3.3.17.4. Hail'varan - Part 3
To depict an Archangel, we chose "Archangel Michael" artwork
Source: sinclairnegretes.blogspot.com
The supernatural bird from the world of spirits apparates, knows its target at once and attacks straight at the devil, continuing their delayed clash. The two wrestle in the air, mustering all their strength in a fierce close combat.
Meanwhile, a double surprise takes place. The Allied Forces Cavalry launches a surprise attack on the Dark Forces’ rear infantry consisting of mostly Sylvanian human soldiers back in the woods. Alas, just when the Alliance is winning, another surprise attack comes from the Gremion Warg (Dire Wolf) Riders. Despite the surprise, the cavalry still put up a splendid fight. Even Galvanir and his fellow elves are like dancing with their horses, moving gracefully as if there’s no gravity.
As time flies, the term ‘size does matter’ finally takes into effect. No matter how skillful, how agile, how superiorly intelligent the Allied Forces are than the opponents, the Dark Forces still have the advantage on more important traits in battle: strength and quantity. With odds of three-to-one, the Allied Forces are soon surrounded with nowhere to escape. Carolyn knows it: This might be her last stand, but they must remain here until reinforcements arrive. She keeps on maintaining contact with her Guardian Spirit while Ney acts as her bodyguard, drowning a group of undead with her famous Tidal Blast spell.
Carol looks desperate now. Here and there, she sees her fellow soldiers kill lots of enemies, then come lots more and kill the soldiers. Some of them scream Vadis’ or Enia’s name with their last breath. Some of them even stare at the young Commander with their deathly, bloody faces and pleading eyes, as though saying, ‘I hope you’re right, Paladin. You said help will come. You said Hail’varan will be our turning point. Now, we’ve given up our lives. Please, don’t let us die in vain.’
This puts Carolyn in the stress of her life. She dragged the army to stand in this place instead of going farther to Myrcalia. If reinforcements don’t come, all her promises will be a lie, and she’ll die carrying all the weight of guilt and souls of the entire army, being a laughing stock in hell. She gets more desperate when she sees Aegis can’t finish Arachus off with its summoning time running to an end. Moreover, Ney is now fighting hand-to-hand with two orcs and two goblins and gets hurt in the process.
Suddenly, another goblin comes from the other side with his javelin thrusting straight towards Carol’s throat. The sorceress parries and runs her trident into her attacker’s torso. Just then a skeleton warrior and two werewolves attack her! She kicks the dead goblin to take her trident off, evades a werewolf’s claw and chops the skeleton’s head off.
More enemies come to her and Carol is now overwhelmed. Just then, in the midst of fight she hears footsteps marching from the west. The ground is shaking, the gallops rumbles, befitting a great army. And then, the rumbles come into a halt.
Carol finishes her attackers off and takes a good look to the west. There are armies wearing red, green and blue uniforms, waving red, green and blue banners. Their cavalry is in front.
Overly excited, Carol shouts to her troops, ‘Look, my friends! Help has arrived at last!’
The next moment, the incoming army shouts, banging weapons and wave banners. The dark forces are shocked, and the Alliance is energized. A man comes forward wearing shiny, full plate armor, riding a blazing red griffin. Seeing through his open visor, we know at once that he’s the Heir of Vadis, Cristophe Deveraux, Emperor Sage the Fifth of Arcadia. He raises the Sword of Justice high, pulling the reins so Acavela the griffin stands on two hind feet and charges forward!
Full of energy, still shouting, the cavalry gallops behind him. Carol moves aside, taking advantage from the undead’s surprise, finds a safer place and takes a better look at the reinforcements, looking for someone.
The Paladins have arrived! Here they are: Kyflynn, Agustina, Desmond, Adler, Hernan, Eidos, Dejan, Chris and... Thank goodness! Rob is here too! Thank you, Vadis! Thank you, Enia! Thank you... Chiel, wherever you are now...
Five minutes later, Carol sees Robert coming for her, finishing off the zombies she is fighing, and her joy is complete. Overcame with fatigue, Carol staggers and falls. Robert catches her on his lap, saying, ‘Carol! Are you okay?’
The pink-haired sorceress forces a smile and says, ‘I’m a-okay, thanks to this pendant I have. I’m just glad you came. Thank you.’
‘And thank you for holding on until we arrived. You are the true hero in this battle.’
‘Ha-ha, just when I was about to become the culprit who wasted a whole army with a wrong strategy.’ The sorceress gets up from Rob’s lap, readies her trident and points to the front with her chin. ‘Well, we can save the chit-chats for later, now we have plenty of enemies to kill.’
Seeing Carolyn full of fighting spirit and her cute, energetic face, Rob curls up his rare smile.
==oOo==
Meanwhile, Aegis’ summoning time is up and it dissolves before it can finish the opponent off. The opponent, Arachus floats straight with a pose mocking his opponent’s inferiority as a spirit.
Now where’s that little sorceress... The Archdevil looks everywhere and finds the tides of battle changing. Reinforcements from Arcadia, Lore and Escudia, about eighty thousand men strong charge on the Dark Forces like a storm. Plus the Paladins, who are said to be as strong as a thousand men each, now Arachus’ army is in major disadvantage.
Here and there the Dark gets beaten. Here and there they fell.
Arachus knows it at once: all his plans are foiled and he’s going to pay the price. And now the Heir of Vadis is right in front of him now, challenging him to a duel.
‘I didn’t expect to see you here now,’ says the devil. ‘Shouldn’t you be somewhere else, fighting to avenge your brother?’
‘The fighting and the grudge have been settled, and I still have enough time to get here and ruin all your plans,’ Chris answers. ‘This time I’m bringing along an old friend who wants to settle an old score with you. An Avariel Aschi!’
Lifting his sword, Chris summons Avariel. The six-winged Archangel now apparates. He looks a bit wounded and war-torn, but otherwise still strong enough to fight. At the sight of his sworn enemy, Avariel points his sword Aschinova and says, ‘Arachus.’
Wasting no word upon their extreme differences, the Archdevil shouts, ‘Avarieelll!’ and attacks with his scythe, the Crow! The Archangel also takes off, and both weapons clash! The impact of the extreme light and dark energy pushes both duelists a few meters away from each other, showing that they are equally matched. Avariel fights and sings his sword’s name at the same time, making a song of it. The Aurelian Common Language translation of this song is as follows:
Aschinova, Aschinova
Brighter than the North Star,
Bringing light that the dark fear
Aschinova, Aschinova
Together, gracefully we dance
Like sweethearts deep in romance
Aschinova, Aschinova
So divine, pure like Aurora
Banishing evil like Supernova
And so on. The two supernatural creatures clash again, continuing their fight which, as legends stated, has been going on for centuries, even before the time of Fireheart.
Seeing that, Chris just doesn’t feel right to interrupt that fight. He just sends a flare signal upwards. Just then comes a new wave of reinforcements: the Arcadian Griffin Riders.
‘Come, my comrades!’ Chris shouts. ‘We’ll help the Aurora and the air units! Follow me!’
He flies to the east, and the griffin riders, about two hundred strong follow their leader.
==oOo==
The fresh troops, reinforcements for the Alliance really turn the tide of battle around. The Orc Khan Hagnorj sounds the retreat and the orcs and goblins withdraw, leaving their so-called allies, the undead behind.
The beastly monsters and the undead know no retreat, no fear. They just press on with their wild attacks, as fierce as ever before they are all slain to the last creature.
The Alliance cavalry charges into the woods. The swiftness and ferocity of their attack surprises the Sylvanian troops and wolf riders. Never did they expect to engage fresh troops, now they are winning against the weary ones. No matter how ready they are, no one can stop the Paladins in full numbers and strength.
Dashing with his faithful steed Paeldagrin, Robert is like a soul reaper, sweeping through lots of enemies with his shadowy move, Black Dragon Soulstealer. The quick-on-foot Kyflynn does some Backstabs, rivaling Robert in the number of kills. Dejan in wolf form kills several wolves which mistake him for their own kind, and Hernan goes straight, attacking the Rear Commander, the masked lich.
The lich unleashes her magic to meddle with Hernan’s brain, but the Escudian fencer comes prepared. He closes his eyes, shielding himself from hypnotism with thick water aura around his head and lets his well-honed instinct guide his seasoned limbs. His mind pinpoints his target’s position with aura detection, and moves in hyper-speed with his sword – a combination of slashes and thrusts circling all directions so the target can’t escape: Maelstrom Serenade.
Desperate, the lich moves back to evade the attack, but the rain of swords still comes. She parries some of the blows with the Viper Cane and absorbs some more with her body, taking damage. A blow goes straight to her face. She ducks to evade it and the blow goes right above her face. The lich moves farther back and suddenly, her mask splits in two pieces and falls off her face. She realizes it at once and, covering her face, she turns away and flees, shouting curses with her snake-ish voice.
‘Damn you, Paladins, I’ll get you for thissss!!!’
The Paladins pursue her, and just as Kyflynn is about to catch up with the lich, suddenly something swoops down from the sky, breaking trees on its path. It’s the black dragon, Omegron! The lich leaps onto the dragon’s head, and both lich and dragon fly away until they’re out of sight.
With all their leaders fleeing, the wolf riders, orcs and Sylvanians are driven into a hasty retreat. The Paladins keep on pursuing the enemies all the way into the woods. They do a thorough sweeping in the area, exterminating any enemy they meet and the enemies who surrender are taken prisoner – humans, orcs and goblins alike. The Light Side claims a decisive victory on the ground battle.
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