174 Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Four - The Grind Continues (1/2)
Those who had fallen had already been dragged away. The Casters who could Revivify them were already waiting, and the White Staff that could do the same was also waiting. Paying for it out of the Company spoils had been totally agreed to by those fighting, and given the numbers who had been returned to life by it within its one-day limit, nobody considered it a bad expense. It could only do three at the moment, but every nine days, it would add another, up to the maximum limit of five. Forty-five goldweight, and Karma to match...
Gnomes, like elves, had an innate talent for magic, if their hair colors, ranging through every shade of the rainbow, didn't make it blindingly obvious. Their talent was, however, restricted to being Illusion Specialist Wizards, which was totally fine with him. Yeah, it meant no direct damage magic, or necromancy, but when those groups of invisible dhatun and their greataxes had smashed into that flank, well, who needed a fireball? The Warped went flying and were reduced to little bits all the same.
Now they were scanning for magic and precious materials, accompanied by Rockborn muscle who would rip away armor and toss the bodies as they were cleared. Gold, gems, enchanted weapons and armor, skinplate, and other things were heaped onto Disks uncaringly, all of them destined to be Burned, because nobody here trusted anything from the Warped to keep as their own.
Because nobody trusted Warped metal, the leavings of weapons and armor on the battlefield also had to be gathered up, and were hurled into contemptuous piles and pits near The Ring, forming some fairly impressive mounds. Nobody wanted to be tripped up by a fallen dire axe or piece of spiked armor, so clean-up was one of the things that had to be done before the next fight. Summoned Spirit Servants heaped up the junk on more Disks and wagons driven out by ready support troops, racing off to the mounds to dump their loads from thousands of Warped dead.
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Briggs waved at Rorn Greywolf as the Kalden came up, riding a big black Horse named Sergeant Chops.
”Field should be yours in ten minutes,” Briggs said with grim patience, and the Kalden nodded, eyes fixed on the Rift a few miles away. Tattooed lines flared into existence around his eyes, and he stared at the distant moving figures there.
”Ah, they're doing it,” he said warily, focused on the distance. There were always scouts watching the Rift for any surprises, but no news had passed through yet. Briggs followed his gaze.
”Into the Bloodyard?” he asked calmly. He'd been surprised that it had taken them this long to force the issue. The Warp Gods wanted their bounty, and they'd been denied it when their minions burned.
”Looks like it. Force of anthros.”
Briggs smiled despite himself. ”Here I thought my day was over.” He glanced thoughtfully over at Estemar, who was talking with the lancer captain, Sir Harivus. ”You going to join us?”
”I'm not at that level yet, Commander Briggs,” Rorn replied honestly. What was going to happen required Grandmaster-level ability, or being a Deep Ten. Basically, they needed the ability to one-shot basically every minion-level creature on the field, and one-round most everything except truly tough bastards.
He definitely wasn't at that level, and knew it. He'd need to be a Grandmaster to do that, and would just have to settle for one-rounding minions and two or three-rounding their commanders... and staying away from big bosses and Greater Demons.
Their heads lifted as a quiet voice, silk over such razored steel, drifted through their heads. -Brothers, some people want to play in the Bloodyard. Come and have some fun with me.-
There were a whole lot of very strong fighting men, who'd been looking into bestial faces, at men twisted by mutation and madness, and confronted capering demons formed right from the essence of Sin, who shivered at that purr in her voice.
Rorn looked down at Briggs. ”You know she doesn't need any of you, right?” he asked softly.
”Yep,” Briggs grunted back, smiling fiercely. ”Give me another six months of fighting like this, and neither will I.” Endure spun once, multi-hued flames forming a full circle backtrail. ”But for now, perfectly happy just killing all of these bastards that I can.” He shifted into a trot, and Estemar broke off his conversation to run after him, hopping up on the Disk Briggs pulled out of his Masspack to accompany him to the south side of the Bloodyard.
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The world had probably never seen so many Void Brothers gathered in one place, only the Water and the Spear was missing. Killing men who'd built their reputations on mountains of bodies were gathered behind one young woman shorter than any of them, just beyond the great circle of black columns that formed the battlefield of the Bloodyard.
”You lot sure you want to come along?” she asked the five extras who had chosen to join her.
Noir Rabe's face was a bit harsh as he glanced around, feeling the threat level of the humans gathered here. These were some very dangerous Men...
”I will go,” he stated firmly.
She looked him up and down. ”They're going to throw in a Greater Demon just to offset you.” He made a long face. ”Perfect!” She smiled brightly, and he just blinked at her. ”You're on archery and spell duty.” She pointed at Haul, which held a painstakingly rune-carved pedestal of white granite. ”You're standing on that, Briggs will tow you. I realize you can fly, but the area is going to be Interdicted and Stillflighted so those manticores and chimeras they have can't do the same. So you stand, and you shoot.”
She reached into her Masspack, and drew out two quivers of arrows, which exactly matched the large one sitting on his back. She tossed them both to Briggs, who put them inside his own. ”I expect you to go through all of those arrows before you get into melee. You're going to be in the center of their formation, and if anything gets close to you, wow, I'm going to be very unimpressed.”
Despite themselves, all the men there clenched their weapons tighter.
”Sir Harbrom, your lightfoot sucks, and if you bring a horse into this fight, it's dead. Do you have any magic to increase your speed afoot?