A look of disgust passed over Talieriel's face at the thought.
"You must know that I cannot allow that to happen," he said, eyes agape at the creature hovering before him.
The response formed in his head, "Nonetheless, it will happen."
"You want to kill all these people, just so that the forces of Chaos won't kill them," the Aelf general said.
"They must die. The tide of Chaos rolls through here. There is not time to move them and if you were to do so where would you take them," the Slaan beamed into the mind of the Aelf, "it will be quick. We will make it as painless as possible."
"We can arm them. They can fight. We can fight. If we stand together we can stand against this incursion," Talieriel almost pleaded.
"I see that your mind is made up, Aelf. We will have to resort to arms. Neither my force nor both of our forces together can stand against what will come into this valley soon."
With that the Slaan was moving away from the Aelven deputation. Talieriel put his helmet back on, swung up on his horse and without a word to his honour guard was galloping back to his army.
At a hand signal from the general the Aelf banners waved complicated patterns in the air and the troops moved out, they moved toward the village while the cavalry moved around the woods.
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They could see the Seraphon moving across the bridges and coming towards the village, their copper weapons glinting in the sunlight as they passed the ruined castle.
"Deploy the archers in line in front of the village. Move the bolt throwers up to the right. I want as much fire power as possible into their fronts as quickly as we can. Hopefully that will dissuade them," Talieriel said. Immediately his subordinates moved to take his orders to the brigades advancing now. The Aelf general looked at the people in the village gathering around their huts and peering over their stone wall from the high points.
As the lumbering Seraphon moved into range Talieriel screamed at the top of his lungs for them to stay back.
"I'm sorry Talieriel, we cannot," came the reply back almost a whisper in his mind.
Talieriel looked over his shoulder to a subordinate, "loose."
A storm of arrows and bolts arched up into the air and descended on the Seraphon warriors driving skinks to the ground and forcing some of them to move slightly backwards and disordering their formations.
To the left of the Aelf line one of the brigades was clearly visibly composed entirely of skinks and they fanned out over the plain. They moved into the path of the cavalry and chariots coming between the woods and the mountain.
Talieriel saw his reavers moving up on the flank of the disordered Seraphon.
"What is Gildreath doing? I gave no orders for his men to charge!" Talieriel screamed at his subordinates.
The reavers moved like a fluid, flowing around obstacles, they fired as they went and drew their swords at the last moment before crashing into the flank of the Saurus warriors.
There was a confused melee and warriors were lost on both sides before the cavalry withdrew.
They were staring back but they were not quick enough. The Seraphon cavalry had its blood up now and they caught the reavers as they were reforming. The massive stone and copper weapons scythed through the lightly armed Aelf cavalry littering the field with blood-stained white horses and broken Aelfs. The remnants of the shattered unit retreated as quickly as their steeds would carry them.
Then the Saurus warriors advanced on the right flank of the Aelf line. The heavy, cold blooded creatures shrugged off the fire of the Aelf archers and bolt throwers and smashed their way through the ranks of the troops. The lead units pursued their foes into new enemy and soon the ground in front of the village was covered in both cold and warm blood.
The simultaneous charge of more Saurus cavalry smashed back the center of the Aelf line destroying more archers but the solid spearmen stood firm and the Saurus cavalry retreated back in the face of them.
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The chariots moved up, followed by the Aelf silver helm knights to take up a position more defensible to the village, their movement was so rapid and weaving the small skink archers had no chance to land any solid shots at them.
Chanting in the high language of their people Adricaer moved forward and tongues of translucent flame shot from his hands. As the energy spread out around the Aelf wizard it moved towards all of the warriors near him. They glowed with renewed vigour and energy as they pushed forward.
Pausing for a moment to survey the scene and adjust to the magic that now infused their body, the cavalry brigade charged into the now regrouping Saurus cavalry, the chariots obliterating the enemy they faced while the Silver Helms had more difficulty and only forced their opponents back step by step before both units, exhausted by the combat broke off.
The Slaan mage priest fell back before their assault, falling in with a unit of skinks while he watched the carnage in front of him.
There was little he could do now, The Saurus cavalry charged into the Aelf cavalry and chariots. Even the skinks were fueled with the urge to get in on the kill.
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The shattering of their cavalry was too much for the remaining Aelfs. They streamed backwards. Talieriel, seeing that things were lost ordered his subordinates to go with the retreating army and to get them out of the valley as quickly as possible.
He dismounted and walked slowly towards the gap in the stone wall of the village. A huge Krxoigor was the first Seraphon to arrive at the village. Talieriel pulled off his helmet and stood in the way.
The Kroxigor looked back towards the Slaan before raising his massive axe in the air and smashing the Aelf general into the ground. The villagers let out a collective scream at this. It was not to be the last screaming they did that day.
