Night was about to fall. So far the cold had settled in more seriously than usual even by Savarican standards, especially after the snow began to fall heavily. The yellow and red eyes of the snow beasts and foul creatures glinted in the dying light, as they continued to throw themselves at the lines of Kairok pikemen.
So far they held, the viscount noted grimly as he continued to ride among the lines, helping by clearing away the hardest areas where his mens' lines were most pressed from horseback. So far the long, strong defense line of heavy pikes, short axes, and a few crossbow bolts was doing the job nicely. Not even a pack of armored and armed snow trolls had managed to break the veteran carls, who held on tightly to the hilltop.
But the battlefield was changing, the viscount noted.
A couple of goblins made a rush at him and his few horsemen. Already Andrew had lost two of his captains, or at least their horses, and hoped the men had been fortunate enough to get back behind the lines.
The dying twilight made the bloody field look like a nightmare now. With the clouds fasting growing and descending even lower, cutting out the red dusk from the sky, the snow began to fall harder, covering the grass, blood, and bodies in a coat of white ice under his horse's feet.
As two of the goblins dashed at his horse, Andrew easily beheaded one of the heedless creatures before it even reached him. The other little wretch managed to dart away after slashing at his foot, leaving a ribbon of blood showing on Andrew's leg. He winced and turned his horse about to face the goblin, and the several other of his small brothers gathered around him.
Charging into the middle of them and swinging as he came, the viscount easily thrust and nearly skewered two at least on his blade. Goblins relied on large number and speed to win their fights, and so they cared little even for personal defense or safety. They weren't hard foes...unless there was enough of them, like that night.
"CURSE YOU!" He shouted hoarsely and deflected a few of the lightening fast little blades, trying to edge his way around to killing another when a snow troll roared from behind him. Another problem.
You went in too deep again, now! Pay attention!
Helmet dripping sweat and water, sword dripping black blood, he quickly turned his horse around, coming to face the beast behind him who was swinging what looked like a massive mace. For the time being he would have to forget the goblins behind him, at least until he found his mounted officers again.
"Blast..." He grit his teeth and charged forward, sword high. The white furred troll bellowed and swung as he came, narrowly missing Andrew's head as he bowed low in the saddle...a blow that would have sent his head flying from his shoulders.
He sat up again quickly and slashed with his longsword at the troll's broad side as he galloped past, grazing his side and drawing blood. Apparently not taking time to feel it, the troll whirled around again and swung surprisingly fast, this time low.
The viscount knew the second his horse went out from under him that things had just gotten bad. Very bad. With a sudden jerk and twist, his horse screamed, and he was thrown bodily from the saddle to land a few yards away, armor and all clanging to the ground. The din filled his ears as the viscount struggled back up again, scrambling frantically for his lost sword.
The wind had now reached a horrific howling, and whether or not it was the fall or the weather or both, the sky and world around him looked black. Only vague shapes and the dim white of the sheet of snow could he see, as he managed to free his sword from where it had been jabbed into the half frozen ground.
The troll's shadow blotted out everything else as he yanked hurriedly on the helm of the longsword, and forced the viscount to tumble back quickly to avoid being trampled underfoot. As the white creature roared and swung at him again, he hit the ground flat on his back and watched the mace fly past inches over his face.
As he struggled to his feet, the viscount had to remember which way the lines of his men were for a moment, before he snatched up his sword again, jerking it from the ground, and made a dash at the troll's large figure.
The troll swung again, and this time the viscount dodged to the side, his slender form narrowly missing getting smashed into the icy ground. Without stopping he dashed up to the troll and thrust the sword as deep as he could into the creature's chest, and had to lurch back quickly as it howled, screeched and swung wildly at him with its empty claw. Landing back on his side with a grunt of pain, he looked up in time to see the troll fall over heavily, back on top of a few yowling goblins.
"God help us..." He muttered and struggled up, feeling a new shock of pain shoot up his arm. Broken? Perhaps. Now holding his sword and arm, he made a weary dash back towards his lines of men.
They were still there. Fighting grimly and once in a while calling up some of the reserve to fill in the line, they held place well. The gray and brown clad men were already half buried in snow, already nearly knee deep and all in the space of a few hours, like some sudden storm had appeared by magic.
He struggled back behind the safety of his lines of pikes, panting and grasping his sword limply in his good hand. Some kind soldier just behind the pikes helped him back and tried to shout something in his ear over the wind. The viscount had to look up at his darkened face and shout at him to repeat himself.
"...We're losing too many...can't hold much longer like this...curse this snow...!!" The heavy carl, his face also bloody, managed to shout into his commander's face. Whether or not he was an officer didn't seem to matter now.
The viscount, his face still hidden inside his family heirloom helmet, nodded weakly. "How many more men?!"
"....Thousand maybe...?!"
"Put them all up on the lines! There can't be much more enemy forces! God help us, they have to run out eventually!" He shook his head, as if shaking the madness from it, and nearly fell over. More generous and but hurried gauntleted hands helped him down to a kneeling position, to rest a moment halfway hidden in the snow, before most hurried back to the front lines and the furious din. The wind kept screaming and the snow kept falling out of the black sky above.
"God help us..." He whispered. How had their world come to this, all of a sudden?
The lines of the strong pikemen were beginning to waver. As darkness fell entirely, the mass of invading creatures pressed harder, redoubling their efforts. By now it was impossible to see who was winning the fight...impossible to tell whether or not the host of enemies was lessening or not. Hoping and praying that in the darkness this host of wretched creatures would be dying off soon.
The wind grew even colder. The viscount struggled up and grimly waded back through the falling snow to his front lines, sword in hand. Noting that the ranks were starting to get thin, he pushed his way up to the front, and took up a place where the line seemed even more spread than most, swinging his sword in place of the pike that should be there. Out of the darkness pairs of glinting eyes would snarl and dash at him, to be driven back or slashed open on his blade.
A pair of the armed little goblin creatures moved forward and started playing with the viscount, trying to get around on either side as best they could, keeping him occupied by one staying out of reach while the other would dash forward and try to cut open his armor. Gritting his teeth, Andrew continued warding them off with quick strokes, though it was a pointless stalemate. They were far too quick for him when he stood his ground.
The carl soldier on his far right went down, dropping his pike and clutching his stomach with a look of agony as he fell into the snow. Turning around quickly, the viscount shouted something for more reinforcements, and turned again to face the goblin wretches.
They were gone.
His eyes narrowed as he glared out into the dark. They were all gone. Not a troll or goblin to be seen in any direction, and the men around him continued grimly watching the darkness too, half surprised, as if the host of enemies had just suddenly retreated. Their howls and snarls, though, could still be heard faintly on the wind, fading back into the darkness and disappearing entirely.
A few cautious, weary cheers went up from the men around him. The viscount himself, under his helmet, grinned a little, weary as he was, and looked around blankly as if still expecting something else to come out of the black. Was it over, the nightmare that it was? The men around him began to move forward a little bit, as if they might give chase, while still others stood back as if considering running back to Kairok now that their job was done.
It took the viscount a moment to clear his questions from his head and focus on his forces. "Keep the line steady!" He called out as best he could over the wind, half successful. "Keep in place, until orders are given!" He looked over his shoulder at the battalions of carl soldiers.
"Keep your lines intact...!"
"THEY COME AGAIN!"
Another scream ripped through the dull din of wind and men, someone shouting half in terror. At the sound of it, the viscount whirled about again, looking back down the slope and into the pure black night.
This time, ghostly white faces and black eyes came up the hill in mass numbers. Very quickly.
The viscount managed to get out one word before they hit them.
"NORNS!!!" He shouted, and was about to order the lines to move back...when they struck with five times the speed of any goblin host.
Cloaked and robed in icy bluish white, their very faces as pale as the snow, the snow elves ripped a hole into the bewildered Savarican carls before they knew what hit them. Scores upon scores of white, expressionless faces, icy scimitars and silent hatred literally crashed over them like a wave.
The viscount only managed to see what seemed like a dozen of his white enemies suddenly spring out of the very snow before he was instantly lost in a sea of them, slashing madly and fighting for his life. The lightening fast elves made not a sound, even as they died, but slashed, thrust and hacked with expert skill. Andrew also noticed strangely, in the middle of it, that the snow elves could walk and run with ease on top of the snow as if by magic, while he and his men fought knee deep in it.
If his lines were still holding, he had no idea where and how. It was all chaos now. Gritting his teeth, the young viscount fought crazily, parrying blow after raining blow of the slashing scimitars and unable to strike back with stumbling frantically to defend himself. His cloak was by now so tattered and ripped that he looked like a ghost himself, or something like it, splattered with black and red blood and armor half torn off in various places. He fought off two or three of the vicious elves in front of him, constantly turning around to slash frantically at some sly Norn who would try to sneak behind. Several times he felt the light scimitars cut into his back. He was fast, but not nearly as fast as these inhuman creatures.
How long it lasted, the viscount had no idea. In fact, he didn't even remember sounding the retreat. Vague images reached his mind of men, shouting and crying out retreat orders, running away from the battle in different directions. As soon as the lines broke, the men fled, regardless of orders. Goblins and trolls that could bleed and die were one thing, and even in the unnatural darkness and cold they could handle them. But Norns, a small army of them, actually in Savarica itself, and fighting like creatures from the underworld right before their eyes was just too much for the strongest of them. The retreat was far more like a mass rout, a test to see who could run for their lives the fastest. Whether or not because of their numbers or for some unknown act of pity, the Norn hunters didn't give much chase. Occasionally one of the white hunting elves would be seen in the snow, running down some unlucky man to slaughter, but mostly the men disappeared into the dark, left alone after they were broken.
The viscount only caught a few scenes as he fled, and remembered fewer. He remembered turning from the half a dozen or so chasing Norns and at last throwing down his sword and running for his life, casting off his breast plate armor to run faster. He remembered seeing and hearing men shouting and running away in front of him, disappearing into the dark as well. He remembered seeing one man trying to pick up and drag his fallen brother away, but he didn't know if that man had made it or not. Once or twice he saw a white figure of a snow elf, as if appearing randomly by magic before them or perhaps they had run in the wrong direction...he didn't know which. Either way, he ran as fast away from it as he could, not bothering to look behind and see if it chased him.
Over it all, the wind continued screaming, its biting, cold, icy breath chilling the sweat of the fleeing carl soldiers and pushing them as if to run faster. The snow had lessened a little, but by the dropping temperature it seemed like it might turn to solid ice soon. It was getting harder to run in it, the viscount noted, in the unreal nightmare. The snow continued dropping out of the darkness above them on the flying wind, sometimes making the retreating men look half like large Norns themselves as it stuck to them.
It mattered little to the viscount, and to any of his men, where they happened to turn up in the morning. It just mattered to keep running until morning, as if perhaps the nightmare would end once the sun returned. So they kept running, entirely defeated, into the dark and disappearing from sight...from human eyes, at least. The first defense of House Kairok was driven back.
