Yenque had had, up until this moment at least, a rather dull battle. Given command of the southern gate, he had found the enemy singularly reluctant to attack his position, and so had been forced to watch the frantic signalling from the tower on high, conveying some status of the attack on the northern gate. There was almost nothing he could truly determine from such dim and distant signals, other than that there was attack underway, but one thing for certain was that he had not been called in as reinforcements. Which meant the battle for the northern gate couldn\u2019t be going too badly. Most likely thanks to Iaprem and his great claymore.<\/p>\n
Indeed, his battle was so dull that he had affected a pose of complete disinterest, and taken to napping leaning up against one of the crenellations. Because if he wasn\u2019t going to be involved in the fighting, he certainly wasn\u2019t going to miss a good night\u2019s sleep in the bargain as well. Which meant he was snoring quite loudly when one of his soldiers gave him a shake hard enough to send him tumbling to the ground, his armour clattering upon the stone.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is it?!\u201d Yenque leapt to his feet, looking at the messenger.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat.\u201d A pointing finger picked out the helfarchs slamming into the back of soldiers already hard pressed by an assault over the walls.<\/p>\n
\u201cHalf of you stay here. The other half, WITH ME!\u201d Grabbing his flails from where they were hooked into his belt, Yenque sprinted along the battlements, calling up what magics remained to his weapons.<\/p>\n
By no means as impressive as those within the great blade of the Warleader, his own flails were still highly useful weapons upon the field of battle. One, when he got a good clean blow in, would spit a field of sparks across those nearby. Sometimes including himself, if he wasn\u2019t careful. The other blinked and flashed in a pattern entirely random and incredibly frequent. Mixed with the occasional noises the weapon would make, which were of deafening volume, it was an amazing distraction on the field of battle to those who had never experienced it before.<\/p>\n
Sadly, it was something that applied to his own soldiers just as much as any other, and he was charging in to the rescue of men who could barely be called<\/em> soldiers. Certainly, he wouldn\u2019t do so. But they fought and died for their country and their friends, and at the moment that was all that mattered.<\/p>\n When Yenque and the charge from the southern gate finally arrived on the scene, more than half of the recruits who had held his portion of the wall were down, and in their place stood a motley assortment of vicious humanoid raiders. The leader of the mob appeared to be an overly muscled and slightly elongated creature, possessed of claws on both hands. It gave off an aura of inherent command, gesturing hither and yon at the orcs and others of its race that surrounded it. Even the helfarchs seemed to obey, now that they had broken through to the assault coming over the walls.<\/p>\n With a section of the walls in possession of the raiders, there could be seen others of their kind climbing over the battlements and into the fight, although the rate was not that great. Clearly, the commander of the raiders had not yet realized the success of his attack, or if he had, was having trouble marshalling his troops and sending them to the right location.<\/p>\n Taking no more than a moment for a breather, Yenque charged along the narrow stone battlements. Wide enough for two normal soldiers, with his flails Yenque took up a space much greater than the average man-at-arms, and so had directed those following him to charge down the stairs and attempt to come at the besiegers from the other end of the conquered territory, albeit with a few giving him support.<\/p>\n While those whom he had ordered set off, Yenque activated the beacon in his flail, letting the light and sound play across his foes. So bright and rapid was the light that the world seemed to resolve itself into a series of frozen images, each one at some remove from the last. In reality, that was merely a trick of the mind, and Yenque was able to send his maces spiralling inwards, one coming across high, the other low, and smiling to himself as the brightly flashing one distracted his first opponent, a scrawny, spear-wielding orc with a snaggletooth, from the second, which burst into glowing electrical life when it crunch into the hip of his foe.<\/p>\n The spray of sparks set the creature immediately behind the orc on fire, the hide armour it wore catching alight. Rather than slow his assault, Yenque brought the weapons around again, stepping over the crumbled corpse of his foe and launching into another blistering assault, the first strike of which sent the flaming orc stumbling to the side, his foot coming down on nothing but air and tumbling off the walkway to the ground beneath, where he was quickly stabbed to death by a spear thrust from one of the Cynlyaa soldiers.<\/p>\n The next opponent to come within range of his flails was one of the taller, muscular creatures, the type of which he did not recognize. And yet, since one of them was directing matters, they were clearly amongst the leaders of this band of rabble. Curious. Perhaps they feel the need to fight only when absolutely forced to do so.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yenque had had, up until this moment at least, a rather dull battle. Given command of the southern gate, he had found the enemy singularly reluctant to attack his position, and so had been forced to watch the frantic signalling from the tower on high, conveying some status of the attack on the northern gate. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[60,4],"tags":[61],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pRIK4-bm","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":706,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=706","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":0},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #13","date":"April 28, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"But the blow failed to materialize, and he glanced up again through the heaves to see his foe standing there with a dazed, stupefied expression on its face, swaying slightly in the nighttime breeze. And then down to the courtyard below, where Dregnon was staring at him with a concentrated\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":703,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=703","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":1},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #10","date":"April 23, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Glancing backwards, he saw that the line of his soldiers had stretched out to the right, the man on that edge of battle attempting to hedge his unprotected side away from the foes who assailed him, with those placed near him unconsciously following. It was a natural outcome of fighting,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":701,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=701","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":2},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #8","date":"April 21, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"It was now midnight in the courtyard of the old palace at Cynlyaa, and all was still, silent, and, mostly, dark. Torches lay scattered here and there along the battlements, and occasionally one would rain down before the gate, illuminating the ruined roadway there, but otherwise little in the way\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":698,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=698","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":3},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #7","date":"March 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cYou mean, attempt to draw the strike in? It\u2019s a valid tactic, but I don\u2019t think we have the kind of reserves that would let us achieve something like that. Unless you\u2019ve got another pile of troops hiding in that pouch of yours.\u201d There was a murmur from another corner\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":702,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=702","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":4},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #9","date":"April 22, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"The soldiers of Cynddeir gave even better than they got, however, and despite the rust and the age of the weapons they wielded, there was no give when blade found opening and piercing flesh. Indeed, after the first heady moments of the clash, the front line of the battle could\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":705,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=705","url_meta":{"origin":704,"position":5},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #12","date":"April 25, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Whatever the reason, the creature was quite skilled at combat, regardless of the distractions constantly assaulting it. It was able to catch the chain of the electrical flail, preventing the head from causing anything more than a deep bruise, and duck under the other strike, while at the same time\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}