Dragon Alliance Dark Storm : Dark Storm (46 page)

“Thank you, my friend. Are you ready?” Mkel asked.

“Yes, as are all of our Eladran friends behind us. The Morgathians are just below and are awaiting our welcome call,” Gallanth answered.

“Then let’s not keep them waiting,” Mkel said as he cocked Markthrea with a magazine of explosive-tipped bolts and bore down on the stock.

Dawn was just breaking, and the sun would silhouette them in seconds, so the time for attack was now. With a ferocious roar, Gallanth signaled the attack, which was echoed by the two dozen dragons behind him. All the female Eladran dragons would participate in this first attack and then move back to support the legions.

Mkel could feel Gallanth’s neck tightening as he prepared to unleash a plasma fireball. He took aim at the center of the orc battalions and fired. His bolt streaked downward, fired in conjunction with a sunburst beam Gallanth aimed at a fire giant, which struck him in the upper breastplate and bore a hole three feet in diameter through its chest killing it instantly. Mkel’s bolt struck in the middle of a group of orcs, the resultant explosion sending dozens flying in all directions. Just before they turned to fly up from the dive, Gallanth let loose his powerful fireball, which exploded with tremendous force at the lead of the fire giants’ column, incinerating three common giants, severely injuring three more, and wiping out a company of orcs and other creatures. The lightning bolts, jets of flame, and flaming acid streams from the two wings of Eladran dragons he led and the corresponding spells or energy bolts from their riders left a devastating effect on the ground against the attacking armies. Four more fire giants fell, along with two battalions or more of orcs and ten common giants.

The fire giants attempted a crude counterfire by throwing their boulders at the dragons as they passed. Only one was successful in hitting a copper dragon, who was struck in the underbelly and suffered a severe bruise, but it was not nearly enough to knock him from the sky. Lupek led the Alliance aerial battalions on their attack run against the rear portion of the Morgathian column. As they passed, they let loose a fusillade of dragons’ fire grenades and arrows, killing hundreds below. The Morgathian archers sent up a barrage of arrows to counter the devastating strike but only managed to down five hippogriffs, which the giant eagle squadron quickly swooped down and retrieved them and their riders, both dead and alive.

As they rose from this first devastating strike, the roars of the approaching chromatic dragons and Morgathian manticores and wyverns could be heard from up the valley. Gallanth looked up and saw the cloud forming in the early morning sky and ordered the female metallics to break off and return to the legions to provide them cover in case any of the chromatics slipped past them. However, he also told them to pay the Morgathian army below another visit on the way back. The twelve female dragons veered off and turned back down the valley where they conducted another devastating attack on the Morgathian and fire giant army.

“This surprises me, my rider. The chromatics never lend their army this much support this early in the battle. This must have been at some urging by someone or something powerful. We must take care,” Gallanth told Mkel as they formed their V and headed toward the incoming chromatics.

“I agree, my friend, but now we have other matters to attend to,” he answered as he looked into his crossbow’s scope and saw the armada of chromatics coming toward them. “By the Creator, Gallanth, there must be over eighty dragons heading our way,” he said out loud, very concerned.

“I see my rider. Keep your courage, and keep your aim true; these were the odds we faced during the Great War. We will prevail,” Gallanth reassured him as he issued his challenge roar, which was echoed by the dozen metallics behind him.

Mkel bore down on Markthrea’s stock and took careful aim at the lead red dragon. As the two formations closed on each other, Mkel could see multiple battalions of manticores and wyverns behind the dragons. His thoughts were interrupted by Gallanth firing a sunburst beam at over one thousand yards, striking one of the forward red dragons. Its magic shield held, but the impact threw it off course. This was followed up by a quick plasma fireball, which streaked through the air and struck another red dragon’s shield resulting in much the same effect. Once Markthrea was in range, Mkel fired at one of the other red dragons, striking it solidly on its shield, and he then followed up with a second shot as the formations slammed into one another.

The V formation worked again, as the breath weapons and magic strikes of Gallanth and the Eladran dragons and their riders cleared a path through the chromatics, hitting them hard and reducing their shields, even sending a black, a white, and a green dragon spiraling to the ground. Gallanth guided the Eladran dragons on a wide turning arc and then blasted through the chromatics once more with four more chromatics sent crashing to the ground. Gallanth still kept his fires concentrated on the reds, since they were the most dangerous.

This V formation attack was going well, but Gallanth knew it could only last one more pass, for the copper dragons needed to recharge their breath weapons and the shields of the brass dragons were getting low. They depended more on speed and agility in the air for defense than the strength of their shields, and two of the brass dragons’ magic barriers were getting very weak.

The last attack run yielded a good tally with six more chromatics being sent to the underworld. He then ordered the wing to break off with their wingmen and keep up the fight. Tegent kept right behind Gallanth, as he had done during the last three strikes, and would only engage smaller flying creatures, such as manticores or dragon spawn that had thus far avoided the metallics. Gallanth then pursued the nearest blue and red dragons to keep them from massing on any of the Eladran metallics.

Molotoc, Restregem, and the fire giant chieftain had regained control of their army and began to move them away from the aerial battle now intensely going on above them to avoid any more concentrated strikes. In spite of the devastating attacks, which had destroyed between a quarter to a third of their forces, they still had a good deal of combat power remaining. As the fire giants made the last turn on the trail before the straight path to the mountain pass, they saw the now formed and entrenched Alliance battle line in front of them well over a thousand yards away.

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Legion’s catapult commander ordered his throwers to fire. Immediately, all eighteen of his catapults launched their projectiles along with those of the battalion from Eladran Weir and the section from Draden Weir, with forty-, sixty-, and one-hundred-pound stones and canisters arcing over to the gathered columns of the Morgathian army and striking with an intense impact. Most hit their mark, with the dragons’ fire canisters bursting and spraying their deadly flaming contents over a thirty-yard-diameter in a deadly flash and the solid stones crushing dozens. The fire and common giants did catch several when they mistook a canister shot for a stone. The fire giants were basically immune from the fiery liquid, but it did not feel good to them.

The second salvo fired; the catapult crews had mixed in the spiked stones, the loosely packed clay projectiles impregnated with hundreds of steel spikes. They proved fatal to two fire giants and five common giants, who tried to catch them as they burst into dozens of deadly darts upon impact and almost shredded their targets. Knowing they could not stay there, Molotoc and the fire giant chieftain ordered the armies forward to get them out of the impact area of the catapults, while Restregem started to move their catapults forward to provide some type of response.

Knowing that he couldn’t make his men sprint almost a mile, he ordered the cavalry and orc-mounted dire wolves to charge to put some pressure on the Alliance line and stop those catapults from launching their decimating fire shot. Several hundred howling dire wolves sprinted forward with the thousands of Morgathian medium cavalry right behind them.

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commander then ordered the catapults to split with half firing on the charging cavalry and the other half hitting the Morgathian catapults that were now being set up. He then called the cavalry commanders from both his legion and the weir’s heavy and medium cavalry battalions to move out and head off the enemy’s charge. The four-hundred-eighty-strong armored horse galloped from one end of the Alliance battle line, the circle with the top half white and the bottom half black to symbolize light over darkness proudly showing on their shields. The heavy and medium cavalry battalions of Eladran Weir galloped in from the opposite side of the Alliance infantry, the green oak leaf and crossed arrows embossed on their shields. They moved in and linked up with their legion counterparts.

The three battalion commanders quickly decided on an attack formation, with the two heavy battalions forming separate wedges to drive through the massive wall of horse, man, orc, and dire wolf now bearing down on them. The medium battalion would move in behind them and capitalize on the disorientation of the Morgathians once their charge was broken by the lead heavy battalions. If they could take out half of the Morgathian numbers on this first charge, they would have a chance.

All three commanders called out on their seeing crystals for the battalions to move into formation with their most powerful paladins in the front. Their mithril- and magic-based weapons and armor were especially suited for this and could make short work of the Morgathian cavalry’s weaker steel. In a couple of minutes, they were formed and at the sound of the war horn and the commands across the seeing crystals, the thirteen-hundred-strong Alliance cavalry began their charge. Slowly at first to keep their formation, they quickly gathered speed to a full charge. The Morgathian dire wolves’ howls combined with the orcs’ shrill cries and Morgathian cavalrymen’s yells. The roar from their thousands was almost bloodcurdling. While frightening, it did not deter the Alliance charge.

When the Morgathian and orc cavalry was halfway to the Alliance line and two hundred yards from the legion’s and weir’s knights, the Eladran catapults fired one volley, with most of the stones and canisters landing just behind the edge of the Morgathian charge. The effect, while not devastating, took out dozens of the enemy’s mounted soldiers and a similar number of dire wolves. This did have the result of breaking their momentum, which allowed the Alliance paladins to hit them harder.

The lead paladins lowered their mithril-tipped lances and raised their shields as the opposing cavalries were about to meet. They kept the formation tight as they weighed into the Morgathian cavalry and dire wolves head-on. Their lances sliced through their opponents fairly easily, especially with the light armor of the orcs and the inferior steel of the Morgathians. The wedge formations of the paladins tore through the mass, unorganized charge of their opponent and achieved the desired effect of dividing them into thirds. Once through the enemy cavalry, they turned and a general melee broke out. While still outnumbered, the odds were much better now with hundreds of slain Morgathian cavalry and orc wolves littering the battlefield.

Molotoc and his guards were whipping his catapult crews to get their machines up and firing, as they were taking a pounding from the Alliance throwers. He had already lost a third of his catapults to the deadly accurate fire of their enemy counterparts. As they began to return fire on the distant Alliance battle line, he ordered half of them to fire on the two opposing cavalries fighting halfway to the legion’s infantry. He knew he would hit as many of his own cavalry and dire wolves as the Alliance knights but didn’t care, as he knew the Alliance horsemen were faster and better equipped, so if he killed one of his knights to kill a paladin, so be it.

As the paladins struggled in their fight with the Morgathian mounted soldiers, the medium cavalry battalion of Eladran Weir was effectively chasing down the dire wolves and orcs, as they were faster and more maneuverable than the paladin’s heavy horse. Once the catapult stones started to fall among the two cavalries, the Alliance commanders had them pull back in a fighting delay toward the infantry line. The stones were hitting both Morgathian and Alliance alike; with this and the fire giant army also bearing down on them, the Alliance commanders signaled for their knights to pull back faster. The Morgathian numbers were greatly diminished but far from defeated.

The fire and common giants then began to throw their boulders at the two mounted forces. The Eladran top paladin, a high-order knight, yelled to several of his comrades to break from the fight with the Morgathian cavalry and charge the giants to draw their fire from the main force. The small group of forty high-level knights quickly formed a mounted phalanx and charged at the giants moving toward them. As they tightened their formation, the holy avenger swords they were all brandishing began to glow brightly. This phenomenon, known as the Shield of Light, arose when the combined powers of their holy swords worked synergistically to form a large, almost impenetrable shield umbrella over the charging paladins. This had the effect of negating a chromatic dragon’s breath weapon, stopping arrows and even powerful spells, or in this case, having giant-thrown boulders bounce off or break apart upon impact.

The giants were stunned, as their thrown rocks had no effect on the charging knights and weren’t prepared as the Alliance paladins raced through their ranks, hitting them with their holy sword smite, causing great injuries. As the paladins regrouped to move back to the cavalry fight, they left four fire giants and twelve common giants dead or incapacitated in their wake. Three paladins had been struck by either a giant’s club or oversized sword and were picked up by comrades. Two others had their special warhorses killed and were also rescued. As they galloped back to the Alliance line, they sliced their way through the remaining Morgathian cavalry, which was now in full retreat, as they were within Alliance archery range and had taken many losses from the first volley as the Alliance cavalry outdistanced them enough to allow the archers and crossbowmen to fire.