost five thousand, sir,” a Silver Hawk leftenant replied grimly, checking a tally sheet in his hand.  “They’ve already overrun most of the first stage of defense and make for the lower city.”

“And there they will die,”  Gerin Has, battered and bruised from a close encounter with a stone azora, snarled as he stepped forward to slam a bandaged hand against the arm of his throne.

“No Mardish has ever invaded the crown jewel of the Empire!  And I intend to make every one of those that have, pay with their blood.”

“Of course, your Majesty,” Botha said smoothly, bowing his head.  He then turned back to the globe, his handsome face grim.

“Truly it has begun.”  He muttered in a low voice, meant only for his leftenant.  “The War of the Leaf is upon us.”  He shook his head and let it fall to his chest.

“And without the Sword of Blood, we are as good as dead!”