Yuinnick snapped at a footman with its beak, slicing him in two. Then it crushed another with its massive talons while flapping its wings to keep balance. The great eagle moved in closer, forcing the footmen to scramble out of the way.
Amara noticed me galloping toward her and grinned while slicing the head off a footman.
“I’m coming for you!” I found myself shouting. My heart raced as the distance between us shrank.
Then Amara moved. She dodged a footman’s sword swing, then rolled under another’s attack.
Yuinnick brushed three footmen away with a giant wing, as if they were toys, and squatted down.
“No!” I yelled, changing my direction toward the great eagle.
Amara jumped and stepping off a fallen footman’s back, leapt up and into Yuinnick’s saddle.
The huge bird flapped its wings and launched up from the ground.
Unperturbed, I took Smoke directly under the eagle, its massive form blocking out the sky. Wings beat around me and the wind threatened to knock me to the grass.
But as Yuinnick ascended, I still had a chance at one desperate attempt to stop them.
I shifted from my saddle to my feet, and using my enhanced leap ability, jumped straight up from Smoke’s back.
The next second, I found myself clinging to a leathery leg of the eagle as it ascended northward into the sky.
Below, I saw Smoke running about in confusion. The remaining footman looked up at me in amazement.
For a few moments I could only marvel at my own folly. What had been the point of this?
It didn’t appear that Yuinnick noticed my presence, so large was the creature.
We sped northward, and the dense forest below moved past at an alarming speed. Did Amara intend to go to the center altar?
A quick look showed that my forces still firmly controlled the platform and the area immediately north of it. But her own army was pressing forward. They were closer than before.
Not waiting to give her any more satisfaction at snatching my banner, again, I decided to try something really stupid. There were few options for me, anyway.
My legs and arms were wrapped around the thick leg of the eagle. I released my grip with one hand and summoned my sword. Then I stabbed upwards.
Yuinnick shrieked with pain and its flapping wings lurched in surprise.
As if in answer to my attack, the eagle started to descend. I stabbed again and blood flowed from the wound under its huge feathers.
Now Yuinnick tried to use the talons on its other leg to swipe at me, but it couldn’t reach.
When I stabbed again, I felt us falling faster.
I looked down just in time to see us fly into the tops of the trees.
The branches smashed into me at horrific speed. I tried to hide behind the eagle’s thick leg but it appeared to be willing to take more damage if it meant I would be knocked off.
It worked.
I couldn’t hold on while being attacked by speeding trees, and I was smacked hard again, losing my grip.
I had one last glance of the eagle’s mammoth form flapping away, a gold beam of light shooting upwards from its back where my banner was being carried away.
Crypt, here I come, I thought morbidly.
Then I plummeted through the forest canopy.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
My avatar bounced unceremoniously from branch to branch as I fell through the trees.
Reaching bottom, I did a hard face plant into the ground, and my screen went black.
Well, that didn’t work, I thought. Various alternate scenarios played through my mind as I waited to be reborn, but none would have ended well. Perhaps I should have waited until we were closer to the platform before attacking the eagle? My archers could have lent some support.
Mentally, I shrugged. Didn’t matter now. Amara had the banner, again. While I…
I looked curiously at my view-screen. Nothing had changed, the blackness remained. Then I noticed the icons still on the edge of my vision. They usually vanished while I was being reborn.
My health indicator was at 2%. Oh, crap. I wasn’t dead!
Pushing forward, my avatar lifted her face out of the thick loam of the forest floor. I blinked in confusion at my surroundings. Trees, lots of them, crowded around me like towering guards.
Looking upwards I could see the blue sky high above. The path of my fall was clear from all the snapped branches.
Feeling like an idiot, I stood and brushed myself off.
Then I looked to the map.
Amara appeared within view of my fighting units at the middle. She circled the platform once, but my army were still firmly in control of it. If she landed, she would be swarmed.
Then, as if deciding now was not the time, she flew northward, and her icon eventually vanished as she passed out of view.
My army still fought a protracted war. Units crashed against enemy units. Formations on both sides morphed as the battle situation changed. Amara’s army was gaining some ground, but my double block of units kept them back.
Still, it was only a matter of time. Now that she had my banner, she could sit back at her base and funnel a constant stream of trolls south. Eventually, she’d break through or simply wear me down. Then the platform would be hers.
And the game would be over.
Getting angry again, I started to make my way west, the shortest distance out of the forest according to the map.
This terrain was not meant for travel, at all. Most of the way I had to climb up from the cramped forest floor with its huge root system that intertwined to make a living barrier. Carefully, I leapt from branch to branch.
I was mindful of my health. Yeah, I could purposely take a tumble and be back in my base in thirty seconds. But Amara would get Battle Points for it. Even if she didn’t directly kill me, her big bird was the one that dropped me. She’d get 100 points, and I wouldn’t let her have them.
Before I emerged at the forest’s edge I had called on Smoke, who ran up from the base to meet me. When I finally escaped the forest gymnasium he was there, nickering in welcome.
I climbed up into his saddle. “Let’s get to the Keep.”
As we headed south, I looked over the perpetual fight in the middle.
My units were smashed up against Amara’s units and although she had more cavalry than I, more of my own horsemen were heading north or lined up down both approaches.
Grax still sat back from the main action, guarding the altar. His health had actually increased a little, perhaps to an innate regeneration ability for champions. But he still was not strong enough to move closer and assist. A single volley from an archer unit would do him in.
I was genuinely at a loss as to what do to next. Fight until Amara gained the platform through attrition?
As we arrived at my base, both the defending archer unit and footmen unit had retaken their positions. All their faces were sullen. In their minds, they had failed and lost the banner.
The cavalry unit I had redirected to the base stood by. I simply sent them north again.
“You fought well,” I said to the defending units as I dismounted. “And against difficult odds.”
This only seemed to mollify them slightly.
What else could be said? The banner was gone.
Before entering the Keep I looked northward. Far in the distance were two thread-thin beams of light.
Wonderful.
I also noted my scout had been spotted and killed by archers. Great.
I entered the Keep and sat in the middle of the floor. Above, a Lookout waved at me from the trapdoor and returned to duty.
At least the Lookouts respawn on their own, I thought absentmindedly.
As I watched my health regenerate, I glared at the unit icons on the map. This was not fun. Losing, that is. Worse, the knowledge I was going to lose, regardless, sucked even more.