Displaced

Chapter 32

Akhustal Palebane swung her massive war club around in a wide arc, the giant weapon, carved over years from a piece of Ruresni herself and stronger than the hardest stone, hurtling towards the nearest Drayhadan at tremendous speed. The Drayhadan, likely the strongest fighter on that area of the wall, threw up his shield in a desperate attempt to ward off her blow, but to no avail. The massive woman Observed the club's weight from light to heavy just before impact. Now weighing over fifty times its already considerable normal weight, the blood-covered bat crumpled the doomed man's shield as if it were made of paper and slammed into his torso with devastating force. The soldier's half-pulped body flew down the rampart, crashing into the other Drayhadans behind him and knocking them over. Her countrymen pounced upon them.

The Chos laughed heartily at the carnage she wrought with each swing of her absurd weapon. This was what she lived for, what she craved every day as she took petitions and managed patrols and did all the rest of that governing crap that came with being Chos. This strife, this struggle, where you put everything you had on the line to survive. Her heart pounded in her chest as she danced through the carnage, each thunderous beat echoing in her head - "you are alive".

Fireballs and arrows rained down towards her, as they always did, and she avoided some and blocked the rest with her massive weapon like she always did. Whenever she showed her face in battle, the Drayhadans naturally focused as much of their power on her as they could. Part of the attention came from the fact that she was the leader of Stragma, but she knew that there was a greater reason. They feared her. They were right to fear her. She was the tip of the spear driving straight towards Astryae, the heart of the hated Astr clan. She was the embodiment of her country's wrath, and she would not be denied.

More and more of her people swarmed up onto the battlements, their numbers too great for the undermanned defenders. Akhustal smiled. Her gambit had worked. The elves just didn't have the troops needed to hold Astronta Keep. Her invasion was sure to go down in history as the turning point in Stragman history.

For generations, the nations of Stragma and Drayhadal had engaged in what could best be described as 'seasonal warfare'. Stragma's cyclical migration cycle meant that the two populations were only close enough for large, sustained battle for one quarter of every year, when the Stragmans moved to Pholis at the start of Autumn. While Stragma did not attack Drayhadal every year, when they did it was always during this window of time.

Such predictability was Drayhadal's greatest advantage, in that it allowed them to plan and muster up the most of their limited resources before the Stragmans invaded. Unlike Stragma, Drayhadal lacked manpower. While the elves lived for hundreds of years, they also reproduced at a rate many times slower than any other race. Combined with how their society sequestered women away from danger, only by rounding up every male on hand, be they farmers, tailors, bakers, or merchants, could they field enough troops to counter Stragma's armies. Logistics on that scale took a long time, and only the clockwork nature of Stragma's window of opportunity allowed them to fully prepare each year.

The hurried evacuation of Krose had cost Stragma dearly. Each seasonal city had its role in their society, and Krose's was industry. The more-open area was better suited for industrial operations than the other cities, and the supply of ore from the ronutepo tunnels allowed them to replenish their weapons and armor. For the next cycle, life in the forest would be much more difficult for everybody as they struggled to make do without much of their usual supplies.

But there was one single benefit to this unexpected turn — they were in position to attack their hated enemy early. Akhustal had bet heavily on the idea that the Drayhadans would not be ready for an invasion almost a season before the normal time, and she'd been right. The ramparts of Astronta Keep would normally have been lined with defenders, but today only perhaps a third of their normal force could be seen manning the walls. Astronta Keep would fall today, the first day of battle.