Olimpia

Terrance swung his steel mace, deforming the chest of one beastkin and sending him flying into three more. Stepping forward, the knight drove the pointed tip of the weapon into the skull of another, caving in the creature's face and turning his snarl into a smile.

Careful not to put so much force into the strike that it would drive his weapon completely through the beastkin's skull again, the Olimpian lifted his leg and kicked out, sending the body tumbling down a small ditch into more of the onrushing creatures. Lashing out with a few more strikes to his flanks, breaking arms and caving in chests to clear his immediate area, the young man took a moment to look around.

"To me!" He roared, overcoming the clamor of battle with his voice. "Fix the damn line! Gather on me!"

At his words, the battered and bloodied men surged forward again, cutting down the beastkins in their path to close the bulge in their line for who knew how many times. Honestly, Terrance was kind of surprised at the intensity of the militia's response as they charged forward. Then again, they were fighting for their lives.

Feeling the bodies enter his sphere of perception, the knight kicked his foot against the ground, scraping his heel over the earth. Sending a stream of psy through and out of his leg, three spikes of compressed earth as large as his forearm shot out of the ground, skewering the leading edge of the once again advancing wolves.

If you were looking at the number of spikes, it was a minor attack. However, that wasn't why Terrance did it. Instead of having a clear line of advance, the wolves now had screaming companions distracting them. Obstacles blocking their path that would give the already battered militia an advantage and more time to prepare. More importantly, it gave him the time and confidence to turn and leap into the air, taking a chunk of the earth with him.

Angling his leap toward the emergency pulse message that signaled another breach in the line, the knight quickly scanned the battle raging beneath him. With a flick of his wrist as expelling some psy, Terrance deflected the scattering of half-hearted spears thrown up at him, then adjusted his fall, placing the torso-sized, wedge-shaped block of stone under his feet.

For a moment, it was like everything froze around him, and Terrance had suspended himself in the air. The fridgian knight was positioned between what was an embarrassment of an earthwork and thousands of beastkins attempting to overwhelm the defenders in the cold embrace of late night.

Just after midday, everyone wanted to continue marching, as no wolves were in sight and even the birds seemed to have given up chasing them. However, their reality dictated that they had no choice but to stop and make camp near one of the wells periodically placed alongside the road. Men and women were literally passing out mid-step, and far more were having their lower bodies cramp up from exhaustion, making them unable to continue.

Terrance and the Red Hand mercenaries tried to set up some level of defenses, expecting an attack to come, but there was only so much they could do without entirely exhausting themselves. A simple three-foot-deep and four-foot-wide trench, with the excavated dirt placed on the inside of the ditch around their disorganized camp, was all that could be managed before most collapsed into exhausted slumber.

In a far too short a time, the howls of their pursuers could be heard all around them, as bands of wolves, each numbering in the hundreds, trickled in. Many were pulled from their rest at the noise, but only long enough that they weren't being attacked before slumping back to the ground for a bit more sleep.

The knight knew his far too fleeting moments of sleep weren't as restful, refreshing, or long as he would have wished. Sure, the four hours of sleep corroded the majority of the ever-present tension and weight pulling him down, but that just made the reality he awoke to all the more crushing.

Still, even as they were surrounded, he did not order the man woken up. The beastkins showed no signs of attacking, and at this point, they had no other choice but to wait. They needed the knights to blast a hole through the enemy's line, and preferably, Justinian would wake up and be at their head.

No one was happy to camp around the well and wait, but with at least another day of marching before they could reach the edge of the plateau and their need to rest, there was no other choice at this point. And that was exactly what happened for most of a day, as both sides warily watched each other, knowing what was going to occur sooner than later.

As the sun rapidly approached the horizon, even those in the deepest depths of slumber became unable to sleep due to the tension suffusing the air, as all the beastkins started to stir. It did not take much thought to figure out that the birdkins darting around the different groups were relaying the message to prepare for battle.

All on their own and with dogged determination, the militia gathered in ranks around the camp perimeter. For anyone who had seen an entire legion deployed, the defenders' ranks were a paltry sight, as the formation had no more than four ranks at any point. The mercenaries were stretched even thinner, but with their abilities, no one was concerned that they would break before the militia.

Not that the militia breaking at any one place would spell disaster for the Olimpians, because standing behind them, holding everything from rocks to the occasional spear, were the women of Ironhold and Basetown. Even as their eyes burned with determination, the sour stench of fear was wafting off them. Yet, not one person faltered or considered running, as everyone had at least heard what occurred in Basetown, and the survivors boiled with the desire for vengeance.

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Living the extra months of one tragedy after another could be a blessing to some, a curse to others, but no one seemed willing to lie down and accept the fate the beasts had in mind. When they finally charged, howling their joy into the fading light, the Olimpians screamed back their defiance and threw back their foes. Then they did it again after the sun fell, and the charge after that when the dark moon was high in the sky, until finally, it was so late into the night that you could feel dawn approaching, and still they were fighting under the light of lanterns and the occasional glowstones, resting in the all to brief moments of peace.

The world burst back into motion, and Terrance felt the stone beneath him buck and shift as the beastkins below tried their best to stop his descent with their weapons. Of course, they failed, and he ensured that he had the momentum to crush them as he landed.

As his stone wedge settled, the knight terra flexed his will within the psy-infused stone, propelling the earthen stars he formed at the wide end outward. In his view, it was a pathetic attack. With the time he had leaping into the air, he should have been able to carve out the center of the stone and form stars within from base to tip, leaving only a one-inch shell to keep the wedge stable.

Then there was the speed at which he fired the projectiles. At his full strength, they should have torn through the first rank of beastkins, maybe even the second, and wounded those behind. What he just performed was barely enough to seriously injure those directly in the stone stars' paths while killing only those who were unlucky enough to get struck in the eyes and throat.

The attack did stall the beastkins' charge, both from the impacts arresting their forward momentum and how their injured screamed, falling to their knees while they processed the overwhelming pain and their looming deaths. Except every shout that tore from their throats just emphasized how tired he really was, but the knight didn't dwell on it long. He couldn't.

His sphere of perception supplied information on everything within seven yards, allowing the knight to dart off toward a clump of six beastkins that had been in a position that happened to avoid most of the projectiles without the need to look around to gain his bearings. In two quick steps, he was amidst the beasts, and decided to go with a trusted and true method of attack.

His steel-encased fist impacted the side of a beastkin's head, dropping him to the ground. Without looking, his right hand lashed out downward, and his mace crushed the knee of a beastwoman, causing her to collapse and fall to the side, screaming.

His arm twitched for a moment as he thought of finishing her off, but he decided against it and instead stepped onto her writhing form, pushing forward. The beastkin had dropped her weapon and didn't look like she would pose a risk before the militia could finish her off, so he had more pressing concerns.

Terrance's third target had started to turn to confront him, but the knight's left hand lashed out and grabbed the beastskin's elbow, stopping his turn. Taking a moment to line up his shot, he punched out again with his mace-wielding hand, crushing the beastkin's shoulder with his enhanced strength. The attack would not incapacitate the creature for long, but it wasn't intended to.

The strike was meant to force the wolf back a step, or three, which it did. Steps that took him right into the back of two of his comrades, one male and one female. In the tangle of flailing limbs, the legionaries they were fighting used the opportunity to cut them and the last remaining of the group down before rushing forward to reestablish their original battleline.

For his part, the knight had already turned and started steadily marching forward, lashing out with wide swings on each side, beating back those who had pushed past the injured from his landing. His swings met air more often than they met flesh, but that was all part of his plan.

By this point, the beastkins had learned to fear, or at least respect, the power of knights. A seemingly casual blow from them would crush a ribcage if it were allowed to land, and the wolves knew it. Every time he started to swing at one, they would leap back and stumble over themselves to avoid it.

After five swings and as many steps, the beast no longer had anywhere to run, as those at their backs were pushing them forward. When Terrance swung at a beastkin on his left, a pair on his opposite side came rushing forward, in an attempt to knock him down. From the fear hiding within their eyes, they knew they were still in as much danger as the one facing his mace, yet they still came, and for that, the knight had to at least respect them.

He might have had respect, but that didn't mean he considered them a threat. With a thought, a pair of spikes unhooked themselves from his belt and shot out at the end of tendrils, slipping past the beastkins defenses and burying themselves in their necks. As he pulled the weapons back from the dead, an arrogant voice snarled, "Are you proud of yourself, slaughtering the newly Enlightened? How about fighting a real warrior?"

Whipping around to face the larger-than-normal void rushing at him, Terrance moved to lift his weapon, only for it to stop halfway up as something impacted it. Blinking, his tired eyes focused on the newly formed wall that appeared in front of him, only realizing he was looking at the scarred chest of a wolfkin a moment later. Head tilting up, the Olimpian saw a grinning muzzle of a particularly bestial beastkin that had lowered to sniff at his head, but that wasn't what concerned the Olimpian.

The beast's entire body was glowing a faint blue, and that fact caused a tremor of fear to run through him. "I hope you are at least a good fighter." Grunted the wolf before the haze around his body thickened. For the first time in the entire battle, the knight was pushed onto the back foot as the pressure on his mace more than doubled, causing it to slowly lower.

Releasing the trapped weapon, Terrance stepped forward to punch the beastkin in the chest, who lazily slid out of the way. "You lack skill and power," snorted the wolfkin in disdain.

Terrance only saw the wolf's body twitch before he noticed that the wolf's arm was now stretched out and receding. He tried to breathe, but the massive fist that was closer to a war hammer that had struck his chest had blasted out all of the air within his lungs. Though that was a minor concern, as the knight found himself tumbling over the ground and through his militia.

When he finally came to a stop, he lifted his head, his vision spinning for a few seconds before snapping into focus. The sight that greeted the knight was a path littered with the groaning bodies of Olimpians, and the wolf sauntering down its middle, reveling in his dominance.

"Is this the power of Olimpians!?" He shouted, only for the glow around him to flicker a moment later, causing a frown to appear on the beastkin's face. Grunting and shaking his head, the glow around him returned, and he continued speaking. "Well, at least you are durable. Still, pathe— blurg…" Blood spurted from the beast's mouth as a bar of ice sprouted from his chest, pinning him to the ground with his feet still touching the earth.

Letting his head fall back for a moment of rest, Terrance released a tired smile as he sighed, "About damn time you woke up."