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"You know what fascinates me, Attero?" the Officer, Emerald Dancing Wind, asked the heavy in hushed whisper.
"What is that, Emerald?" the Heavy asked back.
The two of them were crouched behind a row of hedges, where the beach ended and the scrub growth began. There wasn't as much cover to their left, but two Stag privates had managed to conceal themselves. On their right Cliff rode herd on the other brace of rookies. The full dark of the night made the nearby river look like a sloshing trickle of black oil.
They needn't be as quiet as they were. The enemy was still on the far side of the river. The still-smoking remains of the bridge were near enough to give the air a slightly charred smell, but not so close as be a factor, either for or against them.
"One man." The Officer stopped, and, as no further explanation was forthcoming, Attero was forced to pursue the lark.
"Just one? What's the lucky guy's name?" he said, by way of a joke. He liked the big officer, and it was good to have someone tough enough to joke with.
"No, not like that," he said, deadpan. Serious. He was philosophizing. "I mean, see those greyskins over there?"
Attero nodded in the darkness.
"Say they come over here. We fight. Much sound and fury.
And then...what?
If we all die, but so much as -one- man of theirs is left standing...they win. They own the field. The army comes over and kills everyone.
Or, if we fight, and one of ours is left standing? -WE- own the field. We...he...she...us...burn their boats. Stop the landing. Our army lives. Longer. Today. Probably."
Attero continued nodding. What he said _was_ factual. It made sense. But fascinating? He tried not to bother with such things. Philosophy was a cousin of hope. And hope...was the first step on the road to disappointment.
"They're coming," Emerald said.
It was five boats. That could be seen clearly enough in the wan starlight. Three men to a boat. That meant they only outnumbered them three to one. It hardly seemed fair.
Attero and Emerald and Cliff and the Silver Stags waited as soldiers have waited since there was time to wait and soldiers to do it. The boats came closer, in the eerie quiet that undead and their cowed servants do. The undead screamed in battle, sometimes, but Attero hated their grim quiet even more.
And then the waiting was done. The boat in the middle was within range, and that meant the hall was rented, the band was struck and...it was time to see if he could dance.
One lumpy object soared through the air and landed with a thump in the boat. A few heads swiveled to look at it with curiosity.
Then the boat exploded.
Attero chuckled as his tossed explosive charge turned the rivercraft into firewood. The three occupants--two undead harrowers and an Oak Knight, not that he would ever know that--were killed instantly, and sank into the inky water without a sound. As was their way.
That was the Officer's cue. "Fire!" Emerald shouted, raising his own gun.
Six guns crackled in the night air and four more forms tumbled out of their dry spot and into the cool water.
"Look alive on the left!" Emerald shouted at the two lone privates. Either they were aiming at the wrong side or they had both missed. An ill omen.
Then they heard it. The undead scream. They leaped from their boats and charged ahead where muzzle blasts had revealed the soft, squishy humans.
Without time to reload, the rookies swung their muskets like clubs as the unliving swarmed about them. Emerald shot then stabbed an Oak Knight in front of him, but another took his place. Attero crushed one skeletal skull before having to defend against another Knight to his fore.
"AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" came a cry. On the Left. Of course. Two humans corpses hit the ground, their blood flowing freely into the thirsty sand.
"Only cure for being stupid," Emerald breathed, but there was real concern in his voice. With the Left flank collapsed, it might very well be one greyskin that stands victorious over this battlefield.
Hoping his faith in the Heavy was justified, he parried an attack and ran headlong toward the human death cries. Two undead stood over two swiftly cooling corpses, and the Officer took advantage of their momentary distraction to decapitate one. Then the other stabbed him.
The skellie's broadsword scraped against his heavy breastplate, and he gave thanks that he took the heavier load. With the enemy committed to the missed disembowelment, he brought his own sword up and ran it through.
Attero wasn't surprised when the Officer took off, leaving him facing two foes. Someone had to reinforce that flank. It's what he would have done.
"Blessed is the mind too small for doubt!" Attero yelled, crashing Krieg against the chest of a Knight. The Knight had good armor, and a lesser hammer would not have smashed his chest so. Fortunately Krieg was no lesser hammer. And that's when the other knight stabbed him.
Just as before, the enemy blade carved out a long, deep gouge in the fine plate armor, but left anything vital untouched.
"The wise man learns from the deaths of others," Attero intoned as he killed the offending Knight.
"Well done, I'll check on the others," Dancing breathed as he ran to the Right.
He was too late, but in the good way. Three greyskins laid dead--again--in the grass, and three privates were alive and bruised, but happy.
Emerald returned their smiles and returned to the Center. "Attero, if you would be so kind, you are ordered to set all boats on fire, and then all of us are ordered to drink heavily!"
Attero grinned. This was an officer he didn't mind following.