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Orin and his men were riding through the forest at breakneck speed. They had recently struck a wandering enemy probing force, only to find out that it was a trap to lure and encircle them with a hidden ambush.
Things like this had been happening more and more lately. Instead of staying on the defensive from his traps and ambushes, the enemy, despite the higher casualties they were sure to suffer, sent out a third of their forces to chase after Orin's half of the army.
It seemed that Orin's delay strategy had well and truly pissed the enemy command off, and instead of letting Orin chip away at his army as more and more of their men were maimed and killed, they decided to rip off the bandaid and get rid of him once and for all.
Orin's only saving grace was that the enemy did not have any mounts. This allowed him and his men to greatly outpace the Rising Horn tribe and retreat to a hidden camp to lick their wounds.
But as much as they would like to rest for the day to properly treat their wounds and mourn their fallen, Orin and his men knew that they could not afford to rest. They and the other teams that they had broken into had to keep up the pressure to slow the enemy.
***
At the end of the day, when it was confirmed that the Rising Horn tribe had made camp for the night, Orin and the rest of the raiding teams met back up at the hidden camp to lick their wounds and count their dead.
In normal circumstances, they would be out there harassing the enemy so that they would not be able to rest well through the night, but not this night. Orin saw the sorry state of his men and bade them rest, for tomorrow they would need to redouble their efforts… but with a new strategy he had yet to come up with.
***
Come first light, Orin gathered all the leaders of the raiding parties to tell them of the plan he had come up with.
"All of us have taken losses yesterday. So I have been thinking, if this carries on, we will not be able to slow them down, so we will no longer try to slow them down." Orin said, to the exclamation and displeasure of the various raid leaders.
But Orin raised a hand to quiet them down. "I am not saying that we abandon the mission. I am saying that since we are unable to slow them down, we should change the objective. Instead of attacking and harassing the main body of the enemy, we attack the parties that were sent out to hunt us."
A few minutes of planning later and redistributing manpower among the raiding parties, Orin and the raid leaders moved out to their assigned hunting area, and it did not take long before they saw some action, but now that their target had changed, they were the ones with the initiative, so they were able to strike first and strike hard.
All around the marching main body of the Rising Horn tribe army, the cries of battle could be heard as their men, and by the time backup arrived, Orin's men had already looted what they could easily grab from the Rising Horn tribe warriors and disappeared into the woods.
When the commander leading the Rising Horn tribe army figured out what was happening, it had snapped the last straw of patience that he had for Orin's harassment and was about to send his whole army into the woods to finish off Orin and his raid teams once and for all.
But before he could give the command, he and a few other sharp individuals caught sight of birds taking flight from their trees in the distance. Normally, birds taking flight from trees was nothing out of the ordinary, but when a whole flock of them did it at the same time, and after observing for a minute, the phenomena happening repeatedly towards his direction, he knew that something big was coming.
The Rising Horn tribe army commander shouted his men into a defensive formation while waiting for whatever was coming toward them to show themselves.
What came down the road were Rock Claw tribe mounted archers that started raining arrows down on them, forcing those with shields to raise them in defense, and those who didn't had to take cover behind those who did, or pray to their ancestors for protection.
And while the Rising Horn tribe army was being suppressed by a rain of arrows, open-top wagons rolled up to the front, each laden with men and women dressed like shamans instead of warriors.
The Rising Horn tribe army commander was as confused as the rest of the commanders under him at the sight of so many shamans pulling up to the front. The only thing that came to mind for wagons full of shamans to come to the front was to cast hexes, but they knew that it took time to do that, and they had just arrived.
It was only when all the Rock Claw tribe shamans raised their hands that every man, both Rising Horn and Rock Claw, felt a chill go down their backs. Most did not know what it was that was giving them this sensation and a sense of impending doom, but the few who recognized it on the Rising Horn side started backing away because they knew the tingling sensation of dense mana when they felt it, and that could only mean bad things for them.
But before the Rising Horn tribe commanders could decide on how to react to the shamans, bright fiery symbols formed between the Rock Claw shaman's hands, and a couple of seconds after the symbols formed, balls and streaks of fire shot toward the Rising Horn lines.
The front row of Rising Horn shield bearers braced themselves before the fire struck them. When the fire impacted their shields, at first, they felt no more pressure than bracing their shield against a windy day. It was only a split second later that they realized that the fire that hit their shield did not dissipate, but splashed against their shield, causing the tongues of fire to either slip past the sides of their shields, hitting those beside them, or go over or under them, catching their hair on fire or burning their feet.
This caused the front line of shield bearers to fall into disarray, opening them up to more attacks from the Rock Claw's mounted archers and shamans.
Having never seen this much literal firepower before, the front rows of the Rising Horn colom fell into panic. That was when the wagon drivers whipped their horses into action, driving them toward the sides of the Rising Horn army colom and running parallel to the colom.
As the Rock Claw shaman wagons rolled down the line, the shamans raised their hands and formed their Fire symbols, but instead of fireballs or streaks, the shamans channeled streams of fire. This essentially made each wagon of shamans a flamethrower tank.
As more and more of the Rising Horn men were doused in flame, their cries of fear, panic, and pain caused those who had not come in contact with the shaman wagons to start panicking. They did not see what was causing the commotion, only that it was coming toward them, and fast.
It all started with one Rising Horn warrior running, which started the domino effect of men breaking ranks and running.
Seeing his army start to fall apart, the Rising Horn army commander started shouting his men back into formation. "GET BACK HERE AND FORM UP. IF YOU RUN, YOU ARE JUST GOING TO GET PICKED OFF! SOMEONE GET THE HUNTING PARTIES BACK HERE TO HELP!"
At his command, men who looked like they were about to run were restrained, and whistling arrows were shot into the air to recall the running parties that were sent to hunt Orin and his raiding parties.
***
Orin had just trampled a Rising Horn warrior under hoof when he heard the sound of multiple whistle arrows going off from where the main column of the Rising Horn army was, and so did everyone else.
The moment that happened, all the Rising Horn warriors disengaged from combat and ran as fast as they could towards the main column.
Knowing that something urgent must have happened for the enemy to disengage so quickly, Orin rallied his men and followed the retreating enemy to see what was going on.
As Orin and his men maintained a respectful distance from the retreating enemy, the first sign that something was terribly wrong with the enemy forces was the billowing smoke rising into the sky through the gaps in the trees. The next indication was the smell of cooking meat and burnt hair.
When Orin and his men finally reached the road, the Rising Horn army was marching. He could see burning bodies lining the trail and felt the heat from the chaos. That was when he saw a wagon carrying shamans from his tribe making another pass at the Rising Horn column while spewing flames upon them.
"Since when could our shamans do that?" one of Orin's men asked when he stopped beside him.
"I do not know." Orin replied blankly.