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 effort upon his face. What followed was a sudden cessation of the nausea, followed by Dregnon doubling over and collapsing to the ground, wretching all the while.<\/p>\n
Somewhat uncertain of what had just passed between them, Yenque was entirely willing to leave such introspection to a later date, and in the very process of rising swung his electrically charged flail in a sweeping uppercut, the spiked ball crashing into the chin of his dazed opponent, shattering it in a shower of sparks, and no doubt snapping the neck that held such a foul mind in place.<\/p>\n
The spray of sparks did as it often did, leaping to another foe, setting the poor creature on fire, the javelin that was held cocked in its hand falling away unused as the electricity leapt through its system, frying what little senses remained to one as depraved as it was.<\/p>\n
The noise of the strike caused one of the helfarchs to spin about, glancing backwards to see what had caused it. Between it and Yenque stood only one or two more foul creatures, the rest otherwise occupied or dead. Seeing that the attack had in all likelihood failed, and that the commander was most certainly deceased, it barked a short order to the other helfarch, and leapt over the battlements, landing with a solid thud on all four bony limbs but otherwise unharmed.<\/p>\n
Within moments there was a general exodus for the ladders, the attackers fleeing as best they could manage, the second helfarch outdistancing them all with its leap.<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Ngaphasi watched as the helfarchs leapt off the battlements, their large forms visible even at such distance. His forces had crept to within spear range of the southern gate once the fearsome warrior had sprinted away, taking some half of the forces with him. But enough had remained as to put doubt into Ngaphasi\u2019s mind, and so he had waited, waited for a clear sign the battle was turning in the raiders\u2019 favour.<\/p>\n
Given that the next signal he had spotted was the flight of some of his forces strongest troops, he knew to what end the battle had gone.<\/p>\n
Turning to his goblin troops, he gave the orders they had all been waiting for. \u201cMark yourselves like you\u2019ve been in battle. We\u2019re going home.\u201d<\/p>\n
And with that, the only unit that could have forced the capitulation of Cynlyaa and its determined Warleader turned tail and fled.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The End<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 effort upon his face. What […]<\/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-bo","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":695,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=695","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":0},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #4","date":"March 15, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the next installment of a new novella in an old setting, called Arhosa. I\u2019ll be posting a thousand words a day of Work-in-Progress, with the end goal being five chapters of 10,000 words each, roughly. Gathered around Yenque were the soldiers and recruits of the first of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":687,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=687","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":1},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #1","date":"March 12, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the opening of a new novella in an old setting, called Arhosa. I'll be posting a thousand words a day of Work-in-Progress, with the end goal being five chapters of 10,000 words each, roughly. \u201cHow many? How many did we lose today?\u201d \u201cEnough. Some of them went willingly.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":693,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=693","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":2},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #2","date":"March 13, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the next installment of a new novella in an old setting, called Arhosa. I'll be posting a thousand words a day of Work-in-Progress, with the end goal being five chapters of 10,000 words each, roughly. Dregnon found Yenque at his usual post, overseeing the various actions and objectives\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Arhosa"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":696,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=696","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":3},"title":"Pillowed Comforts, Part #5","date":"March 16, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the next installment of a new novella in an old setting, called Arhosa. I\u2019ll be posting a thousand words a day of Work-in-Progress, with the end goal being five chapters of 10,000 words each, roughly. It was a panicked and upset messenger who burst in upon the three\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":706,"position":4},"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":701,"url":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/?p=701","url_meta":{"origin":706,"position":5},"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":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706"}],"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=706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefourpartland.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}