The messages had arrived within hours of being sent. The sparrows flying high against the wind to Chenzhou and low and with the wind to Mingzhe in the south. Both had arrived within minutes of each other and the morning light, but any communication between Chenzhou and Mingzhe would take twice as long, so there was no chance they were going to be able to communicate before they each decided what to do.
They barely had time to consider their own options before they needed to react, as it would take any force from either direction two and a half days at full speed to reach Eirian and her forces. Every minute they delayed was a minute more that she was alone and under attack.
They didn't even have time to wait and see what the next communication would say. Had she already won? Was all lost? Were they in retreat? Did she need Chenzhou or Mingzhe to come from a direction to break a siege?
There were so many unknowns and only one thing they knew for sure: Eirian was under attack.
***
Eirian was probably less stressed about the ongoing attack than Chenzhou and Mingzhe, not just because she was the one facing it and had a lot more answers, but because she just didn't tend to worry as much as they did, especially when the challenge was right in front of her.
Eirian knew Chenzhou and Mingzhe would have to make a decision to send help based on very little information, and that anything she sent after that first message would arrive too late for her or them.
Eirian and her forces would have to solve this problem themselves.
The strength of the attack waxed and waned, but it never let up completely. The first foreign fighters had shown up midmorning, slaves bought from the southern tribes and fighting desperately with a random assortment of weapons. There was no way to try and talk them over, nowhere they could have even offered to keep them safe, since they couldn't even do that for their own wounded at the moment.
The tribes had failed to flank them at least, but they were still summoning reinforcements and keeping the pressure on their main attack. They hadn't made it into the camp as the attack reached midday, and Eirian's forces had managed to arrange themselves into a sturdy wall deep enough that they could still rotate units out for rest and keep the lines fresh.
The tribesmen, who attacked with an almost berserker intensity, attacked until they died, relying on the unrelenting pressure to tire their opponents first.
Maybe it worked on other tribes, but it didn't work here.
Eirian went back to the front line after eating, earlier than she should have, because she was supposed to have a rest, but she didn't like leaving when there was still fighting to be done.
The bog of bodies and bloody mud that had formed just outside the wall was becoming more difficult to traverse with every hour, since the tribesmen never bothered to gather their dead.
Eirian stormed to the front, angrier with every step, as Ardain started to sing so loudly Eirian's ears ached.
~ tbc