Gabriel enjoyed the startled looks of the SAS soldiers as he brought out his mount and equipped his armor.
The mirth on his face quickly faded as he and his team raced toward the sounds of fighting along with other soldiers.
They passed buildings full of frightened civilians as they scurried for the meager protection the buildings could provide. They had seen it on the trip in, but it still impressed him how the General and his men had fortified a large section of the town outside of the barracks. He supposed they hadn’t had much of a choice though.
Soon they passed through the outer gate, and the large metal doors were rolled shut behind them. He noticed a few crew-served weapons dotted along the wall. They wouldn’t do much to stop something like a troll though, which is why the SAS was going to meet the enemy in the abandoned outskirts of the town.
As they neared the fighting, he could see the distinctive flashes of magic. He had witnessed the ethereal light shows enough during his time in California that he wouldn’t soon forget the sight.
He gestured to his team and they all nodded, splitting off to hunt. Although he stuck with the APC they were shadowing. It wasn’t ideal to split up in normal circumstances, but with their armor and Lord Norman around, it was a risk worth taking.
A bolt of lightning struck out as they rounded an intersection, leaving a molten smear in the vehicle's armor, but not penetrating into the interior. Old Earth military tech wasn’t completely obsolete. The gunner wasted no time returning fire. A staccato pop echoed through between the buildings as the autocannon opened up, sending round after round down the street and at a large group of what looked like hyena-men.
The expected carnage didn’t happen as the rounds impacted the large bipeds. Some went down, certainly, but their armor seemed capable of absorbing most of the damage from the autocannon’s rounds.
Gabriel whistled and his mount, Peach, gave a delighted hiss as she leaped forward, covering half the distance between them and the attackers in mere moments.
These weren’t mindless beasts they were fighting though. The attackers formed a line and set spears to intercept his charge. That tactic might have worked if Peach was a normal bird.
She opened her mouth and a rippling wave of sonic power blasted forth from her throat.
The attackers were caught flatfooted when the waves of sound impacted them, sending the center of the group tumbling back from the attack. Even the ones that weren’t knocked away were forced to grab their ears as the sonic shockwave did its best to tear apart their eardrums. The rest were stunned by the attack.
But Gabriel’s goal wasn’t to fight these grunts. He just wanted it to look like he was. Peach ducked sideways, avoiding a beam of red energy. And there was his target. He had been watching and waiting for them to counterattack. Any good support would do what they could to help their front-line forces.
The mage was dressed like every other soldier, save for a red marking on the front of its armor. He would make sure to keep an eye out for more of those markings.
Gabriel lifted his spear and hurled it at the mage with all of the enhanced strength and speed his armor granted him. It may have been a bit too much as he felt his shoulder muscles tear from the exertion. The spear shot away, too fast for the surprised mage to dodge out of the way. Or maybe it just had faith in its sturdy armor.
The spear hit the creature almost center mass and the enchantments did their thing. The spear passed through the surprised mage, hardly slowing down. Two more victims fell to the deadly weapon before it finally got stuck in a fourth victim's hip.
This all happened in the brief moment before Gabriel had finished covering the remaining distance to the front line. He sucked down a quick potion to repair the damage to his arm. He drew his blade before leaping off Peach and slicing another attacker in two.
The creatures fought well and were certainly stronger than him, but they simply couldn’t penetrate his Death Knight armor. His sword didn’t have that same issue as it cleaved through their armor like butter, the enchantments working as advertised.
He was immensely grateful for the deadly combat practice Commander Eugene had insisted upon during training. If not for it, he might have been thrown off balance by the lack of resistance to the weapon’s enchanted steel. Instead, he was able to leverage it to spin around and slice another enemy down.
But he also needed to remember he wasn’t undead, so he conserved energy as he cut down one after the other of the creatures. It wasn’t until another bolt of lightning struck him that he stopped.
The magic had flung him away from the front line a good twenty feet, but it hadn’t even damaged his armor. There was only a slightly darker spot from where the dangerous magic had struck.
He was smoking a bit as well but that didn’t stop him from quickly getting to his feet and charging toward the new mage.
Spears ineffectually slammed against his armor in an attempt to slow him down or stop him, but he ignored them as he rushed forward. The mage looked around for something to stop Gabriel’s charge. The mage’s eyes landed on his discarded spear. The towering soldier pulled Gabriel’s spear from the corpse it rested in. With a triumphant grin, it hefted the weapon and jabbed it toward Gabriel as he finished closing the distance.
That smile was short-lived as the enchanted spear struck Gabriel’s armor with a dull thud, It scrapped across his armor, leaving a jagged scar but there wasn’t enough force behind it to push it through. It had been a risk, but he had banked on the force-absorbing enchantment to save his life, and it seemed his gamble had paid off.
Before the second mage could realize his mistake, Gabriel yanked on the haft of the spear, unbalancing the creature toward him. As it stumbled forward, Gabriel’s other arm flashed up in a sweeping arc, carving through its arms and neck.
Even before the creature’s corpse hit the ground, he was moving again, his sword back in its scabbard now that he had his spear back.
All around him was fighting. He couldn’t see his men, but he could make out the towering forms of the terror birds as they did what they did best, terrorize the enemy. Their efforts had pushed the enemy back into this street though, and the SAS were laying down a withering wall of fire upon the enemy. He could attest to that as more than one round had ricocheted off his armor during the fighting. The thought of getting hit by a round from the autocannon didn’t slow him down in the slightest.
But the battle was far from over, Gabriel spotted two more of the enemy with the red markings and rushed forward.
***
Avery wasn’t sure how long the fighting had lasted, but he was exhausted as silence finally descended on the battlefield. He had expected the gnolls to break and run after their commanders and mages had been taken down, but they refused to retreat in the face of certain death.
Captain Avery could respect that. But he hated the bastards and their tenacity just as much. “Since when have they gotten this tenacious?” he asked a nearby lieutenant.
“It’s never been this bad, Sir, but they have been getting bolder since shortly after you left. The analysts believe something is forcing them to act this way.”
If that was true, it meant they had less time than they thought. He had always known their position was untenable in the long run. The only reason they had held out for this long was the motor pool as well as the large underground storage of ammunition and parts.
He looked at the slagged armor of his APC. The vehicle had saved his life, but it was done for. The armor could be replaced, but the turret had taken more than one hit during the battle. They simply didn’t have any more replacement components to fix it. With a tired sigh, he turned back toward the carnage. His body hurt all over from enduring the impacts inside the vehicle. War was a young man’s game. He was nearly forty now and fighting this intense would leave him sore for days. Had this been pre-collapse, he would have retired years ago.
And as much as he wanted to, he wasn’t about to ask Gabriel for any more of their wonder potions. He knew the man only had a limited supply. He would just have to suck it up and soldier on. “Let’s hope our new allies can get us out of here soon.”
Speaking of new allies. Watching Gabriel and his men fight had been an eye-opening experience. Magic was a force multiplier and then some. They had known that for a long time, but hadn’t been able to capitalize on the knowledge. Their magic users and enhanced personnel had not survived more than a few years. They had been picked away slowly over the years as they became the primary targets of their enemies. The gnolls, the trolls, and the beasts.
He included the sasquatches with the beasts, even though they were semi-intelligent. Those bastards were the only enemies barbaric enough to eat humans.
Even the trolls didn’t do that, they just killed and caused general mayhem. If it wasn’t for the acidic sea, they would be surrounded by enemies on all sides.
A truck pulled up and Avery pushed himself off the broken vehicle with a grunt, part pain, part annoyance. It was time to load up their dead. This time around was a lot less somber of an occasion though. Especially since witnessing what this Lord Norman could do. It seemed the rumors had already spread amongst the other men. He even heard a few of the men joke as they tossed bodies on the trucks.
“Must be nice to get some time off.”
“Bastard had to go get himself killed just to get out of paying me back.”
And other such dark humor.
Even Avery had trouble suppressing a smile. It was nice to hear the troops' morale improving.
He walked over to where Gabriel and his men were standing. Their terrifying mounts were nowhere to be seen. But Avery had seen them appear from thin air, so it was likely they could be stored that way as well.
“Captain Avery,” the man saluted as he spotted him approaching.
Avery saluted back. “That’s not necessary, Gabriel.”
The man smiled, his hair a sweaty mess from the helmet. “Years of practice, Sir, it feels weird not to.”
Avery only nodded. “Thanks for the help today. We would have lost a lot more people if it wasn’t for you and your men jumping in to assist.”
“I would be a pretty shitty person if I just sat around and did nothing.”
“Still, thank you. What were you looking at before I came over?” he asked, deciding to change the subject.
Gabriel gestured to the armor. “We wanted to see what this armor was made of. It's not quite as good as ours, but it's stronger than it should be.”
One of Gabriel’s men sliced off a chunk of the armor and tossed it to him.
Avery looked at the piece, feeling the heft of it in his hands. “Doesn’t feel like metal.”
“Some sort of dense composite. But look at the sides.” Avery did, turning the piece over.
The edges seemed to glow slightly. “Enchanted?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah. And not some cheap shit either. Every single one of them has the same type of armor.”
That was not good news. The previous gnoll attacks had come from raiders and they were anything but a unified force. This spoke of an army, a well-equipped and trained one it seemed. He knew the gnoll species had cities and a functional government, but he had pictured them being less advanced, not more. The fact is they knew little about their neighbors. Any attempts to contact them had met with their people never returning, so they stopped trying.
“I should report this to the General. You’re welcome to come along.”
“I’ll pass. Instead, do you mind if we help clear the bodies? My people have a better way to store the dead for later revival. Oh, speaking of that, is there a graveyard? We should probably recover anyone there as well.”
The thought of digging up the dead unsettled Avery, but if it meant the missing soldiers could be brought back, he didn’t see the harm.
He had the lieutenant lead Gabriel and his people to the cemetery. After that, he hopped into a surviving armored truck and hurried back to base to report this new development.
Gabriel enjoyed the startled looks of the SAS soldiers as he brought out his mount and equipped his armor.
The mirth on his face quickly faded as he and his team raced toward the sounds of fighting along with other soldiers.
They passed buildings full of frightened civilians as they scurried for the meager protection the buildings could provide. They had seen it on the trip in, but it still impressed him how the General and his men had fortified a large section of the town outside of the barracks. He supposed they hadn’t had much of a choice though.
Soon they passed through the outer gate, and the large metal doors were rolled shut behind them. He noticed a few crew-served weapons dotted along the wall. They wouldn’t do much to stop something like a troll though, which is why the SAS was going to meet the enemy in the abandoned outskirts of the town.
As they neared the fighting, he could see the distinctive flashes of magic. He had witnessed the ethereal light shows enough during his time in California that he wouldn’t soon forget the sight.
He gestured to his team and they all nodded, splitting off to hunt. Although he stuck with the APC they were shadowing. It wasn’t ideal to split up in normal circumstances, but with their armor and Lord Norman around, it was a risk worth taking.
A bolt of lightning struck out as they rounded an intersection, leaving a molten smear in the vehicle's armor, but not penetrating into the interior. Old Earth military tech wasn’t completely obsolete. The gunner wasted no time returning fire. A staccato pop echoed through between the buildings as the autocannon opened up, sending round after round down the street and at a large group of what looked like hyena-men.
The expected carnage didn’t happen as the rounds impacted the large bipeds. Some went down, certainly, but their armor seemed capable of absorbing most of the damage from the autocannon’s rounds.
Gabriel whistled and his mount, Peach, gave a delighted hiss as she leaped forward, covering half the distance between them and the attackers in mere moments.
These weren’t mindless beasts they were fighting though. The attackers formed a line and set spears to intercept his charge. That tactic might have worked if Peach was a normal bird.
She opened her mouth and a rippling wave of sonic power blasted forth from her throat.
The attackers were caught flatfooted when the waves of sound impacted them, sending the center of the group tumbling back from the attack. Even the ones that weren’t knocked away were forced to grab their ears as the sonic shockwave did its best to tear apart their eardrums. The rest were stunned by the attack.
But Gabriel’s goal wasn’t to fight these grunts. He just wanted it to look like he was. Peach ducked sideways, avoiding a beam of red energy. And there was his target. He had been watching and waiting for them to counterattack. Any good support would do what they could to help their front-line forces.
The mage was dressed like every other soldier, save for a red marking on the front of its armor. He would make sure to keep an eye out for more of those markings.
Gabriel lifted his spear and hurled it at the mage with all of the enhanced strength and speed his armor granted him. It may have been a bit too much as he felt his shoulder muscles tear from the exertion. The spear shot away, too fast for the surprised mage to dodge out of the way. Or maybe it just had faith in its sturdy armor.
The spear hit the creature almost center mass and the enchantments did their thing. The spear passed through the surprised mage, hardly slowing down. Two more victims fell to the deadly weapon before it finally got stuck in a fourth victim's hip.
This all happened in the brief moment before Gabriel had finished covering the remaining distance to the front line. He sucked down a quick potion to repair the damage to his arm. He drew his blade before leaping off Peach and slicing another attacker in two.
The creatures fought well and were certainly stronger than him, but they simply couldn’t penetrate his Death Knight armor. His sword didn’t have that same issue as it cleaved through their armor like butter, the enchantments working as advertised.
He was immensely grateful for the deadly combat practice Commander Eugene had insisted upon during training. If not for it, he might have been thrown off balance by the lack of resistance to the weapon’s enchanted steel. Instead, he was able to leverage it to spin around and slice another enemy down.
But he also needed to remember he wasn’t undead, so he conserved energy as he cut down one after the other of the creatures. It wasn’t until another bolt of lightning struck him that he stopped.
The magic had flung him away from the front line a good twenty feet, but it hadn’t even damaged his armor. There was only a slightly darker spot from where the dangerous magic had struck.
He was smoking a bit as well but that didn’t stop him from quickly getting to his feet and charging toward the new mage.
Spears ineffectually slammed against his armor in an attempt to slow him down or stop him, but he ignored them as he rushed forward. The mage looked around for something to stop Gabriel’s charge. The mage’s eyes landed on his discarded spear. The towering soldier pulled Gabriel’s spear from the corpse it rested in. With a triumphant grin, it hefted the weapon and jabbed it toward Gabriel as he finished closing the distance.
That smile was short-lived as the enchanted spear struck Gabriel’s armor with a dull thud, It scrapped across his armor, leaving a jagged scar but there wasn’t enough force behind it to push it through. It had been a risk, but he had banked on the force-absorbing enchantment to save his life, and it seemed his gamble had paid off.
Before the second mage could realize his mistake, Gabriel yanked on the haft of the spear, unbalancing the creature toward him. As it stumbled forward, Gabriel’s other arm flashed up in a sweeping arc, carving through its arms and neck.
Even before the creature’s corpse hit the ground, he was moving again, his sword back in its scabbard now that he had his spear back.
All around him was fighting. He couldn’t see his men, but he could make out the towering forms of the terror birds as they did what they did best, terrorize the enemy. Their efforts had pushed the enemy back into this street though, and the SAS were laying down a withering wall of fire upon the enemy. He could attest to that as more than one round had ricocheted off his armor during the fighting. The thought of getting hit by a round from the autocannon didn’t slow him down in the slightest.
But the battle was far from over, Gabriel spotted two more of the enemy with the red markings and rushed forward.
***
Avery wasn’t sure how long the fighting had lasted, but he was exhausted as silence finally descended on the battlefield. He had expected the gnolls to break and run after their commanders and mages had been taken down, but they refused to retreat in the face of certain death.
Captain Avery could respect that. But he hated the bastards and their tenacity just as much. “Since when have they gotten this tenacious?” he asked a nearby lieutenant.
“It’s never been this bad, Sir, but they have been getting bolder since shortly after you left. The analysts believe something is forcing them to act this way.”
If that was true, it meant they had less time than they thought. He had always known their position was untenable in the long run. The only reason they had held out for this long was the motor pool as well as the large underground storage of ammunition and parts.
He looked at the slagged armor of his APC. The vehicle had saved his life, but it was done for. The armor could be replaced, but the turret had taken more than one hit during the battle. They simply didn’t have any more replacement components to fix it. With a tired sigh, he turned back toward the carnage. His body hurt all over from enduring the impacts inside the vehicle. War was a young man’s game. He was nearly forty now and fighting this intense would leave him sore for days. Had this been pre-collapse, he would have retired years ago.
And as much as he wanted to, he wasn’t about to ask Gabriel for any more of their wonder potions. He knew the man only had a limited supply. He would just have to suck it up and soldier on. “Let’s hope our new allies can get us out of here soon.”
Speaking of new allies. Watching Gabriel and his men fight had been an eye-opening experience. Magic was a force multiplier and then some. They had known that for a long time, but hadn’t been able to capitalize on the knowledge. Their magic users and enhanced personnel had not survived more than a few years. They had been picked away slowly over the years as they became the primary targets of their enemies. The gnolls, the trolls, and the beasts.
He included the sasquatches with the beasts, even though they were semi-intelligent. Those bastards were the only enemies barbaric enough to eat humans.
Even the trolls didn’t do that, they just killed and caused general mayhem. If it wasn’t for the acidic sea, they would be surrounded by enemies on all sides.
A truck pulled up and Avery pushed himself off the broken vehicle with a grunt, part pain, part annoyance. It was time to load up their dead. This time around was a lot less somber of an occasion though. Especially since witnessing what this Lord Norman could do. It seemed the rumors had already spread amongst the other men. He even heard a few of the men joke as they tossed bodies on the trucks.
“Must be nice to get some time off.”
“Bastard had to go get himself killed just to get out of paying me back.”
And other such dark humor.
Even Avery had trouble suppressing a smile. It was nice to hear the troops' morale improving.
He walked over to where Gabriel and his men were standing. Their terrifying mounts were nowhere to be seen. But Avery had seen them appear from thin air, so it was likely they could be stored that way as well.
“Captain Avery,” the man saluted as he spotted him approaching.
Avery saluted back. “That’s not necessary, Gabriel.”
The man smiled, his hair a sweaty mess from the helmet. “Years of practice, Sir, it feels weird not to.”
Avery only nodded. “Thanks for the help today. We would have lost a lot more people if it wasn’t for you and your men jumping in to assist.”
“I would be a pretty shitty person if I just sat around and did nothing.”
“Still, thank you. What were you looking at before I came over?” he asked, deciding to change the subject.
Gabriel gestured to the armor. “We wanted to see what this armor was made of. It's not quite as good as ours, but it's stronger than it should be.”
One of Gabriel’s men sliced off a chunk of the armor and tossed it to him.
Avery looked at the piece, feeling the heft of it in his hands. “Doesn’t feel like metal.”
“Some sort of dense composite. But look at the sides.” Avery did, turning the piece over.
The edges seemed to glow slightly. “Enchanted?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah. And not some cheap shit either. Every single one of them has the same type of armor.”
That was not good news. The previous gnoll attacks had come from raiders and they were anything but a unified force. This spoke of an army, a well-equipped and trained one it seemed. He knew the gnoll species had cities and a functional government, but he had pictured them being less advanced, not more. The fact is they knew little about their neighbors. Any attempts to contact them had met with their people never returning, so they stopped trying.
“I should report this to the General. You’re welcome to come along.”
“I’ll pass. Instead, do you mind if we help clear the bodies? My people have a better way to store the dead for later revival. Oh, speaking of that, is there a graveyard? We should probably recover anyone there as well.”
The thought of digging up the dead unsettled Avery, but if it meant the missing soldiers could be brought back, he didn’t see the harm.
He had the lieutenant lead Gabriel and his people to the cemetery. After that, he hopped into a surviving armored truck and hurried back to base to report this new development.
