Daybreak:Alpha Chapter

Chapter 7 - Unified Assault

"Over the past week, we have intercepted six columns of Skagen forces above battalion-size, thirty-three smaller detachments, and razed nineteen outposts and blockhouses. The 2nd Echelon also crossed into Skagen three days ago, adding one major interception to the count and mounting a successful night assault on their army encampment at Kajana. In total, we have inflicted between ten to thirteen thousand losses, including those who surrendered and were let go. This accounts for over half of the enemy's mobilized forces in the peninsula..."

The single-room 'mobile command center' had been expanded to full size from its shrunken, crate-sized form. Within it packed over thirty individuals, ranging from twelve company commanders to a foreign Princess. They all crowded around a three-dimensional topographic projection which highlighted the known movements of both friend and foe. Meanwhile, Lieutenant-Colonel Hans-Canaris Oster continued his operational analysis:

"--Our own casualties in the 1st Echelon amount to twenty-five percent, albeit heavily skewed towards our regular cavalry. This includes 364 dead and 77 other irrecoverable injuries..."

Given the wonders of modern healing magic, irrecoverable injuries usually meant one thing: loss of limbs to mages. Despite the availability of Regeneration spells, their high complexity made it difficult if not impossible to overcome the ether resistance of other spellcasters. Any severed appendages that were not quickly recovered and reconnected by a medical professional risked permanent maiming.

"--This drops our frontline cavalry strength to sixty percent. In the meantime, we have received the cadet-boosted Black Lancers as reinforcements, bringing our Phantom complement of two companies to full."

The Lieutenant-Colonel might be prematurely balding with entrenched brow wrinkles, but the blue gaze he swept across the room was still full of youthful energy. His lips then widened into a broad, congratulatory smile as he formally announced:

"As of today, the first phase of Operation White Typhoon has reached a successful conclusion."

But General von Manteuffel didn't even give the assembled officers an opportunity to cheer before following up.

"However, that doesn't imply we can afford complacency. By now, our advantages in surprise and momentum have completely expired. According to intelligence from our scouts and the Black Eagles, Skagen forces have consolidated to their nearest fortified towns, with likely orders to hold out until the arrival of main forces from Fimbulmark Isle. That means no more easy victories for us in the open field."

Some of the commanders began to talk quietly among themselves. The biggest weakness of an all-cavalry army is their inability to tackle strong fortifications. Sure, the Reiters and Phantoms could bombard town walls while the rest dismounted to assault; but they had neither the ammunition endurance of proper siege artillery, nor the massed numbers of infantry for such a meat grinder battle.

"Which is precisely why we're going to force them to come out," the General said with a faint smirk. For a man whose expressions lay as unperturbed as stone for weeks on end, it made a truly devilish smile worthy of the name 'Manteuffel'.

"Captain, please explain the plan as we have detailed."

"Yes Sir," Captain Sir Pascal von Moltewitz, Tactical Officer of the 1st Echelon, confirmed as he expanded the rod in his hand into a retractable metal stick.

"As you all know, our current forces are poorly suited to launching an urban assault. Therefore, it is imperative that we provoke our enemies into offering us battle by threatening their most strategic position..."

With a swish of his pointer, Pascal directed everyone's attention to a port town in the northwestern tip of the peninsula:

"Nordkapp is the only target we deem worthy for this effort. It is not only the primary transit link between the the peninsula with Skagen's interests on Fimbulmark Isle, but also the only fortified port of sufficient size to anchor the full strength of Skagen's fleet. In other words, Nordkapp is the only location where their main army can disembark and still keep their ships relatively protected -- or at least, as well as they can manage against our marauding Phantoms."

A few sinister chuckles followed that comment. The King had arrived in Nordkreuz two days ago under the escort of North Wind, a Knight Phantom company that specialized in coastal patrol and naval destruction.

"Therefore, we will lay siege to Nordkapp with only a portion of our forces," Pascal continued on in his resolute tone. "We will neither fully invest the fortification nor assault its walls, but simply chip away at their numbers and the defenses. We will feed them the false assumption that they face but a few hundred troops -- perhaps the remnants of 1st Echelon after sustaining much heavier casualties. With 2nd Echelon advancing north towards us, it will be apparent that unless they boost the garrison, we will assault it once our reinforcements arrive. Given the importance of Nordkapp to the Jarls of the peninsula, we anticipate them to do so, and possibly even seize the opportunity to recover their honor by eliminating our weakened units with a converging attack."

"Colonel von Konopacki and I will break camp after nightfall and head towards Nordkapp with the Nordkreuz 1st and 3rd cavalry companies, plus the Nordkreuz and Kostradan Reiters. We will erect besieging fortifications under the cover of darkness. By tomorrow morning, we shall begin a shootout with the town's defenders. As our Phantoms and Princess Sylviane remain unaccounted for, the enemy will have to assume that they are still independently hunting smaller units -- compelling any aid they send to be dispatched in battalion-size or greater."

"And that is when the rest of us will ride out... and crush them," the General took his mantle back with a symbolic squeeze of his large fist, granite fingers every bit as hard as his stony face.

----- * * * -----

Kaede suppressed a yawn as she raised a pair of binoculars to her eyes. The magnification was nowhere up to modern standards. But from her vantage point atop the battery-tower on the rightmost flank, it was enough to survey the town's defenders atop its fieldstone walls.

More precisely, she was watching an artillery crew load their weapon -- a swivel-mounted scorpio-like ballista on wheels. They worked atop a bulwark three hundred paces away, yet barely visible due to the thin mist that covered the entire area.

"Fire!" yelled the Lieutenant on her tower.

A volley of multicolored ether bolts then crashed into artillery bulwark. Most were stopped short by the battlements, where they dissipated harmlessly against the ley-line-powered Guard Screen ward which stretched across the walls' exterior. But three bolts nevertheless found their mark.

The loader was struck twice on his back. With his spine broken by telekinetic force, he fell over backwards, through the firing gap before plummeting three stories to the ground below.

Meanwhile, his nearest comrade took a bolt right below the helmet. Blood oozed out from his ears as the the unfortunate militiaman was dead even before his body hit the ground, his brain smashed against its skull by the sudden thrust of force.

"LOOK OUT!"

Kaede swung her binoculars toward her left. The shout came from Weichsel's side this time. Two rune-inscribed catapult shots crashed hard into the second battery-tower to her left, just before imbued sonic spells shattered them into jagged rock shrapnel. Constructed from alchemy by transmuting packed snow into ice, the battery-tower slowly tilted as its compromised structural integrity worsened by the second. The squad of dismounted Reiters on top jumped off and glided through the air to safety, mere seconds before the cracking ice finally gave away.

The frozen tower toppled onto the ground like a massive hammer, smashing a gap in the ice wall built to protect the snow trenches from the defender's fire. Yet along other lengths of the fieldworks, dismounted Reiters and cavalrymen continued firing spells and crossbows against the garrison.

This inefficient fire exchange had gone on all morning. With two full companies of Noble Reiters, Weichsel forces could overpower the spell-resistant Guard Screen ward protecting the walls and breach the fortifications. But such high powered spellcasting would also leave the mages drained. Given the lack of forces for a proper assault, Colonel von Konopacki gave strict orders to rely on 'sustainable' magic -- low tiered spells with easily-replenished ether needs.

Protected by a misty breeze and icy walls, Weichsel's magic superiority showed its strength yet again. Bolts of pure ether obeyed neither gravity nor wind, offering precision accuracy with lethal damage. Meanwhile, distance forced the defenders' artillery to make parabolic shots, which had trouble striking anything but a massed formation. Their runic fragmentation rocks would have reaped lives, had Weichsel officers not gifted their men with Legion Repulsion wards to deflected low-mass projectiles like arrows and shrapnel.

Even so... we can't win a battle of attrition, Kaede thought. If their reinforcements don't come out, then this is all for nothing.

She wished Pascal could keep her updated on news from the command network, but a second-in-command had better things to do than repeat messages. For her and other Captains who knew the battle plan but not the current progress, it was a nerve-grating experience.

All we can do is trust our comrades, both here and elsewhere...

"AHHHhhhhhhhh!"

The painful cry came from just behind her, and Kaede instantly spun around on her heels.

A javelin-sized ballista bolt had struck one of the mages on her tower. The rune-enchanted projectile punched through his wards before penetrating his chest. Its momentum then pushed him back and off the tower's edge. Screaming and flailing wildly, the corporal fell two stories before crashing into the snow below. The wintry ground softened the impact, but it nevertheless rocked the shaft already buried within him.

Everything had happened so quickly none of them even had a chance to cast an Air Cushion spell. Two nearby medics rushed to pull the corporal into a trench, but the body had already stilled into an unmoving corpse.

The shock of seeing death literally right next to her completely froze Kaede's mind for a moment. She was still shaken as she slowly turned back to face the enemy, knowing that the very next bolt could rip her own life away.

Meanwhile, the defenders wheeled another scorpio ballista into sight; the third on the same bulwark, with a fourth following close behind...

"Kaede, order the lieutenant to take out that battery. Anti-fortification combination spell," Pascal's forceful voice rang through her mind, dragging her back into the present.

"L-l-lieutenant, command from HQ: eliminate the ballista battery; anti-fort combo," Kaede repeated to the squad of mages on the same battery-tower.

As a young nobleman who appeared to be in his late 'twenties', the lieutenant cocked a raised eyebrow before he nodded somewhat hesitantly: "understood."

He then turned towards his 'squad', an assembly of mages pulled from his platoon in the 3rd Nordkreuz cavalry company: "just gas them. I'll ignite."

The others nodded back before switching their aura magic stance to one more suitable for high-output, low-precision spellcasting.

"Aura Bombardment!"

Since Pascal's suggestion two weeks ago, Kaede had been practicing her magic sensitivity. But even she didn't have to focus to feel the gentle push of their aura expansion.

"Firemist Condense Field!" six of them called out, their extended gloves sending arcing rays of crafted ether towards their target.

"Ignition!" The Lieutenant then followed suite.

The first six rays reached over the walls and scattered into the upwind air like the veins of leaves. They left no visible effect, except for a faint clash of ether against some shield bubble spell from a defending mage. Through the distance, Kaede's keen senses then picked up words of complaint that she didn't understand. A pitched shout soon trailed behind them -- which apparently meant 'disperse' or 'run'.

They barely had enough time for more than a few steps...

The last spell shot in, and the very air over the bulwark exploded like a petroleum reservoir, pouring flames and burning atmosphere in every direction. The force of the blast pulverized the artillery engines like twig models, while hurling out pieces of men and battlements alike as though toy blocks thrown by a tantrum-stricken child.

By transmuting impurities in the air into dense cloud of methane and other highly flammable gases, then followed with a simple fire spell, Weichsel mages had learned to imitate the nature of a coal dust explosion. Its power was equivalent to that of a modern tactical thermobaric weapon -- the fuel-air bomb.

Even from three hundred paces away, Kaede still felt herself pushed a step back by the heat wave of the powerful blast.

----- * * * -----

"By the lords!"

All three junior -- and very green -- signal officers in the room turned to gaze at the explosion in the south. They didn't gawk this time, but only because the Weichsel army outside had already used it earlier this morning to destroy Nordkapp's most powerful siege engines.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ericsson sent his subordinates a fierce stare as hot breathe rushed through his nose in suppressed anger. This was no time to lose focus.

Nordkapp's current garrison of eleven hundred were mostly melee troops. But while they outnumbered the attackers, they didn't even notice the southerners' presence until dawn. By then, the enemy had already erected their own fortifications, designed to channel any attack into kill zones where area spells would dominate with impunity.

No. Ericsson would not condemn his men to an ill-fated charge that was unlikely to succeed. Jarl Magnus Vagnsson had already sent message that relief battalions were on their way from three directions, including one lead by himself in person. Furthermore, five smaller detachments were taking the opportunity to converge north. Even with those accursed Phantoms out there, at least two columns should make it through.

He eagerly awaited that moment, when his warriors could finally sally out and sandwich the battered army outside against the Jarls' elites. But in the meantime, he wasn't about to simply twiddle his thumbs...

Ericsson was a veteran of a multiple conflicts. He knew perfectly that Weichsel's strength laid not only in its mages, but also the efficiency of its officer corps. So instead of assigning his best spellcasters to the skirmish at the walls, he pulled them aside for a separate, far more decisive task:

Weichsel had a tradition of setting up headquarters near the front lines, which not only boosted the soldiers' morale but also improved battlefield comprehension and communications. Their deployable command centers were protected by both illusions and wards, but no defense was foolproof.

"I'm certain that's it, Sir," Sigvald spoke again as he reopened his eyes.

The elderly master craftsman -- one of several in this very room -- had been scrying the siege lines using Clairvoyance spell sensors.

"How can you be sure?" the commander asked, more to confirm than because he distrusted the man. Before retirement took him away, Sigvald was even more a veteran than he was.

"There are five communication trenches converging in that place. But unlike the other two junctions we've identified, that one is oddly out of place," Sigvald explained as his fingers combed through white hair. "Why would their fieldworks be so efficient everywhere else except there? That has to be an illusion covering their HQ."

Ericsson nodded back. He had confirmed the sight with a spell of his own when Sigvald first spoke of the finding. But since a surprise attack had only one chance of succeeding, there was no such thing as being too sure.

He then turned towards his signal officers and runners:

"How far out are the reinforcements?"

"Jarl Vagnson's main force will be here in another fifteen minutes."

"Major Sterki is five minutes overdue for his check-in, but he should still be an hour away."

They didn't even bother mentioning the third force, whom they had heard nothing from for the last two hours. Major Valteri and his six hundred men had clearly been intercepted and destroyed.

Lieutenant-Colonel Ericsson could only hope that the same fate did not befall Sterki. Surely no Phantom company -- even with a blasted Oriflamme to lead their charge -- could trump a column four times their size and still retain enough physical and magical stamina to fight another?

Not that it mattered to his current plans. His lord's relief force also numbered under seven hundred, but they included one company of his personal Housecarls plus a platoon of those devastating Siphoneers. Between such quality and the quantity of his stout militiamen, those Wickers outside would soon depart on a one-way trip to hell.

"Send word to all artillery between the gatehouse and tower six: enemy HQ found at four-fifty paces beyond the central wall section between towers three and four. Relocate all mobile weapons to those walls. Load the best wardbustering ammo they have. I want that HQ hammered with everything we've got when the horn blows!"

"Yes Sir!" the signal personnel declared before rushing about to pass their commander's orders.

It was considered dishonorable to target the enemy commander through anything but personal combat. But honor had never been part of any conflict with Weichsel, who already butchered valiant warriors in the thousands using their cheap tricks.

Striding to the windows, Ericsson gazed proudly upon row after row of ski infantry outside. Hundreds of them had formed up along the town's main street, prepared to sally forth at a moment's notice. They might not be the best soldiers on Hyperion, but they were good, honest men. Furthermore, they were his men, and after a decade of personally drilling them each week, he had every confidence in their courage and resolve.

"Let's see how these so-called 'civilized' Wickers fight without their head."

Despite being a northern nobleman of cultured appearance and a long, well-trimmed beard, his savage grin below was more than sufficient to frighten away even a starving polar bear.

----- * * * -----

Jarl Magnus Vagnsson of Nordkapp twisted his skis a full ninety degrees, kicking up a tidal wave of flurry and ice as he braked hard in the snow.

He sought to stop at the tip of the hill crest, which didn't leave him with a whole lot of room. Furthermore, the top layer of snow had hardened under the bright sun yesterday and day before.

In the end he overshot it by a little. He simply wasn't as young as he used to be.

Not surprising really, seeing as the gods had blessed Magnus with his first great-grandson just three months ago. Two of his own sons, and even the oldest of his grandsons, stood in the mass of men who followed in his wake.

Meanwhile, the scouting squad glided up the hill before kicking up several waves of their own. They were, however, careful enough not to shower their lord with it.

A handful of his Housecarl bodyguards received bit of a mouthful though...

"Milord!" their leader called over noise of scraping ice, "The Wickers' lines lay just two hills over. They've erected strong fortifications against the city itself, but lightly guarded from our approach. Only two squads holds their far right."

"The Stormlord's will. Time for our enemies to taste humiliation and bitter defeat for once!" The Jarl snarled into the distant mist. He then twisted around to face his foremost signal officer: "Tell Ericsson we're here! He'll know what to do."

"Already done, Milord."

Magnus grunted with approval. The two hundred warriors immediately behind him were his household troops. They were individuals that he all knew by name -- manly men that any true Hyperborean would be proud to fight and die alongside.

"Well then, let's do this the usual way. Quadbows front, siphons second. Rest of you follow me! We'll burn and tear right through these Wickers' assholes! Draw swords!"

----- * * * -----

After a week of observing battles against Skagen ski infantry, Kaede grew very familiar with the sound of massed skis scratching against icy snow.

...Which was exactly what her familiar-enhanced senses just picked up.

Still atop the rightmost battery-tower of Weichsel's siege line, Kaede swung her binoculars towards the wintry mist that blurred anything beyond three hundred paces. With nothing in sight, her focus poured into a pair of ears that tried their best to stand up.

She poked a rune on her right arm for one of Pascal's eight standard buffs. Mental Clarity served best for clearing thoughts when muddled by fatigue, pain, and fear; but it also boosted her already capable senses just a stretch further...

Then, she heard it. The muffled voice of masculine authority, ending with the only phrase she managed to make out:

"--Draw swords!"

As though on cue, the rumble of a low-pitched horn resounded through the town, drawing check marks across all her suspicions.

Exclamations shot through Kaede's mind as she rushed to send this information up immediately:

"Pascal hostile force approaching from the..."

She never finished. A multitude of sonic blasts tore through the air behind her. Obscured by the weather, she couldn't see what had happened. But Pascal's sudden "AHHH!" confirmed what she thought had happened.

The defenders had just struck their command center with a full artillery volley.

"Pascal...? Pascal!?"

Kaede felt as though someone just stabbed a dagger into her chest. Her mind completely blanked out for a split second as she threw everything aside in a desperate bid to reach him.

"PASCAL!"

But the line remained blank. Completely empty. Not even white noise could be heard from the other side.

Please-please-please be okay...

Kaede shut her eyes for a quick prayer to whatever gods in this world who would listen. Even as her chest continue to contract, even as the beating of her life accelerated...

Her heart was still beating...

It wasn't physical pain. No. She wasn't keeling over. And despite overflowing torrents of fear plus anxiety, her timely spell kept her thought highway clear and ordered.

She simply needed to think.

I'm still alive, aren't I? Then Pascal has to be.

She wasn't sure how alive though. Injured? Crippled? Unconscious? Bleeding to death this very second?

But one thing was apparent. If she didn't do something and fast. He really would end up dead before the hour was up.

Enemy reinforcements were coming from the far right. From such a perpendicular flanking angle, they could easily smash in and roll up the entire siege line like a stack of dominoes. Combined with a sally from the city, it would rout the entire Weichsel detachment.

No time. Have to do this myself.

With a kick at the dirty-transmuted clay floor, Kaede jumped off the battery-tower and fell halfway down before pressing her Air Glide rune. All the while she shouted:

"Captain! Swivel all men to face the right! Hostile relief force incoming!"

Captain Karen von Lichnowsky of the Nordkreuz 3rd cavalry company was in her late 'twenties'. Moderate of build and on the plain side of cute, she was most noticeable from the back due to her long, wavy red hair. Standing adjacent to her signal officers with a swordstaff in hand, she turned towards Kaede almost immediately. But the dark-green eyes above her freckled pink cheeks continued to gaze with uncertainty.

"Command from HQ!" Kaede affirmed with an utter lie, hoping her serious expression and battle anxiety might bury any obvious signs. "Swivel all men and face right to refuse the line! Their relief force will be upon us within the minute!"

"We just lost contact with..." a signal lieutenant began.

"I'm Captain von Moltewitz's familiar! Do I look DEAD to you!? We MUST refuse the line or they'll smash through our flank!"

She channeled in some of her own uneasiness into impatience for good measure.

Captain von Lichnowsky held a look of clear disapproval at Kaede's tone, but she didn't waste another second before bellowing out orders:

"SWIVEL RIGHT! REFUSE THE LINE! REFORM RANKS CENTERED ON ME! MOVE!"

'Refusing the line' was a classical tactical maneuver where troops formed new ranks at a perpendicular angle to the main battle line in order to repel attacks on a threatened flank. Well-drilled in mobile formations, Weichsel soldiers in black partial-plate ran through the trenches before climbing over. Those near Kaede's old tower pulled back, while others on the company's left rushed up to fill the gaps. Within half a minute, a new line anchored at the second-to-rightmost battery-tower began to take shape. They stood just behind a wide communication trench that stretched from the tower all the way to the rear, where the horses were still kept.

They didn't have a moment a spare; certainly not enough to retrieve the steeds...

The first skiers soon broke through the misty veil, gliding down the nearest hill crest with speed. They crouched down during the descent, lowering their center of mass as they leveled their heavy quad-bolt crossbows to take aim.

"Legion Resistance!" the Captain shouted out her team-buff spell, doubling as an order for other mages to follow her lead.

Kaede took that as a cue to activate the rest of her defensive spell set.

Their 'volley' came scattered. But each crossbowmen in the front unleashed four rune-inscribed stone bolts -- two rows of two in quick concession. Accuracy wasn't even a concern for these weapons. Instead, the bolts struck snow around the Weichsel line and triggered their magic...

Fire and lightning thundered all around the Weichsel line. Explosions tore across the field as though a howitzer strike just hit the defensive line. The Legion Resistance spells offered some protection against the elemental magic bombardment, but many troops were still left bleeding, dazed, and shell-shocked.

Rune magic's greatest weakness was also its greatest strength. Unlike 'Aura Magic', which could cast spontaneously and shoot across open airways, runic spells required both preparations and a medium of delivery. But once inscribed, magical runes could be activated in an instant and utilized by any commoner.

"REFORM RANKS! AIM FOR THE SIPHONEERS!" The Captain and her lieutenants shouted to their troops.

Some of them did right away. Most of them took a moment or two. The defensive line now twisted and turned around mud-bottomed snow craters. But they still made two ranks -- one kneeling and one standing, with spells readied and arbalests raised.

Sure enough, in the wake of the quadbows came the 'Rimefire Siphoneers' Kaede heard so much about. Wearing crimson armor made from the thick hides of volcanic drakes, these elite troops carried a weapon that looked like two enclosed steel pipes glued together; except at the back, the bottom pipe held a hand-pump while a tube connected the top to their backpack.

Flamethrowers...

With many gaps along the line, Kaede drew her bow and stepped up to fill one near Captain von Lichnowsky. She then pressed a bodkin arrowhead into the rearmost rune on her left forearm, and the Smiting spell within transferred into her weapon for discharge upon impact.

As the ski-crossbowmen decelerated to stow away their shooters and draw blades, forty siphoneers rushed ahead to lead the attack. A horde of feudal Housecarls followed close behind, clad in woolly, chainmail-reinforced hides and holding massive zweihander swords that could easily cleave a man in half.

Kaede forced her gaze away from their glistening weapons before nailing her sight to a siphoneer. With the mind-clearing aid of the Mental Clarity spell, she transfixed all focus onto her target as her self became one with the arrow.

She hardly even noticed as the Northmen began yelling their frenzied battle cries, which she later found out as meaning: "Burn them down! Hack them ground!"

"Scorch-Ether Catalyst Dispel!" the Captain initiated, echoed by every spellcaster along the line.

In that same moment, Kaede's fingers loosened, releasing her arrow into flight...

The volley of ether blasts soared out to meet the siphoneers, shattering their layered wards with a power cascade. Steam poured off several as their own volatile ether began to cook them alive...

Meanwhile, Kaede traced her glowing arrow through the air. The same spell imbued into her shot triggered as soon as her target's Repulsion Field ward attempted to deflect the attack. The Scorch-Ether Catalyst Dispel then ripped through multiple magical defenses with increasing strength, clearing a path for the razor-sharp bodkin arrowhead... which plunged straight into the victim's upper thigh.

Focus! she reiterated while imbuing another arrow with her second and last dispel rune. Fresh confidence also arrived as her target lost his balance and crashed violently. The siphoneer spun at least twice before landing headfirst in the snow; his right ski broke apart to hurl back a jagged piece of ironwood.

"Fire!" Captain von Lichnowsky added, and dozens of crossbowmen emptied their steel into the oncoming foes. Many of those on their knees even held shoulder-braced repeating arbalests. They continued to pump bolt after bolt through their levers even as others discarded their weapons for swordstaves and javelins.

Given the charge speed of ski infantry, there was simply no time to reload.

Half the siphoneers went down, but it was nowhere near enough. Among the problems was that Karen von Lichnowsky's company were dismounted cavalrymen. Their usual tactic involved either counter-charging or galloping away, and few of them knew any spells to break a charge against them.

The Captain then lead a second volley of Dispels, but many of the javelins didn't follow fast enough. The siphoneers caracoled in a wide arc upon entering twenty-paces range, while their steel pipes pumped deadly jets of liquid fire like a pressurized water gun...

Kaede released her second arrow at the same time.

The siphoneer targeting the Captain hardly squirted before the arrow nailed him in the chest -- just below the throat and near the center of the sniper's triangle. The crimson warrior then crashed into the snow, stumbling forward as he went before sliding to a stop just four paces in front of Kaede, lifeless.

But one score was nowhere sufficient to change the course of the battle...

Soldiers all around screamed with hellish agony as the viscous flames sprayed over them. The liquid fire stuck to armor and skin alike, burning through padding and flowing into gaps between steel plating. Troopers dropped to ground and rolled through the snow to no avail, as melted water seemed to feed the very flames into ever greater strength.

Water-intensified napalm... Kaede thought before her eyes widened with horrifying realization. Who the hell gave Nordic berserkers GREEK FIRE?

It was even worse than that, as 'Rimefire' apparently ate through ether like fuel. Wards such as Resistance which normally offered protection against fire not only did nothing, but combusted like tissue paper. Dying mages with the wail of banshees ran through the fields like burning torches as fire seeped into their very body.

Then, when Kaede thought things could not grow any worse, hell's herald arrived in the form of a creaking groan. The noise came from behind her -- in the direction of the town's gatehouse -- just as hundreds of Northmen roared.

The town garrison was sallying out to attack.

At that moment, a voice Kaede had long-awaited finally rang through her mind. Unfortunately, its tone was anything but pleasant reassurance:

"Order Captain von Lichnowsky to hold AT ALL COSTS! Do you hear me, Kaede? Fight to the last! If she crumbles this entire army is done for!"

That's impossible, Kaede thought even as she heard Pascal's stern voice. Their line already lay tattered, no more than sixty at most. Their center had been destroyed by Rimefire, with only her, the Captain, and six others left to plug a massive hole. Their morale was wavering at best, utterly shaken by the screams of burning, living corpses. And even with almost all siphoneers downed, they now looked upon a massed charge by at least five hundred Skagen ski infantry -- a unstoppable avalanche of death rumbling down the nearby slope, lead by bear-like men holding overgrown two-hander swords...

In that instant, Kaede felt as though a cage slammed down over her emotions. She didn't even bother to reply to Pascal -- that was an utter waste of time. She simply turned to the redhead Captain and voiced through hollowed words completely devoid of humanity:

"Our orders are to fight to the last."

Captain von Lichnowsky blanched as she turned about. But she nevertheless nodded back, as though in grim acceptance that she... neither of them, would not live to see past this day.

Recognition passed between the two of them in an instant, before they turned away from each other.

The Captain readied her swordstaff against the charge even as she shouted desperately to rally her men:

"WE ARE WEICHSENS! WE DO NOT ABANDON OUR BROTHERS! WE WILL STAND AND FIGHT!..."

Meanwhile, the girl from another world puzzled over a steel 'water gun' just a few paces away. It laid on the other side of a narrow trench where burning rimefire continued to float atop pooled water, where the wavefront of the barbarian horde lay just moments away.

What's the worst that could happen? Die?

Her decision came within the blink of an eye as she leaped over to pry the weapon off its dead owner.

With all her focus on the siphon, Kaede never even noticed the lead skier raised his zweihander sword like a looming executioner.

----- * * * -----

"Column ahead! Around two-fifty!" Reynald shouted as he rode across the air in his Phantom Steed to report. "And look who I found!"

Hanging behind him on the same ghostly black horse was a petite girl, with short-trimmed dark-chestnut hair and a pale yet cute and energetic face.

"Cecylia! What are you doing here!?"

Ariadne asked from atop her pegasus as Reynald banked sharply to pull up alongside the command staff that led the formation. She almost didn't recognize her best friend, given the lack of signature scarlet-crosses within those dark-ruby eyes. Cecylia also wasn't wearing her black uniform, but covered in furs like a Northman.

"Trailing the column you're about to hit!" the smaller girl grinned back. "We're not exactly loaded with people who can speak perfect Northern. I've been keeping command posted about this group for days! They've been turtling in town; not sure why they left this morning."

"I would ask what you're doing this far in the 1st Echelon's zone of operations. But it appears that your reputation certainly precedes you, Colonel von Hammerstein!"

"Ye damn right it does," the Colonel growled -- rather happily at that -- from atop his armored gryphon.

He then turned about to shout back, both to his signal officers and the 1st platoon gryphon-riders who followed:

"Prep grenades! I want a quick fly-by and I want at least two chucks from everyone! This measly gang up ahead ain't got enough meat to entertain the likes of us! There's a big battle brewing north boys! And we're not going back until we sink our teeth into something fat and juicy!"

"Hu-rah!" they cheered back with enthusiastic anticipation, so much that Cecylia never even suspected that these men were still inexperienced. In her opinion, Erwin von Hammerstein must be taking the place of some Phantom commander who fell ill.