Raekal
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Band OL
King of Manetheren
Posts: 291
(3/6/07 7:39 pm)
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Division and Blood
With the sun hanging low in the western sky, nearing the mountain's glimmering edges, slicing through the radiant orange and pink clouds with rays of dying light, Saker rode. Behind him stretched a column of epic porportions, men riding seven abreast and snaking their way back for the better part of a mile. Over three thousand men came here, high above the shattered remnants of the once mighty city of Fal Dara. The ruins lay to the north over a short wasted expanse of land, blackened and burnt and twisted. Here and there the black skeletons of an old homestead reached for the sky amidst the ashes of what had once been it's farm.
Saker knew, without going closer and looking through the ashes, that bones would be found within those walls. The attack had come swiftly, and without warning, in the middle of the night. As Saker had heard it, the Halfmen themselves had slain the sentries, swept through the land, and set fires to these homes. Fires that had swelled and spread unnaturally, jumped from place to place, and only gotten angrier when men through water on it. Behind them, he had been told, had come the hordes.
Unstoppable and so many as to turn the very hillside black, they had poured down the way at Fal Dara, and only just had the defenders held. The city lay mostly in ashes now, the walls battered and bloodied after the long battles raged on their surface. Men, raggard, worn, exhausted, ran from place to place, trying to fight fires and Trollocs, help the wounded, and save their own sanity.
Saker and the Band had come to the Gap too late. The Shienarans were in a state of near panic, fearing that the end had come at last, that they were to fall here and be wiped from existence. But even then, they showed a stone-cold determination to take as many of the blasted Shadowspawn as they possibly could.
Saker turned away for a moment. THe column had come to a halt, banners and spears upright in the still air. Their armor gleamed, their horses pranced, fresh and catching the scent of blood on the wind. Saker let his eyes drift close for a moment. He knew then that the battle could indeed be fruitless. That the end had indeed come. That here, the Band would be swallowed by the Shadow once more. But in his own heart, he knew that if that were to be so, the Band would live up to it's old reputation, and become, once more, a thorn to the Dark One.
He thought of Alaren, prayed that she was safe, and was slightly glad that she was not here to see this. To see the rows of catapults and trebuchets the Shadowspawn had constructed, the masses of Trollocs that even know milled about, waiting their turn to try to take the walls. Was glad that she could not smell the stink of blood and battle, smell the stench of the rotting trollocs wafting up the hillside to his small group. He remembered brieftly the smell of crushed rose petals in her hair, heard her sweet laugh, saw for a moment her bright eyes. Returned to him in her entirety to be stolen away again. He concentrated on the Bond, muffled and dim as it was, shut out the site of the blackened land of death before him, and remembered their colorful, light room, the scent of her.. the feel.. everything about her.
Then his eyes opened, and the sound rushed in.
"Sir?" Saker glanced to his side at the aide that stood there. "Your orders, sir?"
Saker nodded briefly. He was in his full traditional armor, silver breastplate and silver plates on his legs, with his gauntlets pulled over his hands. In his right hand he held his lance, it's red tassle dangling limply in the dead air. His helm, gleaming and bright, angled back over his neck and cut short on the sides, where the fins from his breastplate rose up high on either side of his neck. His eyes, dark and fierce as ever, gleamed from within his mask of steel.
"Men of Manetheren," he spoke loudly, clearly. "We will not win this field. Do not delude yourselves and think we will. But we will bleed this enemy, and we will bleed them hard for every step of ground they have took. For every man that falls, thirty beasts will bleed out their lives. For every foot of ground lost, another twenty will fall, wailing in terror. We will show them the face of fear, the face of defiance, and the HEART of men!" The men cheered, raising their lances and shaking them in the sky.
Saker turned his horse, looking back down at the city. THe catapults were firing another volley, leaving burning greasy streaks across the sky as the projectiles flew before crashing into walls, houses, bouncing through streets, spreading death and chaos. The Trollocs surged forward, throwing themselves up seige ladders and scaling the stone walls. Desperate defenders ran to the battle, screaming and fighting.. and dying.
Saker raised his lance, and the column moved, shifting and adjusting, spreading out, changing smoothly from what they had been to a battle line, bristling with steel and death. Then the lance dropped, and the line went forward in a great rush.
Saker set heels to his horse, closing his eyes and willing that his plan would work, and that he was not throwing away the lives of these men... and his own.
The king should have arrived by now on the other side, ready to come in with a pincer movement and push the trollocs back from the walls. As soon as they had accomplished this, mainly through surprise and sheer force, the Asha'man with the Band would open gateways into the city, and through these forty-thousand of the best men, both Shienarans and Banders, would come, lining up behind the gates while the men, and women and children, still living within the walls fled. The cavalry would withdraw to the city, falling back behind the lines of infantry waiting, and the Asha'man would throw their force against the Shadowspawn as well.
Alaren's face danced through his mind, his heart settling over the bond, pushing through the fog his undeniable love for her, his unconditional surrender to her heart, and his desire to see her one more time before he died. Then the line closed with the Trollocs, and all became death, mayhem, chaos, and bloodied carnage.
(Raekal Dunshain) -- First Stormleader Asha'man
Bonded to Brenna Selanos
(Saker Mandell) -- King of Manetheren
(Seia Vron) -- Asha'man
(Tristan Du'saa) -- Gaidin in Training
(Kerin Lizaile) -- Aes Sedai of the Blue Ajah |
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