92 All Out Attack (1/2)
Sparks and smoke exploded against the gleaming dome of a Level 4 magic shield covering the Third Fallowfall Regiment of Swords. Commander Elosen dressed in his blue ornate armor, waved his heirloom sword yelling encouragement to his three thousand men. ”Advance! Our mages' spell Protection will protect us from their weak magic! Just another 400 paces away!”
The Third Regiment of Swords carried shields and short stabbing swords as standard gear, they were a veteran regiment, fighting in several wars and trained to the highest Imperial standard. Their tactics were to storm up to the enemy in a tight wall of shields and hammer into them, the second line will use their short stabbing swords to stab at any exposed body parts, feet, arms, faces etc. Working like mechanical clockwork soldiers, they grind their enemy down bit by bit and so far no other army was their rival. Their morale was high as they marched in step, shields locked together and followed their commander to victory.
The Regiment's mages held their staves tightly, their faces white and sweating from the effort of holding the Level 4 Protection spell. Each impact against the shield drains some power from them and there is a lot of damage being dealt with the shields as evidenced by the constant sparks exploding on the surface of the shield.
The Third finally exited the cover of the magical smoke and emerged within full view of the Wall, less than a 100 paces away. Elosen's pride swelled as his Regiment will be the first to scale the walls, ignoring the fact that the slave army had already arrived way before him.
He raised his sword and pointed directly at the Wall and roared, ”CHARGE! FOR THE EMPIRE!” And the whole world around him exploded.
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Skies over Sawtooth Mountain
Flight lieutenant Peter, whooped with glee as he pulled up from a strafing run. ”Valkyrie One to Two, did you catch that?”
His Valkyrie dived down over the side of the mountains directly from the flanks just as he spotted a huge perfect infantry square marched out of the cover of the smoke directly in front of the Wall. He gave them a good strafe with a dozen rockets directly in their flanks.
He pulled up and jinked his bird hard as an Empire dragon nearly rammed into him. ”Woo that was close,” Peter said to himself. The air was thick with Empire dragons and lead from the gun turrets which were blasting away at the highly agile flying reptiles.
Without guns onboard the Valkyries, Peter and Tommy focused on rocketing the enemy infantry, ignoring the dragons. His Valkyrie shook wildly as an Empire dragon somehow managed to latch on his bird. Warning alerts beeped and blared, as he twisted his head back and fore, trying to locate where that dragon has grabbed on to.
”It's on your port wing stabilizers!” Tommy's voice came through the warning sirens. ”Directly behind your rocket pods!”
”Oh, you wanna play?” Peter grinned, ignoring the warning alerts. ”Let's see if you can handle this!”
He tilted his bird downwards and looped towards the battlefield, lining up for a strafing run. Pushing his head against the armored sapphire crystal canopy, he grinned and squeezed the trigger, firing off a salvo of rockets.
The Empire dragon with its rider gripped tightly onto the weld on stabilizer wings, with the rider using its javelin trying to pierce the magic beast hide while the dragon tried to bite chunks off the beast. But to both the dragon and its rider surprise, the 'hide' of the beast appeared to be made of metal when suddenly the three roundish pods erupted in flames, torching the dragon and burning the face of the rider off.
The dragon fell off with a bird-like cry, as it death spiraled down the air, its wings folding as it slammed down into the battlefield, shattering a company of infantry.
”Woot! First air to air kill! A few more and I am an Ace!” Peter crackled wildly as he looped back his ship, and fired off his remaining rockets, ”Valkyrie One, Bingo on ammo, RTB.”
”Thunderchief, Roger, watch the skies, forecast today is heavy with dragons and lead.”
Peter laughed as he pulled his Valkyrie away from the battlefield in full speed, ignoring the few Empire dragons that attempted to tangle with him.
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Sturm hammered the wooden railing and cursed loudly as he watched the black flying creature rain dragon fire on his troops as they finally reached the walls. ”Signal the Dragons Corps to focus on taking those two creatures down!” He gave his order to his runner who ran off to the signal flags.
The 17th, 18th, 25th, 26th, and 32nd Imperial Dragon Corps weaved through the clouds of grapeshot and smoke, the dragon crews lobbing flasks of alchemist fire directly at the walls as they flew past. The Empire classified dragons into three categories, light, medium and heavyweight class.
Under 10 tons, lightweights such as the Yellow Swift Wings, mostly function as couriers or the blue colored Lightning worked mainly as rapid passenger transports, While the medium and heavy weights dragons are mostly used for combat doth some were used to transport personnel or goods too.
Medium weights were classed between 10 to 30 tons, were mostly rode by a single bonded rider or with a crew up to four, depending on the breed. The Empire used mostly domesticated Silver Wings named for their silver scales which weight over 12 tons, were renowned for their speed and agility, requiring a single dragon rider to pilot them. The rider normally uses a light crossbow or javelins as their weapons of choice.
The other commonly used medium weight dragon was the Razorback, average weighting around 20 tons, with black and gold scales, and a spiked spine It can carry a crew of up to four and its bonded rider, tho normally a crew of two was used, to reduce the total weight. The crew mostly worked as crossbowmen or as grenadiers, throwing firebombs.
Heavyweight dragons are slightly special, as most heavyweight breeds have breathe abilities, like spitting or breathing fire, acid, lightning or even blasts of compressed air.
The Empire had successfully breed its own fire-breathing heavyweights called Spitfires, weighing on average, 32 tons, with a wingspan of over 15 meters, a body length from head to tail at 22 meters and their scales are a mix of dark blue and dark crimson. Crews of up to a dozen typically served on board with the dragon with its bonded rider or Captain.