They had time to prepare for the assault on Imperatoris. That still didn’t mean they were ready for it, when it came.
They’re understrength, spread too thin. Even as they retreated from castrums and castellums, their forces being brought together - too much of their legion was in Doma. They won’t have enough forces brought together until they reach Ala Mhigo, and by then they’ll have lost too many to hold out.
Max looses an arrow, striking a Lominsan soldier in the abdomen. He drops, and she looses the next at his Ala Mhigan pal. It hits her shoulder, and she follows it up with a third shot.
To her 7 o'clock, she hears the crack of oen DeMeer’s rifle again, and one of the more heavily-armoured adventurers who was attacking Cato goes down. That was a pretty good shot.
Not that she’d tell him that.
She clicks on her vox. “Meer, relocate.”
He’s on a catwalk of one of the supporting legs of Imperatoris, hunkered down.
In reply, he fires another two shots, dropping two more Alliance troops.
She spots a thaumaturge on the black lines, channelling something big. Her eyes widen and she aims in on them, loosing an arrow. It bounces from their barrier, cracking it and breaking it apart…but not stopping their cast.
She slips her bow on to her back and leaps from her own vantage point. One of her feet lands on a fallen shield, and she stumbles slightly on the landing.
The thaumaturge casts, and the size of the blast knocks her to the floor.
She feels lightheaded as she lifts herself and looks towards the sniper nest. “DeMeer?”
No response. The nest has been totally annihilated by a Flare.
She staggers her way to her feet, drawing her combat knife. “Status report.”
“Bunch of Resistance arseholes made it into the tower from the west side! We’re holding north, barely!” one of the twins gives the response; Max doesn’t pay attention to which one.
Max curses and spins the blade in her hands, moving towards the north of Specula Imperatoris’s grounds, by the gate.
One of the recent conscripts - she doesn’t even remember his name, the poor bastard - gets hit by a greatsword. She charges the blade’s owner, leaping at them and jamming her knife into their chest. They fall to the floor from her weight and momentum, and she stabs a few more times before climbing to her feet.
There’s too many. They’re spread too thin.
She sheathes the blade and draws her bow again, quickly nocking an arrow and launching it into a charging Lalafell’s neck. Another shot. Another.
“III! Pull back to Imperatoris proper! Hold the narrower ground!” Max yells over the din of battle, shooting again and again.
She’ll cover their retreat.
A Limsan slips through her overwatch, swinging an axe at her head.
“ARTILLERY! INCOMIIIING!”
((Placing the rest under a readmore - trigger warnings for gore, blood, descriptions of severe injury/death, and vomiting.))
