Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Four - The Grind Continues

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?

The mighty, near legendary Paladin of the Order of the Silver Dragon opened his mouth and closed it. "No, my lady?" he finally admitted hesitantly.

"Sir Estemar." The young Paladin nodded, taking off his Gauntlets, and to the amazement of the older Paladin, cast an arcane spell on him.

"It's not much, sir, but it will help you keep up with them in combat," he said, as the magic focused on the older man's feet.

"Briggs." The young Ancient hauled out his own Disk, and Sama pointed. "Sir Harbrom, you ride that to the fight." The noble knight looked somewhere between offended and resigned as he stepped over and sat down on the edge of the Disk, whose concave iron circle took his weight without a problem.

"Master Chardon, Master Fieyor," she turned to the two Dragon Warriors who had come north to join the fight. "This is a straight-up merciless slugfest. The entire point is to slaughter the enemy as much as possible, while keeping that pedestal safe. Nobody is counting kills this run, you can save that for any that follow. You kill them all, and everyone walks out alive."

The two men nodded slowly, one holding a glaive, the other a greatsword. Both were Tens, and had initially been a little reluctant to acknowledge the orders of a woman half their size.

Then Sama had butchered a Vile Dancer in front of them, and they decided that maybe giving her some respect would be good for their health.

"General Moonriver, you certain of this?"

The slender, short elven general, no taller than she was, smiled at her. "You need a Primary Caster for surprises, and I've a full load. If I run out of spells, I should still be able to contribute some." He had swapped in his Baneskull'd Bow, and would certainly be able to do that as needed. The fact he wasn't carrying a quiver just meant his Bow would make the arrows.

"You stand on the Disk." I pointed at Briggs' Disk, and he nodded and without any displeasure went and hopped up on it, easily enough room for him and the Paladin. "Brother Wayfist, you're hauling the Vivic Capacitor. Stay close to Briggs."

His Staff clicked, and a forearm's length of dark steel slid out from the end of the Weapon. "Very well."

I looked over them all: humans, elf, dhatun, urukhar, halvyr, hyn, and a Fey lord. No Rockborn or Gnomes represented here, which I was sure both races were aching to rectify. "Our goal here is to completely slaughter them all within the Bloodyard with just our numbers, and give the Warp Gods nothing, so that those behind will be increasingly reluctant to come in. That means we go in, slaughter them all, the Capacitor harvests them as they burn, and we walk out. If they decide to do it again, then we do it again, and again, and again, until they realize we are just going to keep butchering them all if they come in here."

The eyes of the two Masters and General Moonriver flickered, while the Brothers looked eager, and Noir Rabe remained hard and thoughtful. Briggs just looked expectant and rather blasé about what was coming.

"Let's go."

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The dozen-plus of them stepped through the ring of crystal pillars bounding the Bloodyard. A few pillars around them lit up, reacting to their presence. On the opposite side of the field, more than twenty other pillars had ignited.

The Firesword smiled, like a tiger about to feast. "They aren't reacting to Forsaken..." he murmured, and his Brothers hummed with eerie synchronicity.

A purple and green pastel plume of energy ignited in the distance, spinning, rising and resolving into the multi-armed, sword and sickle-bearing form of a twenty-foot-tall Vile Dancer.

"That's supposed to be your dance partner, erlking," Sama stated, and Noir Rabe just huffed once. "A Dancer means a Rutterhorn tribe. They'll be immune to pain, and it looks like they are all downing mushrooms as we speak." The experienced fighters here all spat in scorn.

More plumes of power rose as the group broke into a trot. There was well over a half-mile of ground to cover before they reached the enemy, who were being herded into battle lines as powders, drugs, and fungi started to act on their brains. It was easy to see they were magical, as changes began to come over the bestial Warped anthros... size increases, changes to hides as they became scaled, or metal-furred, arcs of lightning wrapped around them, limbs grew larger or became pincers, massive claws, or tentacles... some actually grew extra heads or other limbs, had fire or acid spewing from their mouths, and the like.

"Might want some poison, fire, and lighting resistance, if you have them," Sama offered, and Sir Harbrom promptly knelt in prayer to administer just that to everyone. Noir Rabe raised an eyebrow at getting protected by divine magic, but said nothing.

A huge one-eyed giant hove himself out of the ground, his skin shades of pastel yellows and oranges, and the huge iron spiked ball in his hand leaking green poison between his fingers. "Ancientaxe, take out Stilts over there, then the beasties." The Glaive-wielding urukhar just grunted. "Fire, Shadow, those Spiral Dancers that just came up. The Spinners are targets of opportunity, just kill them like the normal troops. Moonriver, you're in charge of breaking any mass charge at your group.

"Other than that, follow Briggs, keep the pedestal safe, and everyone gets back alive!"

Sama drew Tremble as their pace began to pick up, and the opening notes sent a thrill through all their souls.

'Tremble, oh ooooh oh Tremble, we come...'