JP Koenig
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Chapter 11 - Rear Guard
🕑 Added 2025-03-18 17:32:50 +0000 UTC“He’s no archmage. He’s a damned fool.”
- Hemlock the Shaper, Archmage
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“I cannot do much for him,” said Gunther. “He’s been ill, that much is clear. I can heal away the exposure and fix the frostbite, although he’ll be sensitive to the cold in his toes from now on. But whatever ailment weakened him so, he’ll have to pull through on his own.”
“How old would you say the child is?”
“Based on size? Fifteen or sixteen, about to hit their growth spurt into manhood.”
The child was small, scarcely past five feet tall, and thin in a way that implied way too many missed meals. Lady Solveig was washing the child’s face gently with a cloth, her own lap blanket across his lap. Taliesin looked at the child, then cocked his head to the side with a renewed interest.
“Intriguing. Lady Solveig, if you wouldn’t mind, could you please feel under the child’s tunic, to see if perhaps there is a cloth wrapped around the torso?”
“Excuse me?” she paused, the washrag forgotten in her hand for the moment.
“Humor me, please.”
Solveig reached under the tunic, careful not to disturb the blankets that warmed the child.
“There is. What.. how did you know this?”
“Because the child is not a young boy. The child is a young woman. She’s binding her chest to pass as a man.”
“Ah. Hmm, not sure how I missed that,” hemmed Gunther. “Not much experience with children, I suppose. In that case, she’s likely older than I guessed earlier. Very malnourished though. She starved many times before her illness.”
“Well, that’s easily solved with time and food,” said Lady Solveig lightly.
“It’s strange, though. I’m not sure why she bothered with the deception,” mused Gunther.
“Scouts! Scouts are returning!!” came a cry from outside.
“There are many reasons young women hide as young men. It could be something as simple as trying to hide from an unwanted husband or marriage, or as complex as preferring to be seen as a man. A woman’s lot, especially amongst common folk, is rarely pleasant,” said Lady Solveig.
With a supportive nod to Lady Solveig, Taliesin excused himself and stepped from the carriage. Viggo was running forward from his position at the front of the caravan.
“You heard the call?” asked Viggo.
“Word comes from the hunters,” said Taliesin as he spotted men racing from the woods. Taliesin began to walk swiftly to the tail of the caravan to hear the news as quickly as possible. Runolf fell into step on his right, and Runolf’s band gathered just as swiftly.
The scouts skidded to a stop before him and sketched a breathless bow - more of a shallow head bob, but the intent was clear. “Milord Archmage, Master Viggo, Chief Runolf. The enemy approaches. The scouts are on our tail now. A dozen gnolls, not three minutes behind us. A warband follows behind them, half a hundred strong!”
A few minutes of conversation followed, where Taliesin got a proper report of the enemy. The road they were on had cut over a hill and built across a plain that was now covered in snow. Irrigation ditches cut perpendicular to the road across the land periodically, which split the fields into rough sections by some non-intuitive standard that Taliesin couldn’t divine. Viggo was certain the town was nearby, so they mostly had to hold against the warband long enough for the caravan to reach safety.
“So it would seem that they have found us.” Taliesin turned to see Katla when she arrived with the remaining half-dozen of Lady Solveig’s guardsmen under her command.
“Men, form up!” shouted Runolf, and Taliesin’s new varingjar took their place around him.
“When the scouts arrive, I’ll scare them off. The caravan must push forward. The town must be close at hand. We will ambush the warband and buy them time.”
“Milord, how are we to do that?”
“Here’s what we do,” said Taliesin, as he quickly sketched out a plan. “Runolf, split your team on either side of the road in a loose skirmish line. Withdrawal point for a fighting retreat is here, then here. We’re not holding the ground, we’re slowing them down and inflicting enough injuries that they hold and regroup. I’ll cast a minor illusion that will mask you, but it will break if you move too much or attack.”
“Include me too. The guards will remain with the carriage,” said Katla. She waved off the guards, who headed back to the caravan with equal parts relief and disappointment. They were still chewed up from the bandit fight then the desperate skirmish in the village.
“Good, you can hold the center with me. Save your Smite for any trolls or heavy hitters they might have.”
“Milord, what is the point of the illusion?” asked Runolf.
“We want them to charge at the “undefended” caravan, not mass up for a proper skirmish. They’ll be thinking of an easy slaughter and looting, not proper fighting. We can take out a number of them in the first few moments. But we blood them and retreat. We do not stand. If they don’t break, we retreat. Are we clear?”
Everyone nodded, and spread out along the closest irrigation ditches. Taliesin wasted no time casting the illusion, just before the enemy scouts came over the horizon. His men - his varingjar, he mentally corrected - vanished from view, instead appearing as small lumps of snow. The illusion wouldn’t hold up to scrutiny, but should work just long enough for the enemy to commit.
“Ready?” asked Taliesin.
Katla unsheathed her greatsword and gave a predatory grin under her helmet and horns. “I am a warpriest of Freya. I was made for this.”
“Indeed,” said Taliesin. He pointed at the closest clump of scouts, ready to scatter them in every direction so the warband wouldn’t receive any accurate or timely reports. “[Lightning Strike].”
The smell of ozone filled the air as the aether shaped into Taliesin’s spellform just inches from his hand, and shot towards the closest scout. The lightning shot forward and burned a hole through his target and two more of the gnoll scouts besides. This forced the others to scatter and run for cover. A follow up [Lightning Strike] through the trunk of a tree and the scout hiding behind it was more than enough to make the scouts flee instead of hide.
Katla sniffed in disappointment.
“Don’t worry, Arbiter. You will bloody your sword soon.”
The caravan was moving away at a renewed pace behind them, the knowledge that the enemy was near more than enough to hurry the tired refugees. They weren’t panicking only because they couldn’t. The wagons and pack animals could only move so fast, and the animals were just as tired as their owners, only without the understanding of the nearby threat.
“Are you going to cast that storm spell?”
“That doesn’t actually narrow it down,” said Taliesin dryly. “My natural affinity is with lightning and weather spells. But I will not be casting the one that rains down lightning. I do not want the rainstorm that accompanies it, especially with this snowstorm that is starting. I would, more like than not, turn the snowstorm into a raging blizzard in the course of a few minutes.”
Katia’s scowl lessened. “Ah, that would not be helpful.”
Taliesin paused and turned to look at the woman in disbelief. “Wait, are you just making sure I don’t kill off all your opponents? Are you some sort of combat lover?”
“Umm, Warpriest of Freya?” she said, pointing at herself with a tone that implied that Taliesin was an idiot.
“Right. Well, I’ll assume that’s a yes, and that I don’t really understand the significance of being a Warpriest.”
Their conversation died as the gnoll warband appeared on the horizon, cresting a hill in the distance and just barely visible through the drifting snow, dark shapes moving across the white field. The lead elements spotted Katla and Taliesin, with the caravan fleeing in the distance behind them, not quite out of sight. They yipped at each other in excitement, and several raised their spears and howled. They began to charge, and the gnolls appearing over the hill ran after them. In seconds, a flood of gnolls, easily numbering over a hundred, began running in their direction in a disorganized mob.
Katla, for her part, began to pace back and forth, chanting under her breath in a tone that grew increasingly aggressive by the second.
“I’m aiming at the right flank. Can you handle the left?”
“Got it,” Katla growled, her voice almost feral as she returned to her chant.
“Alright then,” muttered Taliesin. “Here we go. [Lightning Strike]. [Lightning Strike]. [Lightning Strike].”
The three rapidfire lightning bolts rocketed away from Taliesin’s hands in three slightly different directions. The strikes were almost perfect straight lines, and burned terrible holes through their targets. One of the strikes petered out on the target’s metal armor after it burned into the gnoll, and cooked him in its breastplate as it uttered a horrid scream. The other two tore through their targets’ armor with ease and moved through the gnolls behind them.
The line of gnolls didn’t even slow or acknowledge the half-dozen dead and casualties from the three blasts of arcane might. If there was one universal rule between dimensions, Taliesin thought dryly, it was to get in melee range of magic users as swiftly as possible.
“[Plasma Arc].” A new lightning bolt formed, only this one spread from his hands in a thirty degree arc, and continued to spread as it sped towards the enemy. The bolt was scarcely a few inches thick, and crackled with deadly intent as it sped towards the enemy line at waist height. He could see the eyes of the front ranks of the gnolls widen in shock, with mixed reactions. Some dove under the wave of plasma, others froze in place, while some tried to leap over it. Those that hit the ground survived but exposed the ranks behind them to the plasma instead. Any who froze or didn’t leap high enough were electrocuted.
“RRRAAAGH!” snarled Katla viciously, her battle cry echoing across the field. Taliesin turned just in time to see her charge, alone, at the eighty-odd gnolls that were now only a dozen yards away. Taliesin had no time to watch. The gnolls were now too close for most of his best spells.
“NOW!” He shouted, and on either side of the road, his varingjar leapt from their cover of illusions, and charged at the gnolls. The enemy warband had begun angling in towards Taliesin and Katla in a vaguely triangular formation, without any sort of proper line of combat. The varingjar took full advantage, with their own battle cries on their lips. The line of warriors collided with the flanks of the gnoll force, the ring of steel and thump of shields filling the battlefield. The screams of the gnolls soon followed, high pitched and yelping. The varingjar tore into the unprepared gnolls with a bloody vengeance, flipping the momentum of the battle in a mere instant.
With the ambush sprung, the surprised gnolls were rocked onto the back foot, with some of the rear ranks pushing forward while the front line was trying to escape the massacre. Panic had set in and their already messy formation was unraveling. Taliesin decided it was time to add to the chaos.
“[Ice Darts].” A surprisingly basic attack spell used by weather mages, the [Ice Dart] spell created a shard of ice that flew with the speed and range of an arrow, but with magically enhanced accuracy. However, the more skilled the spellcaster, the more darts could be conjured. A solid dozen projectiles appeared above Taliesin’s raised fist. He flung his hand forward, his fingers spread wide, and the frozen darts launched themselves forward at incredible speeds into the line of gnolls.
Katla, for her part, was keeping the entire center of the gnoll line occupied single-handedly. Without sparing a thought to defense, the frenzied fighter shattered spears, tore through armor and gnoll alike, and left behind her only a pile of bodies and wreckage. The creatures veered away from her, forming a half circle on the road where none dared to be the first to face her. She wielded her greatsword with both skill and uncontained fury, almost as if she were incensed that the fight wasn’t more difficult while also affronted that they dared challenge her. It was in that moment Taliesin understood why Runolf refused to fight under her command - it was nigh suicidal.
“[Ice Darts]. [Ice Darts].” shouted Taliesin. A gnoll spear flashed past his head, but a third casting of [Ice Darts] buried a half-dozen frozen projectiles into the gnoll’s chest. Another two gnolls behind it got the remaining darts to the face. He spun in place and saw another group heading towards Katla’s unprotected back.
“[Elevate]” intoned Taliesin. The gnolls lifted gently off the ground and were left hovering just a foot or two above the earth. They swung their arms and frog kicked in a swimming motion, but floated impotently just a few feet away from their berserker target.
“Katla! Big finish! Smite the center!” shouted Taliesin.
Katla didn’t give any indication that she’d heard him. She spun in a wild circle, her greatsword moving unpredictably in a sweep that went from ankle to head height, and finished with her slamming the blade so deeply into the shoulder of the closest floating gnoll that she nearly bisected him diagonally across the torso. As the dead gnoll floated backwards, Katla flung her off-hand into the sky.
“<SMITE>” she roared, her voice booming with magic.
A divine blast far larger than Taliesin had witnessed from Katla’s Forging previously slammed into the center of the massed gnolls, a conflagration of power that shattered a dozen gnolls in a second and ruined any cohesion the warband may have had left. The gnolls broke and ran, fleeing in complete disarray. Their yips of pain were mixed with the clang of gnolls dragging away their injured or simply fleeing into the night.
Katla immediately fell to her knees, the tip of her sword planted in the ground before her as both hands grasped the hilt. “My Lady Freya, I dedicate this battle to your everlasting glory…”
Taliesin ignored her prayer, having heard a hundred variations to Jesu Invictus on his old home world. The similarities were haunting and stirred up bitter memories. Instead, he walked over to Runolf, who was standing over a fallen warrior.
“Milord, I’m sorry I failed you,” said the warrior on the ground. His gut was torn open, and he was bleeding heavily.
Taliesin rushed to the warrior’s side. “[Healing Touch].”
The modest spell staunched the bleeding and sealed the immediate wound, but the feedback from the spell told him this was a bandage more than a proper healing. He could only hope that it would buy them time to get the warrior to Gunther.
In a soothing voice, Taliesin said, “No need for that, warrior. We’ll get you patched back up again. Then you can rejoice, for you stood the line against a hundred gnolls and prevailed!”
Taliesin stood back up again, and motioned for Runolf to follow. “Get some saplings cut for a stretcher, he’s still badly injured. Did we lose anyone?”
“No dead, Milord, but several injuries. They’ll make it to the caravan.”
“Good man.” They turned and spotted Katla climbing back to her feet. She removed her helmet, which, like her armor, was coated in blood and viscera. She swiped a finger through the mess and drew a bloody line on each cheek. Taliesin shared a look with Runolf, and both shuddered.
“I think I understand your reservations about her, Runolf.”
“Indeed, milord. Can’t argue that she’s handy to have in a fight though.”
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It didn’t take long for the men to organize themselves. It turned out they needed to carry two men on makeshift stretchers, for another had taken a blow to the leg and could not walk fast enough to keep up. Once they were situated, they had no issue catching up to the caravan. By the time they arrived, the spiked wooden palisade walls of Buverik were visible through the falling snow.
Gunther climbed out of the carriage and immediately saw to the injured, and Viggo, the caravan leader, found places for them to ride on wagons. It took only moments before the wagons rolled once again, although Gunther was now riding a wagon next to the critically injured varingjar so that he could heal him with his Forging.
As they approached the town, Taliesin was immediately unimpressed. The walls were just as flimsy as the village’s had been, although they were noticeably taller. There was also a stone foundation, which was an upgrade as well, and multiple guard towers. The caravan rolled to a stop at the gate, so Taliesin walked to the front of the column to see why they were being delayed. Viggo was arguing with a gate guard at the top of the wall even as Taliesin stepped forward.
“This isn’t just any group of refugees! The Jarl’s daughter, Lady Solveig, and young Lord Gunther are in the carriage, and we’ve got an Archmage traveling with them as well. Open the gates and let us through immediately. You don’t want to rile the Jarl, or worse, anger an Archmage, do you?” Viggo shouted, his voice laced with frustration.
Taliesin couldn’t hear the guard’s reply as the wind gusted at the wrong moment. Then Viggo started yelling at the guard again, when Taliesin raised his arm to silence him. He looked up at the mule-faced guard. “Listen, boy, I will enter this town one way or the other in the next five minutes. This gate is to open now, for if it does not, I will burn it down while you stand atop it. We may have driven off the enemy for now, but we have wounded and these villagers need refuge before they return.”
The guard looked prepared to argue, but Taliesin intoned [Shocking Grasp], which made lightning visibly electrify his hands in an intimidating manner. One of the other guards ran off the wall, and the gate began to open over the first guard’s protests.
“That man has a death wish,” said Viggo. “I’ve never seen a more stubborn, foolhardy sentry. The Jarl will be most displeased to hear of this.”
