When Cyrus crested the edge of the embankment he judged the distance to the nearest army at only a few hundred yards. He let Windrider carry him onward as he watched the armies before him panic, men turning, stunned at the appearance of a charging army on the rear flank. The Sylorean officers screamed at their men to turn in formation but Cyrus watched them hesitate before beginning to organize. Too slow.
Detached from the body of any of the six legions, dead in the center of the road back to the forest was another cluster, smaller, this one only a few men. Cyrus squinted, and saw that one of them appeared to be much shorter than the others, and had a long beard, one that reached nearly to his waist. The dwarf carried a hammer almost as tall as he was, holding it diagonally across his body with both hands. The small group of fighters was only about six strong, Cyrus noted. He pointed his sword at them and noticed Windrider had already altered his heading to charge the mercenaries. “Clever horse,” he said faintly. “So, so clever.”
The others changed course behind him, and Cyrus felt the wind rushing through his hair, blowing it out the bottom of his helm. His mouth was wide with a feral grin; he was going into battle, riding into danger from the fore, his forces behind him. The dwarf ahead of him was already running out to meet him, along with the others in his party, while the rest of the Sylorean army was still executing its turn and trying to shift their formations to deal with the threat at their flank. Cyrus saw horses beginning to stream out of the woods behind the backs of the Syloreans. The real Galbadien Dragoons were forming up to hit the unsuspecting Syloreans from behind while Cyrus distracted them.
“Watch out for the paladin’s attack!” Cyrus shouted as they closed the distance to the mercenaries. He locked his eyes to the dwarf, watched him extend his hand, felt Windrider tense beneath him.
A blast of ice sent the dwarf staggering, his hand flying into the air as he loosed a massive burst of force that went sailing over Cyrus’s head, barely brushing his helm but sending it flying. Cyrus could see the two mercenary warriors, armored at the fore, and the two rangers, their bows drawn and arrows ready to loose. Each of them was downed in the next moment; one caught an arrow in the face from Martaina, who smiled grimly as she drew another arrow. The other was blasted by a bolt of lightning that originated from Ryin Ayend, who sent the man spiraling through the air as though thrown.
“Spellcasters!” Cyrus yelled, “let loose on the armies! Keep them off us while we finish the mercenaries!” He watched another arrow sail forth, this one from Aisling, and it came to rest in the thigh of the mercenary healer, who let out a cry and fell to the ground.
Flames sparked up in a line along either side of their charge, isolating Cyrus and the Sanctuary forces from the Syloreans on either side; the lines blazed back toward the woods but stopped behind the mercenaries, sending the grass into conflagration as it looped around the four surviving mercenaries, cutting them off from Sylorean reinforcement.
Another arrow caught the healer in the face as he cast a spell, sitting on his haunches, his legs in front of him. His hand dropped, limp, into his lap, and he fell backward, dead, forcing Cyrus to smile. The dwarf had been knocked over by the ice spell, but was back on his feet now, hunched over, the two heavily armored warriors flanking him to either side. “Get the paladin!” Cyrus shouted as the dwarf’s hand rose again, this time without warning. Cyrus was only ten feet away now-
The air around the paladin’s hand rippled as his spell burst forth from his mailed hand. With the aid of Praelior’s mystic enhancement to his speed and reflexes, time seemed to slow as the air folded around the force of the spell, the world distorting as the enchantment sped toward Cyrus. Windrider had already cut hard to the right before the blast landed, and the horse managed to dodge under the effects. Cyrus felt himself hit by the widening radius of power as the wave bloomed outward, like a wall had been picked up and slammed into him. He flew sideways off the horse, dragging his legs behind him as he flipped in midair, before coming to rest on his shoulder.
The impact knocked the air out of him, but he maintained his grip on his sword. He looked back and saw the paladin’s attack wreaking havoc behind him; half of Cyrus’s small force had been hit, and a trail of upturned earth ten feet wide marked the place where the paladin’s incantation had wrought its effects. Those who hadn’t been hit had dodged outside of the cone of destruction, trying to get their horses back under control. Cyrus saw Curatio among them, as well as Terian. “Come on!” Cyrus shouted and slung himself to his feet. “Terian, get over here!”
Cyrus turned and found the dwarf already upon him, hammer raised above his head. Cyrus brought Praelior up, turning aside the dwarf’s first attack by landing a glancing blow on the head of the big, stone hammer that sent it reeling off to the side. The dwarf was fast, however, and used the momentum of the attack to pirouette, coming around with a spinning assault that Cyrus dodged, but only barely.
Cyrus brought Praelior around and landed the blade on the hammer’s long handle; it was almost as long as the dwarf was tall, and when he hit the wood with his blade, it chipped only slightly. His hammer is mystical. Praelior would cut through regular wood as easily as passing through flesh.
“You’re faster than most dwarves I’ve met,” Cyrus said, feeling the hammer strike a glancing blow off his breastplate as he landed one home upon the dwarf’s shoulder, leaving a thin line in the steel that drew the mercenary’s attention.
“Oh, yah?” The dwarf smiled, his long, brown mustache and beard shaking. The beard was braided at the bottom, and his bushy hair was ponytailed in the back. He wore weathered armor, steel with a dirty sort of look, and his eyes carried little spots of brown in the middle of large white eyeballs. “Then I’ll tell you that you move faster than most humans I’ve met.”
“So long as we’re forming this fine mutual admiration society,” Cyrus said, meeting the hammer’s head with Praelior again, blocking the dwarf’s attempt to crush his skull, but at the cost of sending a jarring pain through both of Cyrus’s arms, “I’ll tell you that your hammer is quite impressive, even for a mystical weapon. Most of them I’ve met can’t stand up to my sword.”
“Big strapping fellow like you, dressed all in black? I’m surprised your foes don’t all run away from you screaming in terror.” The dwarf pivoted around and landed a blow under Cyrus’s exposed armpit as he was stepping into a swing of his blade. Cyrus felt the armor hold but ram, hard, into his ribs. They cracked and felt the searing agony run through his side, gritting his teeth, trying to keep the pain from overwhelming him. The dwarf pressed forward, lifting his hammer over his head for a killing blow, but Cyrus used Praelior to deflect the strike, whirling away from the paladin.
“I believe you’re mocking me, sir,” Cyrus said, tasting blood in his mouth. A quick glance around the battlefield found the Syloreans in panic; they’d turned and engaged J’anda’s army thinking it was real and had discovered too late it was not. The Galbadien dragoons were visible behind the dwarf, some already cutting through the Sylorean forces, their upper bodies visible over the heads of the writhing and panicked Sylorean army as the dragoons cut their way through on a charge. Shouts drowned out everything, screams of the defeated and the battle cries of those still standing and fighting. The only difference was in pitch, not volume.
“I believe you’re right,” the dwarf said without irony. “But it’s nothing personal, even though you did just kill my comrades.” He brought the hammer down furiously again and Cyrus felt the impact as he blocked it with his sword.