96 Chapter Ninety-Six – The Ziggura (1/2)

A Raptor Tyrant, the equivalent of a tyrannosaur, came barreling down the overgrown street, scales bright red and yellow, with two slightly smaller ones in red-black and green-yellow behind him. Thundering on the scaled stones, ripping through stands of vines and ferns while bellowing out furiously, a thirty-foot lance in the hands of the muscled rider barely reaching past its gaping jaws.

Impressive sight.

When the knights drove four lances into its side with a full charge and the perfect timing that only comes with Marks and multiple eyes, smashing the big lizard off its feet, that was impressive, too.

It caromed into the corner of a building in shock and pain, bellow cut off half-way as the rider went flying, and a really big lizard skidded down the stones with four glowing lances buried very deep into it.

With excellent horsemanship, the knights avoided the tail of the Tyrant, and managed to get through the intersection. Naturally, this received the attention of the other two Raptors, who skidded and turned to follow the motion, just like natural predators should.

The second wave of eight knights, and the third of eight more, hit them from behind.

The first rider was punched right out of his seat from both sides, and multiple lances drove in behind the ribs, while two each were allocated to the legs. Red-black buckled and was driven off its clawed feet, its great head smashed into by armored heavy horses and not quite able to bring its jaws into play before it was out of range.

Green-yellow received the same treatment, except the last pair of knights held back until it chose a side to lunge out with a bite, presenting a perfect side target to its head. Eighteen feet of lance, eighteen inches of steel, backed by a ton of man, mount and steel, drove through its neck and up into its small brain, and Sir Chevy roared his success as the beast roared and jerked away, ripping the lance from his hand.

Three writhing Tyrants were now occupying the square, dying where they were, and rather messing up the advance of the saurial cavalry that was racing behind them.

Ahead of them, the lines of spears drove forwards, trampling over the serpentmen with mass and momentum, letting the swordsmen behind hack those still living apart as they rushed up to meet those raptor-riders weaving through the falling Tyrants… and trying to get to the knights down that side street.

A line of scalefolk archers showed up on the roof tops, just in time to be scythed down by the archers waiting behind for them to show.

I hopped between rooftops and fallen columns, the brooding heights of vine-covered trees, and the fallen heights of ancient statues crumbling in the grip of ages.

Right behind me, Ecto kept up a constant stream of fire, holding Fall in two hands and his finger tight on the trigger as he moved from one target to the next, trying to control his frantic enthusiasm as Tremble Sang and glowing bolts of force shot out into his targets endlessly.

Autobows are damn addictive to ranged attack types.

Banestars flew this way and that, cutting down snipers, rock and spear hurlers, and any Caster unlucky enough to get that close to me. I had a select group of archers just waiting for me to point out targets, and occasionally murderously accurate volleys would saturate an area and send scaled bodies writhing to the ground.

A couple spells slammed into me, lightning and fire, and faded into nothing, leaving nothing behind to threaten Ecto. There was a massive arc of arrow fire at us, but I outran it, and Stand dealt with the rest lazily, spinning up to send them down wide of the two of us without missing a beat.

Our lines pushed out into the plaza where their final defense was lining up, while they tried to stop us from advancing, rushing up to do the canyon defense thing, while other forces came out of tunnels all around us, trying to take us from all sides.

Sudden pullbacks disrupted their lines, overeager charges became quick deaths on ready spears, which immediately surged back for more into the ragged press left behind. The savage devolved serpentmen couldn't get the hang of resisting the rush, overcome with bloodlust, and we coolly used it against them as we advanced.

Reinforced lines of spears and shields warded both advance paths, and were kept coolly updated as lines of scaled bodies scampered out of sewers, tunnels, abandoned buildings… and had to pass through gauntlets of horse archers shooting over those spears to get to grips with us. If the streets between were clear, then a cavalry charge would slam into them and sweep it clear repeatedly, until the heaped bodies made them realize it just wasn't working.

They packed a mass of warriors into Avenue One, so I decided that dropping into the middle of them would be fine, sending Ecto spinning off towards our lines as I killed two of them with Banestars, dropped down on the bodies held up by the press of scales, and as the serpentmen stared up at me standing on their shoulders, I began to split their narrow fanged heads.

I was pitiless and merciless, harvesting brains with grim absolution, racing up and down the length of them, spinning and scything, one moment almost horizontal as I split them from above, then spinning vertically as necks came loose from bodies all around me.

Longspears plunged in and impaled with murderous, inspired accuracy, shoving the serpentfolk back, back, back as I remorselessly cleaned out their back lines, and even the fearless paused as I swept through swathes of them, untouched, unmarked, and devastating numbers of their kin died right in front of them.

Arrows came in, shields came up to take them. Not even able to see them, our archers replied in kind, out of their range, and began to reap them as I spotted for them. Tortoise'd up, the spears continued to advance over the burning bodies of the dead as the thinning arrow fire rattled down on them.

I saw the armored biceratops coming at a trot, the size of an elephant, with a howdah of spears and archers on its back, the first of six of them. Without hesitation, I drove into a wall of their biggest fighters, ripping my way through before they could part way, and slashed my way out past them.

I picked up speed very quickly as they lumbered towards me, and avoided the snapping bite, ignoring the falling javelins and arrows as useless as I flattened to the ground, spinning around and scything Tremble across the back of the right front leg, sliding right underneath it, the ground acting just like an ice rink, and hacking into the rear leg the same way as I came out from underneath it, avoiding the thick tail and closing on the next one.