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Markahn slides down the inclide in a spray of scree and rock, and a trio of blades dash with him forming a triangular shield wedge. Zivka's fine hound lops alongside and the onrushing stampede parts like a wave. A little personal space among the throng. Rion is not quite so lucky and has to duck, dodge, weave and move and if he was any less nimble he would, like Labyrs and the Blue Rat who ran, been bowled over and pawed and mauled and probably scratched and bit. Instead, he lands safely next to a vanguard who, even now, clutches his spear in one hand and stares up with a grim determination, too paralyzed by pain and shock to move but not quite beyond the reach of the company doctors.
--
Speaking of those same specialist, Caedo whistles a signal and a Crewgroup arive - bearing tools to set up a triage area and help shift and sort through the wounded. The formations nearby lock their steps and lock their shields, forming up a solid barricade to channel the mass of hounds around themselves.
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Military science has long disproven the notion that cavalry will charge a stout pike square or proper formation of musketeers with bayonets affixed. No living animal is brutish enough to crash willing into another full speed. One needs trained, professional soldier to be so reckless. Scraghounds may not be horses but by forming a solid seeming barrier, planting our feet and resiting the urge to break and run before them, they naturally try to inch around stampeding elsewhere. The trick of it is to maintain composure. Hold steady. And never, ever flinch.
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Wicklighter shoves a Blue Rat back in formation and the Resolute Crows aren't going to be shown up by that and so they plant their feet, lower their pikes and bristle menacingly at the incoming hounds. They curve around.
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Markhan pushes through the horde and lunges for a Dustrunner, gets his gauntlet'd hand around the mans billowing cloak off office - a Dustcloak? You? You caught a Dustcloak? In hand to hand? The men who live the swirling sand? The women who dance the wind? You caugh-- ah, with a twist, a turn, a tumble, the agile Windsworn twists out of his regalia of office and then for the first time, above the barking and shouting, they make communicate with sound.
He whistles. Once. Sharp. Clear.
And the trees respond - - -
... GET DOWN!!!!
>... !!!!!!
>Response Phase
