Quoted By:
Rolled 3, 3, 6 = 12 (3d6)
There's this old joke? In love, in war, in comedy, the only thing that matter is the right timing.
The 789th execute a textbook fighting withdrawal across the historic bridge that spans the churning river below. The Wasponi outriders, eager, overjoyed, snap at them, throw javelins, circle. Search for a ford. Find none. They tear aside barrels, they tip over a gatepost, they pay no toll and then they remount and thunder across the bridge.
The long, narrow bridge. Their formations stretch out. Further behind, dismounted raiders long since shorn of horses in either accident or hunger, attempt to catch up on foot. Their view is all dust, wind, and the allies in front of them advancing at speed.
The 789ths come to a cross-roads on the other side of the bridge. The formation leader barks an order and the formation rotates in place. Perennis checks if anyone needs to be shoved back in line, but no, they've pulled it off, dashed three hundred or some meters in heavy kit and maintained formation. While being chased and pelted with javelins. Possibly no other fighting force in this region could accomplish that.
The skirmishing horsemen jeer, from a little further up the road. There's one - two - four - eight - a slow drip feed of horses across the bridge. No need for hurry, here. Sixteen. They can simply wait a little few heartbeats longer. Twenty one. And then once sufficient numbers have come, and others push, and the ones on the bridge cannot see past the ones in front, they fling their weapons ( the few that yet have them ), ready steel and charge.
--
It is possibly the most frightful thing in the world to be charged by a loose mass of cavalry. When the cavalry outnumber you three to one, it is worse still. The soldier in the back of the formation glances over his shoulder. He does not - in the strictest martial sense really - need to stay standing here. He could join the Luperni. They're smart.
Most of them are already *considerably* further down the road, and accelerating.
He could just . . . leave . . .
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