This is just a short piece to add from my most recent battle, Chaos and my DEs vs Vampire counts and High Elves
THe battle report is here: http://druchii.net/viewtopic.php?t=70470
The smoldering piles of the burnt husks of men littered what remained of the village, roaring fires and blackened silhouettes of the few structures that stood after the slaughter left an artistic scene of suffering, at least to the Druchii it did.
Amaranth stood upon one such pile, clutching his forehead. The proceding battle had been with the Asur and in that fight, he had severely misjudged one of his spells. His head still hurt, and the lost memories of magic had been erased from his mind, he would recover eventually of course, but right now his powers were drained and his magical amulet had been destroyed by the Asur mages leaving him no protection. He didn't announce this fact to his soldiers of course for they thought his ability from his amulet to turn into smoke and teleport was part of his magical powers, without this in battle they might not have so much faith in his powers so much of the attacks on villages and towns was to attack hedge wizards and steal their artifacts. His plan was to rebuild his amulet, but this would take time and great effort on his part.
In these times of war, Amaranth had been forced to align with the chaos, in his mind it was temporary.
The warriors of chaos kept to themselves away from the dark elves, they slaughtered with no sense of value over captives and cut down those who surrendered, this had caused unrest among the witch elves who were eager for fresh blood for their cauldron, of which they had been unable to carry here due to unforeseen circumstances. His scouts had tipped Amaranth off that a wizard was here, and one had been, but the magical artifact the wizard carried wasn't what he was looking for, but still had some uses.
Hounds of chaos were stalking the forests, they appeared and went not even approaching their master, a sorcerer who led the chaos warband. Amaranth knew some kind of telepathic connection was between them and the wizard.
"Elves come,"a voice in Amaranth's head said, the sorcerer's voice.
"My Kind?" Amaranth asked, thinking it.
"Asur," the chaos wizard thought.
Images from the hounds entered Amaranth's head, as though he was seeing what they had seen a few minutes beforehand. A small group of high elves were watching the village from the hills, archers getting into position for an ambush.
"Asur come!"Amaranth shouted.
This was all that his soldiers needed to know, in no time at all the elves were on their feet, gathering into their regiments. The warriors of chaos, an army of a hundred and fifty warriors backed up by some kind of altar didn't seem too bothered, the high elves were in fact in extremely small numbers.
Amaranth's forces consisted of two hundred common warriors, fifty of his witch elves and his elite shadow guard, the best of his warriors. He had also come across some stranger harpy like creatures and begun breeding them over the last few months. They were fast but so far he didn't have a great many of them.
The heads of his warriors suddenly all looked up as the whistle of great bolts arched into the air, on the furthest hill the Druchii wizard spotted a number of figures with bolt throwers firing again.
In what seemed like slow motion, Amaranth followed the trail of the bolts and watched not in horror.....but unease as the entire hail hit the chaos sorcerer and his army. Bolt after bolt struck the wizard as he hovered above his army, the first few he took with surprise and then fell with a great thud, too many even for him to survive as the other bolts hit his warriors. The dead sorcerer lay facing the dark elves some twenty feet away, his cold dead eyes staring in a death stance of shock. Although he made no scream upon his fall, his mouth was wide open in a silent expression of pain.
The druchii around him shuffled in their ranks, not so eager now to move forwards, yet this only seemed to anger the chaos, if that was at all possible.
"Forward!" Amaranth cried.
"Your lord was weak and stupid," Amaranth called to the chaos,"fight for me, cut down these Asur and feast on their soul-," Amaranth began but was forced to stop mid sentence as the howling and whimpers of the chaos wolves told tale of their destruction from the thicket of trees, Amaranth suddenly felt a efflux of sorcerous power far more abundent than any he had ever felt.
The sky began to darken, a swirling vortex of storm clouds obscured the sun and swept across the open field. The elves looked around in wonder, the storm was unnatural and swift. Lightning flickered in the hills and the air chilled, the breath of the elves visible as they searched in all directions for the source of the power.
Silently and in perfect unison, a host of heavily armored warriors emerged from the woods, drawing their wickedly glowing blades as they marched towards the chaos army.......undead.
Jerking animated skeletons poured from the trees and in the sky above them Amranth spotted swarms of bats diving from the cover of the storm clouds.
Why the high elves had allied themselves with undead forces was beyond his interest. The undead army was surprisingly small compared to the chaos and dark elves combined and seemed more of a desperation attempt more than an actual battle, perhaps a necromancer's lair was nearby or they had inadvertingly destroyed a village run by vampires for a easy food source......it was rare but even the Druchii had heard of such places existing.
Bringing his attention back to the Asur, arrows and bolts from the hills reigned down upon his soldiers, but his attention was on swordmasters moving towards his lines. They stopped, some hundred metres away and waited. They were few in numbers, but the dangers of engaging them were well known.
Amaranth's army started their march through the hailstorm of arrows and bolts that were already felling a great many of the witch elves and shadow guard. Conjuring up a bolt of black fire, he hurled it towards the swordmasters. They turned to face it as though they were bracing for a charge, as the spell struck the warriors a green barrier shimmered in front of them, shielding them from the effects of the spell, yet a scream did erupt from the high elves as one lone swordmaster left the ranks trying to roll on the floor as his clothes ignited. The Asur fell and two of his comrades dragged him back into the ranks, pouring water from flasks from their belts, but the warrior was clearly wounded if not scarred for life without some powerful healing magic.
On the left, the warriors of chaos hit the lines of undead and they pushed the heavily armored warriors of the grave guard who fell easily to the far superior strength of the warriors of chaos.
Amaranth ordered his warriors to charge at the swordmasters and as the chaos warriors tore through the undead their attention also turned and a great many of the chaos warriors faced the swordmasters in anticipation of charging them after their battle with the undead was finished.
Not feeling they could take them, the swordmasters turned and fled, dropping their weighty weapons. Another great fireball conjured itself in his hands and Amaranth in the hopes of killing them all mispronounced one of the arcane words which caused a ring of fire to swirl around him, hitting a number of his own soldiers who clutched their faces as their exposed flesh was seared and they were blinded by the flames.
Amaranth let loose the fireball, but it didn't move, instead it fused to his hands and sent flames along his arm. Forcing all of his strength into moving the fireball, it exploded and sent him reeling onto his back. The world spun for a moment as he checked himself over, his arms were burnt but it was nothing that he couldn't heal when the battle was done.
Glancing at the swordmasters as he rose back to his feet, one other was on fire so at least it hadn't been in vain.
His harpies however were harassing the swordmasters by flying around and avoiding the arrows flying at them. The swordmasters turned and tried to fight them off, and Amaranth took his chance while they were still. He cast lesser power this time, took his time and slowly recited the energies of fire and released it. The swordmasters exploded in a shower of bodily parts and organs, the flames swirled and exploded all around the unit, sending the harpies into a fleeting panic and they flew straight up into the clouds.
He could see his shadow guard marching forward, uncaring that arrows were felling so many of their warriors. As they reached the Asur lines, the warriors of chaos finally appeared near them. Observing the battlefield, the undead had crumbled to dust, no doubt their leader destroyed by the chaos. The druchii closed in and Amaranth's champion who carried a powerful ring reached the Asur, their wizard sensing his magic was likely weakened and now far more dangerous turned and fell back with the archers. The bolt throwers continued to lay down covering fire, determined to make a fighting retreat they only abandoned their machines when the chaos warriors were right on top of them.
Amaranth was about to start his healing rituals when something caught his eye, as the storm clouds parted a single figure on horseback watched the battlefield. For a moment a connection between the two was made and the dark elf wizard heard his thoughts.
"I will have my vengeance," the vampire thought and vanished into the dark forest.
Penumbra of dusk
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Lostshadow
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