"Well... this is it," Danny said, turning to Sam.
"Yeah."
"Should be fun."
"Weather's nice. Sunny."
"Yeah, it's a good day for it."
"You want to yell something inspirational, or should I?"
"You can, if you want."
"CHARGE!" Sam yelled, with all the vocal power he could muster.
Behind them, Sir Justin raised his sword to signal his knights to attack. Justin's horse lurched forward and dove past the two Vanguardians, who ran to catch up with it. Danny wore his cheetah hindquarters to keep up.
"Shields to the sides!" Danny yelled, signalling the knights who carried the largest shields to either side of the formation. The shields were made of hard wood, and of an immense size. A single one was as tall as the man that wielded it.
"Horses to the front!" Sam yelled, and stood to the side to allow the mounted knights to move forward, to lead the charge.
The effect was that the knights moved swiftly towards the castle in a tight formation, protected from the sides by a practically airtight wall of shields. A wall of horses led the charge at the front, a short way ahead of the second wave of knights who moved on foot.
The horses were led by Sir Justin, atop his black stallion.
The men on foot were led by Sam.
Danny bounded between the two groups on his hind legs, keeping the group co-ordinated.
Three hundred red-clad soldiers spilled out of the outer wall's entrance and across the drawbridge, taking up defensive positions along the moat.
"Hold steady!" The lead man commanded, keeping his soldiers firmly placed at the water's edge. The drawbridge was raised to keep the castle safe from invasion.
Along the top of the outer wall a hundred more archers were lined up, bows at the ready. Arrows were notched and muscles were strained as they set their sights firmly on the approaching army.
Danny's eagle eyes noticed the archers first.
"Shields up!" He yelled back to Sam. Sam signalled for the men behind him whose shields weren't being used to raise them up.
The knights held their shields up in front of their faces at an angle, hoping to deflect any arrows that may come their way.
Atop the wall, the archers' general held his arm up, keeping his men at the ready.
He looked down at the approaching line of horses, watching them make their way quickly towards the castle. His gaze caught Sir Justin's, and they held eye contact for the briefest of moments.
The general dropped his arm. The archers let fly.
A hundred arrows left the wall and flew through the air simultaneously, hurtling towards the ground and the approaching line of horses.
Forty-two horses were struck with arrows in that first wave. Eight were killed instantly when cold steel pierced vital organs, and they fell to the ground leaving their knights riderless. The knights just grabbed their swords and ran forward.
Several horses slowed their pace, arrows lodged in their legs and flanks. Painful, yes. But fatal... no. These great beasts were too well trained to let a little pain stop them from bearing their riders forth to glory.
A second wave of arrows let fly.
Sir Justin looked about frantically, watching as horses and their riders fell around him. Several men took arrows in the weaker points of their armour, falling to the ground in a spray of blood and a flailing of limbs.
About two thirds of his horse mounted regiment were left after the two waves of arrows. He kept urging them forward, until they were a mere few metres from the line of red soldiers a the water's edge.
Suddenly, with the wall of horses broken and the knights on foot soon behind them, the line of red soldiers charged forward with the passion and urgency born of blind faith in their leader.
The archers atop the outer wall had stopped for a moment to reload when a shadow from above caught their attention.
Brianna screamed with all the energy she could muster, sending a dozen of the archers flying from the wall and hitting the ground below hard. Several of the men passed out from the trauma to their auditory systems.
Brianna banked hard to the left and turned suddenly, dodging the wave of arrows that followed her attack.
The sworld wielding men who had been waiting at the moat's edhe were now charging through the line of horses, slashing left and right in an effort to damage horses' legs and thus dismount their riders. They were meeting with an alarming level of success.
Justing, still atop his mount, swung his sword down in a wide arc, decapitating one of the red archers and slashing another's shoulder on the backswing. He wheeled his horse around and aimed a kick at another opponent's face, sending him crashing to the mud.
The horse broke the man's back with it's mighty front hooves as Justin charged along the riverbank, his sword never ceasing it's movement for even an instant.
Sam's right arm became a forcefully wielded broadsword and found it's tip embedded in the torso of many a red archer as they surged forward into the fray.
He grabbed a red soldier's arm with his left hand and drew the man toward himself, impaling his enemy on the tip of his right arm.
He turned and glanced at Danny to make sure his teammate was okay.
Danny was fine.
He moved so fast and fluidly on the hindquarters of a cheetah that the red soldiers couldn't predict his movements. He ran forward faster than they could keep up, towards the moat and the castle entrance.
His right arm shot out towards a red soldier's neck and his claws embedded themselves deep in soft flesh. He withdrew them and a spray blood coated him. He didn't seem to notice.
A sword blade ricocheted harmlessly off his exoskeleton, so Danny turned around and spat poison into the eyes of his would-be attacker.
A replacement squad of red archers hurried up the ladders to the outer wall to take the place of the ones Brianna had disposed of. They quickly took their positions at the top of the wall and armed themselves, barely taking a second to prepare before firing arrows into the battle below.
Sam watched helplessly as two men two his left and another to his right fell to the ground dead, arrows embedded in their necks. He stomped through a puddle of blood that had appeared before him and kept moving forward.
Brianna came back around towards the top of the outer wall for a second attack on the archers. She screamed at one corner and noticed a half dozen of them collapse to the ground, before the other nearby archers noticed her and pointed their bows in her direction.
"Crap!" She said to herself, and quickly flew out of range. An arrow flew right by her, and she could feel it's movement in her feathers.
She headed for the treeline and yelled at the top of her voice.
"EARL! BLUE! NOW!"
The young giant came stomping out of the trees, his faithful dog right on his heels.
"The guys in red are the bad guys!" Brianna yelled down at them.
Danny watched as his carefully planned military formation collapsed around him. The shielded men at the sides were each fighting their own hand to hand battles. The horses were scattered across the battlefield.
Any semblance of order and planning had given way to the chaos of war.
This, of course, was to be expected.
To Danny's left, one of the knights died at the tip of a red soldier's blade. The soldier withdrew his sword from the young knight's torso and swung it at Danny.
Danny ducked the sword and drove his claws upwards into the red soldier's neck, killing the man almost instantly. Blood spilled down the front of his red vest.
This just made the colouring of the leather more vibrant.
A red soldier suddenly went flying through the air above Danny, hitting the ground with a sickening thud.
Danny turned in shock to find Earl the giant picking up the soldiers and throwing them. Blue was bouncing along the battlefield, trying to catch them.
Danny was amused by the game of the boy and his dog.
