Adam Drake - Blackout

The great eagle was hovering high above, with Amara peering downward, assessing the situation.

The Lookouts atop the Keep fired their crossbows, but their bolts came up short. I noticed with dread that reloading these weapons took the Lookouts forever.

My archer unit stood nearby, bows at the ready. They didn’t even attempt to fire since Amara was well out of their range.

The footmen were assembled around the altar, eyes on the aerial invader.

What was she going to do?

I was still too far. Less than two minutes out.

The eagle adjusted its height and came in closer to the top of the Keep. The Lookouts were still loading their crossbows as quick as they could.

It wouldn’t be fast enough.

The eagle reared its head back then opened its massive beak. Thrusting forward it let out a terrifying shriek.

It was using an ability.

The shriek emanating from the eagle was like a physical attack. The air in front of it shimmered like a heatwave. The Lookouts were enveloped in a torrent of deafening sound.

The Lookouts were knocked back and sent flying over the battlements. They tumbled screaming down the vast height of the Keep to the ground.

With this problem eliminated, Amara brought the eagle around the Keep and landed.

The archers moved close and loosened their bows.

But as the arrows zinged toward their mark, the eagle stood tall and flapped its mighty wings creating an incredible wind.

The arrows were knocked out of mid-flight as the wind intensified. In seconds, the eagle generated hurricane-force winds.

The archers tried to stand against this, but were sent flying to the ground, or tumbling into the trees.

While the great eagle maintained the attack with its wings, Amara jumped off its back.

The moment before she touched the ground she vanished.

Shadow Form.

My footmen, shocked by the attack on the archers, but still rooted to the spot I commanded them not to leave, looked about in confusion.

Oh, for the love of…

“Watch out!” I shouted at the footmen leader. “She’s in Shadow Form!”

I rounded the final bend, and the Keep was in sight, but I was a good thirty seconds away.

The footmen looked about, apprehensive. They knew an enemy was nearby, but had no idea where.

Yuinnick continued its attack, buffeting the archers with the horrific wind. When one archer managed to get purchase and stand, he was immediately sent sprawling to the ground.

Your Banner Has Been Taken!

No, no, no, I thought. This cannot be happening. Not again!

Amara had snuck by the footmen in Shadow Form, but the moment she grabbed the banner she became visible. Crouched on the altar itself, banner grasped tightly in one hand, she killed the nearest surprised footman with a sword swing.

The other eleven footmen reacted, whirling to confront her.

The great eagle immediately stopped flapping its wings and charged forward at the footmen formation, shrieking loudly.

As some footmen engaged Amara, others turned to face the frightening champion moving in to attack.

I was ten seconds away.

Amara’s sword was a blur of motion parrying sword swings from her perch on the skeletal altar. Surrounded and outnumbered, she appeared in a desperate fight to keep them at bay.

This attempt at the banner had been a tremendous risk to take. But fortune favors the bold, especially on the Battle Field.

Yuinnick snapped at a footman with its beak, slicing him in two. Then it crushed another with its massive talons while flapping its wings to keep balance. The great eagle moved in closer, forcing the footmen to scramble out of the way.

Amara noticed me galloping toward her and grinned while slicing the head off a footman.

“I’m coming for you!” I found myself shouting. My heart raced as the distance between us shrank.

Then Amara moved. She dodged a footman’s sword swing, then rolled under another’s attack.

Yuinnick brushed three footmen away with a giant wing, as if they were toys, and squatted down.

“No!” I yelled, changing my direction toward the great eagle.

Amara jumped and stepping off a fallen footman’s back, leapt up and into Yuinnick’s saddle.

The huge bird flapped its wings and launched up from the ground.

Unperturbed, I took Smoke directly under the eagle, its massive form blocking out the sky. Wings beat around me and the wind threatened to knock me to the grass.

But as Yuinnick ascended, I still had a chance at one desperate attempt to stop them.

I shifted from my saddle to my feet, and using my enhanced leap ability, jumped straight up from Smoke’s back.

The next second, I found myself clinging to a leathery leg of the eagle as it ascended northward into the sky.

Below, I saw Smoke running about in confusion. The remaining footman looked up at me in amazement.

For a few moments I could only marvel at my own folly. What had been the point of this?

It didn’t appear that Yuinnick noticed my presence, so large was the creature.

We sped northward, and the dense forest below moved past at an alarming speed. Did Amara intend to go to the center altar?

A quick look showed that my forces still firmly controlled the platform and the area immediately north of it. But her own army was pressing forward. They were closer than before.

Not waiting to give her any more satisfaction at snatching my banner, again, I decided to try something really stupid. There were few options for me, anyway.

My legs and arms were wrapped around the thick leg of the eagle. I released my grip with one hand and summoned my sword. Then I stabbed upwards.

Yuinnick shrieked with pain and its flapping wings lurched in surprise.

As if in answer to my attack, the eagle started to descend. I stabbed again and blood flowed from the wound under its huge feathers.

Now Yuinnick tried to use the talons on its other leg to swipe at me, but it couldn’t reach.

When I stabbed again, I felt us falling faster.

I looked down just in time to see us fly into the tops of the trees.

The branches smashed into me at horrific speed. I tried to hide behind the eagle’s thick leg but it appeared to be willing to take more damage if it meant I would be knocked off.

It worked.

I couldn’t hold on while being attacked by speeding trees, and I was smacked hard again, losing my grip.

I had one last glance of the eagle’s mammoth form flapping away, a gold beam of light shooting upwards from its back where my banner was being carried away.

Crypt, here I come, I thought morbidly.

Then I plummeted through the forest canopy.

My avatar bounced unceremoniously from branch to branch as I fell through the trees.

Reaching bottom, I did a hard face plant into the ground, and my screen went black.

Well, that didn’t work, I thought. Various alternate scenarios played through my mind as I waited to be reborn, but none would have ended well. Perhaps I should have waited until we were closer to the platform before attacking the eagle? My archers could have lent some support.

Mentally, I shrugged. Didn’t matter now. Amara had the banner, again. While I…

I looked curiously at my view-screen. Nothing had changed, the blackness remained. Then I noticed the icons still on the edge of my vision. They usually vanished while I was being reborn.

My health indicator was at 2%. Oh, crap. I wasn’t dead!

Pushing forward, my avatar lifted her face out of the thick loam of the forest floor. I blinked in confusion at my surroundings. Trees, lots of them, crowded around me like towering guards.

Looking upwards I could see the blue sky high above. The path of my fall was clear from all the snapped branches.