***
The Red Lady felt the attack rather than saw it. One of her bestial mongrels let out a telepathic shriek as its neck snapped into lifelessness. The minor psychic prick was soon followed by a dozen other stabs and in a few moments it was as if a whole side of her head was on fire.
The horse reared, and the Red Lady howled, drawing her sword in a seamless gesture and screaming both vocally and mentally to her host.
“Betrayal! The attack comes from the mountains!”
Her urging caused a surge and her men responded as the Red Lady sent her consciousness out to see what foe had set upon them.
She took possession of a man three rows back from the initial assault. Upon settling in, she recognized that he was a relatively new recruit since there was still a semi-stable landing surface present in his mind.
She looked up with a bearded face into the clashing chaos of hand to hand combat.
The attackers appeared to be human, but they were not the timid and feeble farmers that she had been eliminating with such casual ease in recent times. No, even from a distance she could tell that these were seasoned warriors.
As she watched, one of her more feral beasts stepped forward and growled. This creature was past the point of bothering with a forged weapon as his claws had grown in substantially enough to be more effective in attack.
A human warrior stood before the creature and did not flinch at his growl. The Red Lady took note of this reaction as it wasn’t typical of those who faced her forces on the open field.
The feral creature took two sweeps with super-human speed, but somehow its opponent managed to evade the attacks. The Red Lady longed to witness this fight from her charge’s eyes, but could sense that the creature was too far gone to host her. Instead she watched as the black haired creature stalked, straining forward with teeth and claw. It snapped its jaws together with an audible crunch that the Red Lady heard above the din of the ringing sword against armor.
But the beast’s opponent was undeterred. He stood with an almost passive assurance and waited for the beast to lose its patience.
The beast did.
It dove forward in a reckless assault, faster than even its own well-muscled legs could control.
The man saw the opportunity he had been waiting for and dropped to his knee, lifting his club up at the last moment to allow the beast to die upon its end.
“He used the creatures’s own mass against it,” the Red Lady remarked. “He has fought monsters before.”
The Red Lady released her host and returned to her own body back where she was afforded a better view of the developing battle. She scanned the battle line and was concerned to see more red armored carcasses littering the ground than those of her opponents.
She made a quick glance at Ebulon but was encouraged by the fact that the wall’s meager defense didn’t appear willing to press the advantage.
Still, as she looked back at the force that was eating into her horde, she felt a spike of concern.
Her army was being cut down. She reached out to her daughters and encouraged them to join the fray. The urging was met by a sharp pitched howl like gale force wind through a cave.
But even as she gave the command, she could see it wouldn’t be enough.
The loss of the men she could stand. They were easily replaced.
But her daughters...
The Red Lady snarled and grasped her sword hilt until her knuckles turned white.