Marcus looked in apprehension at his collapsing aerial legion, frustration mounting as his reinforcements were severely late. He knew his soldier-kith were more skilled as an army, having trained and fought relentlessly for years under his dangerous gaze. But Shen Li came to the field with the equivalent of two cohorts of mage-kith, and the constant barrage of lightning bolts and impossibly potent sonic barrages was wearing down his soldiers, who had only limited arcane defenses. His own mages were an hour late to the field, and still only half in numbers what Shen Li commanded; he suspected foul play.
And that damned peacock armor, Marcus thought! How the hell could they fight, fly and cast in that hellish plate, when I can barely keep my flight cohorts aloft for more than an hour with a pair of pilum, shield and sword? Marcus stared, his eyes going slightly hazy as he watched the enemy mages flying in intricate patterns, their wings protruding easily from the back of lacquer plated armor polished shimmering gold, crimson, azure and a hundred other colors. Even if they weren't so potent, he thought, watching them for too long was hypnotic and distracting enough to get an entire century killed.
Occasionally a group of his soldiers would manage to punch one of their pilum, a short, light metal tipped javelin, through the painted armor. Once it penetrated, the shaft would bend and hang dead, so even if it didn't kill it would eventually force the enemy to land and remove it. That in itself was a death sentence here, with the ground below clogged with hordes of non-flying footsoldiers, wretched thinbloods and humanoid vassals alike.
His formation was thinning and he called them to reform once more into an inverted flamewing, 80' high from tip to tail, and 10 times as long. Every 6 seconds, an entire squad would focus fire with their own weaker energy bolts, 11 in total, to one of the enemy mages. Although most of the missiles either missed or slid harmlessly across the colored armor, some of his elder non-com's had, through training, learned how to transform their mostly uselss fire bolts into more difficult to resist acid (which would at least weaken whatever it hit) and even a few high impact sonic lances that would shred most armor as easily as flesh.
Still, he didn't think it would be enough. Even though the mages would die under a focused assault, his own wings were falling five times as fast as they not only had to deal with the magebloods, but Shen's highly trained flight-soldiers as well. The one bright spot was that although Shen's soldiers were better in single combat, they had never liked to engage Marcus' troops and their complicated and overlapping formations. Many times, just when Shen thought his soldiers were finally breaking through, Marcus would shift a single squad or an entire century almost instantly to the breach, their overlapping shields and wingslashing blades thwarting the superior swordsmen.
None of the High-Dragons' armies were as skilled at fighting in formation as Maxim Legatus (High General) Marcus Titus Cato's. Although Marcus had not seen, nor heard from his Dragonlord, the great and mighty Gilded Victus, offspring of Dragongod Golden Vaevictus, in near twenty years, still he strove to carry out his last orders: subdue the realm of the celestial dragon Li Lin Wu. Marcus would seek to conquer his foe until either his death or until his master called him home, the latter of which seemed unlikely.
The Maxim Legatus had pressed across the continent of Cathay, a mostly foggy, swampy conglomeration of agricultural plantations, silk anthers and quiet, secluded monasteries. The huge continent and distributed population, except for a number of seething commercial centers, meant a constant string of battles as warlords from different factions opposed him at every turn, and made subduing any one area difficult. He knew, of course, that had the armies of Li Lin Wu ever gathered to face him as one, he would likely have been annihilated. Marcus personally appreciated not being annihilated, and thus thanked the Sphere regularly for Cathay’s petty infighting.
“Tribune,” Marcus ordered as he noticed a pattern organizing among the mage-kith, “Drop the hammer.” As Marcus own flight-soldiers worked best in formation, a main strength of this enemy was the ability of their mage-kith to do the same. He sensed the gathering of energy in his scales as the enemy prepared a ritual spell, one that would dwarf the power of any individual mage. If he guessed correctly, they would aim it at his command coterie where it would destroy every living thing within a decimile.
His Tribune relayed the order quickly, using a combination of wing singles and telepathy (an ability of this particular Tribune he always attempted to keep hidden.) As the commands were relayed, Marcus knew it would be close. As the spell built to a crescendo, large shadows began to drop from a low cloudbank, descending toward the formation of mage-kith at frightening speeds. “Metadrakes deployed, Legatus,” the Tribune stated with no small pride. It was the Tribune who had first suggested drafting the hulking brutes once used as no more than plow horses, almost 15 years ago.
Metadrakes were related to Dragonkin in much the same way as Tigers were related to Porchcats. Some of his soldiers joked they had as much intelligence as a Porchcat. Still, they had 4 huge limbs similar to full-blood drakes, but could walk upright as well as on fours. Most weighed in around 300 keys, but given sufficient training, diet and spherepower infusions, could grow almost as large as an adult drake. Their heads were more human though, though about twice as large, with a large fang at each corner of their mouth. They did not have dexterous appendages, but were otherwise bred for killing. Spiked armor glistened as they dropped from the cloud-cover and their roars near-deafened him just before flames, lightning and sonic booms erupted from their wide jaws, enveloping the enemy mage-kith in a crackling, thundering fireball.
One of the mages must have mis-chanted, for their ritual spell backfired just as the metadrakes finished their descent and began to tear into the mage-kith with tooth and tail and claw. A purple sphere of light burst from the center of the formation, and when the light cleared, only the drakes remained, blackened and burnt, but mostly whole. Although a few fell into the massed melee 60 feet below, their incredible constitutions allowed most of them to limp back to the skyfortress they were using as a base of operation.
With their mage-kith destroyed, Marcus’ aerial cohorts turned their attention downlight. What began as an orderly retreat by their enemy quickly turned into a full rout, with fire and steel raining down upon the enemy conscripts. Many of the enemy fullbloods kneeled and offered their swords, a gesture he had finally determined was not one of humiliation, but of respect to a more powerful combatant. Early in the campaign, he had slain many out-of-hand, determining a prisoner train was too much to handle with the already complex logistics of the war. However, after taking several captive as prizes, he learned the true nature of their surrender.
In Cathay culture, those defeated in single ritual combat offered as much as a year’s service to the victor. In war the customs were even more dramatic, with a service period of seven years being standard. And unlike the treacherous Nubians or cunning Hubris, once sworn to service the Cathayan would do so to the best of their ability, with some restrictions. For example, they would not raise blade or claw to their own people, nor would they slay any who did not give battle willingly.
It had become all the rage in the capital to have Cathayan Samurai as bodyguards or gladiators. Their skill in single combat made many a master very wealthy. And although they were a little stoic, many had a quiet sense of humor and pride in their service, and would lay down their life to save a Senator or Tribune of Gilded Victus as quickly as one of their own lords.
Marcus guessed it had taken about 5 hours to subdue Shen Li’s forces. As he looked around the battlefield for the enemy general, a thought occurred to him again. Where are those damn mages? “Tribune!”