Rana charged ahead, leaping over corpses. A varonian emerged from the mist and smoke to strike at him with a curved sword but he parried the blow and swept the man's feet out from underneath him. Rana shifted his balance and kicked the man hard in the ribs with his spiked boot. The man let out a cry but was silenced by the spear now lodged in his throat.
A cries errupted from behind him as a volley of arrows shredded the men in the first few rows of his Legion who did not have their shields up. An arrow barely missed Rana so he hurled his spear in the direction of the arrows and strapped his buckler to his right wrist.
Unlike most Vak, Rana was left handed, which provided a nice bonus againstunprepared attackers. With a grunt he drew his scimitar and shouted to the other Legionaire of the 9th Legion.
"Cranus will have our heads if we don't take care of those archers. Flank left!" he cried, his voice barely audible over the roar of the battlefield. The other Legionaire, Drey, nodded in his usual solemn way and motioned for the group of now about thirty men to move left and around the nearby copse of trees. Rana made the hand motion for stealth and the standard bearers stuck their standards in to the ground. The rest of the men changed stance and some changed weapons. The legion spread out and began to move around the trees.
Varonian archers are a force to be reckoned with. Many times entire battles have been won without the enemy even seeing their foes, but if Rana was even worried, he did not show it. As the legion rounded the trees, they saw movement in the trees and bushes. It looked as if the entire forest was alive. Incoherent shapes moved about and loosed arrows.
"Varonian Camoflauge." Drey mouthed, gesturing to the odd shapes. Rana took a second look and could now make out the shapes of men obscured by twigs and whole plants attached to them. Had they not been moving, they would be completely invisible.
Without a thought, the Legion moved in. Cries and shouts began at the back of the Varonian, but by the time the ones in front could turn around, the Vak were already upon them. As Rana approached the other side of the trees, he was amazed to see that the Varonian were firing arrows in to the mist. They had not even been aiming when they had begun desemating the Vak army.
Just as Rana was looking at the wall of mist, figures began emerging. Hundreds upon hundreds of silent figures charged from the mist in all directions. They fell over the few Vak Rana could see on the other side of the mist and he imagined they were doing the same to the others. These figures were almost a liquid mass of men, crashing like waves over the lines of the Vak. The silence was broken by a single horn call and then the figures began crying, shouting with wild battle shouts. The sound was so savage, so horrific, Rana could barely keep standing.
Suddenly more figures came out of the mist, towards the 9th Legion. Rana tried to call for a retreat but the words were caught in his mouth as he was overwhelmed by the figures. In his last few moments, he whitnessed such savagery that he felt in his heart that these were not men. These were beasts.
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