Wordcount: 736 words
Rating/Warnings: PG-13
Summary: Please note, this is currently a very rough draft. There will be spelling and grammatical errors afoot as well as flat out bad writing, info dumps, plot holes, flat out contradictions, and uneven characterization and pacing. (Content is also subject to constant change as I take an editing chainsaw to the story.)
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The Enemy is Us
The invading foxhawks are silver cross foxes, with heavy black face and chest and brown body. Wings of mottled black and brown, they are wider, broader than their local cousins. They wear armor, something the local foxhawks don’t, hard leather chest pieces and head gear that appears mainly decorative.
The riders are dressed in a rich dark blue, all of them wearing cloth facemasks and fancy embellished armor. They carry sort bows and curved short swords that look like long daggers with a bent tip. There is nothing to distinguish one rider from the other. All the riders are dressed and size identically, at least at this distance. It gives them an eerie air of uniformity that makes them look larger somehow.
There is one silver fox with each set of seven, no rider on this one, and even more elaborate armor.
They fly and fight like nothing they’ve ever seen. The silver stays high above, the others diving in and out. Arrows are deflected by winds that come from nowhere. Their own arrows timed to fall in between the gusts.
Arrows don’t do much damage to the ground troops with their thick shield. but the foxhawks dive and harry, making even the most well worn warrior duck and dodge on instinct. they are swift for spears or swords, although a lucky cut gets in now and then.
The army itself is a long low blue line, like the cresting of an ocean wave. It moves down the hill in steady march, shields up for arrows and the glint of steel in hand. There are too many to fight, but there are also too many to flee. The only way to have any hope of survival is to hold their ground and hope that help will get there in time
If help comes at all
who are they? I’ve never seen any kingdom use that color, and we’ve heard nothing from the north kingdom now the west kingdom. They can’t be behind this, I’ve never seen foxhawks like that either.
They’re bigger than ours
And oddly colored
And the silver one is doing something to the wind
How can you tell?
it’s the only one holding still. Big looping circles like a buzzard on an updraft
How do we counter that
I am not sure, we can’t get close to it
With the foxhawks then
If they can get through either
Foxhawks don’t fight foxhawks, it’s just not done
Well, we can try
Aaron frowned, trying to think. Maybe is we came in high enough, they would not see us.
Can we get that high?
Can’t hurt to try I guess, I don’t want to try those swords up close
Or those beaks
So they send two pair up and out as if they were running away, then they climbed and circled back.
The silver was just a tiny white blob and then lined up as best they could and dove.
They caught it mostly by surprise, although as they got closer the shouts for their own side of alarm gave it a hint something was happening. They managed to catch it between them, throwing all three down to the ground aim a tangle of feathers and fur.
The riders stayed on the ground, since this was a fight they’d only gee tin thee y won
There was a happy cry as the silver got to the ground den the weird winds died off abruptly. The blue hawks took some arrow imagine, but nothing too serious as they turned to trying to rescue the silver. They saver and spun as the silver fought the two foxhawks.
It eventually cried for quarter and the rest of the team gave up and took off. It cried quarter in a very weird accent, spoke instead of thoughts and the humans and foxhawks were both alarmed.
But they stood down, the silver was too injured to fly and they still gave it wad Eberth keeping it between themselves and the humans
Do you give your oath?
I do, ,mercy please.
Quarter granted, get it back behind the lines
There lines reformed the other army was still out and moving forward.
The other teams of flyers has seen that happened and now there were lookouts above the over groups, the tactic would not work again.
But it had worked once and now they had a prisoner to interrogate. Polity of course.
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