Rastislav
patreon
Arc 8 Chapter XL: Opening Clashes (Part 1)
🕑 Added 2024-11-30 17:14:29 +0000 UTCA/n: A bit earlier today since I will be away in the evening, hope y'all enjoy!
--------
"They were said to be extinct." Vayrin Indoril mutters as he shuffles after me, his reserves were trained well enough that he didn't end half-comatose after my lesson "To think a Shadowscale would appear so openly..."
"And die like a complete failure." Regnild Sadras scoffs in disgust "These things were supposed to be nightmares."
"I doubt it was meant to be a decapitating strike." Anondor points out clinically "This was at best a recruit who saw an opportunity to take out the exhausted magi, a foolish choice in the presence of Lord Dagoth which says a lot about their inexperience."
"Definitely a weakling, must have mistaken me for just another mage as well which is just sad." I nod, my examination of the corpse done, and toss it into my oblivion storage "Had some very powerful poisons on her though."
"How powerful exactly?" Anondor narrows his eyes.
"Would kill everyone here except me and you in mere seconds." I shrug, ignoring Indoril's self-assured nod and Sadras' shiver of fear.
Anondor's stare softens "Good."
"What do you mean good?!" Sadras barks out, still a bit terrified.
"My job is to protect my lord." The Falmer shrugs without a care "Why would his assured survival not be good?" Gone unsaid was that he would sacrifice either of them to protect me in an instant.
Indoril nods in open approval while Sadras just scoffs, unable to gainsay him one whit.
"It is quite troubling though." Vayrin mutters after a bit "The resurrection of that order is going to make things difficult."
"They wouldn't be lacking in recruits in any case." I point out "Shadowscales are just Argonians born under the sign of the Shadow and tossed to the Dark Brotherhood for training." I do not bother hiding the disgust in my voice "Since I personally made sure that particular order is dead, they likely had to recreate it on their own, which would explain the ineptitude."
"That or they never died out in the first place." Regnild counters gravely "Sending out a full order of assassins to face the Telvanni without a backup plan sounds... incredibly unwise. And say what you will about the An-Xileel, but one does not storm both Oblivion and Morrowind in the same decade without some wisdom to them, as counterintuitive as that sounds."
"It is no matter." I raise a hand to forestall the conversation "I have counters to the shadow loving lizards on their way as we speak." One has already arrived in fact, but I do not say that aloud.
Just as Regnild is about to question me further we arrive at our destination. The city square turned training grounds.
Almeril really went out of his way in the few days I gave him to get everyone up to speed as instead of the one thousand recruits I requested there now stood a solid three thousand dark elves, they were even thrusting their weapons and marching about with the barest shadow of skill to boot!
Thoughts of inevitable casualties aside, all of them were armed with a long but not quite pike length spear, a solid steel breastplate, and a kettle helmet to guard them from falling arrows.
Courtesy of yours truly transmuting downright unreasonable amounts of metal in one sitting.
Not the ideal setup but since keeping themselves limited to said armor was not the requirement, a good number of them managed to get their hands on chainmail, padding, all kinds of arm protection, and a very small number even had some ancestral equipment of far better quality.
Hell, most of them were wearing two or three robes or tunics atop each other under the breastplate which would protect them from most glancing blows, which would raise survival rates considerably.
The caravan reinforcements arrived recently as well, so we had people manning the walls and the rest helping with repairs, speeding the whole thing up by quite a bit. The Fighters were offered a place in the army but the vast majority of them refused, citing their apolitical status or some similar bullshit.
How low had the order fallen...
Anyway!
All in all, it was an acceptable citizen militia, even if some of the Redoran grumbled at the inevitable wave of recruits after this. It was the good kind of grumble though, they may have to pay them and feed them but skilled warriors were always welcome in the house, and blooded ones doubly so.
"Sir." Almeril salutes as we approach "The recruitment and training proceeds apace. A shame we are limited in time, these elves aren't half bad once someone threatens their home."
"Out of curiosity." I turn to the sea of bodies "How much progress could you make, in theory?"
"If we were given a week more to prepare?" Almeril ponders aloud "I could have them whipped up to soldier recruit standards."
"Ambitious." I hum in a vaguely approving manner.
"They already went through basic training so that helps." He shrugs, barely keeping the pride out of his voice "But I doubt we will be given that much leeway."
"True." I nod along "If the Argonians fail to attack soon, their element of surprise will be fully lost, and while it would be absolutely hilarious if they chose to humiliate me by making me out as a massive liar for calling everyone to arms, I doubt that is their goal."
"Don't give them ideas Dagoth." Regnild chortles harshly.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" I turn to him with a raised eyebrow.
"Hey you are the one that conscripted me." He shrugs "I got the right to be angry about it."
I snort "Fair enough."
The surprise on his face was quite satisfying.
"I am... troubled." Redoran says after a bit.
I turn my gaze in his direction and wave for him to go on.
"The Argonians." He turns his own eyes vaguely southwards "There have been no reports of them storming the east of Morrowind, only the Redoran Stonefells, and if the Legate's words are to be believed they are gathering more forces there by the day."
"A few thousand march in every day, yes." I confirm. They were gathering for something big and if we did not start challenging them things would turn... unfortunate.
"Don't you find that odd?" He asks simply.
"Redoran's dominion is known to everyone." It is Sadras who points this out "They could be trying to divide and conquer, hoping the other houses do not react. Or at least that they do not react in time."
Indoril looks distinctly uncomfortable for whatever reason.
He did tell me his house head was a fucking incompetent, or at least he revealed it to me on accident... Oh well, war first, cleaning my back yard second.
"The Indoril domain is quite... difficult to traverse?" The priest tries lamely.
Regnild Sadras scoffs "Most of your house are cowards, plain and simple." Earning himself immediate outrage from the priest, and raised eyebrows from both me and Almeril.
But he ignores it all admirably "As for the Dres, who are the closest to us, they are still recovering from the previous invasion. The Argonians probably don't even view them as a credible threat, vengeance or not."
"So they want to face the Redoran at their best?" I quirk an eyebrow "An unusual choice but not completely idiotic."
"You think they are doing it wrong?" Sadras asks, seemingly genuinely interested.
"They have more than enough numbers to cross the entire border at once." I shrug "Even if it may unify the Great Houses into working together, it would still stall any potential reinforcements indefinitely."
"But it would also drain their resources faster." Sadras adds.
"Point." I give him a nod.
Vayrin cuts in "Maybe the An-Xileel are looking for a decisive victory to spur the rest of them into action? It could be that their authority is not as absolute as we may believe."
"Not even the Thalmor's authority is absolute." I scoff, drawing a grumbling agreement from Sadras who was turning out to be the more canny of the lot "But I doubt we will find out standing around here and pondering. Speaking of..."
Just then, the good Legate rides up to us, his horse breathing a bit more heavily than usual but not to the point of exhaustion. He does not bother dismounting and merely salutes instead "Sir, three parties have set out from their camp, around three thousand each."
"Their goal?" I ask.
"Large scale foraging is my first thought." The Imperial says "Could be that they are trying to cut off the surrounding roadways but frankly the terrain is too open for that to truly work."
"It could stop a fast response force quite handily." I point out after a moment of thought "Even with how resilient most guars are, they still need roads for rapid travel." That and Dunmeri cavalry was shit, plain and simple.
"As you say sir." He accepts it easily enough.
I cup my chin in thought "How close are they to each other? And their destinations as well."
"If my boys aren't completely wrong, there would be some thirty minutes march between each of them." He says after a bit of staring at a scrawled map.
"Margin of error?" I ask.
"We are legion light cavalry." He says with pride "This is literally our job."
"Yes, yes" I wave him off "You are very smart."
He scoffs but doesn't seem to be truly offended by my sarcasm.
"This is troubling" Redoran frowns "Even if the Dres chose to come to our aid, they would need those roads."
"Which is why we are going to clean them out." I grin, drawing surprised looks from all of them "And besides, what better way to blood our fresh troops than leading them in a defeat in detail?"
Redoran looked downright terrifying when he realized what I was getting at.
-----
(General POV)
Zashizar scowled as he marched through the dry Morrowind air, how the slavers could ever live in places with so little water baffled him. Another mark against the illborn creatures is what he concluded, as he always did.
"Stop hissing so loudly fool." His clutch brother hissed, heh, at him "Your gurgling is making me regret coming here."
"And miss avenging our people?" Zashizar grinned at him with a bit cheerful grin.
His clutch brother gave him a bored look "By guarding an empty road?"
"The Warchief told us that if we held this road we'd contribute a lot." Zashizar shrugs "And personally I prefer sitting around instead of storming walls, let the mushroom guzzlers throw themselves at arrows, I will happily survive and get the glory."
"So very brave, Claw Leader." His brother hisses a laugh "Anyway, our kin have set up watch already, you have any other orders before we start settling in?"
The leader of the northernmost party of Argonians ponders briefly before nodding to himself "You know that carcass we brought along?" His brother nods "Hoist it up, might scare the slavers into retreating."
His brother grins.
(Reyvin's POV)
"What about prisoners, sir?" The Legate asks me as we observe the growing camp from our position behind a small mushroom forest.
"No" I answer simply as I observe an impaled Dunmer woman strung up in the middle of the road, thankfully quite dead before she was impaled "I think not."
(General POV)
"Mer of Kragenmoor!" Almeril Faren calls out as they stop their march "Ready yourselves!"
The Argonians in the camp were already scrambling for their weapons and preparing for battle as they saw the force of Dunmer approach.
It would be too late.
The army of the Stonefalls readied their spears, they were hesitant, afraid, bitter at the perceived abandonment by the more elite forces, but the sight of the Redoran noble leading them made them hold all of it back and they marched.
As soon as they passed a certain distance, arrows began flying out of the camp, but the few magi who managed to get themselves up for the battle batted them away with spells of wind that were by now thoroughly drilled into their heads, leaving only a few projectiles to bounce harmlessly off of simple but effective steel armor.
The lizards were no cowards though, and soon they began readying a charge, the biggest and most armored Argonians grabbing two handed weapons and drinking some kind of sap before throwing themselves forward in a mad rush.
"Hold!" Almeril barked over the loud roars of the lizardmen "Don't let them take one step forward!"
Elves were far lighter and weaker than Argonians, that much was known. But they were also far thinner, which allowed for incredible formation density. A formation that now looked more like a hedgehog than a group of people as thousands of spears were pointed at the enemy and braced against the ground.
The first lines clashed thunderously, lizards roaring in pain as they impaled themselves on far more spears than they expected.
The elves suffered as well, massive weights suddenly slamming them into their comrades behind them, dazing them our outright knocking a few out as the formation began to buckle.
Only for the same magi who protected them from enemy arrows to summon balls of flame and slam them into the enemy frontline, causing a bit of friendly fire but not to the point of outright killing anyone as Dunmer were very fire resistant.
With a simple barked order, the wounded were dragged behind the formation while fresh elves took their position.
Another yell from the Redoran had them marching forward, spears no longer braced but couched to strike at the enemy, an enemy whose charge was stopped in its tracks by a sudden wall of fire and the bodies of their larger kin.
The Argonians still tried fighting, they were not cowards, nor were they weak.
However bravery did not win battles, it merely permitted one to participate in the first place, and while the loose formations, light armor, and heavy weapons served the lizards quite well in most cases, it did not fare well against a literal wall of spears.
A wall that was advancing forward step by step, slowed to a crawl due to stumbling over corpses and general lack of discipline but still moving forward non the less.
By the time the leader of the Argonians saw where the winds were blowing and began ordering a fighting retreat to their sister unit it was already far, far too late. He only got to blow his war horn, both to alert his allies and order his people, before a shimmer of magic appeared in a close-by mushroom forest.
A shimmer revealing a fresh unit of cavalry, all of them wearing legionary light armor and bearing spears good enough for charging.
And as if that was not enough, at their head was a massive horse bearing an elf taller than most they ever saw, in his hand a long glaive practically bursting with power to anyone with the sense to perceive it.
Zashizar had only a few moments to realize just how fucked he was before the wall of horses and spears slammed into the side of his formation, slaughtering his kin by the hundreds. The last thing he saw was a pair of glowing red eyes as his torso was detonated in a burst of crimson lightning.
---
South of the battle, within yet another cluster of mushrooms, the Redoran regulars waited patiently. No words were said until a war horn sounded to their north, and no words followed it as the career warriors prepared themselves for an ambush.
The two Ashlanders shared a look, silently admitting that there may just be something to this whole great house business after all.
