Alara Unbroken - Doug Beyer [69]
One of Kresh’s warriors ran out of the bladed wilderness to their camp. She looked like she was sweating adrenaline, and didn’t have her second with her.
“Tol Kresh!” she said. “You must come see. A white cat has appeared out of nowhere.”
Kresh’s grin started at one ear and unfolded all the way to the other.
BANT ESPER FRONTIER
Don’t be afraid to cut them down, any way you can,” Elspeth whispered to the other knights and soldiers around her.
War had come to Bant, and there was nothing the planeswalker Elspeth could do about it. The leonin planeswalker, Ajani, had been right all along—there were other worlds intimately connected to Bant, and their borders were intruding on one another, almost before her eyes. Her despair paralyzed her at first; she sent away the couriers who called her to war, and entreated the angels to spare her from seeing her beloved Bant fall. She found herself wishing she could see Ajani again, to express her grief to understanding ears.
She only hoped she could prepare her Bant brothers-in-arms for what lay ahead of them. “If you see an opening, any opening, you strike,” she said. “Even if it means violating the laws of war.” The others looked at her strangely. She didn’t care, as long as it got through their heads that the rules were gone, and that there was no arena judge, no Blessed decree, to protect them here.
There was still hope. She was not about to curl up and let Bant fall, not while she could still hold a sword. That was how she had found herself on the border terrain between Bant and Esper, among the ranks of Asha’s Army. Though her sigils were many, she had not served as a Sigiled-caste for long enough to lead as a general—but that suited her. She didn’t need rank to defend her home; she just needed a sword, a battlefield, and—as she told herself silently—a bit of Bant’s pure mana. Besides, from inside the infantry lines, she would be able to watch over her friends.
“Charge!” shouted the captain of her legion.
Elspeth rushed forward with her fellow knights and soldiers, steel in hand. She was easily as fast as her peers, but she let them pass her little by little, so she could watch over them from behind. Ahead she saw the flyers approaching, and with a flood of memories from her travels, recognized their shapes: drakes, gargoyles, and strange devices she decided were thopters. They were all modified with peculiar artifact magic—it must be an army backed by a legion of artificers. She knew their strength would surprise her fellow citizens of Bant. She readied a protection spell and did her best to delay it till the perfect moment.
The aven troops were the first to clash with the enemy. Elspeth willed them strength and resilience, and many of the aven tore into the enemy drakes with their enhanced prowess. But she couldn’t watch over them all. One aven soldier fell to the talons of a pair of jagged-scaled drakes. Another was grappled by an enormous gargoyle and crushed to death.
A third aven fell to a mage’s evisceration spell, keeling over and crashing to earth without even a single blow landing on it.
“No,” gasped Elspeth. Just as war had come to Bant, so had death magic.
Some of the gargoyles dropped their heavy bulk into the fray, smashing a few Valeron soldiers on their way down. Other troops swarmed them and hacked at the gargoyles’ stony skin with swords and maces learning to chop through the wiry metal enhancements first. Screeching drakes swooped and snatched individual soldiers, flew them high into the air, and dropped them, then swooped down again to repeat the process.
The storm met the army like a stampede. The wind blew most of the army off its feet, Elspeth included—but the heavy gargoyles remained standing, and stomped the fallen with granite footfalls. As Elspeth scrambled to her feet, she saw the mage in the center of the storm—a vedalken by the looks of her—her whirling metallic arms maintaining