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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Emperor Valerian" data-source="post: 2252165" data-attributes="member: 15043">And finally... another update!I apologize for its lateness... last week was chaos, and it wasn't until today that I got the first chance to type.  It's shorter than normal (I still have one last paper due tomorrow), but after this, school is OUT (for a month, at least), so I'm going to aim for three updates a week.Enjoy!==========================================Battle of Ii-suken, Part TwoNayu’s horse shied and whinned as the smell of sulfur and ozone filled the air, complementing in a sick way with the overriding odors of blood and sweat.  The dull rumbling thump of thousands of people marching forward assaulted his ears, as in front of him the frontline of Hu Lian’s army seemed to stretch from horizon to horizon, their spears lowered in an immense tide of steel as the Wa-Feng army fled before them.For a few seconds, the sorcerer stood in awe at the wave of humanity slowly coming towards him... since his ride down from the hill, he’d known there would be thousands of Hu Lian’s soldiers coming towards him... but it was only now that he appreciated how terrible such a host looked.  After a moment, his mind snapped him back to the present, as he noticed something he considered ominous...Where is the magical blasts I wanted put here to stop these people?!  He turned around, looking back towards the hill... he was too far away now to see the spellcasters themselves, but he saw no columns of smoke or flames... they weren’t struck by a fiery magical blast at least.  As he turned about, however, he saw off to his left towers of flame rising high into the air, the explosions dulled by the far closer thunder of an approaching army.What is General Wa-Feng thinking?!  Nayu immediately realized why the fire had shifted, but he still couldn’t understand why Felonca’s uncle would demand all their magical abilities be placed on the far side of the army... not in the center, where his army was reeling.  That means I’m the only spellcaster here...His eyes went wide at the thought, and he turned back towards his own troops.  They were steel backing away, long before they’d even gotten close to the enemy.  No mounted commanders were in sight... some of the troops were still in formation, many looked to be on the edge of outright running away, the enemy host seemed so many, so powerful...Nayu spun his horse around, intent on fulfilling the goal his spellcasters only a short time before had described as “crazy.”  Stop the army from running, and drive back Hu Lian’s spearmen.“Stop!  Hold your ranks!” he called, galloping around a group of spearmen he recognized.  The remnants of the regiment were clustered fearfully around their banner, their spears lowered only shakily as they backpedaled away from the advancing horde.“Ah!  Spellcaster man!” Nayu heard Sunyi’s voice call.  A quick look revealed him to be the man holding up the banner in the midst of his comrades.  “You’d best get away from here... you have no armor to stop spearpoints!”“Where’s your commander?” Nayu reined up his horse.  “Where are your unit’s drums?”“Zhong Wei Ce was killed by a lightning bolt that came from the blue!” one of the soldiers yelled fearfully, “and our drummers were killed in the blast of fire!  The gods themselves are angry with us!”They don’t even know spellcasters hit them... Nayu realized, before turning his horse around to face the oncoming army as the soldiers backed further and further away.  Part of his mind still shouted that he was crazy... though that voice was growing quieter every second as more and more of his consciousness realized that something had to be done... They need an example of how truely angry the ‘gods’ get!“Nonsense!” Nayu shouted back, closing his eyes and focusing his magical powers.  “The gods aren’t angry at you!  You have nothing to fear from the gods!”  He felt the magical finally frothing at the tips of his fingers, and he spun his horse around, flashing a brave grin.“But those soldiers coming this way have everything to fear from me!”  While still facing his Sunyi’s comrades, Nayu raised his hand high above his head, and pointed behind him.  Aiming didn’t matter, the enemy line was so wide and deep.  None of Sunyi’s men saw the tiny white bead that flashed over Nayu’s shoulder and into the enemy masses.They all cringed when a thunderclap rent the air and seemingly the earth itself, and recoiled in awe as the unarmored sorcerer in front of them seemed to turn no more than a black, dark silhouette against the brilliant momentary sun that was now the midst of the closest enemy regiment, bodies of Hu Lian’s spearmen arcing upwards, crashing to the ground in burning hulks.And now for the clincher...  Nayu very slowly, very deliberately turned around.  He was surprised by the rank devastation the fireball had caused... one entire banner of enemy spearmen had literally ceased to exist, and all those around it had halted their advance, thousands of eyes now staring fearfully at the lone man between the two armies...“Whoops,” he shouted loud enough for the enemy to hear, and shrugged his shoulders before spinning his horse back around to face the enemy army.  Already, there were shouts from the more veteran guans and zhong weis of the enemy units to resume the advance, or screams of where their own magical support had gone.  Nayu watched bemused as a man on horseback, clad in the armor and under the golden plume of a full shang, charged towards him, rending the air with calls for Nayu to defend himself.So the local general wants to show his troops courage... very well.I’ll just teach them what courage will earn them...As the oncoming warrior lowered his spear and began a charge, Nayu merely closed his eyes, feeling the magic welling within his soul.  His mind ignored the thunder of hooves growing louder and louder by the second, in favor of the seeming roar of arcane power into his arm.  Slowly, he opened his eyes, and ever so casually pointed his finger at his assailant.A massive thunderclap rocked the surrounding area, as the brilliant flash of arcane lightning slammed into the oncoming rider.  The man pitched back off of his mount, tumbling to the ground.  As his now panicked horse thundered by, his caught stirrup dragged the doomed shang away.Nayu then turned back towards the enemy army, forcing a bit of slight magic towards his eyes.  He could feel a slight burning behind them, and rather bemusedly knew that nothing would come from this slight prestidigitation, but none of the common enemy soldiers would know that the now glowing eyes on the spellcaster before them was merely a slight illusion, and not a portent for the apocalypse.“Form behind Master Wakabayashi!” Nayu heard a familiar feminine voice shout.  He looked out of the corner of his eye, and saw a bedraggled Yari Ai screeching at another group of soldiers, the white of her healer’s outfit long since bespeckled with the red of blood and brown of dirt.  More impressively, he saw that more of the soldiers were following the order.He turned back to the enemy, their eyes now wide... many of the lesser guans and zhong weis had fallen silent as their commander’s horse whinned from afar off, still dragging its master’s body behind.  They are stunned... frightened...“Sunyi!” Nayu called over his shoulder, “Find a horse, and ride to Shang Wa-Feng!   Tell him that the enemy is pulling back, and that he should advance immediately to crush in their flank!”“But sir,” he heard Sunyi shout, “they aren’t retreating,...”“Yet!” Nayu shouted in reply, another prestidigitation making his teeth seem to glow towards the enemy soldiers...Felonca winced when she heard the thundering crash of the first charge.  For a few moments, she resisted the urge to peek through the reeds, but finally her concern and her curiosity got the best of her.  Yongli’s spearmen were relatively raw and spread thin.  If they’d broken under the first charge, her little plan wouldn’t matter.  For a few seconds she held her breath until the dust cleared enough for her to see the spearmen still standing, though even at this distance, she could see their eyes wide with fear and terror even as Hu Lian’s cavalry pulled away, regrouping, reforming, their horses screaming as the riders whipped them about, forcing them back into formation above the thunder of hooves...That noise made Felonca smile just a bit as she left loose of the reeds, and swung her own mount back towards the center of the creek, and in the midst of her own troops as they sloshed through the water, further towards the south.  With the noise of the charges, there was no way anyone on the bank itself would hear her troops as they went by, laying low on their mounts, their spears held low, no banner in sight.  Instead, the banner of Eagle Company flew behind Yongli’s spearmen... No reason for us to carry something that so easily identifies us as parts of the Wa-Feng army... she’d thought to herself. If they spot us when we come out of the creek, any moments we gain by their confusion as to who we are is precious time gained...“Zhong Wei,” one of the other cavalrymen whispered as he cantered by, “Are we almost there?”“Yes, Wu.”  She pointed up about a hundred yards ahead, where the right riverbank went momentarily from a steep nine foot drop to a more shallow rise about ten yards wide... Wide enough that we can slip our entire troop up onto the banks in a few seconds.  Then it’ll be about approach... and attack.She spurred her horse on a bit more, making sure that her partial gallop was in the muck at the sides of the creek, the dull slops of mud far quieter than the great splashes that her steed’s rapid pace would have sloshed out of the water.  When she reached the rise herself, she peeked over the edge.  Seeing Hu Lian and her cavalry focused on reforming to charge again, and not looking to their rear, she pulled out her warfan, and raised it skyward.Advance, she shouted the command in her mind, spurring her horse onto the rise and then onto the embankment above. Behind her, she heard the dull rumble as ninety other horses followed as she still held the warfan aloft.  A quick glance behind her to make sure everyone was on the small plain, and then she snapped her warfan straight out towards the left.The dull, quiet rumble of horses walking to their positions was almost drowned out by the neighs and yells of the heavy cavalry some two hundred yards ahead as they cajoled their weighed down animals into place.  In contrast to the slow moving heavy cavalry ahead, Felonca’s lighter riders snapped into position within the minute... three ranks of thirty.All the while, the hengeyokai’s eyes watched with a warrior’s eye the cavalry ahead as they hustled and bustled to line themselves up, facing away from the new threat behind them.  They’re going to charge in a couple minutes. Felonca realized as the last of her soldiers took their places.  The black warfan went upwards yet again, before dropping, leveling with their foe far to the front.  She gave her horse a slight spur, and it broke into a quick trot, the ground beginning to shake as the other horses behind hers fell into suit.  She looked back one last time, and saw her soldiers still had their polearms upright... proper procedure.As the enemy grew larger and larger as they closed, Felonca’s mind, freed from the helter-skelter of planning and worrying, was now free to release all its fearful butterflies. You have 90 troops, are wearing leather, and have only warfans... yet you’re going to take on 500 armored cavalrymen with spears, swords and shields?  Are you nuts?!She put her spurs into her horse’s flanks yet again, and a hundred yards from the rear of the enemy ranks, she broke into a canter.  Armored helms were beginning to turn, she could see plumes spinning as ears finally caught another thunder in the air...Now they see you! her fear shouted.  They’re going to wheel around, and when they do...She spurred her horse hard this time, and it gave a scream as it launched into a full gallop, far faster than a charge was supposed to be launched normally.  Then again, normally no charge like this would ever be done.From behind her came a roar, thundering and loud.  She felt the collective whoosh as the spears, halberds and other long polearms of her small unit leveled towards the enemy, their shouts and calls thundering reverberating through the air.  Finally, she raised the warfan one last time, as a few of the heavy horsemen desperately tried to swing their heavy mounts around, their armored steeds moving far too slowly to face this new, terrible threat...“Wa-Feng!” came the cry from Felonca’s lips.“Wa-Feng!” came the shout from the soldiers behind her.“Wa-Feng!” came the shout from Yongli’s spearmen, who lunged forward from the front.The instant before the chaotic crash of arms came together, Felonca had just a moment to realize that her first opponent was wide eyed with confusion at her... because he saw she had fans, not a sword.His mistake.</blockquote>

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