Chapter 243: The Shaman’s Gift and the Riverfront
The icy waters of the Crocodile River reflected the advance of the Golden Rose Realm’s vanguard. Leading a column of two hundred heavy infantrymen, the Recon Captain advanced, flanked by Deathshot, who kept an arrow notched in his bowstring.
"The terrain is ideal for an ambush, Captain," warned Deathshot, scanning the rocky crests of the Ash Valley. "If the savages have half a brain, they’ll wait for us as we cross the riverbed."
"Let them try," replied the Captain with disdain, adjusting his bronze shield. "Our shield wall is impenetrable to minor magic and the crude arrows of these tribes."
Before he could give the order to ford the river, a shadow blocked out the winter sun.
Diving straight through the clouds at speed, Little Green swept down. Kellar, standing firm upon the winged reptile’s back, unlatched the chest Lennis had provided, drew the first three fragmentation grenades, and dropped them in a dive right onto the center of the enemy formation.
"Aerial attack! Shields up!" roared the Captain, reacting on instinct.
The Golden Rose soldiers raised their interlocking shields into a bronze testudo formation. However, they had no concept of the physics behind Lennis’s invention. The metal spheres slammed against the shield surface, triggering the impact fuses.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The grenades detonated in a roar of incandescent shrapnel and compressed air blasts. The shield wall was blown to splinters. The air filled with shrieks of panic, smoke, and flying bronze shards that shredded heavy armor like parchment, leaving dozens of soldiers dead or maimed on the spot.
Deathshot rolled through the snow to dodge the shockwave, looking up with wide eyes at the carnage in his vanguard.
"Fire!" echoed Brak’s voice from the opposite riverbank.
Lined up along the natural cover of the shoreline, the fifty Overlord tribe soldiers squeezed the triggers of their repeating rifles. A hail of Windstone-infused bullets swept through the enemy’s shattered ranks before they could recover from the aerial strike. Simultaneously, from the flanking cliffs, the rapid strike teams led by Lupar, Marty, and Thorin opened crossfire, picking off enemy officers and crossbowmen one by one.
Kellar wheeled Little Green around in midair, staring down at the panic in the wounded Captain’s eyes while the remaining three grenades rested inside the chest.
"Welcome to the Overlord tribe’s territory," whispered Kellar with a smile, priming the second volley.
Without giving them a second to reorganize their formation, Kellar banked Little Green into a turn and dived down from the firmament. The whistle of the wind striking the great reptile’s wings sounded like a death sentence to the men of the Golden Rose.
Kellar grabbed the last three grenades from the chest, imbuing them with a trail of fire mana, and released them at an angle toward the vanguard’s rear guard, severing their line of retreat toward the mountain pass.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The three metal spheres detonated almost simultaneously amid the support troops. The blast obliterated their heavy torsion ballistas and tore a crater into the snow filled with fire, shrapnel, and debris. The rear guard was blown skyward, leaving the survivors trapped between the tribe’s crossfire and the wall of incandescent flames.
"Retreat! They’re slaughtering us from the sky and the crags!" shrieked the wounded Captain, dragging himself through the snow as shrapnel shattered his bronze pauldrons.
𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢
"Curse these savages and their monsters!" roared Deathshot, casting one final glare of hatred up at Little Green before firing a smoke screen along the riverbank and grabbing the Captain by his harness to drag him back.
The vanguard soldiers still capable of standing dropped their shields and swords, scattering in a disorganized rout toward the shadows of the forest back toward the Mountain Fortress, leaving behind over a hundred casualties between the dead and wounded.
On the opposite bank, Brak raised his heavy double axe, signaling his men to hold their fire as the gunpowder smoke drifted away over the icy waters of the Crocodile River.
"Ensure no enemy remains on this side!" commanded Brak, securing the perimeter while the squads led by Lupar, Marty, and Thorin descended from the cliffs to sweep the area and salvage the abandoned enemy equipment.
Kellar hovered low over the riverbed, watching the tide of enemy troops in retreat. The initial ambush against the Golden Rose expedition had been a success, but he knew with certainty that General Valerius and Prince Caelen would not hesitate to deploy the full force of their main legion next.
A few kilometers away, on the upper plateau leading to the gorge, the bulk of the Golden Rose Realm’s legion was marching in tight combat formation. At the head of the main contingent, General Valerius, Prince Caelen, and the advisor Varis led the three-thousand-strong column of heavy infantry.
Suddenly, a series of detonations shook the ground beneath their mounts’ hooves. The explosions echoed through the canyon with such violence that several cavalry horses reared up in panic.
"What in the hell was that?" bellowed Caelen, standing up in his stirrups as the echoes of the blasts still rumbled along the slopes.
"That is no conventional elemental magic..." whispered Varis, his brow furrowing as he watched dense plumes of black smoke rise into the sky over the Crocodile River.
"Vanguard, double time! Move to the front!" commanded General Valerius, drawing his steel broadsword and spurring his steed forward. "Cover the recon force!"
The main vanguard battalion, comprising five hundred knights and armored crossbowmen, surged forward at speed down the rocky trail to reinforce Deathshot’s patrol. However, as they rounded the final bend of the gorge, the scene that unfolded before their eyes froze them in horror.
It was not an ongoing battle; it was a slaughterhouse.
The two hundred men of the initial patrol lay decimated upon snow dyed a vivid crimson. High-grade bronze armor was ruptured, twisted, and pierced by incandescent shrapnel. Severed bodies, shields reduced to splinters, and scattered remains covered the riverbed in a nightmare landscape.
Barely a handful of surviving soldiers were trying to crawl toward the forest with missing limbs or faces disfigured by the blasts, as the rain of unseen projectiles from the opposite bank and the cliffs picked off the very last men left standing.
BANG! BANG!
Before the shocked eyes of the reinforcements, two soldiers attempting to rise collapsed headfirst into the snow, struck down by luminous flashes that punched straight through their helmets with precision.
"By the gods!" gasped one of the legion captains, reining in his horse with eyes wide in shock. "What kind of monstrosity attacked our vanguard? They were wiped out in a matter of minutes!"
From above, the distant silhouette of Little Green wheeled majestically through the clouds before vanishing toward the south, leaving the Golden Rose Realm’s legion in a deathly silence, terrified by the destructive power of the Overlord tribe.