Chp.28: Eliminating other humans

General Yvon felt that something had gone wrong. His instincts told him so. His instincts and the fact that he had heard a loud noise coming from the Arapaina Gorge.

Following Carrion's order, Yvon had gathered as many men as possible two weeks earlier and headed up the west side of the ravine. Unfortunately, in such a short time he had only managed to gather four hundred of them, and their equipment was not of the best; but they would have been enough to send the beastmen into chaos. Yvon had camped in a small rocky hollow just half a mile from the western entrance to the gorge; there he could easily hide and therefore was the perfect point from which to launch a surprise attack.

In the Carrion's plan, Yvon would have to wait until a messenger notified him that the battle had begun, and consequently he would have taken his men and headed for the gorge to then attack the beastmen from behind and cut their swords. retreat, driving them against the enemy army to get them slaughtered. However, Yvon and the whole camp heard a loud rumble coming from the gorge, similar to distant thunder. The trouble is, that thunder didn't seem to come from the sky... but from underground.

Yvon was hardly an expert on the subject, but he felt he could safely say that thunder didn't come from below. Something else must have happened. And unfortunately he was sure that this was not due to the human army: if that explosion was part of the plan, why hadn't anyone warned him? And why did he still not see any messengers? Or even just a signal? No, that roar was surely the result of something that went beyond Carrion's expectations. Yvon was sure it was caused by the beastmen army. But then what had they done? And how was the human army handling the situation?

Yvon had sent some scouts to check the situation, but none of them had returned. By then it had become clear to him that something had gone hopelessly wrong. And apparently, it had gone wrong enough that even Carrion still hadn't fixed the situation after quite some time. For Yvon this was unthinkable. Carrion was a legendary level, how could he be defeated or even held by inferior beastmen? However, there was no other explanation for the high royal general's silence and the fact that the scouts never returned. Maybe Carrion hadn't been defeated yet, but he sure was having a bad time. Very, very bad. And if Carrion was doing badly, the rest of the army was probably doing even worse.

In such a context, the decision to make was only one and extremely simple: flee. While Yvon was loyal to Carrion, his first job as an army officer was to make sure that all of his men (or at least most of them) returned home safely. If indeed the enemy was so dangerous that even Carrion and his army of five thousand soldiers were having trouble, then for Yvon and his meager handful of four hundred men to enter the fray would be courting death. The best thing to do at that point was to leave; if Carrion ultimately won, Yvon would accept his punishment as a deserter, but until then he wouldn't endanger the lives of his soldiers.

From his current location and with the Arapaina Gorge unapproachable, it would have taken Yvon days if not weeks to get back to the work camps, but that didn't matter as he'd discounted that option regardless. The beastmen had clearly come to free their comrades, so going back there would be suicide. Even if he were miraculously able to return and organize a defense in time, how could Yvon triumph over an enemy that even Carrion had failed against? It was just a ridiculous thought. So, much more cleverly, Yvon had chosen to head west, towards the nearest city with a river and a port, and then embark to go as far away as possible. Then he would wait for further news and, once he received it, he would act accordingly.

That was the way a general reasoned after all. Throwing himself headlong into a battle already lost or with an uncertain outcome was foolish and only led to the deaths of dozens if not hundreds of men. A good general was someone who knew when was the moment to put aside his pride and retreat, regroup and wait for a more propitious opportunity.

And so, Yvon had given the order to dismantle the camp. Someone might have thought that perhaps it would have been better to leave immediately, but Yvon knew that was not the case: at the moment the enemy was not aware of his presence there, but if after the battle he sent scouts to patrol the perimeter, they would surely found the tents and the remains of the camp. Once this was done, they would understand that someone had escaped the fight and by following the tracks they could easily track them down. It was unlikely that they would choose to pursue them, but it was possible that the beastmen's hatred of humans was enough to convince them to do so. Therefore, it was best to erase any sign of their previous presence there.

"Are you sure of your decision?"

Yvon looked up from the dimensional bag in which he was storing his belongings and saw that the person who had just spoken was a tall, slender man, younger than himself, wearing the uniform of a lower-ranking officer. His name was Terance Dornn. He was her second and a friend of hers for several years. He was an intelligent man, and as a result he already understood both the situation (as opposed to many soldiers who still wondered about the reason for their commander's strange orders) and the consequences it would have, and indeed one could see a worried expression on his face. "I didn't make that decision lightly" Yvon replied. "This is the best course of action we have at the moment"

"It could cost you your life"

"I know"

"If we leave now, Carrion could have you hanged for desertion"

"I'll take the risk. Throwing ourselves into a battle with an uncertain outcome and of which we know nothing is a much greater danger. If Carrion should come looking for me tomorrow... who cares. My life isn't worth that of four hundred people"

"What if the enemy chases us?"

"It won't if we hide our tracks well. And we will hide them very well"

"What if..."

"With the 'ifs' we go nowhere, Terance. I've made up my mind. Stop trying to dissuade me"

Terance fell silent. He knew that Yvon was right and that there was literally no other logical path forward but escape. Things like honor and courage were useless if you went head-on against the enemy; the only respect that could be obtained in such a situation was that due to the dead. Therefore, he agreed that it was appropriate to escape. But he still couldn't accept that Yvon should take all the blame, even though he knew there was no other way.

But before he could say anything, something tumbled at his feet. He just had time to look down to see a strange hexagon-shaped object; an instant later, the object exploded. Both Terance and Yvon were hit by powerful air magic that generated a wind so strong that their bodies were crushed as if a catapult had hurled a stone at them. Bones snapped, including those in the skull, and the brain was reduced to a pulp. Within a second, the leader and deputy leader of that small handful of men were dead, essentially leaving them without directives.

The mighty wind traveled faster than the speed of sound and literally blew the tent from the inside, pelting everything in its path. The soldiers saw it coming and used their mana to defend themselves, but for those near the epicenter it was already too late. The wind traveled in all directions making a noise so loud that the sound vibrations alone would have been enough to collapse the internal organs if the soldiers had not protected them with mana. Tents, objects and everything in its path were blown away as if they were made of paper and catapulted hundreds of meters away.

No one understood what had just happened; all the soldiers were in an extremely confused state. They were waiting for their superiors to tell them something, but they had just been killed by that sudden wind. The army had a highly hierarchical structure: soldiers were used to obeying orders without thinking for themselves, since that was the way they were trained. This was useful if you were in battle, as everyone could quickly obey any order they received without contesting it. A side effect of such training, however, was that in the absence of orders they didn't know what to do and went into a crisis. Even though they still had a lot of experience behind them, and if they had cooperated they could still have protected themselves effectively, none of them dared to take the lead. And with no one in charge, everyone else stood still like foolish sheep, barely drawing their weapons to defend themselves.

A second gust of wind blew across the camp, then another, and another. The soldiers were continuously hit by a wall of air that traveled with the force of a hurricane. Very quickly, the weaker soldiers began to give way, and finally they could no longer stand the wind and were killed by it. If they had collaborated they could have supported each other to defend themselves, but unfortunately by now everyone was thinking for themselves. Without an officer, those soldiers were lost. In total, within about five minutes, the camp was gone, and the number of soldiers still standing had dwindled from four hundred to less than two hundred.

It was then that they saw her. A lizardman appeared on a rock, and while humans weren't good at gendering other races, it was pretty clear this was a female. She was holding two daggers that appeared to be extremely sharp. She raised both of them and dropped her mouth, yelling: "Attack!"

In an instant, roars arose around what had until a few minutes before been a fully functional military camp and several beastmen appeared from all directions, surrounding the humans. There were only about forty of them, but when they fell upon humans they demonstrated that each of them possessed tremendous strength. To top it off, they were also very clever and at an advantage. First, many of the humans, while still alive, were badly injured and unable to defend themselves. Secondly, many of those who could still wield weapons were out of mana by now. Thirdly, the beastmen acted in an extremely coordinated way: they attacked the weak subjects, avoided the strong ones, retreated and moved in an extremely fluid way. It was clear that their aim was to eliminate all humans who were still weak to prevent them from regrouping. And unfortunately they succeeded very well: two minutes after their appearance, no beastmen were still dead, while another hundred humans had already been eliminated without having the opportunity to defend themselves.

By now there were only a hundred men left, but while they still possessed the numerical advantage, they were still helpless due to lack of coordination. Even those who tried to fight often ended up getting in each other's way. Someone tried to take the initiative, driven by necessity, and tried to order his companions to assemble, but these brave individuals were quickly eliminated by arrows that hit their skulls with incredible precision, killing them instantly. Apparently there were archers stationed around the camp. The archers struck down all the strongest individuals, eliminating them, while the beastmen warriors continued to slaughter the weaker ones. Soon even the last advantage of humans, the number, was lost: from four hundred that were, the men fell to less than forty.

The few survivors were now in a panic. Someone went crazy and tried to lunge at the lizardman who had caused all the ruckus, but even when they managed to avoid the beastmen and the arrows, they still died at the hands of something that seemed to be literally invisible: they simply approached and suddenly their hands were severed by an unknown force, and the lizardman stabbed them in the neck killing them. And all the while, the beastmen and archers continued to take their toll. And in the end, there was no one left.

The lizardman who had unleashed that uproar was none other than Thora. After the army had come within half a day of Arapaina Gorge, Haku had sent his sisters to check the area, suspecting a rear attack; and thus they had discovered Yvon's small hidden army. Obviously Haku had foreseen this possibility months before and had prepared properly: Maldor had in fact created magical objects that he had baptized 'air bombs', capable of generating a very powerful wind. With such items, anyone could halve the number of enemies and send the survivors into chaos; by then, a small group of beastmen could have taken care of them. Thora had volunteered to lead these beastmen; as the wife of their leader she was the most suitable candidate. Zamor had initially objected, but soon changed his mind; Thora suspected it was because he realized that would keep her away from the main battlefield (it was one of the reasons she offered: without her around, Zamor could concentrate on the situation, not protecting her). Haku then had given her Tikka as a bodyguard, who followed Thora constantly remaining invisible and helping her when needed. Thora had only had to send Tikka to plant the air bombs, let them explode, and then lead the beastmen (who obviously drank the dragon's essence) to attack. Though she had only fifty men at her disposal, of which ten were archers, Thora had achieved a total victory. "Warn your sisters" she told Tikka. "Tell them the mission is complete"

Though she couldn't see her due to invisibility, Thora knew instinctively that Tikka had turned away from her. After just a minute she sensed her presence again and heard a whisper in her ear: "Done. I also have news from the rest of the battle. Everything is going well. Your husband has almost completely exterminated all remaining humans, and there is no doubt that he too will achieve a total victory"

Thora just nodded. "So, now the outcome of the battle depends exclusively on Haku and Carrion" she murmured looking at the corpses on the ground.