Island Kingdoms' War

by D. L. Harrison

  Some few hit the very top for the wall, bounced back, and fell below. Others landed on soldiers, or the wall itself. A few even bounced on the far edge of the wall and fell down into the city.

  At the same time, a rain of arrows and offensive spells were sent at us in cover. Several soldiers on our side along with orcs and hobgoblins took damage from that. The luck of the draw, none of our party were hit by anything that time, I was sure that luck wouldn’t hold long. Battle was messy, and random.

  The commander yelled, “Climbers! Shield from those arrows! More flyers!”

  I grunted as we all took better cover behind the ramparts, as the air sphere wielders set up a flowing funnel of air that circled the whole city right above the walls. I wondered how long they could hold that. It wasn’t perfect by any stretch, but it would be impossible for the enemy to send an arcing barrage to hit us when we were under cover. With only a foot or two of clearance between the swiftly moving air and top of the ramparts, they’d have to take straight shots and aim, which also meant they couldn’t fire from so far away. The farther the range for a longbow, the more the arrow needs to arc.

  It seemed clear to me the flyers were fodder, a distraction of a few hundred enemy moving in quickly through the air, to cover the approach and climb of thousands. I assumed they were holding back their better troops while they wore us down a bit, it seemed likely not many orcs could pull off a spell like that. Most of them didn’t wield magic. Otherwise there’d be a lot more flyers.

  At the same time that several soldiers roared and took down the few enemies that had gained the walls, the rest of us took down the second wave of flyers. It went better the second time, all the light sphere wielders save Lara dispelled the groups of flyers that were tightly packed together. The rest died in a hail of the elements.

  Lara wasn’t worthless however, and released her mass heal in a fifty-foot radius. For a strip of hundred feet along the wall, several wounded soldiers from arrows and spells started to recover. The true genius of the spell was it used detect and assess life in concert as the targeting parameters, which meant none of the wounded enemies within the area of effect would be healed.

  A moment later I felt some of the enemy fall off the wall with my detect life spell. It was with some amusement that I realized their own flyers that lost flight, must’ve continued on with momentum even as gravity pulled them down and off course. Some few must have been slamming into their own people and knocking them off the walls.

  There were hundreds on the walls just in my range, I assumed thousands give the size of the city wall. They were starting to get close to the top.

  The commander yelled, “Ice and Spike!”

  I had no idea what the hell spike meant, but I reached up to the top of the ramparts and cast control water to coat the wall in ice when I felt other water wielders do so. The evil life I felt on the walls were cleared for the most part, even the few that didn’t fall immediately were stopped and couldn’t advance. If they moved their handholds they’d fall.

  When I heard the screams of rage and pain, and quite a few death rattles, I looked at Anlyth in question.

  He replied, “The spike part is the earth sphere wielders creating a field of one-foot spikes from one to ten feet out from the walls, around the entire city.”

  Oh, cool, a nice field of sharp spikes to fall on. So, when they fell off the walls they all impaled themselves. I imagined a few were unlucky enough to get impaled through the head, neck, or heart, which explained the death rattles.

  The thin sheet of ice on the walls shattered on impact, when we took out a third wave of flyers and they slammed into it.

  Steve, and several others with the death sphere, cast gray miasmic orbs into the hundreds of corpses at the base of the wall. They all stood up, picked up their weapons, and ran out into the forest. I supposed that made sense, maybe they’d do some small amount of damage to the enemy’s main forces before being put down, more than they would just loitering around at the base of the walls.

  We all tensely waited, but there wasn’t a fourth wave of flyers, no charging at the walls to climb, and the arrows and spells tapered off a great amount. A few spells and arrows were shooting out from the forest, but that was about it. I reluctantly forced myself to relax a little bit.

  I frowned.

  “That first wave was a test of our defenses, they’re making the real plans now.”

  Anlyth and Lyre nodded in agreement.

  They were also still casting and firing some few arrows in an attempt to wear us down, no doubt if the air spell was dropped, a whole lot more arrows would start coming in. Our side wasn’t idle either, the ballistae were tracking and firing at the origins of the spells and arrows.

  “How long can we hold this,” I waved negligently at the screaming wind above the wall.

  Anlyth shrugged, “Indefinitely. It’s really hundreds of tiny control air spells, the mana regeneration is more than good enough at apprentice and journeymen levels to keep it up, just like your detect life spell is always on. They’ll be replaced in the morning with the other shift.”

  I nodded, that was one piece of good news.

  The lull in the battle was taken advantage of, as arrows were pulled out, wounds fully healed, and the dead taken off the walls. Our dead anyway, the enemy’s dead were raised, and now defended the walls. There weren’t many of the latter, only forty or so had managed to gain the walls, in total, not just our wall.

  The enemy’s arrows were also checked for quality, some were tossed, others found their way into quivers.

  I wondered what they were up to. There was no way they could take down the walls. There were masters in the city maintaining and keeping the grand enchantment powered. The enchantment was also much older, which meant it was much more powerful and better designed. No enemy could cloak and take the walls. They needed a plan to actually make it up the walls, and to overwhelm us.

  No enemy could cloak and take the walls. Shit, I felt stupid when the obvious hit me. The enemy was visible out there, there were more than I could count, but did that mean a whole bunch of them couldn’t disappear without us knowing? Hundreds, or even thousands.

  I said urgently, “Anlyth, with the enchantment they can’t cloak and climb the walls, they can’t tunnel underneath either, but can they cloak and fly over them?”

  They looked at me nonsensically until my words sunk in, I felt like my heart was in a vise. The blood drained from Lyre’s face as Lara gasped, right before the screaming started in the heart of the city.

  Shit, I knew making a flyer was going to bite us in the ass. The enemy was evil, not stupid. That attack might have been to test our defenses, but at the same time it must’ve been a distraction as well. How many orcs or hobgoblins had the darkness sphere? Not many probably, but not many percentage wise was still a lot when considering over ninety thousand of them in an army.

  Assuming of course, the dark elves and gray dwarves weren’t involved in the infiltration.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I could read in my companions faces that they all had to resist the same urge to race into the city and hunt down the enemy infiltrators. Yet, we were all part of a common defense, we had over two thousand on the walls in that moment, but we all couldn’t go. There were also two thousand in the city, an equal force that would relieve us at dawn.

  It seemed to take far too long for the orders to come, but in reality the commander didn’t think on it too long, less than half a minute.

  He ordered runners to rouse our relief and take care of it, and in the meantime, he ordered all the undying on the walls to handle it, while the elven, dwarven, and human soldiers held the walls. When our relief was awake and in the streets, they’d relieve us so we could get back on the walls.

  To make things even more complicated, the screams of the citizens of the city was the signal for another assault on the walls. Well, they’d handle it while we were in the city, or we’d be retreating to the crown city of the el
ves. We couldn’t handle everything after all, the battle was just too big, and I concentrated on our mission and on clearing out the infiltrators.

  I created an ice slide of sorts that would get us down the wall faster, the tower stairs were jammed with parties of undying when we got there. Every second counted and could be one more citizen of Aladell dead. It not only got us off the walls quickly, but it got us significantly closer to the housing district of the city where the screams and cries for help originated. That made sense, the market area was pretty much closed, with the exception of inns and taverns which were probably full of sleeping soldiers.

  Despite the horror of it, a thrill went through me as the adrenaline spiked, and the swift ice slide was kind of a rush.

  I also wondered why they were just attacking and killing citizens, perhaps raping or looting, why not try to capture the gates from the inside and open them for their horde? It occurred to me they might have been worried their cloak would fail if they got too close the walls, or that the gatehouse was one of the most fortified positions in the city. Perhaps it was also a morale issue, they wanted to sap our hearts by killing the helpless.

  Or… maybe there was just no understanding the motivations of the evil races, at least not for me.

  I tried to tell myself that those death screams didn’t matter, it wasn’t real. They weren’t real people, but it didn’t work. How could it, in light of my close friendship and bonds with Anlyth and Lyre, and even with Wynn to a lesser extent. It was an effort to keep my mind free of rage, so I’d be able to concentrate on spells.

  As usual, I was running all out, and still barely keeping up with the others as we made our way to the housing district among other parties. Losing that point in willpower surely hadn’t helped my running speed either.

  The first enemy I saw was an orc leaving a house, with a sick twisted grin on his face.

  I sent a fire blast out, no area of effect, I didn’t need to set the city on fire, or kill an innocent if there was someone still alive in that building. I put enough into control fires so even the small amount of splash damage wouldn’t damage or burn the house.

  Of course, there were a lot of people just as angry as I was, the orc disappeared in fire, lightning, darkness, death, ice and earth spikes, and even a couple of arrows. It was a bit on the overkill side as close to twenty of us all attacked at the same time. When the attacks cleared, there was nothing left of him.

  One of the other parties raced into that home, the rest of us kept going.

  I laughed without humor, and the parties split up as we ran between the houses like a wave through the district. It wasn’t long before my detect life picked up a small group of enemies, just five of them.

  The city itself was beautiful, even more so from the ground. We were surrounded by trees and nature, even as we weaved among the non-uniform housing.

  “Gwen and Steve take point, Anlyth guards our rear, the rest of us in the middle.”

  Gwen and Steve drew swords, and Anlyth his staff, as we breached the front door of the house. It was relatively small, but a decent size. Maybe nine hundred square feet, like a two-bedroom ranch. It was the commoner housing district, not the noble or merchant class.

  As we breeched the house, Lara cast her enhancements on us.

  There were three orcs tossing the common areas, presumably for loot. I also detected a hobgoblin and dark elf in one of the bedrooms with three elves.

  I shot an ice spike at one of the orcs, aiming for its heart but it sunk into its side as the orc twisted away. Didn’t matter, as the ice exploded inside him he collapsed to the ground. I’d put plenty of mana into the attack, more than enough to kill the bastard.

  Gwen jumped forward with a war cry and swung her sword. The orc parried, but he didn’t even see that her left hand was covered in shadow, and she released the spell of darkness into his face.

  The orc screamed, and clawed at his eyes, and Gwen’s next swing was a mercy as she parted his head from his shoulders.

  At the same time, Steve engaged the third orc and drove his sword through the armor and into its flesh. A gray miasma ran down the sword and into its body, and it froze in pain.

  It took just a couple of seconds.

  “Bedroom,” I pointed down the hall.

  We breached the room just in time to see the hobgoblin slit a child’s throat, the elven parents were already dead, and their eyes were glassy. He must’ve started killing them as soon as we breeched the house.

  The dark elf cast darkness at Steve as he rushed the bastard, but I’m not sure what it was supposed to do as Lara let out an explosive light and dispelled it immediately. Steve didn’t even falter as he engaged with swords.

  The hobgoblin ate one of my ice spikes right in the face, instantly killing him.

  I was sure Steve could have taken the dark elf, but after a few seconds of them trading blows, Lyre and Anlyth took him out with an exploding spike and a lightning strike.

  I felt rage, and pain, emotional pain. My heart was pounding like a broken drum, that the drummer just kept hitting anyway, as I looked down on the dead elven couple, with a small innocent child. Why? What kind of crazy ass reason could Gaia have for any of this. I had originally thought this world was created to help equalize us and create sanity.

  Then… in that moment, I was tempted to leave. Get the ship and go back to the glade. Love and laugh with Gwen, and just ignore the rest of the damned world. I was sick of it in that moment, sick at heart, and disgusted not only with Gaia’s created world for us, but with myself.

  Just for a moment. The anger and disgust stayed with me of course, it would take a long time to get over this, and it would just get worse. But I could no more walk away then I could die in this world.

  I knew I’d never forgive myself if I walked away from it, this family had died, but the family next door wouldn’t because we’d stopped them. I also knew I’d lose Gwen’s love if I walked away, as time chipped away her respect, assuming she would even follow me in the first place. She had a fierce and angry look on her face as she looked to me for orders. They all did, and I turned my eyes away from the senseless tragedy.

  The night had just started, and there would be more of that senseless tragedy, of that I was sure. I needed to steel my heart, and dwell on and count the ones I could save, not the ones I couldn’t. Easier said than done, but it was either that or I’d lose myself to it. I wished I could resurrect that hobgoblin, just so I could kill him again, maybe more slowly and painfully.

  I knew that was wrong, bitter, and even dangerous for me. I had power, and was growing even more powerful, I could easily turn into a monster.

  “Let’s go, Anlyth and Gwen lead the way.”

  It didn’t take long, and it took far too long, maybe twenty minutes in all. The parties fanned out and swept the district, about fifty of them all together. The enemy was in groups of five or six, and easily dispatched. There were only two to three hundred of them in total. We were all damaged at least once, and in some cases multiple times, but with me, Anlyth, and Lara having the life sphere none of us were killed.

  That wasn’t the end of it though, as we heard the screams of fear and pain in the next district, which drew us to them.

  It was a long night, and the whole time I was fighting with myself not to let the rage take me. Defending was the right decision, that was the easy part to work out in my head, but keeping my heart from despair or from turning hard and cruel was the difficult part. I managed it, all my enemy’s that night met quick and merciful deaths from my magic, no matter how tempted I was. With my mastery over magic, it would be very easy to extend their pain. I ignored the desire to make them regret their actions, and to see it in their eyes.

  There was also misplaced guilt, the enemy hadn’t ever done this before, not until I’d created flyers, and they’d seen the elven scout ships in the sky. Thanks to me, the enemy had adapted. Taking to the air wasn’t exactly brain surgery, it’s just no one had really thought o
f it before. Those controls and adaptation concepts were to hold spells together, and so the spells would fly straight and true, using them as a primary purpose of a spell probably hadn’t occurred to them before. I only thought of it because us undying had come from a world with planes, anti-gravity transports, and other such things.

  Or… realistically, they hadn’t thought of it because that’s how Gaia set it all up.

  It also became quickly apparent that this was just another distraction, they didn’t expect to win from within the city with their relatively small numbers capable of cloaking and flying in. But they did keep doing it, in small groups of hundreds instead of the around one thousand teams of five or so capable of cloaking and flying in with spells. It was a way to thin the soldiers defending on the walls. All they had to do was get lucky, and get a foot hold there, then the entire horde could rush forward and overwhelm the walls.

  The soldiers of the human, elven, and dwarven armies held the walls that night, while the undying did their best to protect the city from cloaked infiltrators. The enemy broke upon the walls, but the defenders weren’t unscathed either. The night shift was down several hundred by the time they were relieved at down, sixteen hundred and eighty-two left, from just a little over two thousand.

  We were relieved as well, from the other fifty undying groups.

  No experience was given, I assumed that would come at the end of battle.

  “You alright? I know it’s been a horrible night.”

  Gwen was cleaning her armor and weapons, we’d already taken baths and found a place to bunk down. We were in a spare bedroom in one of the houses. We were both exhausted, everyone in the night shift was I supposed. She looked… overwhelmed, and in shock, about how I felt. War was ugly, and that night had driven it home even more than when Faelyn had abandoned the condemned and broke their word.

  She didn’t answer right away, and for a few seconds I wondered if she’d even heard me.