Ancient Patrol

When war had first greeted the united empires of the known world at the hands of the elves life began to change rapidly for everyone. War created a necessity for innovation, a churning industry of materials and weaponry determined by logistical masters to move across the world by train to be deployed by the combined might of the empire and federation on the new front lines. Plans far vaster and more complicated than any one man could truly grasp darkened the minds of men and with it the common man paid in blood. War had changed. Centuries of peace had made men forget the depravity of conflict and it was only now that they were forced to remember.

Sergeant major Donovan Barrister was apart of the first legion, a young man at the time, who had been dispatched after the first elven incursion. Until that point in his life he had been little more than a peacekeeper, trading blows and bullets with tribal raiders, vicious outlaws, and dangerous wildlife that were a threat to the Onokrin empire. At the time he was only a corporal, hastily redeployed beyond empire territory and into the southern line of their federation allies. It was there that he got his first taste of war. In the early days the level of black hatred that the elves carried was not quite understood. Even gnolls and minotaurs, renowned for their vicious and bloody-minded natures were appalled by the careless disregard for life that elves had, even for their own. Again and again, week by week, the elves of the Blood Rose Compact would send hordes of their own into the killing fields. They would charge into gun lines, mowed down by the thousands and still they would never change their tactics. In those frantic early days the empire and federation had no artillery support, no golems, no specialized legions, they assembled lines of dug in riflemen and killed as many of the charging monsters as they could before the skirmish devolved into vicious and bloody melee.

Elves did not care for their losses, their screaming maddened berserkers took blood thirsty glee in melee. Supernaturally quick, almost graceful, like panthers dancing across bloodied ground with vicious mocking grins and strange magic blades dancing in the wind. Donovan, still a corporal, was one of the few men who survived and thrived upon this killing field. His rifle the last thing many elves never saw before a bullet felled them, the axe he carried stained with blood at the end of every engagement. It was a trial by fire and men died in droves, those that lived became hardened veterans of war, renown as the first legionnaires who held the line while nobles and bureaucrats struggled to keep pace with the need of conflict.

Donovan was not really anyone special, he rose through the ranks quietly for his accomplishments and never quite attained the rank of lord that those vaunted few did in the early days of heroes. His service was something he always saw as duty, he believed that it was necessary because without men like him doing the bloody work then his wife, his daughter, his family would be ground up in the engines of war. Months became years, years became decades. The front lines grew in scale and perfection, mobilized squads became specialized legions, each one working in concert with others to maintain the line. Elven hordes grew larger with time, despite their casualties, a worrying note that drove the defenders to develop better methods of killing. Mana-based artillery cannons, mechanized golem production, crank guns capable of firing as many bullets in a minute that a squad of men armed with bolt-action rifles could. Dealing death was not only a duty but an art form.

Sergeant major Donovan had lived with this duty, this burden, even as his hair grew gray and his strength slowly waned. He was human after all and though skilled he was not immune to the icy hand of death and age. Every year he told himself that it would be his last, every friend he buried would be the final one, that every single month he would finally make things right with the daughter who was robbed of her father because duty demanded it. Every year without fail, he would sign up for another tour, another year of battle. He was not even sure why he did it, not fully at least, but eventually the time came when he was forced to make a choice.

It had been decades of the federation and empire on the defensive, the talk of making a counter offensive was always in the air. The idea that the combined might of the empire would finally push into elven territory and put an end to the conflict once and for all. It was a pipe dream, of course, as even the combined might of both kingdoms still managed only to hold the line by a thin margin. Any legion heading into enemy territory without fire support, without artillery or proper defenses would be a suicide mission. Elves held sway in the forests where the empire had not burnt it to cinders and nobody, not even the most veteran of scouts, lived long on patrol for incoming raids. Only now, decades later and assured of their defenses did the idea come to fruition.

A volunteer patrol would travel south, deep into elven territory, discover what they could and scout where possible and if capable hit sensitive or critical elven holdings. This legion, dubbed the Ancient Patrol, was volunteer and would only accept men past the age of fifty who had children to carry on their family name. There was no pretending, no hidden lies, every soldier was told that those apart of this legion would likely be killed. The simplicity of the plan was to learn what they could and send their fastest runners back with that information while the patrol continued on. Donovan was not going to volunteer, at least not originally, he was going to retire then and there and return to his family for good. He was going to make amends, live out his golden years, and fade away.

At least, that had been the plan.

The terrible dilemma of a soldier is that he wants to preserve his nation, his comrades, and himself and if he is a man of any worth it is done in that order. When a soldier and his enemy both have this creed they tend to resolve who is correct rather violently. Donovan had served for a great many decades by this point and this conflict of interests had seen many men buried in the wake of their campaigns and defensive actions. Those that remained he had felt a debt to, for the lives that he had saved and those whom safeguarded his own.

One such man had been his longest cohort, a lagus by the name of Lannister. Lannister had been there during the first battle against the elves, back then nothing more than another riflemen among a legion of them. Like most of his kind Lannister was a psion, his specialty telekinetics, a knack that had saved Donovan twice over that first day through the use of psychic barriers to block oncoming fire. Donovan returned the favor a day later when both had been redeployed as emergency relief for a border hold that the elves had ambushed in a misdirection assault. The tone and horror of war when they came upon the holds defenders had nearly driven all of the more psychically attuned soldiers into states of delirium.

The horrors of what elves were willing to do, the glee and ecstasy that they took in suffering, need not be repeated nor thought of. Donovan had nearly doubled over himself when Lannister lost control of his psychic power after witnessing the gutted remains of civilians strung up as bloodied trophies. Thankfully, blunted as his mind was, Donovan managed to resist the psychic backlash and pull himself away from passing out before putting Lannister into blissful unconsciousness with a swift strike to the skull from the butt of his rifle. Despite Lannister nearly being two feet taller than him and weighing as much as a horse Donovan dragged him away from the carnage even as other psions began to succumb. He took the man to one of the hastily erected medical tents and stayed with him until he awoke. From that point forward they had become like brothers.

They made an excellent team, deployed often in the same fields with other growing veterans of the first conflicts. Their effectiveness led to their rise in the ranks and with it a growing respect from various lords and field marshals. Donovan himself never really stood out despite this, he was rather average in height, one of the few humans who was entirely pure and lacking in any form of chimeric change. Middling height and increasingly gray hair with a potbelly from extensive nights spent drinking on leave, Donovan’s only distinctive quality was his styled goatee, soft spoken nature, and the purity of his human appearance. Lannister was equally normal, for his race at least, short for a lagus at only a mere towering seven feet in height with a brown pelt of fur. The appearance of the lagus took some getting used to, Donovan was used to orcs, goblins, even the hulking forms of ogres from his own upbringing, but beastfolk took some getting used to. Lannister’s comparatively huge height and his rabbit-like features and fur covered body still, even decades later, put Donovan off despite how close they had become. He privately supposed that it was a little too different compared to the other races from his homeland.

Donovan had, up until that point, never met a male lagus until meeting Lannister. Only over several months when they had first come to know each other did Lannister slowly reveal why male lagus were so rare and that his position on the front lines was itself considered a crime by his people. Both men had come from similar backgrounds, growing up in poor families and going into the military the moment they came of age. Where they differed was the reason, with Donovan doing it out of a sense of duty and Lannister to escape the unfortunate circumstance of his birth. What that meant had come slowly over the years, the reserved nature of Lannister making it for a slow drip feed of information. Lannister had told Donovan that his people did not produce males often, in fact it was estimated that for every hundred females born a single male was.

At first Donovan thought that must have been paradise, he knew very little about the federation or even the lagus except from Lannister, he must have a pick of women. As it turns out Lannister explained that men were little more than bargaining chips and trade material. Few that they were, fewer were even allowed to leave their clan holdings due to how valuable males became in a society dominated by women. As Lannister came from an extremely poor clan it was very likely he would be traded off to a wealthier clan to enrich his family. Seeking to escape this inevitable fate Lannister had joined the military, one of the few ways a male lagus could escape being little more than a prisoner. As a result, after a decade of knowing the reserved giant, Lannister told him the military was his family and he saw Donovan as his first and most valued brother.

It was for this reason when Donovan had seen Lannister had volunteered for the ancient patrol that he signed up as well, knowing what it meant and knowing he had to be there for him. In a way, Donovan half believed they would return, that the patrol would succeed in their mission and return victorious. He had reasoned with himself that he still had time, that when he got back he would return to his wife and daughter and make amends for his mistakes as a father. Just like every other time it was one last deployment and it would all be over. His debt to Lannister had to be repaid, not that Donovan ever asked if Lannister wanted him there, they did not speak when they met during preparation. Few people did, it was a rather solemn affair among veteran soldiers who sought neither glory nor accolades. Every man on the ancient patrol knew why he was there; they did not need fanfare.

The ancient patrol was two hundred man strong, hardly a legion as they later came to be known but suitable for a scouting vanguard and recon patrol. Of them they had members from federation and the empire, a hundred strong riflemen equipped with their choice of rifle, revolver, and melee weapon. A quarter more were from the ogre mage legions, hulking giants clad in steel from sabaton to helmet and brimming with enough magical power to level a small mountain. Of them only three were rosaria, the magical healers considered more important than any other soldier on the field, whose chanted words healed entire squads of their wounds in seconds. With them were only six psions, Lannister included, all lagus and all lightly equipped scouts assigned to protect the rosaria when not scouting ahead. The rest were a random assortment of various soldiers from different companies and legions that brought there own specialized tools. Only four of them stood out, a pair of goblins and rodentfolk, barely half of Donovan’s height and each piloting a golem suit. Donovan did not know enough about golems to determine what exactly they were but he had seen them in action, twin gun-armed magical creatures of metal, stone, or brass that required a pilot within to direct their awesome might. This time Donovan was given a full breakdown of their abilities by the pilots themselves as he had been chosen as company commander. Each was equipped with an ancient mana cell, repair automatons made of brass, mana barriers, and twin autocannons spewing magical globs of explosive fireballs. The pilots themselves were all brothers by blood or law and were veteran golem drivers with one boasting he was with the first brass legion deployed on the front lines. Donovan knew it would not be enough for them to succeed but a part of him pondered if everyone else had come to the same conclusion.

Prep and assembly was quick, ordered, and ready before first light even cracked over the horizon. Donovan did not want any form of fanfare or parade, to him it felt insulting knowing they were being sent to their deaths and the thought of some grinning noble that had never seen combat preening about it made him want to shoot everyone involved who put this into motion. They still drew attention as they departed past the entrenchments, bunkers, and artillery lines, but it was quiet. Few spoke and by the grace of the gods nobody tried to applaud them as they filed past. The only sound was the morning birds singing and the heavy stomps of steel boots and the towering twelve-foot golems. The only thing that stuck out to Donovan was the way people stared, solemn and quiet, watching them while they lowered the bridges across the trenches and entered the killing fields. There faces were more unsettling then the blasted hellscape of ash and bones that made up the no man’s land between the front and the elven controlled forests.

As they fell into marching formation Donovan took his place at the center, directly in front of the three rosaria and among the scouts. Not for the first time in his life he felt short, something that amused him enough for a half smile while he glanced between the lagus and ogres around him and guessed the shortest was seven feet. The short one was Lannister of course, the other lagus were all women and therefore larger. The man caught Donovan’s smile and for a moment it was returned, an inexplicable moment of camaraderie between them before the patrol reached the edges of the killing fields and hit the burnt-out tree lines. From here they were now entering contested territory, the burned trees provided little cover and even less protection, but this worked to his company’s advantage. Elves were one of the few races innately capable of magic, something he had only ever seen in salamanders before. Many took a more druidic path, controlling and manipulating plants and shaping them into disposable soldiers’ elves eagerly herded into conflict.

Once they reached the forest where it was not burnt what little advantage they had would be gone, he wagered the patrol would be discovered quickly but hoped that the elves would set up an ambush, lure them in so to speak. Their tactics and methods were never intelligent nor planned but in his years of fighting he noted one exploitable trend that many commanders made use of. Elves were pure sadists, the only strategy they would ever employ was one that would inflict the most suffering, mental or physical. They could not help themselves in that regard and it was the only place they displayed feral cunning. For that reason, Donovan wagered that the elves would realize there plan to scout the area out and potentially try to hit key locations. Whether they did or not he could not say but he was betting that they would be shown something, enough to think they had valuable information. Even if it was not real they had to see enough to be given hope. As long as they did not turn back, as long as their spirits grew with their perceived success, the main force of elves would continue to wait in ambush in the hopes of inflicting as much agony as possible when Donovan and his men died with their knowledge.

He reasoned that, given the lack of forward thinking, it was probable that the elves would simply show them what made up their towns or industry, perhaps even let them be attacked and destroyed in service of harvesting their anguish when they came to kill them to the man. It was predictable, a fact that made Donovan sigh. Lannister noticed but said nothing, few spoke at all really. If asked any soldier would have said they were silent to not give away their position despite the fact the stomping golems and armor-clad mages made it a moot point. The truth was that nobody had much to say.

Once they reached the unburnt forest the company spread out to make up for the diminished lines of site, organized in groups of four and always within eyesight of those in front of and behind them. Elves were not known for subtly, but dangerous predators might lurk these woods and it kept a man alive to be careful. It did not take long for them to start seeing signs of elven life. Donovan had heard that the southern villages that once bordered these areas had been killed off by the elves. Rumors abounded however that some, those who had surrendered, still lived on under oppressive elven rule. He thought of these more and more as subtle clues built over time. The ‘fey’ as they were called, those unlucky enough to be weaved by elves were reshaped into other creatures. Scattered reports among the patrol noted clues of people having settled here and Donovan wondered if they would meet these fey.

Small gardens hidden in groves, ornaments of some significance built to hide among the trees, pathways that could not be mere animal trails. The ogres rumbled of magic in the air, not of runes and steel but animus that they could not easily bend. Some even chuckled, calling it primitive and pathetic. Donovan was not so sure, a glance shared with Lannister confirmed his suspicion. The trails and signs were likely alarms, magical wards and potentially even traps. The trails must have been between villages, perhaps elves and their plant-like abominations did not leave tracks. Perhaps they walked single file, hundreds of soldiers stepping into the same set of footprints, gnoll tribals did that to disguise how many their war parties numbered. So much was left up in the air and Donovan could only privately scowl at how unprepared they were walking into enemy territory with no intel.

When the first report from forward scouts noted they arrived at an elven town their immediate reaction was forming a defensive line as quietly as possible, keeping the ogres and golems back to avoid making noise and rubbing oil upon their iron and steel to avoid even the chance that a glint from sunlight would reveal their position. The first town contained just what Donovan had feared, fae, the rumored slaves of elves. In a way he had thought that perhaps they could be liberated, free them and send them towards the federation line to be reassimilated, but orders contradicted this. The patrol was commanded to destroy any town they came across, even civilian targets. Donovan wished it would have been a hard choice, that he might have hesitated when his men looked at him for orders. Part of him wondered what he was doing but most of him knew that if he lived through this, he would regret his choice for the rest of his life.

He ordered the attack, the golems stomping towards the front and breaching the tree line before opening with a salvo of fireballs from their mounted guns. The buildings were tree-like, appearing like massive tree stumps hollowed out and made into quaint little homes. They burned easily and well. What passed for defenders, as they seemed unprotected by their elven masters, were mowed down by rifle fire. Most tried to flee and none managed to escape as far as Donovan saw. It was grim work, work that nearly everyone knew was cruel, if not outright evil, but they carried out their orders because they were all good soldiers who understood why they had to. Donovan made to attempt to study or see what his patrol was destroying, buildings were torched without being searched, structures razed, and no prisoners taken. Only one person caused a problem during it all. An orc who laughed as he shot a satyr in the back, taking bloody glee in his work. Donovan ordered him to stop laughing and the orc asked why. Donovan pulled his revolver and shot him dead on the spot. Nobody said anything, Lannister gave an approving nod and the slaughter continued. Nobody would make light of what they were doing under Donovan’s watch. The next four towns proved as simple as the first one. Their bloody swathe did not stop until they finally reached what they assumed as a military outpost. Two large tree trunk buildings and one smaller shed-like structure surrounded by terrain of brambles and walls of thorns past its one trail leading in.

Donovan gave no orders beyond take the outpost, he did not need to, this was a squad of veterans and within moments the place was approached, searched, and taken. What they presumed was an office was empty of life and contained only a few crates and storage, what they thought were the main warehouses offered only a baffling sight of indoor gardens. The floor was rows of dirt with no actual flooring, empty plots of plants and scattered bones among the withered old detritus of weeds. A small artificial light floated in the center of each plot, suspended by magic and bathing the room. Several speculated about what it could mean as Donovan ordered defensive positions to be hastily erected around them and scouts to look for encroaching enemies. He was positive they were being surrounded even as he gave the order for everyone to look alert but not as if they knew an attack was immediate. It allowed them time to better prepare.

To nobody’s surprise the scouts on watch reported movement in the tree line, subtle and careful movement that was only betrayed by the unnatural shift of the bushes moving against the wind periodically. Donovan took position near the center of the compound, by the rosaria and golems as he conversed lowly with some of the most experienced veterans. Slowly, orders were given out to appear less subtle, scouts and riflemen scaled the sides of the warehouses, golems took position at each entry path as their arcana thrummed with resonance to power their mana barriers, soldiers began to check ammo, bolt rifles, and take position around these titans as magi and psions dispersed among them. In return their enemy gave up the same charade, moving into the edges of the clearing to reveal themselves. Every face among the assembled horde around them was elven, not plants, not fungal abominations or wooden giants that served as cannon fodder.

No, it was elves, pale ethereal faces of almost porcelain texture that was both monstrous and beautiful. It was looking at the weaving of a monster made into the visage of a man, sharp angular faces and delicate skin clad in armor made of enchanted leather, leaves, and in some cases wood. The only iron among them blades, glittering and thrumming with magical light that seemed to waver if gazed at for too long. Yet what ruined the beauty was the expressions, the eyes, the way their bodies spoke. Twisted leering smiles made of fangs and black pitiless eyes almost like insect eyes save for the cat-like slits that made their pupils. Nobody in the company to much as flinched, not a single rumble of worry or fear passed through them even as the horde of elves grew larger and larger until one could barely see the tree trunks past the clearing. All here had killed hundreds, maybe thousands of elves, all of them old soldiers and veterans of campaigns that culled the weak by the hour.

Donovan sighed, thinking of himself a fool for doing this, even as his gaze shifted towards his brother and met that still strange lapine face. Lannister nodded to him, he had his orders already, Donovan felt the overwhelming urge to say something, anything, this was the last time they would see each other alive. He wanted to tell Lannister he did this because he owed him, he wanted to tell him to say goodbye to his wife for him, that he did not blame him for what would happen next. Yet he froze, incapable of saying anything as Lannister turned away, speaking one final time before he reached for his enchanted bracer. “Steady, friend, when we are called, we answer.”

Donovan shook his head, he turned away as well, moving to climb up the side of the warehouse to join the riflemen positioned up there. Lannister was the chosen scout who would return, given an enchanted bracer that would turn him invisible and give him the chance to escape and report back to central command while everyone else attempted a fighting retreat. Those were the orders, but nobody really believed there would be a retreat. As Donovan hoisted himself onto the roof and stood to survey the situation, he could only think to himself that everyone here was going to die. The thought only pissed him off. He wanted to give his last shouted orders, a speech, something to rally the veterans and give them something to fight just a bit harder for a bit longer before they succumb. Yet he had never been a man for speeches or words, soft spoken and to the point, he could not rally men behind him like a lord would or could. No, he could not think of what to say as he unshouldered his rifle and chambered a round.

The elves were waiting, waiting until their war host came from the forest and elves parted around him to allow a crone-like beast to limp into the clearing. Elven warlords were always dangerous specimens, not quite on par with a lord of the empire but dangerous creatures none the less. Nearly all of them were mages of some form, necromancers, warlocks, pyromancers and geomancers. This particular one was withered, aged skin like cracked leather encased in a black robe made of cloth and bones and wielding a staff made of spines and topped with a glowing skull.

“Necromancer.” Donovan muttered, his anger growing with the site of this grinning black magician. It was the smile that did it. No doubt the elves were playing this for intimidation, to drive fear into their hearts and see Donovan and his men panic so they could savor the despair before killing them. Donovan only grew more and more enraged at the very idea. That… thing, was limping forward supported by its staff of better men’s bones in some vain attempt to strike fear in them. Donovan reacted without thinking, giving in to his anger and leveling his rifle before the necromancer halfway across the field could react. The shot rang out loudly across the silent field, everyone on both sides surprised as the necromancer’s head turned into a fine green mist of blood and bone.

“Kill them all and be done with it!” Donovan roared, his voice filled with his rage and joined by the sudden bellows and shouts of his men. Guns raised, the horde across the field rallied and fell into a sprint as bullets cut them down.

Donovan had already positioned everyone and issued orders in preparation, what happened next was a slaughter he had seen a thousand times across a thousand battles. Screaming blood crazed elves charging into a kill zone, mowed down and stumbling or leaping over their dead and dying comrades just to get closer. Each riflemen fired in alternating salvos, bullets never once ceasing at golem’s activated their anti-magic shields. The thrumming blue shimmers halting the few blasts of fireballs and boulders launched by elven mages while evenly deployed squads of ogre magi clad on full plate shouted bolstering and healing spells. Between them stronger soldiers bearing blades and shields readied themselves to meet those who made it past the firing lines, dispatching them with practiced coordinated maneuvers. Yet the real death dealing came from the psions, scattered between and weaving through the defenders where their elemental powers emitted gouts of lightning, cryonic ice blasts, and explosive balls of fire.

Hours passed with only the cacophony of shouted spells, blasts of elemental might, and the thunder of guns. The number of elves never seemed to falter nor cease, bodies piled up higher and higher until the golems unleased their twin flame cannons to burn them away. The field of brambles and thorns became an abattoir of blood, gore, and ashes and still neither side showed any sign of stopping. Casualties began slowly, as the rosaria were well protected and fed by the mana of their fellow ogres, but even magic had its limits and every hour more died as ammo supplies ran low and more were forced to fighting in melee. Donovan had long since ran dry on ammo first, tossing what remained to better shooters before he joined the front with sword and revolver. He witnessed the first ent break the tree line, the massive hulking beast of wood lumbering towards them. The golem it charged was forced to fight alone, its fellows incapable of leaving their position lest their shields open the defenders to elven magic.

Donovan could only watch the battle of titans, the golem deploying its mana blade and meeting the ent toe to toe, the clash sending elf and patrolmen flying with each impact. The shields faltered first, the golem’s pilot forced to reroute what remained on his mana battery into his combat runes. The runic magic that protected the bronze giant warping, its glow ebbing with every traded blow. The ent was bleeding ichor from half a dozen wounds, a mindless thing howling in rage until a sudden salvo of fireballs from newly arrived elven mages sent the line scattering without the golem’s shield to absorb it all. The suit buckled, the golem sensing its death and ejecting the pilot from the now burning cockpit where he, in flames and screaming, was caught by the weakened ent. Donovan shouted orders, rousing those unaware into closing the gap now that a golem and its protective barrier had fell, his revolver leveled on the screaming pilot firing a single merciful bullet before five more rounds landed one after another in the ent’s head.

He rushed forward, flanked by comrades that fell in step with him, but now if anyone held any hope of retreating when the fighting lulled it was gone. Several died trying to stem the sudden surge as the elves saw their weakened state. They swarmed and even the ogres that had been protecting the now crumbling bronze titan failed to hold them off. Donovan did not have time to reload, his last bullet in his seven round cylinder his only back up as his sword cut a swathe through the enemy. But he was failing. Everyone had been fighting for hours. He was old, he was tired, his blade was slowing and his defense eroded until an elven blade finally slipped between his ribs. He was stabbed in the back, the blade hit his lungs, he was sure because he tasted blood and knew that he was slain. Heedless of his deathblow, he lurched forward, ripping the blade from his body and turning to fire his last bullet through the grinning elven face. He slumped to his knees as the elven corpse fell, his blood draining from his back, everything was growing faint and distant. His last thoughts were of his family, his duty, wondering if it had meant anything.

As commander Donovan succumbed to his injuries, leadership fell to the next ranking officer still alive. A rodentfolk by the name of Sergei. The graying rat man yelled that the commander had fallen, issued out new orders and demanded all reserves be put to use, all the ammo, all the remaining grenades. Everything they had. Sergei rallied the rest as he shouted his orders and his double-action revolvers claimed elven life after life without pause. In his day, Sergei might have been a lord himself, a gunslinger without equal who began his life as a side show performer before joining the military. He had settled down later on to become a family man, not pursuing greatness as he could have. Yet it was because of his sons that he was even here. His three eldest sons were old enough to have joined the ancient patrol but instead he forbade it. They had legacies still and Sergei knew his time was coming to an end. He took his son’s ammo and made a promise that every creature that came into his sights would die, that as patriarch he would claim a life for every single bullet his sons gave him.

So far, he had held up his vow, his expensive revolvers dropped twelve elves with clean head shots. Cylinders popped and Sergei slammed his well-oiled guns together, the cartridges sliding free before tossing one gun in the air with a flourish. A speed loader flashed, refilling the revolver he still held before it was thrown into the air and the second was caught and loaded. The whole process took less than two seconds, the fastest hands this side of the federation from an old man who knew how to juggle and made a fancy trick an effective means of dealing death. Twelve more down, the last one winged and staggered before Sergei tossed a knife from his belt to end the struggling beast. He almost laughed to himself, because he knew when he met his sons in the afterlife he would still count that one. He held everyone together as Donovan did until his ammo ran dry, over two hundred magnum rounds and two hundred confirmed kills. His duty fulfilled, Sergei was slain when he was overwhelmed in melee, his last thoughts only of his oath fulfilled and his paternal pride. He would meet his son at Baitaal’s gates in triumph, even as the world went dark.

Next in line was Olga, a lagus psion, a woman who had not ever wanted to be here. A victim of noble squabbling and political maneuvers within her clan. She had fallen out of favor and was volunteered for this mission against her will. Forced into this, she still represented everything her clan prided itself on. Her specialty was pyromancy. She was a living conduit of fire and when Sergei fell she took command, her orders spoken with the hatred she felt. Yet, when the moment came, she saw one of the golems being overwhelmed and acted without a second thought. She leaped into the mob surrounding the titan, everything in her psychic might coalescing within her hands as globes of fire before she landed among the enemy. Her last thoughts were bitter as she brought the two blazing orbs together, her heart filled only with hate as the inferno claimed her and the mob in the blast.

There were no more ranking officers now, the rest had been killed or lay bleeding to death on the ground. The three golems and most of the ogres were the only point of rally now, the original battle mages were members of a fraternal order of brothers, mages devoted to the empire and the sons of Baitaal. They had come here to die, seeing themselves as beyond their prime and wishing to give their order a memory in the legend that would be the ancient patrol. To them this was almost a game, fed by each other's magical auras and good cheer, they sang their spells. They spoke well of those that fell, they insulted their enemy and laughed as death was dealt by their blades and magic. The first of their order to fall was one of the knights, overwhelmed by an a second ent that sent the hulking ogre lifelessly tumbling into the ground before his brothers descended upon the plant-like creature and pummeled it into a pile of gore. They shouted their fallen members name, sang of what had made him their valued brother, their infectious cheer bolstering the tired defenders who relied on the ogres to keep them healed and alive. But with the death of one, a domino effect happened, each ogre dying lead to the remaining losing the bolstering effect that individual had. One by one, each titan tumbled to the ground until the remaining two called for the rest to retreat to the warehouse.

The good cheer and singing were gone as what remained of the ancient patrol fled into the warehouse, their retreat covered by the two ogres and three remaining golems. They hoped to bottleneck the elves through the doorway of the sturdy building but by then it did little to help. With the last two ogres falling they had lost what magical healing and enchantments they had left. Even with the golems interlocking shields and fighting side by side elves still slipped past, every wound now mounted and more were dying. The building had no windows, the elves stalled while they blasted the walls with spells to create new openings. The golems could not cover every newly opened portal and soon the ancient patrol had dwindled down to just the three pilots and one man. An ordinary human, a man like Donovan, bloody and long since out of ammo. He managed to drive his blade into three of the elves that tackled him to the ground before he was stabbed to death. With no one left to defend two of the golem pilots, brothers in fact, had long since planned their own merciful deaths. They diverted every rune from weapons and shields back into their mana battery, the golems charging into the crowded throng of elves while their power cells overloaded and went critical. The pilots ejected; their coats lined with stacks upon stacks of grenades that only added to the explosion. The whole building came down, a deafening explosion that killed nearly every elf in the clearing and left naught but rubble and a massive crater.

-

From his perch well beyond the battlefield Lannister had witnessed it all through the scope of his rifle, defying his orders and remaining to survey the end of the ancient patrol from afar. The chosen scout watched as the final golem, the last pilot that had survived the suicidal blast of his fellows hauled himself from the rubble and crater. Lannister watched as the golem's runes flickered to life, the pilot readying to continue fighting until he was finally taken down rather than flee. Lannister sighed, feeling it both foolish but still his heart felt respect for the man's last rampage before he turned away and began loping through the forest to deliver his report of what happened to only expedition into elven lands. His tale became a legend, the names of all those who died here remembered for centuries and a monument built to their sacrifice.