Snippet #1494604

Despite the freshly joined battle roaring in his ears and the calm demeanor granted by the pendant, Wrath could not suppress a smirk at Kisikoni's outburst. At one point he thought the man made of water, so easily did he flow with the currents of life. To see the deep human act in such a way was amusing. The musings were short-lived though as a platoon of the local defenders ascended the stairs to aid their fellows, who had also shaken off the initial shock of a band of dark warriors emerging out of nowhere.

With a vicious twist both Tiger Hooks tore free of the stomach of a heavy-set soldier. The weapons took a goodly amount of innerts with them, which were flung away with distaste as Wrath swung around to catch the haft of a halberd mid-swing and send the polearm spinning through the air. The wielder of the far-flung weapon, a surprisingly young deep human girl roared in defiance and charged the general bare-handed. Under normal circumstances Wrath would have conked the lass on the head and sought out a true fight but something within him made the halfbreed dance around the adolescent combatant and as she passed, dragged the end of a hooked blade across her unarmored neck.

A crimson fountain bubbled forth, spraying some of the men coming just arriving at the stairs with a warm red mist. Three of the six gaped in wide-eyed fascination at the calm legionnaire before them who had so ruthlessly ended the life of a soul barely out of childhood. The other three raised their spears and advanced two feet before being crushed under the hammering fists of his darkguard. As Wrath clashed with the next pair of opponents, one of them a Child of Fire, the general noted distantly how effortlessly battle had revealed it's secrets through a simple piece of jewelery. The wind sang through the gaps within the shaft of both hooks as the rended flesh.

The notion did not diminish even in the slightest when the first of the dragons screeched somewhere above.

---

A trio of the beasts, sinuous black streaks against the azure sky dove out of the clouds and engaged their prey. All three of the dragons measured forty feet from head to tail with a wingspan of roughly sixty paces across. Hatchlings, as the Legion referred to them as, were lesser dragons that began to appear a little over a decade ago. Despite their relatively smaller scale as opposed to the dragon lords and the lack of a breath weapon, the more deployable reptillians were still enough to decimate an entire legion of troops on their own. Three was overkill, in most situations.

The last of the beasts in the formation dropped from the land like some oversized gargoyle on the town wall. He grinned a mouth full of fangs at Kisikoni. Beelzes, who moved to stand by her comrade, bared her own teeth in response. "I think he is next in line, Coney." and then it lunged for the deep humans. Gigundelarex, the foremost of the three shrieked through the air and snapped at a pair of harpies who scattered under his attack. The hatchling spread his membranous wings and banked around for another pass, roaring in laughter that sounded like more akin to cracking stones than mirth. "Don't move so much, little birds! You'll leave a fowl taste in my mouth!" the dragon guffawed, flashing a maw full of pearly teeth the size of dirks.

Lelandreaz sighed at her brother's foolishness as she drove on past him towards the hillock where two humans and some tin cans thought they were well-concealed. Something flashed below and the female hatchling readied her claws to crash into the small gathering.

Chasing around the harpies, Gigundelarex laughed even harder as Quinn tried to raze his hyper-durable scales with spectral hounds and whips of verdant flame. Achiru buried arrow after arrow into his ebon hide with about as much effect as a flea biting a warg. The dragon only narrowly missed each swing of his claws or snap of his teeth.

---

"Dude...that thing is coming. Fast." Turha Mialee crossed his arms and furrowed his brow in concentration as the massive dark form made a steady approach from the air. Some seven paces behind him Gurgen was channeling the energies that his brother gathered into the shoddy golems left under their command. The artificer waved unconcernedly.

"Let them come. For they shall face the might of..." the joints of each of the contructs flashed briefly with red radiance and Gurgen leapt backwards, Turha grinning like a madman at the sight. All twenty of the golems seemed to tear their armor off, the plates folding behind the modified darkguards like wings. Their semi-armored bodies seemed more sleek without the original shells, almost draconian in design. The most heavily modified of the group crouched and launched himself into the air. The others followed instantly and met Lelandreaz in a storm of raking obsidian talons. As they flying darkguards passed, the dragon crumpled to the earth in a gorey heap of twisted flesh. As one, the twins screamed into the air:

"The Sin-Wings and Liliana MK-II!!" That golem leading the flock of darkguards sported a flaming paintjob of oranges and reds. They were sent to assist with the dragon heckling the harpies with a mental command. Gurgen and Turha collapsed in exhaustion. Turha kept up the connection to all of the golems fielded though, and noted sourly that the legion was outnumbered five to one already. Still...no casualties? That was bloody good.

---

Back on the wall Sid finished sliding a battle-needle from the ribs of a guardsman and finished setting up her wallarmbrust. With a raised eyebrow the halfling smirked and scoffed at the same time. The reinforcements, the dragons and they were still in one piece? At an advantage even? The captain braced her weapon on the edge of the wall and lay prone on the battlement, aiming her crossbow in the direction of the airborn lizard. It roared at the loss of it's fellow and swatted Qinn out of the air only to wheel towards the less immediate fight.

In seconds and with heavy wingbeats the beast was upon Alistair, claws posed to tear the skirmisher into ribbons. As Gigundelarex brought death to Alistair a heavy round slammed into his eyelid with a meaty thud. While not causing any true damage, the dragon was distracted enough to whip his head in the direction of the sniper--and expose his much softer underneck to Alistair.

---

Bending the light around himself, the Silenced allowed the sun to bathe him in it's rays once again. With robes the color of blood he regarded the battle raging around him with mild interest. The True Children had ordered him to watch for...exceptional individuals amongst the enemy ranks, and to engage with extreme predjudice. Ones within his range of skill, of course. That excluded the man with the cape and curved swords. The halfling was distracted, but something about her screamed beware. That left four more; The female warlock who reveled in the ruin, the lamian woman laying open defenders left and right, the unnaturally calm orc tearing down militia members alongside an elf and...yes.

With a deep breath the Silenced connected his mind to the Power Within and pulled himself through it. His body shifted through space and appeared on top of the tower with the hiss of displaced air, directly in front of Neira. He flipped back his hood to expose a face that may have belonged to a handsome dark elf once upon a time, but was so sewn up with stitches any such feature was negligible. His mouth, eyes and a single eye had been sewn shut. With one remaining orange eye the psionic Child regarded Neira. His gaze seemed cloudy, as if looking through a drug-induced haze.

With the power of his mind at work the dark elven Silenced would bring about a mental fog that slows the mind, dulls reactions and kills senses. With sudden ferocity that belied his calm face the Silenced lashed out with mental tendrils of raw pain.

---

"Cid?" the middle-aged man nearly dropped his pike. Beside him, a large lamian woman gaped as well. The defenders stared at Cidovan, the druid they had known some years back when he escorted their small troupe through the forest to the Pass. "Wha...what are you doing here?" although they were offput by the situation, the lamia raised her axe and stood ready. The man looked more betrayed than wary however. "Why are you attacking us?"