The Hand of War

And for the strongest of the breed, touch, things or person miles or even leagues away. The giant was still but an apprentice in the Magus Guilds hierarchy, which meant his range, was limited to less than a mile in any direction.

More than far enough for the 3rd Army's purposes.

General Carmichael grinned tightly at his subordinate. "You do what you do best, Sergeant. Leave me to do what I am good at." Ian Carmichael was considered to be the finest swordsman alive. And he knew it.

The broadsword fairly flickered in Ian's gauntleted hand. He wielded the five-foot razor-edged blade as if it was an extension of his own hand, effortlessly parrying the attacks of his opponents, he seemed to be able to sense weaknesses in his enemies’ defenses and attacked them viciously. The shimmering, magically imbued cleagh-mhor cut through chainmail and flesh with equal ease. A riposte slashed through the shield of one man, lopping off a chunk of the wooden device and part of the arm it was strapped too. Another soldier grunted in pain and fell, clutching the spurting hole in his chest. A lone pikemen tried to use the extra length of his voulge to pin the weaving swordsman in place. The general ducked the thrusting weapon and flicked his own blade down and across, the razor-sharp steel cutting through the reinforced hardwood shaft like it was a roll of parchment. The pikeman stared unbelievingly at the missing four feet of his weapon for a moment before Ian's blade flashed again. The man coll apsed, hands groping the bloody ruins of his throat.

The Empires finest warriors attacked Kaladors greatest warrior enmass. And failed. They fell, dead or injured. Severed limbs littered the ground surrounding General Carmichael and the giant psi he was desperately trying to protect. A boot kicked aside the head of one soldier, sending it bouncing across the battlefield like a child's ball. He slashed and stomped side to side, parrying and thrusting the flashing blade, never giving ground and seemingly everywhere at once. His sword appeared to carve a giant wall of steel out of the air through which nothing could pass

Anything that touched that wall, died, painfully.

For one long moment, nothing and no one could touch him. They attacked in droves, and died by the dozen. The moment ended as the general felt rather than saw his sergeant come out of the trance and scarcely without pause loop his axe around in a short arc, slicing off the top of a soldiers head. "Report sergeant"

Both men focused their efforts on driving the Imperials back for several seconds before Sergeant Davros finally spoke. "General, I can only sense the presence of about half of the men we started with, we're losing this one sir." He swung his axe hard, smoothly cleaving the head off an opponent’s neck. "I think you should call a withdrawal, general. Before this turns into a bleeding rout." The two men had served together for almost a decade, giving the sergeant an incredible amount of latitude in dealing with the older man. "We keep this up any longer, and nobodies gonna walk away."

"To the hells with that!" General Carmichael shook his head tiredly as he ran his sword through another man's chest. "No my friend, we either finish this here or die trying." He shouted over the din. " We're the only ones standing in front of the gate." The heavy steel blade sliced into another foe. "No choices today, Stephan."

The giant non-coms reply was interrupted by a jagged bolt of blue-white lightning that touched down in the middle of a large cluster of enemy soldiers, blasting a crater in the soft soil and sending bodies and body parts high in the air. "What in the seven hells was that?!" A nearby soldier dressed in the chainmail and surcoat of a Kaladorian infantryman shouted into the momentary silence.