AO 6 Ch 29

At this point, the armies had met in the field and began to clash. Her own forces shifted to a wedge to protect themselves from the flanking maneuver.
 The right flank had held firm while the left was buckling. Reinforcements rode out from the back, cavalry that swept in and reinforced the left, pushing on the split army's flank and preventing them from driving a wedge and splitting off a piece of her own forces.

And while it seemed they were winning, Gwen could only squint at the maneuver. "Get the cavalry out of there, now," she demanded. "Don't keep them still for too long. Hit and run," she said, watching as they entered the mire of battle, using horses and sabers to push in.

Her worst fear came to pass as a second force, nearly as large as the first, swept in from the side. If they had successfully split off her flank, they would be completely exposed and pinched in at that moment. Instead, her entire cavalry was flat-footed as another army bore down on them. 

She watched the messengers as they ran back and forth to the battlefield. Each one of them were anchors, allowing for speed and helping them stay alive while rushing through the battle.

There was nothing more rewarding to the enemy than killing a messenger and disrupting the troops. The messenger reached the cavalry, and their officer began waving and trying to pull them out and away from the tunneled vision of crushing the foes before them.

She didn't know how they couldn't see the other force bearing down upon them, but that was just the way of war. What was obvious to the generals standing back and watching could be completely invisible to those in the fray.

Gwen tapped her chair impatiently, hoping and praying that the cavalry would be able to pull out.

First one and then two turned, the officer galloping from one soldier to the other, literally grabbing the reins out of their hands and turning their horses around. It was an effort, but once again, the winning factor was momentum.

Once the officer had four horses turned, the fifth and sixth came on their own, rushing to catch up with their fellows that were fleeing from the larger force. Meanwhile, the line that had been nearly pinched off was hunkering down, tightening up, and preparing to fight on two fronts.

Gwen still hesitated. She had an ace up her sleeve, but it wasn't time to pull that out yet. She hadn't seen the full measure of their forces, and until she had, the battle could go completely sideways if they went too early. "Come on," she muttered under her breath. "Show me what you've got." 

Either the enemy or the universe must have heard her.

A small troop of cloaked figures split off from the archers.

She watched them with her own sort of horror. She grabbed a tube, popped the end off, and held it up in the air. That had to be the mages and they needed to be stopped before they stalled her momentum.

She pulled a small string and colored smoke poured out. She held it high, hoping the smoke would rush to the sky. It was as fast as it could be, but it was just smoke, slow but steady, climbing higher. She waited, hoping it was high enough for her father, Anadonis to spot. 

Several of the House Aldis members nearby squinted at the smoke, and then back at her.

Wondering what the smoke meant, Gwen couldn't help but grin. Their trip to Crater Lake had been more fruitful than expected. House Aldis and Strathmore had not crossed paths in recent times, but that didn't stop either side from having some good discussions, particularly on the future of their country. 

The second army and the platoon of mages were there and trying to shear off part of her line.

Bugle horns finally rang out in the distance, and Gwen let out an explosive sigh. Strathmore might be known for their farming, and was certainly lacking in mages, but one thing a farming house did well was amass a vast number of forces. It took many people and many feeder families to keep an agricultural operation the size of a kingdom running. 

Though most of those minor houses attached to Strathmore, or even the cadet families in the minor branches, couldn't rise high in the capital and may not be given much respect, together, House Strathmore was an absolute behemoth. They were a force that should be feared if it ever reared its fangs on the battlefield.

A force nearly the size of the main army came sweeping out of the nearby forest, hemming in the Garrish troops that had joined the fray. The enemy had overcommitted, and there was no way they were going to be able to pull them back out. 

Gwen swept her hand to the side. "Strengthen the left flank, pull our mages, and use the damn anchor messengers if you have to. The left flank needs to stand until House Strathmore's reinforcements make it to the field of battle." 

The old men of House Aldis cheered for only a moment before they went about fulfilling Gwen's orders.

Kelly smirked at her side. "You've been keeping that one in your pocket."

"If I don't keep it in my pocket, how am I supposed to make a show of it? Arden is many things, but he does understand that showmanship has an effect." Gwen stated, watching the battle unfold.

All she could do now was wait to see just what came out of that battalion of mages. 

Gwen set her hands on the wheels of her chair. "Kelly, we should get a closer look."

"Uh-uh. My job is to keep you safe, which I think is staying away from the melee." Kelly stood firm.

"I'll be staying plenty away," Gwen argued, "but I want to be close enough for what comes next." She squinted as the battalion of mages drew far closer to the field of battle than she expected.

They were continuing to march forward while flinging a few sparse spells over the troops.

Her wheels had already begun moving as Kelly took charge and began pushing her. "Strange," Gwen said, her eyes narrowing, only for the battalion of mages to suddenly rush straight into the melee, causing Gwen to frown as her soldiers crumpled against them. Her battleline shattered. 

"Are those mage-forged?" Kelly asked, only for Gwen's frown to grow even deeper. 

"If they were mage-forged. They might be able to push, but that's too much. Veteran anchors, perhaps?"

"That many fully-charged anchors when we haven't seen hide nor hair of a mage?" Kelly asked, sounding just as skeptical as Gwen felt.

Regardless of what they were, the truth of their actions was right before Gwen, as her left flank fell apart even within the sight of their own reinforcements. 

"Faster," Gwen demanded. 

"You can't reasonably think I'm going to let you jump straight into that," Kelly spat, only for Gwen to grab hold of her wheels and push herself.

"If you're not going to, I can move myself." She rolled forward. 

"Wait, wait." Kelly rushed, snatching the back of her chair. "I'm behind you the whole way, even if this is a very, very, have I mentioned, very stupid idea, Gwen."

As they drew closer, Gwen could see the enemy fighters more clearly. Whatever they were, they were as fast as an anchor. They rushed about quickly, not even drawing a weapon. Instead, they used their bare hands and fingers, tensed up with magic, hard enough to tear through chain mail and boiled leather. Yet they had been flinging spells up till now.

"This seems like a job for the anchors," Kelly said, glancing behind her. Not only had their four come with them, but even more had been donated by the other noble mages. A team of nearly thirty anchors stood ready and waiting behind Gwen, poised for her to give the signal.

Giving them that signal, they rushed in as a stopgap for the situation, buying enough time for Strathmore's army to come into contact. All the while, Gwen's eyes roved over this new group.

So many of them were wearing heavy cloaks that didn't seem to hinder their movement. Not even a little bit, despite how hard the thick cloth tried. 

"Did he just bite our soldier?" Kelly said, pointing.

Gwen's eyes quickly found one of the cloaked figures shoving a soldier's neck against what was likely his face, only for blood to pour out from what had to be a nasty wound. Gwen's eyes flashed. "They're corrupted," Gwen stated, her tone as hard as steel while the group tore through her soldiers. 

"It can't be. Corrupteds can’t be controlled." Kelly said from her side. 

"No, but I bet they can be held back and then unleashed and they'll just kill whatever's in front of them. Look," Gwen pointed out where one of them ripped the head off a Garrish soldier’s shoulder. 

For getting too close, the melee around the corrupted was growing increasingly chaotic, and her left flank had scattered between the bites and ripping off heads.

These corrupted had successfully intimidated her troops, but the anchors were arriving just then, slamming into these corrupted as a tight, unified force, even if corrupted were notoriously strong. Two or three anchors going at them together tore them apart in seconds as they were a disorganized mess.

Yet it wasn’t enough, two corrupteds pulled down an anchor and ended him before others could help. It was a chaotic tangle amidst the battlefield.

Gwen held a flower of frost daintily between her fingers. She wanted her adept spell ready, should any of that group break away.

They would need to be put down instantly, lest they run through the center of her army and scatter the whole formation. It didn't take long for the cloaked corrupted to try to escape to a new area for fresh bodies.

Gwen's frozen flower twirled into the air, planting itself in front of them, only to grow into a massive rose garden of whirling thorns and blade-like petals.

The corrupted tried to shield its face, only for the petals to shred every inch of it, including the cloak that came fluttering down in scattered tatters. 

"I see you've still got it," Kelly said, a precise bolt of lightning stunning the corrupted long enough for one of her anchors to break from the group and rip him off the ground, rushing him towards Kelly and Gwen.

"Time to see what we're up against," Kelly clarified. She and her anchor were on the same train of thought. Seconds later, he smashed the corrupted's head to the ground, pinning it. 

"Lady, look at what we've found." He offered.

The corrupted hissed and writhed, even after being torn to shreds and stunned by a bolt of lightning. It was still quite lively. Gwen peered at the figure. It wasn't terribly disfigured. Its face was a little more angular, and it had a pair of fangs. Likely, it was once a serpent mage, which is why it recovered so quickly from their attacks. 

"Corrupted. The Avente law dictates that they die," Gwen pronounced. Creeping vines of frost wrapped around the figure, while frozen thorns punched through every inch of its skin, digging deeper and tearing it apart. When dealing with life anchors and serpent corrupted, it was best to be thorough when killing enemies.

"Not corrupted," it rasped. 

"Not my problem if you deny your present reality." Gwen tightened her fist, urging her magic to speed up the process. She could feel just how strong this enemy was, the way it pushed and fought her ice.

The corrupted hissed and thrashed. It managed to crack some of the ice and nearly pull itself free, only for more frozen vines to entwine around its shoulders and pull it back into the tangled rose bush. 

"Nuh-uh. It won't be that easy," Gwen said, reasserting her control and trying to drive a spike directly to the creature's heart. It looked up at her with maddened eyes, ringed with red. 

"Release me," it demanded. Its voice was like a sledgehammer as it hit Gwen between the eyes.

She blinked as her magic faltered, and the corrupted ripped itself free from the now-bloodied frozen vines as it hissed and lunged.

Kelly moved forward, and a bolt of lightning pierced through its forehead, stopping it in its tracks.

But rather than collapse, it swayed on its feet, to both mages' astonishment. 

"What is this?" Kelly said. While it was stunned, earth opened up beneath, before snapping closed around its waist. More lightning crackled off Kelly’s fingertips, zapping at the corrupted's head, covering it with scorch marks, and keeping its eyes fluttering and incoherent, before her anchor swung a blade and severed its head. 

Gwen clutched at her temples and was thankful she was already sitting down. "It performed a soul attack," Gwen said, astonished. 

Kelly had at least some knowledge of the higher form of magic. "But I thought that was pretty much exclusive to Elder Mages and your freak of a son." Kelly commented.

"Not a freak, unless you mean it in the other way, in which case I don't want to know," Gwen grumbled. 

"It's good to see you're not too bad off," Kelly said, both of them raising their eyes to the battlefield with a new understanding of what they were up against.

The tide had shifted once again and the corrupted were ripping through the group of anchors before splitting off one at a time rushing for the House Aldis command tent that Gwen had just left. If she hadn't gone directly for the army, only to hug it close as she moved to the left flank, she would have been in their line of attack like the two poor messenger anchors that were quite literally torn in half with the corrupteds’ passing. 

Gwen cursed under her breath and took another smoke tube, popping it and throwing it to the side. 

"Who does that one call?" Kelly asked. 

"My father," Gwen scowled, annoyed she had needed to call him at all, especially at that point in the battle.

She had been saving that move for when the Chancellor showed himself. It was an embarrassment for her to have to pull it out so early, but she would always put her forces ahead of her pride.

From the tube, deep blue smoke emanated. Gwen didn't wait for it to rise above the sky this time. She attached a small ring of ice to the tube and shot it far over their heads before she focused on the matter at hand.

More blossoming frozen roses appeared one after the other, scattering into the wind and seeding the strange Corrupted. The frozen flowers took root in man or ground, spreading their thorns and locking up and entangling her enemies. 

It took immense concentration for Gwen to identify friend from foe with her spell, driving icy thorns into only the cloaked figures. 

"Keep an eye out," she said to Kelly. "If one of them leaps above the rest, I'm going to need you to defend me."

"That is my job," Kelly said, folding her arms behind her back and watching. 

Even with Gwen's help, the anchors were struggling as they caught back up with them and tried to pin them down.

The group of corrupteds were at best being stalled. Gwen was worried she was going to have to use her Grand Spell, but if she did that, she might not have enough magic to deal with the Chancellor when he finally reared his ugly head. The anchors were slowly being weakened, but she could not help the feeling that using the spell would ultimately mean losing the whole battle.

There were more of the nobles gathered at the command tent that were joining the fray, given that the battle had crept up to them. The nobles' personal guards were doing their best to hold back the corrupted.

It simply wasn't enough.

Each corrupted was nastier than a life anchor and proved it when they lashed out with a spray of death magic. Meanwhile their bodies were regenerating at breakneck speeds as they threw themselves recklessly through the anchors. It was as if they were starving wolves, and the mages were the perfect feast. 

Of course, all of that came to a thunderous stop as Anadonis streaked into the sky above, sweeping his hands out as chains of ice wrapped around of the corrupted that had tried to rush to the command tent, dragging them together as a larger building of ice coalesced around them, entombing and sealing a dozen of the corrupted in a tomb of ice so thick that none could see inside.

Anadonis stood up high, gripping his hands tight as the chains wrapped around the structure, beginning to crush it and everything inside.

Finally, her father twisted his hand, and the whole thing shattered, every corrupted that had been swept up inside was nothing more than a pile of frozen shards that turned into slush on the ground.

"He certainly makes an entrance," Kelly muttered. 

"My father would say that any noble can control how one looks at them, if only you know how to show up to the party the right way," Gwen grinned. 

He spun ever so slightly on his platform of ice while descending from the sky. Ard certainly got his showmanship from his grandfather.