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You do not have much time to act. If the Blighted are allowed to continue their relentless attack against these Humes, the Humes will die. They seem to have the upper hand for now, cutting down the blighted and warg-hounds that have charged them. Even the weapons of a Serving Orb would have trouble piercing armor of solid steel, and beneath their bright and gaudy cloth the knights protecting the carriages are encased in shells of plate. The crude weapons of the blighted are turned away, unable to scratch the steel, while halberd, pike, and claymore chop through their rotting flesh.
But it will not last.
With every blow turned, their armor will continue to corrode and corrode, until naught remains but a shell of rust that can no longer turn away the blighted's arrows. The men will be killed and stripped of flesh for the stew pots of the blighted, if they are lucky. The unlucky ones will live long enough for that wretched and hateful fungus to corrode their very soul and turn their bodies into mere puppets. The women will be carried off and raped until they stop thinking. The lucky ones among their number will die before their wombs have been polluted enough for blighted seed to quicken into an unborn monster.
You cannot simply stand back and watch that happen. It would go against the very purpose of your Travail, the renewal of ancient ties between your people and theirs. The very treaties you wish to renew were created to oppose the Blight in ancient times, before the Children learned the secrets of cleansing Yggdrasil's roots. If you do not give what aid you can, you would be in violation of their word.
Even so, caution governs your next move.
Just because they fight the ancient enemy does not mean these Humes are your friends.
If you attack, they might retreat and leave you to the mercies of the blighted if things go bad... and victory does not mean they won't take advantage of a lone beauty on Travail and try to sell her into slavery. The number of Children who found themselves with a collar around their necks upon Travail for trusting the wrong person is far, <span class="mu-i">far</span> too high. Slavers are usually happy to sell them back to the Eldest for mere trinkets, but it's the principle of the matter.
You choose to keep your distance as you provide support. Alas, of all the weapons in which you've dabbled during your century of education, you're least adept with a bow. So instead of a rain of arrows to pick off the blighted archers, what you can offer is the blessings of Divine Magic. With each invocation, you will need to split your focus - as a novice, you can juggle the maintenance of three spells without dropping anything. Healing and resistance against the blight go without saying, and the third will be...
>Grant their weapons Holy Fire.
>Accelerate their perception of time.
>Grant them a blessing of skill in battle.
>Give them good fortune now, balanced by ill fortune later.
>Invoke a prayer that blesses them and curses the blighted.
