Adam Drake - Blackout

With a quick check at my gold levels I assigned both a footmen unit and archer unit to training. Hopefully, they would pop out in time to save the base.

Three Minute Warning!

And speaking of time.

All three of us, me, Grax, and my lone cavalry unit, continued our suicidal charge at the platform. There was nothing else I could do now.

Ownership of the banner would be decided in the next few moments. All or nothing, here we go.

As we closed the distance to the waiting grunt units, I pointed my sword forward and screamed the one word which would now decide me fate.

“Attack!”

A horrific volley of arrows rained upon us, but did not affect our speed. I did not have time to check everyone’s damage, but neither I nor Smoke were hit.

Just short of the bristling spear line, I stopped, letting Grax and the cavalry charge past. Switching to my bow I fired wildly into the assembled grunts. No point getting speared to death before the fight even started. Let the heavy units take them on.

And take them on, they did.

The cavalry charged headlong into the first grunt unit, horses stomping over bodies, spears snapping with the impact. The riders were screaming with rage and swinging their swords.

Grax ran straight into the other unit of grunts. But before he got within spear range, he heaved his log with both hands over one shoulder and swung it across like a bat in a wide arc.

Grunts and spears flew everywhere. One grunt even pinwheeled over the platform to bounce into the archers.

Figuring Grax had the advantage for the moment, I concentrated my arrow fire on the grunts engaged with the cavalry.

I risked a glance at Amara. Bow in hand, she hadn’t moved, nor made any indication she was going to join in just yet. Plastered across her face was a smug smile.

She knew she had this.

Getting angry, I aimed my bow in her direction. But the archers fired again.

Since they couldn’t aim at the enemy tangling with their own units, they settled on the easier target.

Me.

The sky darkened with a swarm of descending arrows.

Crap! I yanked on Smoke’s reins and moved us out of the way just in time.

Two dozen arrows sprouted from the ground I’d just vacated.

In response, I fired back at the archers, hitting three in quick succession. But it wouldn’t be enough. If left alone, those archers would eventually kill us all.

Taking a tremendous risk, I shouted a command at the cavalry leader.

“Ignore the grunts! Kill the archers!”

The cavalry leader reacted instantly. His riders immediately disengaged from the grunts, and trampling over some of them, charged across the platform.

Before the grunts could turn to follow, I took Smoke into their ranks, switching to my sword and swinging like a lunatic.

To my right, Grax was stomping on grunts with his huge feet, and batting others into the air with log swings. But the survivors kept fighting, jabbing with their spears into his legs.

Focusing on my own fight, I smacked away spear thrusts while using Smoke’s size to push through the grunts. One decapitation followed another.

At the periphery, my cavalry unit, already severally depleted having started short several men, was slaughtering one of the archer units, who had now routed.

The other archer unit fired at my cavalry with impunity while keeping their distance.

I cursed myself for not telling the cavalry to split themselves across both archer units. Now one archer unit served as bait while the other worked on finishing their attackers off.

But I had no time to deal with this screw up. Smoke took a hard hit with a spear into his rear left leg and stumbled. The horse had received too much damage previously, and racing headlong into this fight without time to heal had taken its toll.

Smoke teetered over to his right side, then collapsed. Feeling this about to occur, I barely leapt from the saddle over probing spear blades, and tumbled to the ground.

Your Mount has been slain .

Up on my feet again, Grax’s shadow passed over me. He’d crushed and stomped the entire grunt unit on his own.

“More battle,” he said as he strode into the remaining grunts. “More blood.”

“All yours!” I said, relieved. A glance at Amara showed her still rooted in the same spot, only this time with a sword, but the same smug look on her face. What was she doing? She could have at least assisted her men with her bow and not given up her defense of the altar.

Confused, I was about to run over to her when I noticed the last two riders of my cavalry cut down the final archer.

But there was still the other archer unit. They fired a volley and one of the riders went down. The lone rider still charged at them. I knew he wouldn’t make it.

And once he was dead, those archers could easily take me out with a single volley.

Two Minute Warning!

I gave Amara a nasty look. She just smiled at me from her mount, unmoving.

Convinced she would not attack, at least for the moment, I shouted to Grax. “Go crush those archers!”

Grax immediately turned and raced toward them, causing a grunt to bounce of his leg and go flying. The remaining grunts tried to follow him but he was too fast.

The last rider fell to the archer’s volley, but not before Grax stomped into them, log-club swinging.

I turned to Amara, sword at the ready. “You and I have some unfinished business.”

She stared at me from atop her mount, grinning like an idiot.

Not waiting for a reply, I ran at her, then jumped. I sailed through the air, screaming like a banshee. Just before the moment of impact, I swung my sword.

And I sailed straight through her and tumbled across the platform.

I spun around and looked at her in confusion. She wasn’t solid. Phased?

Sensing a trap, I cautiously moved closer to her, and swung my sword at the front legs of her horse.

The sword passed through them, like they were nothing but air.

Annoyed, and even more confused by now, I walked forward into the ghostly image swinging my sword.

Amara and her horse suddenly flickered then vanished.

It was a trick. It wasn’t Amara at all. She’d left this image of her as a decoy. Where was she?

Then it hit me. If she wasn’t here, then my banner was unguarded.

I moved toward the altar to take the banner from the outstretched hand of the skeletal altar.

Four remain grunts suddenly rushed in to block my way, forming a line with spears at the ready.

I snorted a laugh. This wouldn’t take much. A glance at Grax showed he had crushed the archer’s unit down to five men. The banner was as good as mine.

A quick swing took out the closest grunt. But as I stepped in to take out the rest, I noticed movement in the trees to the north of the platform.

A rider, wearing mostly gray with a blue vest, emerged from the forest and I recognized it as Amara. Behind her, from within the thick forest, something huge moved. An orange light appeared there and grew brighter.

Suddenly, a tall being stepped out into the clearing. It was a tree, in the shape of a man, with arms and legs. I’d seen similar before in my questing life and knew it to be a Treant. But this was much bigger than any I’d encountered before.

A champion.

And being a champion, it couldn’t be any old run of the mill Treant. It was on fire. Where there should have been leaves, there were large orange flames. Huge fires burned at the ends of its arms. Large cracks in its trunk formed a kind of face, with eyes and a mouth. And from within those, a fire burned.

Shocked, I took in these new arrivals. This was not good.

The Fire Treant ran forward toward Grax.