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| ===Chapter 7 - The Polar Cross===
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| Kaede stared in awe at the dense patch of fog that engulfed the center of the stone circle. Even among the mist that clouded their surroundings, the shimmering haze stood out with its fractured, otherworldly light. Within it, space bent to distort the very fabric of reality itself, and one wagon after another emerged through it as they rolled onto the grassy knoll.
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| Her own journey through it had been surreal, to say the least. It was as though gravity had began to shift the moment she had stepped into the fog. Within seconds the pull had reached ninety degrees, accelerating her horizontally through the fog and into a twilight forest at breakneck speeds. There she had flown, her twists and turns guided beyond her control as countless trees of ethereal light rushed pass in blurs.
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| Then, before her queasy stomach could even curse her with motion sickness, she had soared into another fog and decelerated into reality. In the span of but a few dozen seconds, her physical existence had leaped across the country, emerging among the foothills of Avorica near Rhin-Lotharingie's southwestern coast.
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| Had it not been the steady shout of "keep moving", the dazed Samaran who had materialized from the haze would have stop there, dumbfounded, until the next person collided into her. Thankfully, the spectral mounts which now pulled the wagons through were mindless evocations of magic; they would follow their drivers' last order to keep going no matter how unnatural the experience became.
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| But in the meantime, Kaede could sense Pascal's helpless concern as Sylviane's labored breaths grew increasingly erratic.
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| The ''Cerulean Princess'' stood at the edge of the mist, casting white-blue embers adrift from just inside the stone ring. Her entire body surged with ether as she struggled to hold the portal open. She had been aided by Elspeth earlier, until the smaller girl had passed out from ether exhaustion on the other side of the fog patch and had to be carried away by medics. Now, the task of maintaining the arcane bridge that spanned thousands of miles fell squarely upon Sylviane's thin shoulders.
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| "<u>Is there a reason why only she and Elspeth can carry this burden?</u>" Kaede asked over their private telepathy, trying to at least keep Pascal's thoughts busy while they waited.
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| He had explained Sylviane's Autumnborn heritage earlier, much to Kaede's surprise. But then, the Faekissed were humans with just a hint of ancient blood within, so it wasn't surprising for them to effortlessly blend into society.
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| "<u>Well... according to Lotharin legends, the Faerie Lords never had a cohesive system for spellcasting like the Dragonlords' internalized array spellcrafting,</u>" Pascal answered without any change from his worried countenance. "<u>Of course, that may simply because humanity never learned magic from them, and after countless generations even the Faekissed lost such arts.</u>"
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| "<u>Then what did she use to open the path? You said that the stone rings formed a transit ''system''. Doesn't that mean she had to selected where to start and stop?</u>"
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| All Kaede saw when Sylviance first opened the 'doorway' from the other end was the Princess holding onto a tome and concentrating in silence.
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| "<u>One of the founding Oriflammes of Rhin-Lotharingie -- I believe her name was Gwendolyn -- had created a spell that allowed one's conscious to interface with the Faerie Lords' artifacts,</u>" Pascal continued as he watched another wagon come through. "<u>In fact, her mastery of Sidhe Pathways had been instrumental to the Rhin-Lotharingie Coalition's victory over the Holy Imperium. But it also proved to be a spell that only the Faekissed have been able to use, so there must be some sort of magical marker in them that we have yet to identify.</u>"
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| "<u>Doesn't that support the theory that the Fae used a more 'innate' magic that couldn't simply be taught?</u>"
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| "<u>Except 'innate magic' does not explain the complexity of the Faerie Lords' many creations. You see that armor Sylv wears?</u>" Pascal noted the breastplate, spaulders, and other piecemeal plates that the Princess wore over leather patches on her sky-blue to violet battledress. These armor carried the luster of steel except for a faint translucent purple sheen.
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| "<u>That is Fae Dendrite Crysteel -- does not rust, does not shatter, light yet tougher than diamond, and conducts neither lightning nor heat. Best of all, it can self-repair by consuming nothing more than water and stored ether; that purple hue is because Sylv's natural ether color has dyed it over time, and its capacity is at maximum when storing her excess. The Faerie Lords were allergic to the touch of ferrous metal, so they ''created'' an armoring material superior to any other that we still cannot duplicate today. Nothing but the most advanced arcane metallurgy could explain that!</u>"
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| Kaede stared back, astonished. She had known that the Princess' armor was enchanted and of the highest quality, but even she had never expected it to be a relic of ancient, otherworldly beings. It was certainly impossible to refute legends and myths when such ''proof'' of their existence could be found scattered across the world.
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| "<u>You said that the Fae were allergic to ferrous metal, then is the Princess...?</u>"
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| "<u>The Faekissed can contact metal just fine, especially considering their overwhelming human heritage. Though unlike the rest of us, their wounds have trouble closing, especially one made by iron or steel weapons,</u>" he replied, revealing yet another reason of his discomfort every time his fiancée braved combat.
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| ''Iron hemophilia,'' Kaede thought. ''Not exactly a blessing on a battlefield full of steel.''
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| Seeing as red blood cells -- the oxygen carriers of the bloodstream -- all contained iron, Kaede had to wonder if the Faekissed nobility really did have 'blue blood'.
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| ''She still blushes red though.''
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| It was then when final rider emerged from the haze. Captain Ostrowska of the logistics company had waited until the column's end, her hand holding a Black Dragon banner that instantly signaled the end of the task force's transit.
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| "She is out!" Pascal cried the instant Ostrowska stepped clear. "Let it go!"
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| Heeding his call, Sylviane took a step back from the mist and severed her fuel links to the magical portal. Then, as though her strings had been cut, she collapsed butt-first onto the grassy soil.
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| "Everyone made it through safe. You did marvelous," Pascal smiled encouragingly as he strode over to lend a supporting hand for her shoulders.
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| Within seconds, the shimmering haze had lost its otherworldly sparkle. Meanwhile the light mist that had engulfed the entire hill also began to fade away.
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| "Thanks... to Elspeth," Sylviane huffed out in between gasps of air. "She had poured... all her ether in first... so I could conserve mine."
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| "Parzifal said she will recover in a few days," he added in reassurance. "She just needs rest, and so do you."
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| Sylviane gave a light chuckle, as though voicing her doubts of 'like that's going to happen'. Leaning back against his support, she turned towards Colonel von Mackensen who stood but ten paces away:
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| "Any report from the scouts?"
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| "No sign of hostiles yet, or any friendly concentrations," the man stared back with an imperturbable expression under his black bearskin hat. "However, there is a long column of refugees moving down the road, escorted by scattered squads of Avorican light cavalry on both sides. The scouts who made contact could not understand the language; they needed another minute to get their linguistic spells active and attuned."
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| "Remind them that half the people in Avorica speak only Brython, not even Lotharin," Sylviane added. "The nobles should speak enough Lotharin and Imperial to get by though."
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| "If there ''are'' any nobles left among them," the Colonel replied, his voice oddly tinged with solemn reverence. "Captain Müller had trouble just finding an officer."
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| It took a second before Kaede could realize what he meant: ''there weren't many officers left because they had mostly been killed.''
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| For valuable cavalry units to be delegated to mere civilian escort duty, these formations must have been depleted to mere skeletons of their former strengths.
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| As she considered how exhausted such troops must be after weeks of skirmishing, the mist surrounding their hill had lifted enough to reveal the local 'road'.
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| At barely a kilopace away, Kaede's enhanced vision could see the disheveled figures making their way across. In stark contrast to the proud military men and women who just arrived through the faerie paths, these civilian refugees were dressed in dirty, tattered clothing that had been worn down to little more than rags. Their feet and legs were caked with mud from the unpaved, rain-soaked trail. Their hair lay matted with signs that they haven't washed in weeks. Yet with gaunt faces thinned by malnutrition and dulled expressions laden with fatigue, they marched on. Some still pulled children or carried what little belongings they could bring with them, others barely dragging along their own two feet as they clung onto hopes that they might still escape the invasion with their lives.
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| As her vision broadened, Kaede began to make out the scattered carts and wagons abandoned on the road. Many of them had simply fallen into a deep puddle of mud, before being discarded by owners who must have been too exhausted to pull them out. Next to some of them lay the ghastly remains of dead horses, their carcasses barely dragged off the road before they had been carved open for meat by starving refugees. Even now, she could see a desperate mother draining horse blood using a small cup, while her other hand held onto a pallid baby who was likely already dead.
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| "Welcome to Avorica," Sylviane muttered grimly from behind her, undoubtedly seeing this same vision of filth and misery, even if her sight held the blessing of less clarity.
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| ''The unsung battles of war,'' Kaede thought as she bit down on her lips to quell her uneasy stomach. ''The inglorious reality that every belligerent's propaganda seeks to erase.''
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| "Colonel! Your Highness!" A signal officer called back after receiving a new ''Farspeak'' message. "A lieutenant of the 7th Avorican Light Cavalry Battalion reports that Saint de Lyonesse is currently leading the army, deployed just eight kilopaces to the south in rearguard action!"
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| "Rearguard?" Sylviane stared back, puzzled. Then, as she exerted herself to stand back up, aided by Pascal's arm in support: "Rearguard to what? She's the commander of this entire ''front''! If she has the army with her..."
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| As her gaze fell upon the column of refugees that stretched as far as the eyes could see, her pupils began to widen with anguished disbelief.
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| "''Damn'' that Edith!" the Princess fell to uncouth blasphemy as she gritted her teeth. "This is what happened when you send a ''saint'' to fight a war!"
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| As if on cue, the rumbling of explosions and spellfire that suddenly erupted in the south began to reach their ears. The battle had began, and there was no doubt of its location as a blazing Trinitian cross in bright cyan lit up the distant cloudy skies.
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| The ''Polar Cross'' Oriflamme was renowned across Hyperion as the modern hero of crusading action. Her moniker came from the personalized illumination spell that inspired all from across the Trinitian realm -- a horizontal cross in the sky that always pointed south toward the Holy Lands. Idolized by the army and beatified by the Church, she was the among the few figures entrusted with one of the most powerful relics of the faith: one of the seven holy swords of virtue.
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| But in the pragmatic arts of statecraft and war, a woman 'infamous' for her piety and virtue... wasn't necessarily a good thing.
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| "Armigers!" the Princess called out as avian wings of blue-white flames sprouted from her back, barely missing Pascal's cheeks as he dodged out of the way.
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| "Sylv, do not be ridiculous! You can barely stand!" he pleaded with her to see reason. "Fighting a battle in your condition is impossible!"
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| "It's not impossible! It's ''essential''!" she retorted as Hauteclaire's magic carried her aloft. "I need that army in one piece! Colonel von Mackensen!"
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| "Yes, Your Highness!?" The stern aristocrat snapped his boots together in salute as a ferocious grin of approval lit up his face.
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| "Mount up and stay hidden at least a kilopace behind me. I don't want the heathens to find out that Weichsel has entered the war unless we have to. But if I give you the attack signal, then charge in and unleash hell with everything you have!"
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| <nowiki>----- * * * -----</nowiki>
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| "SHOOT AT WILL!"
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| Edith-Estellise de Lyonesse yelled as she waved her holy sword forward, calling upon her archers to maximize their shooting speed.
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| Her ambush had been a partial success at best. The heathen light cavalry that screened both flanks had tread too close to the ''Sanctum'' wards that kept her woodlane-camouflaged forces from magical detection. Edith had been forced to call the first volley early, leading her archers to shoot high arcs at long range against the crowded heavy cavalry column still marching up the road.
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| But those Ghulams were disciplined and well-trained professionals. Their alertness remained high as rapid reaction wards sprung up. ''Ether Seeker'' counter-fire rushed out to interdict the incoming arcane arrows, disrupting infused ''Dispel'' spells that would clear the way for the rest of the barrage.
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| Nevertheless, the volume of fire from thousands proved too much for the leading battalions. The deluge of arrows poured through torn gaps among the hastily erected wards. Magic infused into wooden shafts detonated as lightning and thunder ripped through neat ranks of armored cavalrymen. The explosions chained quicker than any drumroll, battering the invasion force in an cacophony of destructive violence.
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| Hundreds of Ghulams had been killed or wounded by the initial bombardment. Survivors were left senseless as they stumbled amidst corpses, coughing amidst the cloud of static-charged dust. But behind them, tens of thousands more -- wide columns of of steel and flesh that stretched on as far as the eye could see -- began to fan out into battle formation.
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| Waves upon waves of arrows soared out like an unending hailstorm. Edith could hear the magic-capable officers struggling to keep up with ''Legion Smiting'' spells, to channel that extra offensive punch into as many projectiles as they could. Meanwhile the Rangers in front of them directed the volleys with glowing tracer ammunition, blessed with antimagic to crash hostile wards and clear the way.
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| But as the scattered light cavalry converged on the Lotharin battle lines with armor-piercing javelins, they forced more and more Rangers to redirect their fire. These marksmen switched to normal arrows to drop the charging riders with pin-point accuracy. But every shot they sent against those mounted skirmishers represented more firepower that failed to focus down the main threat.
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| ''And here they come,'' Edith took a deep breath as the first ranks of heavy cavalry formed. These professional troops braved the rain of steel with sheer courage and discipline as their armored black chargers began to accelerate.
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| The initial wave consisted of no less than five battalions, over twelve-hundred mounted combat troops, arranged in two rows that stretched on across a five kilopace front. Thousands of hooves hammered the ground in sync, leaving the very earth to tremble and shake. With their armor marked by the Tauheed religion's green and yellow, they swept forward like a looming tide of death.
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| Meanwhile above them, a wall of searing winds had began to form. Trampled dirt pulled into the air dried within seconds, exposing sand that swirled about like a desert storm. The barrier of tornado-force gales rose as high as fifty paces before the air itself seemed to ignite, glowing with a fiery hue as it rolled across the lush Avorican plains.
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| The oncoming assault no longer looked like a wave of mortal men, but an elemental force of nature -- a raw, unstoppable fury that sought to trample all into a desert wasteland.
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| The Cataliyan Ghulams had mastered their ''Sandstorm Ignition Screen'' to perfection. Stretching from caster to caster along the charging vanguard, they formed a barricade that would blow aside any arrow and trigger any spell that sought to shoot through. With the wall continuously refreshed against dispelling bursts, it formed a nigh-impenetrable barrier that protected the advancing army behind them.
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| This would force the Lotharin archers to kill the first wave before they could reach the rest. Yet the average bowmen, forced to shoot over the front ranks of the formation, could only shower a general area with arrows. Hundreds of projectiles overshot and were blown aside by the sandstorm, while countless others fell short and struck nothing more than grassy dirt.
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| "ARMIGERS TO THE FORE! VOULGIERS SECOND!" Edith shouted as she altered her glowing cross above them from bright-cyan to a brilliant gold, signalizing the change in formation to the entire army.
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| Her Lotharin archers were hardy militiamen drawn from the forest villages and mountain clans, but they were lightly armored in leather and carried only the longbow and felling axe. Meanwhile, it was the 'urban militia' from Rhin-Lotharingie's towns and cities who had the wealth to deck themselves in chainmail, pavise shields, and the voulge.
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| Yet the problem was: the comforts of life in the city had made these people soft. Too often, Edith had watched an urban militia company break and shatter the moment Cataliyan lancers plowed into them.
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| Unfortunately for her, the reliable Highlander infantry of Gleann Mòr had mostly been blockaded in the north by the onset of winter.
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| This meant she had to hold foremost rank using only her Noble Armigers, feudal troops who answered the call to arms alongside knights and lords. After all, it was the Holy Father's will for the nobility to set an example for the masses, and where better to start than in the defense of the Trinitian Realm?
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| Yet the aristocracy was not plentiful. After weeks of running battles, she was running out of armigers to form even a single file row.
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| As Edith lead this porous screen of armored professionals forward, urban militiamen filtered through the ranks of archers and Rangers to fill the space left behind. They leveled rows of polearms forward, presenting a wall of bladed polearms against the coming foes. Meanwhile officers blessed them with ''Legion Resistance'' in preparation against attack spells.
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| "SEEKERS AND OBSTRUCTION SPELLS! ON MY MARK!" the saint cried next.
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| Arrow after arrow had pierced the Cataliyan chainmail between those horses' armor plates. Antimagic blasts burned through exterior ''Repulsion'' wards before explosive penetrators tore the steeds asunder and threw their riders to the ground. The continuous rain of death had broke the first heavy cavalry wave into pieces. But with their lives, they had bought time for the troops behind them to advance unmolested across several hundred paces of open field.
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| In the center, a second wave had already formed their own ''Sandstorm Ignition Screen'' as they trampled over the bodies of fallen brethren. On both flanks, companies of armored cavalry archers had charged forth, peppering the Lotharin front line with returning fire.
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| "UNLEASH! ''ETHER SEEKER''!" Edith hurled out a volley with her holy sword before plunging it into the earth. "''EARTH REAVER!''"
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| Her spellcraft send a ripple of magical energy through the ground and towards the heathen cavalry. Dozens followed her example as they unleashed a multicolored tide of autonomous hunter-seeker spell-disruptors before piling on with geomancy magic. Meanwhile others crafted spells ranging from fast-growing briars to fields of transmuted hard-clay spikes.
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| Behind them, columns of militia grabbed onto the ropes near them and pulled, unearthing rows of staked fences hidden beneath thin layers of camouflage. The soldiers quickly tied them to wooden pegs set into the ground, holding these stakes slanted towards the enemy as they re-grasped their polearms.
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| Soon the charging Cataliyan cavalry countered with their own magic. They hurled out ''Dispel Bursts'' to neutralize the ''Ether Seeker'' wave before crafting more specific counterspells in response: ''Tranquil Earth'' halted many ''Earth Reavers'' before they could churn the fields with eruptions of rock and dirt; ''Sonic Blades'' sheared through pillars and stakes alike before smashing the bones of even warded Lotharin troops; ''Levitation Fields'' created lanes of transparent repulsion forces over brambles and pits, allowing the cavalry to charge over them as though treading thin air.
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| With the second cavalry wave shifting their focus to contest over field control, their sandstorm barrier above rapidly dissipated. The third wave behind them soon came under the deluge of arrows, but no more than that as their own wall of desiccating winds blocked the way further.
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| "PIKES READY!"
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| Edith's orders echoed along the line as rows upon rows of infantry braced their polearms. Even the Noble Armigers kept their trusty maces and flails hanging off belts as they raised sharpened pikes thrice the height of man. Yet leading them from the center of the front line, the saint herself only flourished a sleek arming sword in her hands.
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| The Sword of Charity glowed with a brilliant silver as it unleashed three strands of white light. Curving across the sanctified air like ribbons, they shot out to intercept the agents of death.
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| An arrow true to its mark, a ''Sonic Blade'' about to crush ribs, an ''Incinerate'' ray bound for a depleted mage. It didn't matter what form they came in, all whom sought the doom of the beloved were dissolved amidst the wind.
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| It was the weapon of perfect defense. Its radiance reached out to cover all within forty paces, shielding the companions for whom the saint cherished.
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| But there was always a price to pay, and Edith grimaced as she felt sharp pain erupt across her right shoulder and back.
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| "Holy Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name," she muttered beneath her breath in Arcadian, drawing upon the strength of her resolve and the warmth of her merged phoenix Durandal as she stood back up straight.
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| From beside Edith came the tap of a crouching Armiger. Green eyes questioned for authority as her gauntlets tightly grasped a metal rod that jotted out from the ground.
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| The saint smiled and nodded back. The girl retrained her gaze to the front, determination ablaze in her sight.
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| The nonstop exchange of arrows and spellfire continued all along the front. The charging second wave was almost upon them; its steely tide shed horses and men as those who remained trampled fallen comrades underfoot while leveling long lances tipped with glistening blades.
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| Then, with a burst of magic from the crouching girl, the whole world seemed to tear asunder.
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| "...Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, upon all worlds as it is in Heaven."
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| A massive, continuous explosion rippled across the entire front. Horses and men were thrown into the air by the dozens as a curtain of smoke and earth erupted towards the heavens, obscuring the rest of the Cataliyan tide. Shock waves plowed across the land on both sides, felling countless more in their wake while shattering the eardrums of the unprepared.
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| The culprit had been a tunnel of mining powder, buried hardly half a pace beneath the surface. With the flash of a lightning spell channeled down a long, iron spike, the entire tunnel detonated in a chain faster than any human perception of time.
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| The explosive trap had been sprang just as the forward arc of the third wave galloped over it.
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| It had taken all the powder Edith's army could gather, and the casualties inflicted could not have numbered more than a few hundred at most. But the priceless moral boost it created, not to mention its demoralizing shock impact to the other side, was worth more than every gold mine of Rhin-Lotharingie combined.
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| "...Give us this day the blessing the mana, and forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us."
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| The shock waves had also sent most of the second and third Caliphate assaults sprawling onto the ground. Only a few meager horsemen held fast onto their mounts. Outnumbered dozens to one, their final charge against the Lotharin pike wall had been doomed from the start.
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| Combined with the noxious smokescreen it left behind, the explosion of the powder tunnel provided exactly the cover Edith required.
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| "RANGERS AND ARCHERS! FALL BACK TO RENDEVOUS!"
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| The goal had never been to win. Against such quantitative and qualitative odds, a battle of attrition was ''unwinnable''.
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| Edith had launched this battle purely to buy time for the refugee columns' retreat.
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