The Gathering

[Lostshadow]

Gathering of Darkness

Battle report here :
http://www.druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=70317
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It had been months since his forces had been slaughtered and his allies also, but for all that time Amaranth had tried to regroup and strike back against the Asur but their force was solid and disaplined. To them, the druchii were just another group of raiders to kill off, even if they knew Amaranth was trying to overthrow the witch king, they probably wouldnt care much.
Since that day, he had heard rumours that the Asur force was pursuing him. But he had a plan. Since his last battle, he had been studying the lores of destruction and had brought the last remenants of his armies to Lustria in search of something that might help him win his next battle against the Asur.
So here he stood, watching as slaves as they excavated the ruins of some temple he didnt care to know the name of. All he knew was that the thing he seeked, was supposed to be here and it might be enough to sway everything in his favour again.
Nearby the heavy breathing of a powerful beast lay, it was said that few could wake the dragons, but he had been fortunate enough to discover a very young dragon abandoned by it's kin in the jungles here in Lustria. It had only taken a few weeks to gain it's trust, his learning in fire seemed to help and now the very young mount lay sleeping in the clearing guarded some of his finest warriors.
The thunder of hooves alreted the camp into a state of battle readiness, they knew that if his riders were moving that fast back to camp, something was wrong.
"Lord!" the leader of the rider called, leaping from his horse and landing softly before a quick bow of his head to Amaranth.
"What is it? Asur already?" Amaranth asked.
"No lord," the rider said," our spies say they are still some weeks away by sea, but we were ambushed by a small force. They were heading this way,"
"Who are they?" Amaranth frowned.
"We dont know," the rider said," we have heard rumours of these lizard like creatures, they seem well organised and-,"
The rider was cut short by the roar of something deep in the jungle, the crashing of trees in the distance getting ever closer warned that something was coming.
"All ready yourselves," Amaranth said as they gathered their lines easily.
His troops were always ready to go to war at a moment's notice. Sure enough seconds later his shades emerged from the jungle, making a fighting retreat as masses of small lizard like creatures fired strange and exotic blow pipe weapons at the elves. One or two fell screaming as they fell into some kind of fit from the poisons of the lizard people.
Climbing casually upon his dragon, which he had named scion the beast leapt into the air in one swift movement and flew straight up a few hundred metres. The army before him was large now, a mass of heavy armoured creatures marched forward waving banners similiar to the markings on the temple he had found, perhaps they thought they owned what was inside.
A giant creature tore its way through the trees, sending splitered bamboo in the path of the giant monster.
In the corner of his eye, Amaranth spotted a firey object coming through the clouds. A giant comet was heading straight for his forces, realising it was too late to save them he fly down towards the battle lines as the gap closed, on his left his scouts and dark riders sprang into action as cold ones bearing heavily armoured lizards bounded at surprisingly fast pacing towards his army flank.
His riders loosed a hail of bolts followed quickly by shades emerging from cover and follwoing up with a secondary hail. Cold ones fell but they kept coming, using the open area of the jungle to focus their charge on the lightly armoured riders. The dark elf riders stopped and turned to face the cold ones, releasing bolt after bolt and holding their ground and defending the flank. The cold one cavalry struck hard against the dark riders and even above the battle at this height the dying screams of dark elf riders could be heard. Though fewer and not as well armed, his riders held the line as one by one they were torn apart.
Swooping down Amaranth summoned a swirling vortex of fire around himself and landed on one of the cold ones, crushing it under the body of his young dragon. Scion beltched and let out a growl that spurred fire at the cold ones, three fell burnt to a crisp and one brave but foolish cole one rider tried to leap over the fiery vortex protecting the mage. The magical fire, designed to target any threat to the caster surrounded the opponent and ripped him apart with a searing blast that put fear into the other cold ones.
In a last moment before they turned tail and fled, the last four remaining dark elf riders joined together and fought their way to their general's side, cutting down cold one after cold in a crazied frenzy.
"After them!" Amaranth orders.
Though still outnumbered in this particular part of the battle, the dark elves won the fight and scion gripped one of the riders, flying fifty feet into the air before letting the lizard fall to his death. The dark riders cut them down easily and soon only one cold one remained, though it was riderless Amaranth let the creature go.
A defeaning explosion rocked the air and sent a shockwave that knocked his dragon off course for a moment, he spun the mount around in the air and looked in horror as the comet landed in the centre of his army.
Snarls and jeers from the lizard force in their own unknown tongue erupted as black smoke from the comet blocked the mage's view. But as it cleared, he saw clearly the spirit of the druchii was unhindered by losing at least half their numbers. At least not all of them, the corsairs had already charges the far superior numbers of lizard warriors. His spear armed soldiers were scattering. But his shadow guard had not even moved, many of them lay dead from the comet's impact yet they stood calmly waiting for their orders.
The full glory of the creature could now be seen, it was bounding across the ground towards the black guard who prepared for its impact on their lines. The great creature bore a dangerous looking warrior on it's back, a makeshift saddle holding it in place. No doubt this was their general. The beast hit the black guard lines, but they simply parted to allow it's charge to falter and from either side black guard scrambled up the scales and spikes on the creature, hacking and attempting to find a weak spot on the monster. From this height, Amaranth could just make out the faint red glow of a halberd striking the rider. His two best champions right at the top of the pinned monster were fighting the lord upon it in their own small challenge.
In perfect timing the black guard turned and leapt down from the creature and it reared back preparing to crush them as they reformed their ranks. But it failed to see its incoming doom, chariot after chariot smashed into the legs of the creature from it's flank. Caught completely offguard it fell with a thundering crash, one of it's legs bent by the impact it was clearly broken and the creature fell to it's side. One chariot crashed into the creature's now exposed belly and a shower of blood splattered over the black guard. The creature, maimed and dying was a useles mount now for the lord who fell from his saddler and landed right in front of the champion of the black guard, Duin.
The lizard lord moved with supernatural speed and decapitated the elf before he could strike. He then rose to make a challenge, but found halberd after halberd strike it's armoured flesh. Staggering away the lizard limped as a blade struck it's back throwing it to it's knees, it pushed itself to it's feet and threw a clumsy swing which a nearby shadow guard warrior evaded with ease and then thrust his halberd into the creature's neck. The Lizard broke the halberd in two and staggered onward in his retreat. Bleeding and dying, he fell again to his knees and then onto his front. Holding itself up with one hand, it looked up as two elves in unision impaled their halberd spear ends into it's back, breaking it's spine. It now fell, and lay still.
Despite their epic stand against the creature, the rest of his forces had scattered and now the shadow guard were surrounded by hundreds of warriors. Amaranth decended upon the lizards and Scion grasped one in each claw as they attacked, focussing hard a sudden feedback of power hit him throwing off his concentration. Again he tried to cast his fire spell to protect himself. But something was interferring.
One of the lizards grasped the now unprotected small dragon and one of Scion's legs caught the floor, sending both mount and rider into a roll through the ranks of lizards. Unable to see his army and all alone, Amaranth rose to his feet to find a warrior standing above him about to strike. The blow struck was inches from his flesh when the jaws of his dragon crushed the creature and threw it aside. A second warrior struck at him and he rolled aside, to be hit with a shield over the face, dazing him. Amaranth felt the world shift and his amulet teleported him a few feet away. Drawing his sword, he struck out at the warrior who twisted his spear and knocked the blade from the mage's hand with skill. The spear thrust was fast and Amaranth melted away from the blow, appearing on the left side of the warrior, who was joined by three more.
A quick glance at his young dragon showed that it was holding off most of the other warriors, Scion was circling Amaranth but couldnt help with those that got through.
The four warriors struck blow after blow, each time Amaranth twisted into smoke or teleported out of the way, his psyical form morphing into different shapes to avoid the blows. He tried to focuse on casting a spell......any spell to aid him.....but he was too distracted to attempt anything. Backing off towards his dragon he took a moment to conentrate. The warrior's spears meant he had to dodge again, this time appearing behind them. Again they spun and struck at him, but he narrowly moved aside in a blurr of smoky light. Pain shot through his leg and he felt himself teleport again, he fell to one knee and saw two more warriors had broken through the guarding dragon and one of their spear dripped in crimson.
Before the warriors culd apporach him again, a chariot suddenly hit one of them with full force breaking every bone in it's body and throwing a crumpled corpse to the floor. Another chariot turned and spun at an angle, stopping a few metres away from Amaranth.
"Lord!" the crew member cried, raising his crossbow he fired at Amaranth who teleported aside.
But looking at the place he had been kneeling, he was just in time to see a lizard warrior with his spear raised fall down, three bolts stuck into it's neck.
The lizard warriors sent more soldiers to try and kill the mage and in those few seconds, he summoned up all the power he could muster. A circle of fire appeared around him and the chariot, burning flesh from any enemies that tried to cross the fire. The power built and the fire went from red to white and a tear in the air appeared, a blue and purple light shining through. Tenticles wrapped themselves around Amaranth, attempting to drag him into the tear in reality.
Feeding his fire through the portal to the warp, the creatures recoiled the portal snapped shut. He had used too much power in panic, that had been too close.
The warriors of the lizards were falling back, most dead or dying the chariots were rolling around mowing down the few remaining warriors.
A larger force of about fifty elite looking warriors were marching away back into the jungle, the skink creatures covering their retreat. They didnt seem to fancy their chances against a mage that had just burnt hundreds of warriors to death.
A few warriors on horseback were still harrassing the lizards and dropping a few, but they were starting to head back to the main druchii force one by one. Injured and dying lay everywhere, but Amaranth knew now what he was seeking was here.
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Though he had suffered many casulties in the previous battle, he was hopeful now. His wounded were recovering and he had gathered the last of his soldiers. As the last tomb stone shattered Amaranth stepped through into the inner chamber of the ancient temple and a dark smile appeared on his face as he looked around at the artifacts.
"The Asur have caught up with us," a shade said from the entrance.
"How long before we are ready to engage our plan?" Amaranth asked.
"A hour or two should do it," the shade replied.
"Get everything ready, we have a battle to fight,"