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Arc 8 Chapter XLI: Opening Clashes (Part 2/2)
🕑 Added 2024-12-01 20:43:26 +0000 UTC(Reyvin's POV)
Scorch lands on my extended hand and a series of images blasts into my mind "Whoever is leading the central detachment seems smarter than we expected." Scouting with the dreaded bird man was something I was starting to do consciously instead of just scrying about, got my sight blocked too many times to trust it implicitly.
"How so?" Legate Furius asks, his eyes slowly trailing the Kragenmoor phalanx which was only now, a good ten minutes after the clash, beginning to reform.
Good speed all things considered.
Scorch chirps his boredom and unsummons himself "They sent messengers to the other group, I suspect they will try and unite before investigating our position."
"Not ideal." The Imperial hums "But not a dealbreaker either."
"Quite." I nod "I will have the Redoran troops begin harassing them with automatons, that ought to fuck with their morale."
The Legate gives me a look "Constant barrage of bolts?"
I nod with a far too cheerful smirk.
He shivers slightly "Poor fuckers."
Once more I summon Scorch, who glares at me ineffectively for a moment before launching himself southwards, all the while complaining about lazy ass elves and their familiar abuse.
I naturally tuned him out instantly and turned to face the approaching Almeril "Casualties?"
"Fifty six confirmed dead with about three hundred injured." He lists off immediately "The rest should be able to march in five more minutes."
"Much better than I expected, if you will excuse the morbidity." I snort lightly.
The Redoran veteran just shrugs "I am as surprised as you are, our advantages were too great and the enemy was unprepared."
"Best not to rely on such luck too often." I nod along and quickly inform him of our tactical state "Leave the first three lines here to rest and have them loot the bodies and burn the rest, might as well get the fully fresh ones some experience."
He considers briefly before nodding "Probably wise."
"Oh and leave the priest here." I add "He can heal the wounded well enough on his own."
"He might protest." Redoran points out, more out of obligation than actual care.
I just give him a long look at that.
He nods and walks back to the formation.
"Now the waiting begins." I mutter with slight annoyance.
---
(General POV)
"Keep yourselves together egg brothers!" A squad leader among the Argonians hissed desperately as bolts came flying by the dozen each second "Shields forward and drag the wounded to the shaman!"
Not many of them had died but minutes upon minutes of constant crossbow bolts were starting to wear on their morale.
The squad leader saw a glint of metal in the distance and recognized one of the supposed contraptions the Dunmer now used, seeing the opportunity he called "I see them there in the shrub! With me brothers, avenge the fallen!"
A series of hisses and roars came in response and they charged forward, ignoring the overall commander's orders to keep back. They were too far to hear her by now anyway.
-
War Mage Dreloth of the Redoran, an unusual sentence but not a unique one, saw the animals begin to charge after his automatons and immediately commanded them to withdraw, still letting out a rhythmic barrage of bolts so as to keep the fire constant even as they skittered between the hardened mushroom shrub of Resdayn.
Now that their formation was broken, the lizards began taking actual casualties. Bereft of cover and a proper shieldwall, they were swiftly lead out of the shrub and into an opening surrounded by mushroom trees on all sides.
The Redoran warriors pounced on them without a second's hesitation, slaughtering all three hundred animals in less than a minute with no quarter being given.
"How is our bolt stock?" Dreloth asked his fellow mage.
The young woman looked at the crate beside her for a moment before answering "Should last us for another raid."
"And the battle stock?"
She nodded "Taken into account."
"Very well." He failed to keep his eagerness back "Have the animonculi restocked and replace any soul gems, we shouldn't give the beasts too much breathing space."
The young woman scowled "Any second they spend breathing is too long."
On that, they could agree.
-
The Claw Leader of the central detachment, and overall leader of the road sally scowled terribly as she saw the bolts begin flying again. At least she managed to stop the idiots from charging after them again but it was a close thing.
"Breathe, Iritsza." The voice of the shaman shook her out of her stupor.
She kept back a scathing retort and sighed instead "We are being whittled down here, and it happening by my choice."
The shaman, Assyra, nodded "And yet you know the choice to be the right one."
She frowned "We should not even be here to begin with."
Once more, Assyra nods her assent "The Great Warchief orders as he wills."
"You are not very helpful you know that, right?" Iritsza quips and raises her shield, stopping a jagged bolt in its tracks.
Her shaman friend just smirks at her.
Before they could speak any further though, a familiar noise came from their south and the unreasonably large specimen leading the southernmost detachment broke through the treeline.
She was not completely sure if she preferred a slow death or dealing with that particular idiot but needs must. She straightened her back, barked out orders for scouts to ready themselves, and marched to meet her... colleague.
---
(Reyvin's POV)
My new monocle, besides being incredibly dapper and stylish of course, had a neat zoom in function as I soon found, and could be used in tandem with my not at all broken sight beyond sight.
Which is why I found myself lazing atop Glitterhoof and staring at a pair of Argonians yelling at each other, the female looking one scowling at the near troll-sized lad as they seemed to be stuck on their next step, the shorter one only retaining any kind of authority due to her higher position keeping her 'failure' from dragging her down from what I could decipher of the hissing contest they called a language.
And even if I could not, the Void's Blink could, and it very much liked what it saw.
"Almeril!" I call out.
The elf turns to me and salutes.
"They are stuck infighting." I grin at him "You better promote whoever did the harassment."
The mage next to him beams.
Ignoring him outright I look back to the enemy "Get the boys and girls ready, we are not missing this chance."
As much as I could just incinerate the whole bloody lot of them immediately, I was not trying to prove my personal power here. No, to achieve what I wanted in Morrowind I would need to show my ability to lead, and show it I would.
-
(General POV)
Iritza finally managed to convince the big lump to stop with his idiocy and turned back to the actual battlefield, her frustration swiftly being exchanged for an actual plan of action. They've wasted enough time on foolishness already.
Or at least that is what she was about to do before a single thunderous word cracked the air.
"FUS!"
Her line of soldiers were thrown back, the force more than sufficient to lift them off the ground but thankfully not to harm any of them outright.
It did however leave the entire center of their formation open.
And a force of light Imperial cavalry was perfectly prepared to use said opening.
They slammed into the still recovering warriors, throwing them about and impaling them on their spears but never slowing down as they burst through the line and began wreaking havoc on the lizardfolk's backlines.
A few were dragged down and slain, more than a few in fact as an Argonian could jump pretty high when motivated, but their comrades knew better than to stop and help them as they kept riding and soon made their escape south, leaving behind them a thoroughly ravaged force of five thousand Argonians.
Very few corpses, but far too much damage non the less.
Damage that was soon exploited by a group of just under a thousand charging elves, the red scarab on their heavy well made armor making their allegiance obvious as they slammed into the twice over disorganized formation and began cutting down everything they could reach with their long blades and expertly blocking counterattacks with their shields.
But to her terror, Iritza found that this was not the worst part of the attack.
No, the far too effective charge did not come even close to the sheer terror she felt as two figures, one wearing gleaming white and gold, and the other ominous black and purple, cut through a part of the formation on their lonesome, spraying blood in each and every direction without slowing down for even a moment.
The crowned black and purple one did not even look at her fellow Claw Leader as he bifurcated him with a lazy swipe of his one-bladed sword, his other hand slamming a jagged dagger into a nearby Claw Guard who tried avenging his charge.
Another attempted jumping him, only for the sword to suddenly extend into a glaive, cracking the impaled one more than stabbing him as he was broken in multiple pieces in an instant, the now extended glaive swinging down in a perfectly fluid motion and cracking through a shield warrior's guard, and then his head.
Iritza was not a fool, she was a Chieftess back home and was thus privy to at least some information on the politics of the wider world, knowledge she thought would serve her well in future negotiations. Knowledge that took all the fight out of her in an instant.
For the purple three eyed beetle emblazoned on the crowned one's cloak could mean only one thing. Death.
Just as she began panicking, her mind already moving towards the obvious decision, she heard Assyra shouting at her, pointing at another two groups of Dunmer spearmen, about one thousand two hundred strong each, now marching on their flanks and advancing through her beleaguered kin with careful coordinated steps.
"Shit." She surmised her thoughts perfectly. She knew she still held the numbers but her kin were too disorganized from the cavalry charge to put up a true fight and the duo of champions currently hewing through her subordinate leaders killed any attempt at reorganization in its infancy.
A small part of Iritza's experienced mind noted how it almost felt like her formation was struck and broken in the exact position that would do the most damage, the slaughter of her kin being committed with such effortless precision it felt unnatural.
Not to long after that realization, she began ordering a retreat, one she knew would not be a fighting one.
As she threw a wounded egg brother over her shoulder, she felt the telltale hiss of magic behind her and turned just in time to see Assyra grasping at her staff with both hands and trembling violently. Nothing else was visible but she could feel the immense force slamming onto her friend and knew there was not much time.
But just as she thought of running to save her, she felt herself being shoved back slightly, Assyra's pleading gaze telling her to run as quickly as she could. With great hesitation, she nodded and turned away, almost immediately hearing a loud crunch and a squelch but refusing to slow down as she began running away.
She felt a new hatred burning in her heart, not for the Dunmer, but for the fools who wished to reignite yet another needless war for their bruised egos.
(Reyvin's POV)
'Wow that was dumb of her.' I blink as I feel the self sacrificing idiot get crushed in my telekinetic grip 'Why the fuck would you waste your attention while you are actively having your limbs broken?'
Shaking my head at the wasted chance of capturing a shaman for some magical research, I felt Anondor approach me and lightly tap my shoulder.
I gave him a questioning glance he could feel through my crown and he simply pointed at the approaching legion cavalry, Legate Furius looking not quite furious but at least a bit irritated as he rode up to me "We couldn't chase all of them down, sir."
"Oh?" I raise an eyebrow.
"The Argonians." He scowls "They managed to breed some massive swamp lizard and are using it as a mount, the horses won't go anywhere near the things. And to make things even worse the damn things and their riders are armored in steel plate."
"Interesting." I mutter "Well, our goals have been accomplished anyway. We best get back to Kragenmoor before the newbies start pissing themselves from the smell."
The veterans around us share in a bout of chuckles but soon get to work, loot was loot and no soldier would ever ignore it. Especially since I told them I would not be taking my leader's share of it.
Idly I notice a literal limbless nugget of an Imperial woman surrounded by a bunch of Argonian corpses and lift her up telekinetically 'Fucking madwoman was still alive' I whistle internally as I begin stabilizing her 'And she is glaring at me.'
Minthara would definitely like her.
-----
(General POV)
She skittered soundlessly through the lightless night, her many legs giving her perfect leverage to move across the rocky terrain and avoid being noticed at once. Just as Mother intended!
The Lord of All Spiders had finally called for her! Nearly a cycle after improving her so drastically so that she may serve more ably! Mother's gaze was on her, she knew it and would not fail in her task!
That she got a delectable meal out of it was just a nice little bonus of course.
A noise drew her many-eyed attention as she barely felt one of the succulent little lizards shrouded in shadow step atop one of the uncountable webs she wove.
-
The Shadowscale, one rather worried about his apprentice's recent failure to report back, stepped through the rocky outcroppings overlooking Kragenmoor, a pair of powerful scrolls of illusion and anti-scrying hanging off his hip as he prepared to infiltrate the enemy city.
The Warchief was against this course of actions but unlike what most would think, Shadowscales care for their own.
And yet even as he prepared himself he felt his instincts scream at him in warning, immediately throwing himself to the side only to see... absolutely nothing.
But while he could not see anything he could smell it... 'Poison, Skyrim spider variant, greatly enhanced? Potential migration and adaptation or purposefully warbred?' These thoughts raced through his mind as he clambered up a large dried out mushroom in less than a second.
And straight into his doom.
Even his honed reflexes failed to react as he came face to face with a downright gargantuan frostbite spider.
A frostbite spider seemingly made of orichalcum...
He did not even get to scream as he was grabbed with numerous pincers, his limbs freezing as immensely potent paralitic entered his bloodstream.
-
Would the fear musk of the lizard make the meat better or worse? She wondered idly as she spun her cocoon. Eating simply for the sake of survival was something the Lord of All Spiders considered a sad thing, and so she taught herself to truly partake of her meals for the first time.
So long as she did her duty first, of course.
New tastes and experiences or not, Nimhe would feast well tonight.
