Invasion at Dusk

It was the crackling of smouldering flesh that woke Avii from the darkness. The scent of hair burning met his nostrils as he roused from unconsciousness to find the charred face of the guard pressed against his. In a twist of fate, the very man who had been threatening him moments before had become his saviour.

Screams cut through the sound of flames as explosions rocked the surrounding camp. The panicked whinnies of horses as they got free of their reins filled his ears as a whistle let him know another bomb approached.

Protecting his head, a thunderous boom rocked the earth, scattering debris over his face. A piece of shrapnel struck the armoured, soulless shell that had pinned Avii to the ground, rolling its corpse to the side enough for him to free himself. As he scrambled to his feet, rubbing the dirt and blood from his face, he glanced skyward to see it. Above Avii’s head, holding their altitude no more than a thousand feet beyond the ground, massive objects drifted into view.

Kovika Cloudriders. He thought in the moments before his mind raced with ways to flee.

Held aloft by a pair of oblong balloons crafted of leather and the glowing runes meant to fill them with magic, the wooden platforms of cloudriders were pulled into position by a dozen griffons. Streaks of crimson cut across the sky, as mounted ballista flung bolts primed with arcanzcores free from the mobile fortresses. Where they landed, magical flames engulfed the land, tearing into stone and burning away at the fabric tents with a heat hotter than a forgemaster’s fire.

All it took was a pivot of Avii’s head to tell that this was not a one-off assault. A single cloudrider was a suicide mission, but the sight of twenty more meant that it was a coordinated invasion. And as they were pulled into position, encircling the Estarian encampment, the griffons were released from their bindings as their riders began to dive down.

“Griffonriders!” Avii heard officers cry as they rushed to gather their troops into formation. “Arm javelins!”

The camp was in chaos as soldiers rushed, searching for weapons and armour that had not been outright destroyed in the first wave of explosive bolts. Without his MULE, his body freshly cleaned, healed, and an official jumpsuit covering the reminders of his enslavement, Avii was invisible to the world around him. To them, he was merely an old man who had been caught off guard. And, not wanting to waste this opportunity, he began his flight.

Still relatively weak and exhausted despite the holy healing, with no MULE to power his body, he hobbled his way through the backs of tents. As he peeked his head out, he would catch the sight of griffons swooping down on their attack runs. Unarmoured soldiers were easily impaled on the sharpened daggers that had been attached to their claws, while the ones in MULES were hoisted high into the air before being dropped like stones into Estarian squads trying to make a formation.

“Release!” A man cried out as Avii twisted his head to watch.

A dozen MULE armoured troopers took up position before his tent. Striking a runestone to the arcanzcore situated just beneath their iron-tipped javelins, the soldiers threw the spears with all their might. A moment later, the cores activated, kicking the spears skyward at the speed of sound. Green bolts of light arced towards the griffonriders, impacting the beasts and driving deep into their hips. Moments later, blood rained down across the camp as the magical explosives detonated, turning the riders and their beasts into sanguine mist.

“Rearm and—!" The officer began before a ballista blast turned the road into a crater.

Avii, close enough to witness the carnage, was tossed back through the tent he had been hiding. Tumbling like debris, he rolled through the fabric wall of an adjacent dwelling. As he came to a stop, he slowly opened his eyes to the fearful looks of squires hiding beneath tables with their glowing swords at the ready.

“Sir Knight,” One of the young boys whimpered. “Are you alright?”

Shocked, Avii looked himself over, glancing down and for the first time catching sight of the insignia on his jumpsuit. Eying the knightly crest he had not noticed upon his first hasty investigation, he placed a hand over the emblem.

“Fine.” He spoke softly.

“What do we do, Sir Knight?” The second boy asked. “We were never supposed to come this close to the front lines!”

Looking between the frightful gazes of the boys, Avii felt his hardened heart thud. They were no more than ten years old, not yet old enough to know at a glance what a slave looked like. And as he eyed them, he wondered how his grandchildren would have appeared had his daughter grown old enough to have her own.

“Run,” He instructed them. “Out and to the camp border. Head to the woods and north to Ulhaan. Tell them of what has happened here. Do not look back.”

“Sire!” They both saluted, crawling from the table and preparing to go.

“Wait,” Avii commanded, reaching towards a nearby trunk where the boys’ helmets rested and taking hold of the bowls. “Protect your heads. Shrapnel strikes kill more than arrows.”

With acknowledging nods, they took the helmets from the man, strapping them to their chins. As they readied their swords, the two gave each other glances and pushed through the fabric of the tent. And as Avii watched them leave, their bodies stepping through the closing flap, he caught a final glimpse as a griffonrider’s arrow tore through the throat of one of the boys.

A pit quickly settled in Avii’s gut as he watched the fresh blood spill back into the tent. But he couldn’t let it bother him. War would never change. Boys marched to their deaths every day as the old ones watched. So, grabbing a dagger from atop the table the children had been hiding, Avii tore his way through the back of the tent.

Soldiers charged past, paying him no mind as he stepped out into the combat zone. Above, more cloudriders had taken up positions as their griffon escorts stirred up chaos beneath. Javelins soared through the air, missing targets and igniting the dusk sky with green flashes of explosive magic.

A flare ignited above Avii, drawing his attention towards the flaming sphere that arced through the sky. The trebuchet he had been previously hauling had fired its first shot. A stone of magical flame raced skyward, connecting with one of the leather balloons of the aerial fortresses. An explosion turned dusk to day as fire and shrapnel rained down from overhead. The cloudrider was falling, scattering its explosive charges in a hail of death, and Avii was right below it.

“Shit!” He gasped, beginning to run as fast as his old bones could take him. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

Avii may have been unlucky, but he was no idiot. He knew he wasn’t going to make it. There was too much debris, and it was hard for him to tell what-was-what as the flames provided false glows comparable to activated Kovik arcanzcores. What he did know was that before him, a soldier lay dead with a shield still held in his charred gauntlet. It wouldn’t be enough to stop a direct impact, but he had a plan with what little magic had been returned to him.

Diving through the muck and gore, Avii took hold of the shield as he slipped past the corpse. As his body continued forward, he slid into a recently created crater. Channelling what magic his exhausted body could produce, he pushed it into the runes of the shield’s grip. Light blue runes activated across the round shield, extending its protective dome to include Avii as he held it over his head and crouched low beneath it.

The ground began to shake as hundreds of charged ballista bolts rained down from above, cratering the camp and engulfing the world in flames. Avii held firm to the shield, tucked deep within his crater as detonations tore away at his psyche, the shrapnel and stone pinging off the blue dome, his protective barrier. As the bombs drew closer, he wrestled with his trepidation until they were nearly atop him. And as a bolt landed right beside him, Avii felt his stomach drop. He stared at the iron tip that buried itself into the ground, and in the place where an arcanzcore would rest, it was empty.

At this, he released a weak, relieved sigh as he listened to the explosions slowly become replaced by a cacophony of terror. Men and women alike cried for help, screaming for priests. For healers. For mothers and fathers. For Gods to hear their prayers. But, for Avii, he had no words. For he was still alive. And could yet flee.

Crawling from his hole, he looked back over the space that was once a camp. The cratered landscape looked nothing like it had before. Reduced to smouldering rubble, Avii eyed the dazed and confused survivors as they meandered the warzone only to be picked off moments later by arrows from ever-vigilant griffonriders. And, in the distance, beyond the breached wall, Avii could see the red-lit MULES of Kovik infantrymen pushing in.

“Shit.” He breathed, sliding the shield onto his back. “Gotta—”

A pair of thuds knocked him forward, nearly stripping him of his breath. He knew the feeling of being shot with an arrow, and thanks to the shield he had placed, the arrowheads barely broke his flesh.

“Gyaah!” He cried, reaching around to pull the shield from his back, only to experience the razor claws of a griffon burying deep into his shoulder.

Avii was trapped, caught in the grasp of a griffon. Looking up, he eyed the leather boot of the rider. He knew what fate awaited him, and the higher he went, the less likely he would be to survive. So, hoisting his dagger up, he stabbed it through the boot and pierced the side of the griffon.

With a shriek, the claws released Avii, and he plummeted towards the earth. Skipping across the ground, like a stone over water, he felt something in his shoulder give as the limb fell limp. His recently fixed body was quickly breaking again, but at least he knew the feeling of different breaks and could tell that his shoulder had only been dislocated. Unfortunately, the bleeding he was experiencing from the talons was worse than he would have liked. But it would have to be manageable until he found safety.

Pushing up with his good arm, Avii hadn’t noticed where he had fallen, and before he could right himself, he felt a gauntleted hand pulling him up by the collar of his suit.

“Perfect timing, mule.” Lieutenant Marx announced, lifting Avii high enough to examine him. “No suit, no problem. We will provide you one at our forward camp.”

“Lieutenant!” Knight Ostave called out, throwing a javelin skyward over Avii’s shoulder. “Leave the mule.”

“Negative, Ostave!” Marx continued, beginning to rush with Avii in hand towards the circle of soldiers he had been introduced to an hour before. “The mule is our guide. He must survive!”

“We’re ready!” The elf named Aindes spoke from the center of the group, his staff glowing a bright yellow as he held onto a spell. “Lieutenant, get close!”

“Right!” Marx called out, charging towards the group. “Next stop, beyond the fr—”