War: In the Valley of Peace

Chapter 4: The Creatures

Chapter 4: The First Warning

The Caravan

He dodges first one ant then another as they force him back. Much to regret of the tired guard. He looks at them, seriously considering on the wisdom of just taking off as fast as he can. Finally after some deliberation he forces himself up and moves to help the dwarf. But it seems the dwarf is doing fine as he times his attacks. As one of the ants thrusts itself forward, so does his pike. The pike pierces deep into the ants maw and it collapses.

The guard appears just as the second ant is about to attack the dwarf before he could remove his weapon from the ants maw. Placing himself between the ant and the dwarf he shouts, "Hurry up! I can’t hold this thing too long."

The human ranger looks around, not too happy that he missed his last shot he spots the ant with the missing antennae and decides he’s got a new target. He takes aim and fires, the arrow burst into flames as soon as it leaves the bow and streaks outward toward its target. The flaming arrow slams into the ground just next to the front of the ant and shatters sending glowing embers outward.

The fiery display is just enough to distract the ant and the dwarf with the mace, turns and wallops it on the side of the head staggering it and cracking its shell.

The remains of the arrow are stomped into the ground as the dwarf armed with the war hammer comes running around. He lifts his weapon and brings it down on an outstretched leg and the joint crumbles under the powerful attack.
.
.
.
.
The music maker screams out "Thanks, oh white haired one" and turn to face the new creatures.

The white-haired guard grumbles and ignores him as he looks around, at the rear of the caravan he sees the dwarves and the newcomers have things fairly well in hand, he looks to the front and spots the new creatures. He studies them for several moments before he turns around and jumps off the carriage he is on and away from the new creatures.

The white-haired guard stealthily moves closer toward the overturned carriage and climbs up on it just a little bit to take a quick peek to see where the creatures are. He draws his arrow pointing it at the monsters and waits.

*****

He looks along the length of the battlefield, he watches as they struggle against the attack of the ants. "Is he here? Do you see him?" He looks as a guard runs along the length of the caravan in front of him to help out a companion fighting two ants.

"No, nothing that has his ‘signature’ on it" his companion replies. "Even the weapons here are pretty mundane." She turns and walks a few yards away, craning her head up so that she can see nearly everyone. "No, I’m fairly sure he’s not here. It looks like they might have some good fighters though."

*****

The music maker watches as the new creatures look around the battlefield. Since they seem content to watch he decides it’s safe go help out the guards at the front of the caravan.

To the south of him the amber haired elf also spots the same battle and moves to get in a better position for a shot. But he quickly finds that option taken away from him.
.
.
.
.
The mage looks around the battlefield, spotting one guard defending against two ants he moves closer to them and shouts, "Stand back man, I am casting a spell!" He begins to speak a rune.

The guard fighting two ants hears the mage’s words on the wind and says, "It’s easy for you to say!" He moves his back to the corpse of another dead and he waves his mace around shouting trying to keep the two ants from slaughtering him from catching him in its pincers.

The rough looking guard glances at the two new creatures and whispers, "I guess those little babies aren't here for a cup of tea". He sticks his sword into the ground and drops his quiver of arrows. Selecting one he draws the arrow back into his bow. He goes down on one knee an d aims at the closest one, and looking for a crack in its bony armor. "If you move I'll get you", he says more to himself than to the creatures since he realizes there are little chance those creatures will neither understand nor consider his warning.

The rough looking warrior watches the two creatures talk to each other but cannot make out what they are saying. He frowns briefly as the music maker moves between him and the new creatures. Off to his left he hears the mage complete his rune.

*****

He snorts at his companions words, "Yea right, they got slaughtered by a bunch of ants. That’s pathetic."

He turns and eyes the lone mage on the field, before shaking his head, "No, not enough style to be him. This is a wash, lets check out the battle to the southwest, there has got to be something there."

"Style? Is that what you call it? I thought it was madness." His companion also looks at the lone mage on the field, "But you’re right whatever it is, he doesn’t have it. Pity for him. There is another fight to southeast. Perhaps we can check there afterwards. Looks like the chaos here is dying down." His companion turns to see an archer pointing an arrow at him and whispering some kind of warning. "Whoa! What’s this? Do you see what I’m seeing?"

"Yes I see him and I heard him. This is unforgivable. Time to leave our ‘friends’ here a little present."

*****

The lone guards at the front of the caravan suddenly goes into a coughing fit as a noxious dark brown and green cloud moves backwards only to tumble over the corpse of the dead ant, into fresh air.

The music maker suddenly tries to stop and topples head first into the cloud of noxious gasses that appears in front of him. He is quickly overcome by the fumes and begins feeling extremely ill.

The music maker rolls crawls to his knees and moves backwards out of the cloud where he collapses heaving his breakfast, and lunch all over the ground.

The companion watches as the cloud of noxious vapors appears to its left and rolls its eyes. "That’s it I’m out of here. He could be anywhere."

He stands with his head bowed and says, "Give me a second. Okay lets go."

*****

The two new creatures suddenly spread their wings and take off. The gusts from their wings creating a small wind that begins to move the noxious cloud off of the battlefield.

The two creatures circle up and head south west.

Within moments the noxious cloud is gone and two ants lie on the ground covered is some strange brown green liquid that seems to have seeped into the cracks in their armor. They weakly try to stand but find that they cannot.
.
.
.
.
One of the ants is put quickly out of its misery as its head suddenly implodes and it flies back a dozen yards, thunder chasing across the battlefield.

The howl of the wolf is joined by several others and within moments a dozen wolves appear on the battlefield in the spot where other two monsters stood.

***************

Top

Allied Soldiers

Voreas and the soldier next to him drop their swords and cover their eyes as they are blinded by the suddenly appearance of the bright light.

They are not the only ones though as the brilliant light blinds the charging ant. It cannot see anything when it slams into the sphere of light and shatters its pincers. It’s shell cracked, the blind ant staggers away now easy pray without its main attack weapon.

The globe of light lifts off the ground heading for the blinded leader. The leader takes his hands off of his eyes and realizes with growing horror that the only thing he can see is a bright shining light filling his vision! The light slams into him knocking him down and rendering him unconscious.

The sphere of light bounces off of his head and heads almost straight up before coming down to the ground just beyond the downed leaders' head. The sphere vanishes revealing the young elf woman.
.
.
.
.
The ranger, Zraxin, and the fire priest begin to work in tandem and the current object of their attention as the ant recovers from its burns. It charges the fire priest, ignore the flaming swords scorching its sides.

It bears the priest down and its pincers attempt to crush his skull.

Before it can do more than that however it gains a rider as Zraxin leaps on top of it and forces begins hacking at the shell with his sword.

His perch is precarious as another ant appears attacking from the side practically crawling up on the other ant to reach him. For its effort it receives a huge wound as one of the last pikemen charges its side full force driving the pike into the shell. The ant thrashes and the pike suddenly jerks to the side as the ant turns toward its wound. But the pikeman has a death grip on it and is take along for the ride. After a moment he sets his feet on the ground and thrusts the pike even deeper into the creature.

For a moment it seems as if Pyros has two ants charging his rear before one of them suddenly veers off and heads in another direction.
.
.
.
.
Feldemaan turns his attention to where Ulqik stands along side a soldier against three ants. He begins the simple incantation for one his most basic spells in a soft voice as he traces the small complementary rune.

"Illuminus Borak... Bao Tze." A bright orange ball of light appears before him and arcs to the ground about four feet distant. From there, it proceeds to bounce towards one of the ants facing Ulqik. As the ball nears the ant, it slams down onto the top of its head where it holds its position. Thrash though it might, the ant cannot seem to shake the bright orange light from it's head.

Ulqik looks in surprise at the ball of light that has lodged on the creatures' head. With one creature out of the running he smiles. He steps toward the other two and with amazing agility he does a standing back flip putting himself between the two. The two creatures attempt to separate and turn to get him but it is too late as the elf goes to work as only he can. First one leg from one ant then another leg from the second ant is removed.

The soldier with the mace takes the opportunity to sneak up on the distracted ant and levels an overhead smash on its head that stuns it. With a primal scream he levels two more smashes on the creatures head until it crushed and except for a twitching leg it doesn’t move.

Ulqik for his part his grinning like a Cheshire cat as the two ants attack. He moves to one side leaping on top of the pincer and running the length of the ant before flipping off its back end and putting him on the corpse of the ant that the soldier just killed. He turns to the soldier and says, "See I told you they die easy!"

The last two archers recover their bows and decided to take on the nearest ants. With practiced coordination they let their arrows fly and both pierce the shell of the nearest ant but the ant seems a bit preoccupied with trying to get near the fire priest and ignores the attack. After the second round of arrows enters its carapace it starts to pay attention. By that time its too late. The turns and charges the two archers. The next flight of arrows, one bounces off a pincer the other is a direct hit into the creatures eye. The creature stumbles and recovers, but the archers are ready again and the ant goes down heavily.
.
.
.
.
The elvin woman charges around the unconscious leader and the ant corpse and levels attacks the injured ant. After her first attack the ant turns and lunges at her. If it had pincers it would have grasped her in it. But the pincers aren’t there anymore. She brings her sword down heavily on the creatures head and it dodges, but it still loses a good chunk of its head. It tries weakly to retreat, but it moves so slowly that even the woman wearing half plate armor easily catches up to it and finishes it off.
.
.
.
.

Seeing that there are still more ants and the situation doesn't seem to be getting much better for his side, he feels he has no other options. Feldemann once again begins his awesome mystic gestures as he begins the incantation for yet another rune, "Dalen beres xiao...Bao Tze!"

His voice rolls across the battlefield and with the end of the incantation a red light appears above him. The light separates into three smaller balls of light. Each ball of light streaks outward in a slightly westward arcing path.

Ulqik jumps off of the corpse and moves to attack the ant from the west while the soldier with the mace moves to attack it from the east. Both are surprised when three balls of light streak between them and slam into the ant. The ant is rocked on its feet and weaves unsteadily for a moment before crashing to the ground dead.

Ulqik looks around for a moment and spots Feldemann in the distance, he waves at him and turns back to his companion, "And then there was one. Piece of cake kid. Take a break!" He trots forward to meet the last ant, who isn’t exactly in the greatest of shape to begin with.

After making sure his last rune finished off the ant, something catches Feldemann's eye and he looks toward the horizon where he sees two creatures leaving from someplace north of them and flying roughly west of their location where they seem to set down again.

***************

Top

Red Feather Company

Sindel turns to Stamm as he nears, "Yes I always love a picnic, but I hate it when one is ruined by a ants." She smiles and suddenly the big man feels a bit giddy and nervous. But the moment passes though his heart is still beating quickly.

Battered and bleeding, Stamm scans the battlefield. Dead and dying ants are scattered everywhere. He scans the field looking for, and counting, his men. The big man lets out a sigh of sadness as he realizes that the most of his men have been killed. Turning eastward towards the outer edge of the battle Stamm sees a single ant left fighting two of his men, an archer and a foot soldier.

Stamm sheaths his sword and calls out to Forge. "Forge!", he commands, "To battle!" As Forge picks up speed, Stamm grabs his reins and leaps up into the saddle. Charging straight toward the attacking ant, he grips Forge’s flanks with his knees and draws his massive two-handed sword. They charge after the ant.

As he draws near the monster, he yells, "Die, bastard!", and leaps from Forge raising his sword to deliver a crushing blow to the insect. The ant falls stunned by the blow, Stamm lifts his sword again ant attacks.

Enraged at his men’s deaths, he attacks the ant furiously, stopping only once the thing is nothing but an unrecognizable pile of pulp.

This courageous attack goes unnoticed by the soldier and the archer as they continue to run for their very lives as if an entire host of demons were after them.

Gwydeon, Stash, and Gedai head up toward the anthill and quickly meet up with the few others who were remaining from the battle.

Tristan notices Pheras and Sindel and walks over and joins them. As he approaches he notices that no one is seriously injured. Feeling a bit foolish Tristan simply nods in greeting at Pheras and Sindel. Tristan says to group, "Has any one seen Xedel?"

Sindel frowns and points off to the side of the battlefield where the old charlatan sits on top of his backpack watching the battle clapping his hands.

Stash looks at the way that she is pointing and sees the man clapping and says, "What’s up with him?"

"He’s being a stubborn idiot, he didn’t want to come help so when we did come to help he decided to have a fit." Sindel frowns at him, "Sometimes he can be such a child. I can’t believe he’s older than me."

Tristan asks, "Does anyone know what was that thing flying over the battlefield?"

As the others group around the newcomers, Stamm returns to the battlefield. He looks across the battlefield and sees the old man sitting in the fields beyond the battlefield clapping as if he were watching a performance. He decides to ignore him for the moment and take stock of his current position. He dismounts and looks around to see what is left of his men. He finds two archers and three soldiers along with the six newcomers.

Sindel turns and head resolutely up the anthill. Stamm quickly joins her as the two have the same idea. The two begin to push the dirt back into the hole in hopes of slowing the ants down or convincing them not to come back out this way. Soon the entire group is helping and the hill is quickly filled back in.

Xedel walks up to the group still clapping, "Well that was an amusing show. I had to admit for a moment I didn’t think they were going to survive." He shrugs his shoulders.

Pheras turns and storms over to the charlatan, "You know we could have used your help. Something dangerous could have come out we could have been over run."

Xedel holds up a finger and waggles it in front of the young warriors face, "Something dangerous *is* coming." He points north east to the sky.

Everyone looks up in the direction he is pointing to find two creatures flying straight at them. The creatures come to a ground-shaking landing about a hundred yards away from the group.

Seven feet at the shoulder, the creatures are intimidating to say the least. Each looks at the battlefield with twin black eyes, set in what looks to be a giant shield of bone and scale. Between their eyes runs a barbed ridge of bone that splits the shield top to bottom.

They move on four legs and their bodies, roughly 15ft in length, seem to be covered in scale armor from head to toe. Even through the armor, it’s easy to see their muscles ripple. Their tails extend another seven feet and end in a spiked ball.

One of them spreads its leathery wings and shows its enormous wingspan.
.
.
.
.
"Do you see anything?" he says.

"No, it looks like the battle is over here" the companion says. Yes it seems they survived fairly well. I told you those ants were too weak."

"This most of the original group has been terminated. There are others here now."

"Are any of them him?"

He looks around taking a few steps forward. "There is one mage, but he is too old-looking and he smells funny."

"It could be a disguise."

"I doubt it, there is another battle to the east. We should check that out. But just in case."

He bows his head and closes his eyes for a moment.

*****

Xedel pulls out a staff with a gem on it and moves closer to the two creatures he looks at them through the gem.

*****

"What is he doing?" the companion looks at the old man as he walks forward.

He lifts his head stare at the old man for a moment then says, "It doesn’t matter."

In a louder voice he roars, "One league to the north, you have friends in danger. If you do not help them by sunset, they will die."

With that the two creatures spread their wings and fly away, heading east.

Index | Previous Page | Next Page | Return to Atrias

-4-