[i]Overwhelming strength and conviction--is it all one needs to defeat insurmountable odds?[/i]

[center][b][h3]Woodstop[/h3][/b]
[@Lord Zee]'s Revenmar, [@13org]'s Yasha[/center]

Singlemindedly ferocious as they were, the foxmen of the Vulpuryun Tribe boasted their fair share of wits.  Even those among them that couldn't boast a dozen battles under their belt could recognize the two abnormalities that had taken the field.  No regular soldier could, after all, rack up such a body count at such a blistering pace.  From the moment that foxes started dropping like flies, their still-standing comrades took notice of the lethal knight's shining armor and the crested swordsman's flying razors of wind.  After finishing off the last man challenging him atop a nearby boulder, a burly foxman with a huge greatsword began barking orders.  The beastmen not directly engaged with Woodstop's soldiery, or entranced by the silver warrior's taunt, began to rotate their positions.  More druids and hexfoxes appeared near Revenmar, and archers took up positions close to where Emile was fighting to nock and loose their arrows.

Giving Revenmar a respectable distance, foxes wielding hexing wands began to channel energetic purple magics.  They moved his way in waves, and their lapping touch seemed to increase the weight of his already-heavy armor.  His powerful muscles were forced to contend with the debilitating might of Gravity, strong enough to lay out flat any ordinary soldier, and to bring even the most prodigious strongman to his knees.  At the same time, the druids flourished their lightening rods to shower him with bolts of electricity from afar, aiming to cook him in his heavy plate.  A rarity on the battlefield, such armor nevertheless sported its fair share of weaknesses.

For his part, fortune favored Emile; the allies he fought beside spotted the bowfoxes taking up advantageous positions to fire upon them.  When the call went out, Randy looked to confirm for himself, and ended up smiling despite the dire circumstances.  “The subhumans display more military practice than I would have anticipated.  Look over yonder, Emile!  Our foe has pegged you for a magician and seeks to penetrate your arcane artistry with a quarrel or two.”  He paused to concentrate, dodging backward as a spearfox grew too close for comfort.  His movement left a comrade's flank open, and the spearfox altered her weapon's course to bury itself in the soldier's thigh.  While the man let out a startling scream of agony, he lunged forward toward the fox and bashed her shield with his own.  Stunned, she couldn't react in time to avoid a vertical air slash from Emile that parted her arm at the shoulder.  Her howl was cut off by the soldier's axe, which he slammed down into her collarbone from above to get around her still-raised shield.  As she toppled, he fell back too due to his brutalized leg, and the next moment he was being left behind.  Randy fell back, his palm aglow with a green luster, to start healing the injury as he dragged the soldier back.  “Tarry not, mercenary!  Those arrows will rain down upon us in seconds, now that there's an opening.”

Emile nodded, and as he stepped onto a small rock sticking out of the grassy hill, he swung his sword to throw another air slash at one of the archers.  The relatively slow-moving air razor left the bowfox plenty of time to duck out of the way, however, and the next moment an arrow shot Emile's way.  For a second, he couldn't process how fast it was moving; sharp though his vision was, they did not make possible the impossible feat of speeding up perception, and to him the arrow looked scarcely slower than a bullet.  He felt the impact before he saw it.  [color=5D8AA8]”Huh!?”[/color]  Panicked, he looked down, but the arrow was already twirling away to fall, harmless, in the grass  Just before piercing his belly, it had been stopped by a thin barrier surrounding him.  It hit him the next moment, just before the second arrow did: [i]aether body[/i].  The swirling orbs floating in the air around him were proof—the Comet Chaser's blessing had prevented harm.  Randy, still watching, looked dumbfounded as the arrows smacked into Emile one by one and magic spilled into the air instead of blood.  The other soldiers had taken cover behind knolls, trees, or shields, and they appeared just as surprised.  Not one to rest on his laurels, Emile ducked behind a large stump.  [i]Thud, thud, thud[/i] went the arrows into the stump, and then they stopped.

The woman in armor beside him, whose dirty-blonde hair, pale purple eyes, and short sword gave her away as the very same soldier who'd helped Emile moments before, stared at him dubiously.  “That's some useful magic.  Got any to spare, mate?  Ya might be able to head back out, but we're pinned down here.”  Her face became a scowl of anger.  “How many bleedin' bowfoxes they keep in reserve?  Gonna take the hill, we were.  Now we're sittin' ducks 'til their duffers come 'round and clear us out.  Unless ya fancy chargin' 'em one by one.”

Silent, Emile took a peek around the edge of the stump.  His visor allowed him a clear look at the well-built beastman commander on his rock at the hilltop.  [color=5D8AA8]“Better to take care of the real problem.”[/color]

Lips curled in a proud smile, Hargrihn the Highlander stood with his enormous claymore atop his shoulders.  More a long chunk of sharpened iron than a real sword, his 'weapon' could have put an entire team of lesser foxes to shame, but this Vulp's physique made it clear he was no ordinary beastman.  For a moment it had seemed like the human force, bolstered by its steady stream of reinforcements from the village as well as the two forces of nature that fought for them, would take the hill and force the warband out of the valley.  No matter how strong it might be, however, anything on the battlefield was subject to military strategy.  There was no move the humans could make that the Vulpuryuns lacked an answer to.  Though a veteran of many battles, Hargrihn did not typically issue commands like this, but he felt sure that the effectiveness of his calls would earn a newfound respect from the warlord once he became aware.  Still, the Highlander's true passion was the fight, and he almost wanted to let the humans advance so that he could leap down and join the brawl himself.  It was with a shimmer in his dark eyes, then, that Hargrihn watched the shape of the special swordsman rocket up from behind his stump on wings of aether.  For a moment, in fact, a great many eyes were on Emile's spectacle as he hung in the air, his magic wings a steam of effulgent teal and pitch-black trail, before he drove straight toward Hargrihn.

At the last conceivable moment, the Highlander moved his sword to intercept Emile's double overhead slash.  The resulting [i]clang[/i] rang across the battlefield, and the fox's grip held against the Comet Chaser's push.  As Emile's feet touched stone, Hargrihn pushed the locked weapons down, and bared his teeth in his enemy's face.  “A beautiful light show.  Very impressive!  But not for the Highlander!”  He adjusted his grip as he spoke, his grin widening.  “Magic, dexterity...tools of the coward!  There is just one path for the true warrior, stranger!”  Mustering his strength, Hargrihn gave a mighty shove.  Emile's loose footing on the edge of he bolder gave way, and he tumbled backward to land in the grass.  Above him, a great black shadow blocked out the sunlight dappling through the treetops.  “Muscle power!”

Emile rolled out of the way, and Harghrin's sword split the earth where he lay a split second before.  In a flash the Comet Chaser regained his feet, and the fight was on.

[center]-=-=-[/center]

The thickness of the woods meant that the sounds of battle faded away with haste as Yasha made her beleaguered retreat.  In the hollow of a deformed pair of trees, whose trunks had grown together into a warped curve, she found a place to hide and rest.  In the shadows beneath the leaves the pale sharpshooter did not stand out so much as one might think, and as her breath eased she could feel the stillness of the air.  No errant breeze filtered through this forest, and only the drone of insects, the swish of leaves, and the song of distant birds interrupted the silence.

That lull remained until an odd noise disturbed the atmosphere.  At first it could be mistaken for footsteps, but rather than the fall of shoes on leaves and roots, it sounded far more like slapping.  Even stranger was its frequency; the soft, meaty noise could be heard several times per second, unassuming in volume but detectable thanks to the woods' general quiet and growing louder as whatever it was grew closer.  After a few moments, the noises' perpetrator passed within Yasha's view.  For about a second she could make out the unusual but familiar shape of Lenore, who she'd seen but perhaps not assigned a particular significance to last night after the enigmatic transition.  Not far behind Lenore followed two more conventional-looking flesh golems, their freakish forms all the stranger for their silent attendance to their mistress.  Lenore did not notice Yasha in any way, but instead headed in the general direction of the illusory boulder the markswoman spotted a short time ago—though in fact, Lenore's current course could take her right past it, if there weren't any foxmen to clue her in on where to go.