Snippet #1456963

Jurial Plains: Seven miles from Laeral

Faera, much to her chagrin, was so footsore that she was relieved when the group halted, or at least she was until she realized exactly why they were halting. Straining her ears, she could just make out the sounds of movement some distance beyond, and knew that couldn't mean anything good. But scant moments later, the group was split, and she was following the much softer noises of Sid's devision through tall grass, apparently setting up to fight at a perpendicular facing to the others.

She took a spot behind those with ranged weapons, trying to calm the frantic adrenaline-fueled beating of her own heart. The tension was palpable, and she could feel it acutely. It was almost a blessing when she could at last sense the Children approaching, and the characteristic clicks and twangs of bows and crossbows were at least better than inexorable silence. At the word fire, Faera couldn't help but think to herself that in weather like this, ice would be far more useful.

It was, of course, but a standard phrase, and even she was not quite so uneducated in the arts of war to know that, but she thought it all the same. For her own part, Fae called her magic to her palms, gesturing in somewhat odd-looking patterns. It wasn't completely necessary, but without eyes to direct the flow of energy, she found that directing movement with her hands helped her keep a finer control over what she was doing. She gathered together the droplets of rain on the Children's side of the field, then with a flick of the wrist, sent a pulse of magic through the collected water, freezing it into sharp icicles. A sweeping downward motion propelled the missiles toward the ground- and the oncoming children. This was Faera's strength- she would not hit all of them, and some icicles would doubtless strike naught but ground. Some of them, though, would hit, and probably do substantial damage.

-=-

When the group split, Neira realized with a degree of irritation that nobody had ever told her what damn squad she was in. Oh well, that just meant she got to choose, as she saw it, so she lined up in the middle of the more melee-oriented group, because despite her appearance, that was exactly where she belonged. Ranged combat was for people who didn't enjoy crunching noses into faces.

The line began to fragment, the general rule of strategy seeming to be "pick off the ones on the edges whenever possible." She noted the abrupt change in behavior of the children, and slid her eyes to the Captain. Psionics? Huh; now there was something unexpected. Her favorite sadist's grin crept over her face, and she decided it wasn't really fair to let the others have all the fun. That druid was doing something to impede progress, so she figured she might as well take advantage of it. Picking out the most-impeded looking Child, Neira launched herself forward, employing her wings for a burst of speed, intent on pummeling the lousy pale flesh-creature for as long as it took to overcome that damn endurance of theirs.

The initial blow, a punch aimed squarely for the center of his face, was accompanied by a string of virulent curses that would have made a sailor blush. She'd learned a lot over almost fifty years away from her own people, and the coloration of her vocabulary was fairly impressive by any standard. Which was good, really; she was no berserker, but there was nothing quite so satisfying as getting a sustainable level of irritation going during a fight. A nice refrain for the sound of crunching bones.

She followed up with an elbow to the jaw and a kick to his kneecaps, not sure yet exactly how much damage these hits were doing, but stubborn enough to keep at it until one of the two of them was stone-cold dead.