Hundreds of cavalry members slammed into the ranks of rebellious mages in the rolling foothills of the Kilanthro mountains. Until then, the shining ranks of steel and banners of the black-emerald boar had been rather neat and well kept. But upon smashing into their foes, the forces seemed to break into individual pockets of cavalry members, focused upon eradicating their focused targets at all costs without breaking from one anothers' shoulders.

One figure stood out amongst the grey, white-blue armor shining in the dim light, only marred by the occasional splatter of red blood. Major Hakon Kilandre's massive mount plunged forward, rearing with a monstrous roar to crush skulls of mages who dared wander too close. The enchanted armor rippled faintly as it absorbed elemental bolts with ease- the shield and sword ringing and singing like the Church's bells accompanied by a lovely, merciless choir.
Slamming the massive shield into another opponent's hapless face, sending the man sprawling beneath her mount's vicious hooves- she seemed vaguely oblivious to the presence of another notable figure..

Before the apposing army attacked, several of the younger mages were excited to go to war, but upon seeing the approaching army, one figure experienced doubt. The well-organized army bowled through the shoddy forces of the mages, and began splitting them up and executing them with ruthless effectiveness.  Whenever a soldier finally fell, four more took their place. The mages were simply outnumbered and out skilled. For every novice mage, there were seven highly trained warriors. Experienced mages were few and far between. Across the battlefield, there were small pockets of space where a skilled mage was fighting dozens of soldiers at once. One by one, these pockets of space disappeared as the mages were overwhelmed, until only one remained.

In the pocket, a single mage stood against hundreds of soldiers. Clad in armor that seemed to be made of raw earth, he plowed through several soldiers with devastating attacks; tearing up the earth and hurling chunks into the masses. One soldier broke through onslaught, only to be grabbed and thrown over the battlefield. Kraggrmn punched a nearby enemy, denting his armor with a satisfying crunch. Though the enemies kept coming, he felt like he could keep going for a while longer. Unbeknownst to Kraggrmn, Major Kilandre was cleaving her way towards him, leaving crushed mages in her wake.

Upon noting the earthen-armored mage almost directly ahead of her, the Major wheeled around her monstrous charger using guiding gesture of her knees, immediately bracing as she began to cut a path of devestation toward the man. The Theocog's six individual hooves seemed to recreate God's own thunder as it broke into a slow but powerful gallop toward the man. Now, Hakon's eyes remained upon this individual as a hawk on its hapless prey.

It took less then half a minute for the monstrous war horse to leap into range of the man, rearing with an equine roar of challenge- fore-hooves lashing out as Purgatorio's rider raises the massive shield upon their flank defensively toward him, brandishing the saber in preparation to strike after the stallion finished its own merciless assault.

Out of nowhere, a massive equine beast leapt into Kraggrmn's field of vision, lashing out with hooves that appeared to be on the beast's chest. With barely any reaction time, he was just able to raise up his arms to intercept the blows, and was knocked backward, barely staying on his feet. But when the sabre came, he was ready. He let it hit him, and it made a deep chip into the armor, and ducked backwards.

He made a simple gesture, and two things happened; a pillar of stone shot out of the earth, aiming to knock the rider off her mighty steed, and a spear made of polished rock shot out of the ground and into his hands. He was in a defensive stance incase she managed to dodge the pillar and attacked.

The pillar made contact with the massive shield, ringing like a bell though the rider remained fiemly upon the massive horse- the force of the blow seeming to knock both slightly off balance. A sharp pain echoed in her shoulder from maintaining such a blas tthought her legs remained firmly held inside the beast's own armored flanks," Purgatorio, stand strong!" calling out encouragement to the white monster, the stallion lunged forward, this time past the earthen warrior.

Swivelling her torso in the saddle, the Major brough the shield about to face Kraggrmn, her curved saber screaming as it cut through the air cleanly in an attempt to get into his guard.

When the Major blocked the pillar with her shield, Kraggrmn took note. He wouldn't make the same mistake twice. He was a bit shocked that she was able to stay on the horse, and that was an issue for him. He needed to get her off that beast. He took the sword strike head on, as it chipped a section of the armor off near his left ribs. The pillar hadn't worked, so he tried a new strategy, He sent several large spikes up from the ground, trying to impale the beast. He then hurled his rock spear at the Major's shield, It wouldn't be lethal, but the impact should be something to worry about.

He was a bit worried about the section of armor chipped off. It took time to create, and right now, he had none. What he did do, was shift the armor around, the missing section filled in, but the whole suit of armor was far thinner now. He felt slightly light headed from the whole effort of fighting and expenditure of magic.

The massive creature screamed a smile impaled its barrel-chest through an unprotected section of its soft underbelly, immediately coming to a haly before lashing out wildly, breaking free of the spikes in its panic. Hakon struggled to control her faithful destrier as she slams the shield upward into the spear to knock it just off balance- sending it pinwheeling aside. Nonetheless, she managed to wrench her shoulder slightly more. Immediatly she focused upon unlocking herself from the saddle- as much as she was loath to abandon her faithful stallion, he was in far more danger with her atop him.

The massive hooves lashed out as extremely close range to the mage, the knight focusing firmly upon keeping her guard up while simultaneously freeing herself-

When the beast got impaled, Kraggrmn sighed with relief, the Major lept off the steed to to battle on the ground. Now this was his territory. What he wasn't expecting was for the equine to lash out. It caught him off guard, and struck him directly in the side. Without the armor, he would be dead. As it were, that section of armor broke off and the force carried through, breaking a rib.

Kraggrmn gestured, and a stream of rock erupted from the ground, now that he had lost his weapon, he needed a new one. The stream formed into a rough approximation of a greatsword, solid stone with a five foot blade. He fell to one knee and coughed up a small amount of blood into the dirt. He then stood up and spun the greatsword in his hand. He spoke for the first time this battle, more to himself than anyone else,"I'm getting to old for this."

Hakon rolled upon her shield as she landed to keep it from all but crushing her, popping back to her feet wth no small amount of agony. She had certainly torn a muscle in her shoulder now and she wanted to do as little as possible action with it- as a result, she quickly concentrated upon simply keepig her arm stationary while keeping the enchanted steel pointed at her enemy- noting vaguely his armor was coming apart- maybe she could end this quickly- but no- she wouldn't use her trump card yet, Purgatorio reared and bucked to close to the man.

The massive Theocog roared and stumbled back, spooked as it lashed out in all directions, forcing Hakon to call out," Purgatorio, back!" her voice a muffled rumble throgh the edgle-shaped helm. Her heart wrenched seeing her closest friend in such agony and fright, nonetheless- she would reap justice for his wounds. The white charger quickly retreated from the geomancer, staying quite a few meters away to focus its efforts upon keeping itself aloft and lashing out at the occasional straggler, perhaps it was far more intelligent then the average horse, no?

Major Kilandre faced the man now, quickly moving to press her attack, keeping the shield up as she attempted to thrust her blade into the exposed rib area- though te movement was slow. The massive armor clearly a burden if not stupidly effective protection.

Kraggrmn, Instead of attacking, grabbed the sword in both hands and swung as hard as he could at Hakon's sword as it thrusted out. He was committed to not dying in vain today, nothing mattered. Not the pain. Not the body count. Only that he won this battle. He could die later. Kraggrmn commanded a massive spike to erupt out of the ground, aimed at Hakon's back. At the same time, two soldiers made of solid stone pulled themselves out of the ground. Clad in the same style of armor He was wearing, one wielded a large flail, while the other had a warhammer.

Kraggrmn then lurched over, blood leaked from his ears and nose and his vision swam. He gritted his teeth then stood up straight. He took his greatsword and went into a defensive stance as the two stone soldiers went to stand on Hakon's left and right sides.

Pain explodes in her lowerback as the spike slams into her back but shatters against the enchanted armor, nonetheless, the blow was startling and caused her to cry out, stumbling forward. She first turns toward the left-most golem, using her shield to bash her entire weight into its frail body- hoping to shatter the brittle clay. Keeping out of reach of the right most golem, she resists the urge to call upon her trusted steed- only then noticing the slightest trickle of blood dribbling from her opponent's helm. She smiled painfully beneath her helm, the price of magic may be her key here, she just had to survive-

Crushing the first golem under her, she turns toward the right most familiar, lashing out of at, her shield-arm burning like hellfire.

Ringing, there was nothing but a ringing. The sounds of battle had all but faded away, leaving just him, and his opponent. As she decimated both golems, he had an idea. If he failed with this, he would die. He weakly lifted up his arm to gesture, and the ground around Hakon hardened beyond natural limits, two sides of a dome came up with blazing speed, meant to entrap her. He then hefted up the greatsword and walked towards her in case she avoided the trap.

The whole while, mages around them had been losing hard. The soldiers had swept through like a hurricane force. The area around them was littered with the corpses of mages. Some had been young men, almost children. All this was taken in in a fraction of a second. This was not a war he had wanted to be part of, but it just may be the reason for his early death.

Hakon noticed the cage closing above her head, the massive armor making it impossible to dart out of the trap before it shut like jaws over her head, leaving her in muffled darkness. For a moment she panicked- this was not the way she wanted to die, like a rat. This was not a battle she felt honored in participating within either- slaughter was not war, war was when those of equal strength and dignity fought to the death to determine who was to be the victor and rise to glory..

Maybe this time she wasn't supposed to ascend in such a way. Her lips began to rapidly move in a prayer, just to assure her constitution would not break. Kneeling in the blackness, she let out a shrill whistle- the sound barely penetrating the clay walls as she tucked her shield tightly against her body, hunching in preparation to be crushed, impaled- whatever the Geomancer had in store.


Purgatorio whirled, the white steed's chest gushing red blood though the shrill cry of his master seemed to give the monster renewed vigor- immediately the great beast ripping toward the dome, steam rolling from its silvered nostrils akin to smoke from a dragon's.

A faint smile appeared on his face when he saw his adversary had been trapped. His vision was so blurry, and he could hear nothing over the ringing, so the massive beast stampeding towards the dome was completely over his head. He could fall happily now, without a leader, the army would be as a chicken without a head. In the condition he was in, moving a pebble would cause death. And so he fell face first into the ground. As his vision faded, he heard one thing over the ringing; a faint whistle coming through the stone dome.

He pounded his fist into the ground, he had forgotten about the steed! He gritted his teeth and lay there waiting. He could barely move, and he was soon going to be put down. Every second that passed seemed like an eternity. A number of ideas floated through his head. What if the beast failed to pierce the dome? It would probably come kill him then. What if she already thought he was dead? Well, she was an experienced warrior, she would make sure he was dead. Time seemed to slow to a stop for him as he could feel each individual heartbeat pump blood through his body. The end it seemed, was nigh.

Nothing came. No end blow- Hakon looked up in confusion, only to notice as massive hooves crack the dark dome like lightning through the night. Quickly, she shifts away as the steed crashes to the ground with a weak groan- its wounds seeming to at last making it succumb. In the whirl of battle, she could see her foe all but collapsed in on himself, her grip upon the scimitar tightening as fury briefly pulsed through her.

Before moving to him, she knelt beside the steed, cradling its massive white head as it whickered weakly. Blood staining the snowy coarse fur, bright blue eyes dull with pain. The Major whispered sweet nothings to the beast, attempting to stop the bleeding with her hands- scrape out the shards of earth with her fingers- screaming to others to take over before standing abruptly, ripping off her helm and allowing it to bounce upon the blood-whetted earth. Willowy platinum locks fell free as she turned her gaze toward the collapsed man, eyes slits of pure rage.

In mere moments, she stalked over to the man, resting the sharp edge of the blade between Kraggrmn's shoulder blades. The slightest twitch could send it into his spine. But instead of finishing it, she hissed between grit teeth, refusing to let angry tears spill forth.

" You're mine, mage."