198 Closer

She wasn't far now. Remian could sense her getting closer and closer. Just over the next rise, he felt. Talia was coming to meet him partway on this dirt road.

He glanced about. The area here was an open space, sparse brush and hard dirt on either side of the road heading north. Ahead was a crossroads with a signpost. On the right, Germat and Auria. On the left, Ashdale and La Vive. To the south, Itarim, and to the north, Bellas.

Talia was coming down this very road. Remian narrowed his eyes. Was that them? That little speck in the distance?

[Talia?] Remian sent out a thought-burst.

[Remian!] Talia lit up. Ahead, at the little speck, he saw movement. Someone was waving both arms frantically. [Over here!]

[Talia!] Remian made a quick decision. [We need to find a place with more cover, enough for the Wasp. I don't want to call the airship out here into the open.]

[There's no cover of that level on the north side. What about south?]

Remian thought back. [There are a few sites we could use…]

Just then, the ground began to rumble.

[Cavalry coming!] Remian gulped. [Find cover!]

There wasn't much, just a few low bushes. Certainly nothing the Wasp could use. But for Remian alone, a few low bushes were sufficient. Talia, however, had a harder time…

[Bulraki raiders.] Remian found out who was coming with just a quick Psionic scan. [Rougly two thousand of them.]

Two thousand men on horseback. They were riding at full speed. There was no way Talia could make it to Remian or him to her before they arrived. Already they were pouring into the open over the rise in the horizon to the right.

Wait. There was a response on the left. Remian sensed…

Power. He recognized them. "La Vive's Chevaliers."

Cavalry on both sides were closing in on his position. Remian half itched to withdraw and just let them fight it out…

But Talia was right there! Right there in front of him!

Maybe it was best they both back off, let the war fight itself out first, then come together again later?

Scrap. Remian sensed more arrivals. Behind the first thousand Bulraki was another thousand. And another. And another.

But on the left, there was only the Chevaliers. It was like they were the only ones quick enough to respond in time.

What was going on? Why were the Bulraki here now, in such force? Why did the Ashdale-La Vive side only have this unit of cavalry here in time to face them? Why even face them here? Trying to challenge these many Bulraki cavalry in an open space this big with just one unit of chevaliers sounded like a bad idea, no matter how elite or well-equipped the chevaliers were!

Unless…

Remian glanced up at the clouds. Could it be? Did the Chevalier have air support just waiting to pounce from above? A bombardment on cavalry in the open from either heavy artillery or airships could be devastating…

"Thunder!" the shout erupted from the Chevalier formation. Remian turned to see that they had ridden in a magic formation, and were casting a group spell on horseback. A powerful roar rippled across the battlefield, crossing the distance at the speed of sound, visibly slamming into the Bulraki lines.

The Bulraki horses and bulls went into a frenzy. The Bulraki were plunged into chaos.

"Clouds gather!" the chevaliers cast another spell. The clouds above, previously thin and scattered across the sky, suddenly came together and took on heavier, darker forms.

"Not good." Remian easily figured out what the chevaliers were going to do. [Talia! Get out of there!]

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[But…]

[We have to get out of here, NOW! Run for it!] Remian leapt out of the brushes and ran forward. [Mindy! Emergency evacuation! We can't wait! We need to leave immediately!]

[What happened?!] Mindy gaped.

[Talia's in the middle of a battlefield.] Remian told her. [And the entire place is about to be covered in magical storms.]

[Storms? Remian the Wasp can't manage bad weather very well!]

[It'll manage better than Talia and her wounded crew. But I'm not asking you to fly into a storm. There's an abandoned farmhouse not too far up the road from my position. Set up camp in the barn and prepare to receive wounded. I'll meet you there. The route to it from you is clear enough, just fly low to avoid being seen.]

[Got it! I'm coming over right now!]

As Remian and Talia rushed toward each other, there was another spell cast. "Rain!"

While the Bulraki were still trying to regain control of half their mounts and urge them forward, the chevalier were changing the terrain of the entire battlefield. As rain began to fall, Remian was forced to slow down as the ground began to become muddy.

Turning the ground to mud! That was the end of any glorious cavalry charges. As expected of the La Vive elites. They themselves were a cavalry unit, but they gave up their horseback style and fought like magi, completely disrupting the Bulraki speed advantages. It was a smart move; the chevalier were in heavy armor while the Bulraki were wearing leathers and furs; it was clear that the Bulraki had more mobility and far, far more numbers. A small unit of heavy cavalry couldn't possibly stop, slow, or defeat the oncoming horde of light and medium Bulraki cavalry. But a circle of magi casting wide area of effect spells could.

Remian would have admired them for it if it didn't mean that he and his friends would likewise be engulfed in those wide area spells. The pattern the chevaliers used was straightforward enough. First, they stunned or hindered the enemy with the Tier 5 spell Wave of Thunder. Then, they gathered clouds (a basic Tier 6 spell) and made it rain (triggering already heavy clouds to rain was a Tier 4 spell). This caught the Bulraki in the mud while at the same time preparing the environment for the final and most important strike.

They did NOT want to be here when lightning started falling out of the sky.

[Run, Talia! RUN!] Remian staggered in the mud, trying to get to them, trying to reach them as the rain began to get heavier in heavier.

"Storm winds, rise!" the chevalier cast another Tier 5 spell. Remian spared them a glance and saw that they had raised their lances like magic staves, waves of mana rippling from them into the sky, causing the clouds to stir, the invisible winds to pick up…

Remian and Talia were nearing each other. He could see the desperation in her face, the urgency in her movements as she and her crew stumbled forward, trying to drag the hand-cast through increasingly thick mud…

"Lightning Storm!" the roar filled the entire field with despair. With wind, rain and clouds in place, the chevaliers unleashed the Tier 6 spell without mercy, and lightning began to crackle in the clouds above.

At that point, the chevaliers retreated. They did not look to be in good shape after casting so many high Tier spells in succession, but they had succeeded, and they had horses. It was well executed maneuver. Remian would have saluted them if he himself wasn't presently caught in the mud and at the mercy of the lightning.

"Talia!" they were close enough to shout at each other.

"What do we do?!" Talia shouted against the wind as they met. "We're not going to make it! What do we do?!"

First things first. Remian raised a hand. "Light!"

A barrier of light covered them from above even as lightning began to fall indiscriminately among the Bulraki ranks. "Can you still run?"

"We…" Talia hesitated, panting, glancing at her crew.

The man beside her was badly winded. The guy who'd been limping after them was already face-flat on the ground, lacking even the strength to crawl.

"Not good." Remian frowned. "We're going to have to take shelter here."

"Here…? But…" Talia glanced about.

Remian stepped off the dirt road onto the even muddier ground beside it. He laid his hand on the sparse grass. "Pit!"

It was earth magic, a Tier 3 spell meant to dig a small hole large enough for a man to crouch in, but Soul Boost flared and the hole that appeared was easily ten times the expected size. Just as it formed, mud rushed in on all sides to fill it up. Remian cast more magic hurriedly. "Stone Walls! Rock Bottom!"

The floor and the walls of the pit hardened to near rock-solidness. Four feet deep (having been so quickly filled by mud earlier) and roughly six feet across with sloping sides (again, thanks to the mudslides), it now looked more like part of a fortified trench.

"Get in!" Talia ordered her crew. "Help the wounded in first!"

"And then?"

"Then we can use the hand-cart for a bit of shelter." Remian suggested. "And see if we can't add a bush or two on top of that. Best to make it as comfortable as possible. We might be in there a while.

"We will have to simply sit tight and wait out the storm."