Hero Scout 56 Chapter 56 - Scourge By Fire

The crusaders held, as did the woodsmen, but those village folk that were brave enough to fight were cut down like lambs. Phillip waved to the bands of hunters to focus their fire, arrows bringing down the enemy reinforcements.

Despite the burning landscape, the satyr and their monstrous servants continued to push through and attack. Despite being burned, despite choking on ash and dying to falling trees the enemy were seemingly immune to fear as they launched harrying strikes.

Damage continued to be dealt, and their company had taken yet more losses. Turning, Phillip eyed the fortified village of Armsworth, the last such village to go on their path to Tariak.

"Warden! Defend your warden!" Phillip yelled, seeing Jack fling tongues of flame into the enemy ranks, the blaze behind them scarcely holding off the near suicidal goatmen.

With their ranks spread thin to catch those zealous goatmen that managed to make it through the inferno, Phillip was forced to charge himself or see his Captain overrun.

"Rally to me! The Warden must not fall!"

To either side appeared a battered squad of villagers and crusaders. Together they charged Jack's position, all the way at the rearguards most forward line. Where the fighting was thickest.

Alone he had held off an army by copying the Pyromancers power to wield flame, but he was no G.o.d. They pulled him away a wounded man, drenched in red, burned across his face and arms, breathes rasping in Phillip's ear.

Arrows sung through the air, pegging Phillips' warriors to the ground. Jack's retreat broke the balwalk, the enemy commander sending fresh troops accompanied by starved monsters.

From their flank came a trio of Minotours, the half bull men cleaving through entire men and throwing broken bodies high in the air with horns drenched crimson. Hunters bravely held their ground and fired a volley, the arrows tinkling aside as they were too weak to pierce the monsters hide.

From the battle appeared the Flower Knight, her blade piercing one Minotours through the side of the head. By drawing away the Minotours attention, the hunters could escape to higher ground.

"Come on fellas, it's just little old me," the Flower Knight giggled as the other two swung their axes in wide arcs. Dancing past their guard, she thrust her blade through one's head and nlew dust into the face of the last.

Roaring the Minotour swung wildly, it's powerful strokes screaming through only air as twin daggers were thrown to plunge into its eyes. Maddened and blind it thrashed and crashed, the Flower Knight giggling as she led it away to attack it's own allies.

The Satyrs were thrown around just as easily as the humans, more then a few parted in two or sent howling back into the burning forest. As for the dead pair, sparkling yellow flowers burst from their mouths and were added to the Flower Knight's flowerbed mane.

Retreating back to the village, Phillip found the squads neatly arranged. His priests were out of blessings, and instead busied themselves by organising the defence. Several villages had been contacted on their retreat path, the fastest horses and runners despatched to send families fleeing to Tariak and available fighters here.

Warden Company now stood several hundred strong, and under the banner of the Inquisition Jack addressed his warriors even while the battle continued behind him. Pushing aside those that had been holding him up, Jack forced his damaged body to stand proud.

"Today, we will inspire a legend. Thank you heroic people of this land for heeding my call, we will show these monsters that humanity is not so easily cowed!" a roar of men, a clatter of steel and the banshee shrieks of the experimental all female contingent.

While the inquisition allowed female crusaders, even Phillip had balked at first in allowing the women to fight entirely on their own. Yet the 'Wiltedwives' as they had so affectionately called themselves had proven a potent tool. Widows, filled with the rage of lost love ones, they fought tooth and nail against the enemy with a resolve of a hardened crusaders and the ruthlessness of the criminal competents of Warden Company's forces.

Their leader strode back to meet then after another days work, the Flower Knight welcomed by her followerers. Perhaps to copy her, they too wove flowers into their hair, and while such activities could be considered pagan, Jack has given the order to let them be.

"Surely some words for the Three, Warden," Phillip advised, Jack brushing off the comment as he continued to their planning table. Their forces were represented by blue tokens, mostly here in Armsworth village. Some few had gone ahead to escort the wounded and noncombatants, while many more had simply been unable to reach here and were forced to make their own way to Tariak.

The enemy were represented in red, and wilt scattered they bathed half the map crimson.

"The Three have delivered victory, we should-"

"You said it yourself, Phillip. The Three do not intervene in this plane except through their blessings. Today was one due to the brave hearts of men defending their homes, I will not take that from them," Jack said, brushing away one of the local priests who still had the blessings to spare.

"I'm fine! Go heal someone who needs your attention," Jack rasped, the priest giving his many wounds a long look before turning away.

"Jack, you can't sustain this. Your not a G.o.d, not even chosen as a saint. If we don't beg to be saved, this land will be lost to those creatures of nightmares."

Phillip rested a hand in Jack's shoulder, and lightly placed an icon to the Three in Jack's hands.

"Pray, display your thanks," Phillip urged him.

"Have you noticed Phillip? The enemy have not sent any of the demonically enhanced for days now, I think they're pooling their forced elsewhere for the moment."

"What I have noticed, Warden, is the lack of faith. By not holding yourself to a high standard you risk promoting pagan beliefs in those who look up to you. Already I think allowing the villagers to display their own crests and prepare for battle without prayer is a dangerous precedent-"

A horn blew, one of the formations had been breached. Jack let the holy icon slip from his hands and into the mud, as he ran to direct the army's defence.

Deeply troubled, Phillip watched his long time friend charge into the fray almost with a deathwish. And while G.o.dless at that.

Phillips lips pulled back into a sneer, as he continued to watch Jack's heroics inspire the warriors and steer them further from the light of the Three.

Phillip would give him one more chance, but if Jack continued to show doubt in the faith of their all powerful and all mercyfull G.o.ds...

"Prepare our loyal crusaders, tell them to watch the Warden carefully."

"Watch him for what, Inquisitor?" said the crusader behind him.
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Phillip lifted his chin up high as he watched the Warden send far too many saytrs into the next world for a mortal man unaided by the G.o.ds. No mere human could achieve so much with but determination alone, it wasn't natural.

"For the signs of heresy."