Post by Seek on May 5, 2013 0:01:37 GMT 10
Title: Ford
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 565 words
Summary: Buri saves Raoul's life at a ford.
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 1D
Notes: Part of the Crossfire series.
Warnings: Violence. Possibly graphic.
-
In the Immortals War, it’s during a fighting retreat. Raoul and the Third Company are supposed to defend a critical ford from a Scanran and Immortal attack but are forced to retreat under a hail of arrows and magic. Stormwings and hurroks swoop in the skies, emptying saddles with impunity. Scarlet thunderbolts laced with gold smash men to the ground and burn them from existence.
They’ve learned to wear helmets by now, but helmets are little defense against Stormwings grabbing men from their saddles and flinging them to the ground from high in the air. Raoul gets a fighting front formed and puts the company’s best archers in the middle and has them shoot for the winged immortals but they can’t deal with that and Scanran berserkers and war shamans all at the same time.
Raoul’s arm has gone completely numb from where a Scanran axe slammed into his shield arm. A part of him thinks he may have broken his wrist, but he can’t shed the shield, so it hangs from his left arm, completely useless.
He isn’t the sort of man to go down in a blaze of glory and take his men with him, so he orders his archers to retreat first, and then the swordsmen will cover them. The archers ride back; it’s cursed hard to loose from horseback and they’re not the Queen’s Riders so they haven’t been trained in that skill and they lose more men that way. Killing a Stormwing is even more difficult, or so they’ve learned. Arrows bounce off steel-fletched wings. The only place where they’re utterly vulnerable is if you shoot them in the face, and that’s the hardest target to hit from the back of a moving horse.
And then arrows sleet upwards, finding their marks in Stormwing throats. Stormwings scream and plummet from the skies; hurroks are riddled with arrows, thrash about beating their wings ineffectively, and ultimately drop like stones.
Raoul isn’t supposed to look, but even then, he does: and then what he sees gives him a surge of renewed hope. Buri’s come, after all, with several Groups of the Queen’s Riders. Mounted on their hardy ponies, the Queen’s Riders nock arrows to their bows, and immediately, Raoul guesses what Buri’s doing. She’s covering their retreat.
“Look who’s come late to the party,” one of his men murmurs. The air of defeat, of grim inevitability vanishes. The tide has turned.
“Men!” Raoul calls out. “The Riders are here, and Buri will never forgive us if we don’t leave them some Scanrans to play with, so it’s time we got out of here!”
The men of Third Company laugh. They’re all battle-weary, but manage to break out into a renewed fighting retreat. Raoul is last of all, still batting aside Scanran axes. His sword flashes and cuts into undefended blue eyes, throats, anything vulnerable that presents itself. Some of his men still fight beside him, until most of Third Company has crossed the river and is back on the other side of ford.
Every step is won in Own blood, and Rider arrows, and he finally rides back to join Buri, who’s frowning. “What’s the plan?” she asks him.
“The engineers have built an pallisade quite some distance back,” he says quietly. “If we have to retreat, we’ll make them take the fight to us there. Can your Riders…?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
Rating: PG-13
Word count: 565 words
Summary: Buri saves Raoul's life at a ford.
Pairing: Buri/Raoul
Round/Fight: 1D
Notes: Part of the Crossfire series.
Warnings: Violence. Possibly graphic.
-
In the Immortals War, it’s during a fighting retreat. Raoul and the Third Company are supposed to defend a critical ford from a Scanran and Immortal attack but are forced to retreat under a hail of arrows and magic. Stormwings and hurroks swoop in the skies, emptying saddles with impunity. Scarlet thunderbolts laced with gold smash men to the ground and burn them from existence.
They’ve learned to wear helmets by now, but helmets are little defense against Stormwings grabbing men from their saddles and flinging them to the ground from high in the air. Raoul gets a fighting front formed and puts the company’s best archers in the middle and has them shoot for the winged immortals but they can’t deal with that and Scanran berserkers and war shamans all at the same time.
Raoul’s arm has gone completely numb from where a Scanran axe slammed into his shield arm. A part of him thinks he may have broken his wrist, but he can’t shed the shield, so it hangs from his left arm, completely useless.
He isn’t the sort of man to go down in a blaze of glory and take his men with him, so he orders his archers to retreat first, and then the swordsmen will cover them. The archers ride back; it’s cursed hard to loose from horseback and they’re not the Queen’s Riders so they haven’t been trained in that skill and they lose more men that way. Killing a Stormwing is even more difficult, or so they’ve learned. Arrows bounce off steel-fletched wings. The only place where they’re utterly vulnerable is if you shoot them in the face, and that’s the hardest target to hit from the back of a moving horse.
And then arrows sleet upwards, finding their marks in Stormwing throats. Stormwings scream and plummet from the skies; hurroks are riddled with arrows, thrash about beating their wings ineffectively, and ultimately drop like stones.
Raoul isn’t supposed to look, but even then, he does: and then what he sees gives him a surge of renewed hope. Buri’s come, after all, with several Groups of the Queen’s Riders. Mounted on their hardy ponies, the Queen’s Riders nock arrows to their bows, and immediately, Raoul guesses what Buri’s doing. She’s covering their retreat.
“Look who’s come late to the party,” one of his men murmurs. The air of defeat, of grim inevitability vanishes. The tide has turned.
“Men!” Raoul calls out. “The Riders are here, and Buri will never forgive us if we don’t leave them some Scanrans to play with, so it’s time we got out of here!”
The men of Third Company laugh. They’re all battle-weary, but manage to break out into a renewed fighting retreat. Raoul is last of all, still batting aside Scanran axes. His sword flashes and cuts into undefended blue eyes, throats, anything vulnerable that presents itself. Some of his men still fight beside him, until most of Third Company has crossed the river and is back on the other side of ford.
Every step is won in Own blood, and Rider arrows, and he finally rides back to join Buri, who’s frowning. “What’s the plan?” she asks him.
“The engineers have built an pallisade quite some distance back,” he says quietly. “If we have to retreat, we’ll make them take the fight to us there. Can your Riders…?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!