Eventide - Random Nations, Late Era (Calmon Wins!)

[Baalz]

�The undead stir and the very hills seem to move. They mass along our border like locusts, their numbers too great to count. The grass underneath them cannot even be seen for the press of bodies�. Silence reigned in the tent. The High Chief had charged horse lord Huang-lao with securing the border, but he had expected to be pillaging giant villages - he commanded less than one tenth the troops sighted marching this way. Though mighty warriors, they could not hope to stand against such numbers and the sharp sting of the dishonor of retreating was almost too much to bear.

Then Huang-lao said the unthinkable. �The plague of Ermor has been cast back every time they set foot on T�ien Ch�i soil, they will not gain an inch on my watch. The Ermorian captain expects us to fall back and hide, we will surprise him and bring the battle to him.� Strong men paled, for all knew this was a way to save face by dying in battle rather than retreating. Leaving the command tent, Huang-lao knelt by the stream, and prayed to Jewel, the lady of waters to help him find some way to hold back the undead hoard.

As the first rays of dawn found him still kneeling, he scrambled back in shock as something large- nay, immense rose from the impossibly shallow stream. Soon the towering figure of the goddess Jewel herself stood over him, the literal answer to his prayers. With rapturous joy he ran forth to form up the troops and bring righteous battle to the undead.

He sent riders in eight directions, with orders to levy every able bodied man available, as he led his brave 50 towards the ranks of six hundred undead. As they formed up, and the first ranks of undead crested the hill in front of him, the levies galloped up, doubling the ranks of the cavalry, and adding scores of bow and pike wielding peasants. As Huang-lao deployed his troops, it became apparent to all the unbelievable scope of the battle they would soon join as rank after rank of shuffling dead crested the hill. Just as despair began to take hold in the hearts of the strongest warriors, a distinctive buzz was heard, and several celestial masters dropped from the sky, to land behind our formed ranks and offer encouragement. As our archers pulled their bows and waited the command to fire, the celestial masters commanded the very wind itself to guide our arrows, and unnoticed by most the ghoul-father mercenary cast phoenix power to amplify his fire magic.

With the whoosh of a hundred hornets our archers loosed, and as the winds took hold of the shafts to guide them into the hearts of our enemies the wrathful goddess Jewel stamped her mighty foot and a colossal wave splashed out, rapidly coagulating into a dozen water elementals.

Dozens of undead dropped, but hundreds upon hundreds more shuffled forward. It seemed as though all had been for naught. Then Jewel slammed her foot again and another dozen water elementals formed, and the unnoticed ghoul-father completed his fire arrow enchantment. The second volley of arrows, already in flight suddenly burst into flame and scores of undead dropped. Again, again and again hundreds of burning arrows decimated the undead ranks while Jewel unleashed the wrath of a flooding river upon the undead, blasting cleansing water back and forth over the mass of troops to devastating effect. The Celestial Masters sent smaller streams forth, blasting free the foul force which animated them while Ancestral Guides unraveled the long dead from the inside with loud popping sounds. Our solid corps of Celestial warriors stood stout, holding back the flood of undead while destruction rained on them from all sides.

Yet still the undead hoard pressed forward. As the arrow supplies dwindled Huang-lao rode back and forth rallying the troops. �Let�s show these unholy abominations what it means to face the horselords. Let us show them the fruit of fighting their way to our archers! CHARGE!� The very ground shook and some of the peasant archers lost their footing as a hundred heavy horsemen thundered forward and lowered their lances. This proved too much for the undead leadership, for they broke before we could even close.

"Casualty report"

"We lost no men sir, but 3 of the Celestial Soldiers fell. Virtually all 600 undead were slean however."

"Good work, we have won much honor here today but our work is not done. We march on the morrow to push yet more of the unending mass of dead back to the hell that spawned them."

For all who disregarded my first and second proclamation, allow me to spell it out once more in Argathan, Utgard and Ermor corpses. RESPECT THE HORSELORD�S BORDERS.

We come for the rest of the dead now, we will slay ten�twenty times as many undead. Ermor, you have angered us for the last time and your ploy to save the last of the giants may buy them a few more months, but it will cost you your kingdom.