“The scouts have just come back, and the enemy is doing something new. They stopped two miles east of us, and they built a crude fort with magic.”
Jarbal paused, as the area broke out in conversations. The soldiers had too much discipline for that, but about half the undying groups were muttering.
“After doing so, they left a few thousand of their number to guard it, and the rest of the forty thousand headed back east. It looks like their plans are to sack the dwarven cities, and to use a small well-fortified force to keep the humans and elves out of it.”
He looked around at all of us, “We’re twice the numbers of what they left behind. A horrible ratio for a sieging force, but according to the scout the walls aren’t heavily enchanted. We will move to break them, destroy the force, and follow and harry the main force attacking the dwarven city entrances.”
He paused again, probably so we could all absorb that little nugget of information.
“There will be no suicidal charges. Those with air will shield us from arrows at the extreme bow range, those with earth will work on taking down the western fort wall, the rest of you will attack from a distance with whatever you have. Be wary on the march, I wouldn’t be surprised if the plain was seeded with traps. We move in thirty minutes. If anything goes seriously wrong, I’ll call a retreat.”
Cassie bounced on her toes.
“This should be fun.”
I laughed despite myself.
Crude was a good description. The walls were only about thirty feet high. Orcs and hobgoblins were on the walls, with swords and bows. There were no ballistae or any other kind of defensive siege weaponry. It all felt wrong to me, like we were being lured out from behind our walls, where a ten to one kill ratio would be easy to achieve with hard work and effort.
Out of the fort. Now the only way to detect cloaked individuals was a grandmaster. How hard would that be to pick out, a weird blank spot, once we started filling the air around us in magic, and firing magic across the distance?
“Lara, every once in a while, maybe two or three times a minute, send out a dispel. Can you target dark magic only, so you don’t kill our enhancements?”
It was a crappy plan, but the best we had. I was kind of surprised the gray dwarves in the city hadn’t done that to find us during our mission, but maybe none of them had light magic? They’d only done it inside the castle.
Lara tilted her head, and then nodded thoughtfully, “Cloaked enemies?”
I shrugged, “It makes sense, those are all orcs and hobgoblins up there. No giants, ogres, ice wolves, gray dwarves, or dark elves? I can’t imagine the enemy is dumb enough to think they could hold us back more than an hour. It’s the perfect opportunity to cut into us from behind, when everyone is focused on taking down the fort.”
Lyre said, “I’m sure Jarbal is aware of that issue, but I’ll report it. Lara can’t do it for everyone.”
Lyre moved off quickly in Jarbal’s direction, but she didn’t reach him before he gave the order. My fault for not thinking of it before we were all set up to attack. We already had low walls to take cover behind, and we were ranged out a few rows deep in a semi-circle around the enemy fort.
Jarbal yelled, “Attack!”
Lara released a spell to up everyone’s attributes by three in her range.
Fire, ice, earth, darkness, death, arrows, and bolts flew at the walls, and the creatures manning them. I sent a fire blast of my own. The only element not sent was air, as a blocking fierce sidewind started to block the enemy’s arrows.
We took cover, when fire and other spells headed our way. I noticed the wall was still fine, the earth sphere wielders would have to wear it down before it came down. Several of the walls defenders fell though, even as several of our soldiers took fire. Some few were overwhelmed, while others were merely wounded.
Lara dropped a mass heal, and then started working on that dispel.
Lyre came back shaking her head, but I couldn’t interpret what she meant by that. Was she shut down, or was it not a problem?
I send another fire blast, as did several others, along with all the other spheres for our second volley, which the enemy returned in kind.
My vision of the area around me disappeared in white fire, and when it cleared my mana shield was at half strength. I dropped another twenty-five hundred mana into it, even as I started to build my third fire spell.
A wave of light left Lara’s hand. About twenty yards behind us a handful of dark elves appeared.
I sent my third fire blast in their direction instead, no one else was really paying attention to our backs, too focused on taking down the fort in front of us. That got their attention though, and it got Jarbal’s head out his… posterior.
Jarbal yelled, “Dispels, to the front and back!”
When the fire cleared, and the corpses fell, I tried to figure out what they were up to. But nothing about them stood out. It was just weird they hadn’t attacked as soon as we opened fire on the fort, was that not enough of a distraction for them?
White light blasted out from our ranks, and about twenty more groups of five dark elves were revealed. The dark elves tossed spells, and started to run, but they didn’t get far. Lightning, fire, and ice ripped into their backs. Other spells too probably, but those three elements kind of occluded everything else in the bright flash.
Several of ours died as well, in the short brutal exchange. Unfortunately, only a very small percentage of those that died were the undying. We’d lost at least a hundred people, about two percent of our force, in the one exchange. It was obvious to me the dark elves hadn’t held anything back. Several hundred on the edges of the spells were wounded.
I hated it, it was all so random. The only reason I was alive was because they hadn’t hit my part of the line. No skill, no other reason, just dumb luck. I saw a few gems glinting in the sunlight by the dead dark elves’ bodies, and I considered they might have been planting a trap for us. Some kind of damaging grand enchantment?
Whatever their plan had been, it’d been foiled. I turned back to the fort, but decided that could wait a minute, and shifted my mind to the Life Sphere, and tossed a couple of mass heals along with Lara.
I’d modified the spell further, to make the targeting parameters cheaper. It only cost two mana of the spell for each being it detected as not at full health and added as a target. That meant more of the mana in the spell actually went to the healing. It was kind of obvious in hindsight. Assessing life wasn’t an all or nothing proposition. I didn’t need the spell to be aware of how much mana they had for instance, or even what level they were. I just needed to assess if they were down hit points. The less information the spell needed to gather, the cheaper in mana cost it was to do.
I turned back to the walls, which I could already see were taking damage. There were small areas that were chipped and cracked, and even a few deep gouges were in evidence.
I sent a fire blast at the top of the wall, even as our side was inundated with more magical attacks. The wind shield did great for blocking arrows, but not much else.
Jarbal yelled, “Pull it down!”
All the Earth Sphere magic users including Anlyth casted again, presumably control earth, because the wall that we faced was ripped forward and turned to dust. Really, it outlined how important a grand enchantment and having someone to maintain it was. Of course, it’d happened to us too, in the first fort, but I’d been dead before it had. This was the first time I’d actually seen it.
We charged the enemy, and we outnumbered them almost two to one. It was far from a one-sided slaughter, but when all was still, the enemy was destroyed, and we still had thirty-two hundred soldiers, and ninety-two groups of undying. The other eight would be back by the next morning. We’d lost eight hundred soldiers, which was twenty percent casualties.
Unheard of in a siege, but then their fort hadn’t been worth much, and we’d thwarted their surprise attack.
I was so tired of the death, but the
only way through was forward. Life wasn’t fair, especially when the world was the creation of a crazy goddess. It wasn’t all bad though, I was gaining in power and understanding, and I had Gwen and the others. I didn’t let any of the doubts touch my face.
The battle was clearly over, no enemy troops within many miles, but no experience given. Obviously, experience would be given out at the end, when the Eastern Horde was completely pushed back. The war must’ve been considered as one big dungeon, or something.
Jarbal started to speak and the surrounding conversations trailed off.
“Alright. From here on in it’s a different war for us until the eastern tribes are sent back to hell or their mountains. Large groups are a liability, the horde on open ground would swallow us up easily. We killed a little over two thousand, that means there’s over ninety thousand left, minutes whatever my dwarven brothers have managed to take out the last couple of days during the siege.
“We’re going to split up into smaller groups. Thirty-five soldiers with each group of undying. Lightning raids people! There will be no taking a stand, or the horde will swallow you up and spit you out. Sting them, destroy their supplies, kill them in their sleep, and get out fast only to hit them somewhere else. I’ll take care of logistics and send out messages to the groups on where to find meals and seek rest a few miles from the fighting.
“Let’s get it all sorted out, I want you marching east this afternoon. We should reach the edge of the mountains by tonight, and we’ll be within range of the enemy by midday tomorrow.”
Steve looked at me hopefully, “Ship?”
I smiled, “Does the ship fit forty-three?”
Steve’s face fell, and Lara giggled.
Gwen grinned, “Looks like we have to walk this time.”
Cassie smirked, “Could be worse, we could have been part of the night watch.”
True, those poor bastards were going to have to suck it up…
Chapter Twenty-Six
I wasn’t sure if Wynn pulled some strings, but he was in charge of the thirty-four other soldiers that were assigned to our party. We had twelve elves, twelve humans, and ten dwarves. A few of those were part of the condemned group, and of course hoped to be free men and women when the Eastern evil tribal invasion was broken.
The talents and spheres were fairly even across the groups, to make each one as diverse and effective as possible. We had all the spheres covered, although light, life, and death seemed to be the rarest ones. We had five people with darkness, including Gwen and Lara, so cloaking was more than possible. We’d have to use it sparingly though, there wouldn’t be any switching back and forth like Gwen and Lara had done on our last mission, there weren’t enough of them for that. Two to three beings with darkness couldn’t cover forty-three people, the mana per second cost was insane, but five could cover eight or nine each for a few minutes.
We also hadn’t gotten any experience for that fort and the dark elves. I wasn’t sure why since we were outside, but maybe the whole horde made it some kind of dungeon encounter, despite being so far away from the main battle yesterday. We’d get all the experience when the horde was defeated, or… partial experience if we died.
It was the next afternoon, and we were coming upon evidence of the enemy. We could hear the battle from a long way away, once we were in the valley where one of them was taking place. The horde was split in three, around thirty thousand in each valley that led to a dwarven city beneath a mountain.
Wynn looked around, “Here, the back of the horde is about a quarter mile ahead. My soldiers and I will set up an ambush here. Can your group go sting their backsides and see if you can draw some of them to follow you to the ambush point? We’ll set up traps, and stuff to hide behind. When you get here, we’ll hit them as hard as we can, twice, then cloak and run to…” he showed me the map, “Here.”
We’d already picked out smaller eight and nine being teams for the cloak and run bit. I didn’t like that part of the plan the most, since two of our Darkness wielders were in my party, we’d have to split the party. I wouldn’t be able to keep track of Lara or Steve while that was going on.
“I’ll give it a shot, and I’ll try not to bring all of them.”
Wynn chuckled, and clapped my shoulder. It was a little weird working with him again, he was still a few levels below us, level twenty-one, but had managed to gain a ton of experience when we’d faced off the Northern Horde.
The eight of us moved out carefully, looking for enemy scouts, surely they were aware we would come for them at some point. Even if we were earlier than they probably expected, their fort and trap idea had failed spectacularly.
Of course, the enemy scouts could be cloaked, which made my back tingle between my shoulder blades a bit as we moved through the forest whisper quiet. When we reached the edge of the forest, there was a sea of enemies that was quite intimidating. I’d thought it was intimidating from atop a fifty-foot wall in a secure fort. It was much worse just hiding behind a tree.
Cassie asked, “Plan?”
I shrugged, “Let’s just keep tossing spells at their back until they come for us.”
We were out of bow range, and out of magical range for any enemies below journeyman level.
Cassie smirked, “Subtle boss.”
I laughed, “Subtle, me? Besides, if they don’t catch on we could kill them all by tonight.”
Cassie and Lara snickered, which turned into uncontrollable giggles. Even Lyre who was stoic and reserved except in private in small numbers, was having trouble holding her smile.
Anlyth and Dan snorted, but they did smile.
Steve replied in a deadpan voice, “Awesome, we’ll be heroes.”
Gwen patted my ass, “Good plan, love. The odds are only four thousand to one, or so.”
Cassie said, “Piece of cake,” between the giggling.
It was the nerves, we were all feeling it, and a little clowning went a long way to settling our nerves.
“On three?”
Gwen grinned, “Why not?”
“One, two, three…”
On two, Lara had released her enhancement spell.
I wondered if I was sane or not, when I launched a fire blast across the distance on three, to land among the back of their army. I’d aimed at a couple of giants, surrounded by ice wolves.
Gwen’s exploding shadow spike, Dan’s explosive fire blast, Anlyth’s exploding earth spike, and Cassie’s and Lyre’s withering storms of lightning also went out at the same time, and Steve followed up a second later to raise dead on any corpses just to create more havoc.
They responded remarkably quickly, the whole rear of the formation, probably a thousand or so turned and ran toward us, while gazing along the tree line.
“So much for plan A,” I joked, “guess we’ll need help with this after all. One more volley and then we run, and attack back as we go every five seconds.”
We sent a second volley of death, and Steve once more followed up to create more undead from the corpses, which raced back toward the main body to attack. We all knew they wouldn’t last long, but they’d kill some before being overwhelmed. Especially the giants and ice wolves.
Then we got the hell out of there. As usual I was in the rear and running all out to keep up, slowing down the party as little as I possibly could. I knew they wouldn’t leave me behind. The enemy of course, had magic too, but Lara managed to dispel the only two attacks we weren’t able to evade by quickly changing course, before they reached us.
“Volley!”
I knew it would slow us down, but we had a pretty damn good lead. I looked over my shoulder and released the fire blast I’d prepared, then kept running. Like us, the enemy scattered and dodged, but we did get a few of them out of the thousand or so chasing us. We did that twice more on the run to the ambush point, and I was breathing like a bellows when we ducked down behind hasty fortifications.
Cassie said, “You need to run every morning, build up your willpower.”
I scowled. She was probably right, but I was the magical glass cannon, and liked it that way. I was in shape, really I was, probably more so than any Olympic athlete from the old world. It was just in comparison to those who followed physical disciplines on this new world that I felt short.
Cassie smirked, “Next time I’ll hit you with another six points of willpower and strength.”
That… was a really good idea, I nodded in approval.
She added, “That doesn’t change what I said though.”
I was back to scowling as I finally caught my breath and peeked over the small fortification. Really, it was just a short wall. It wasn’t that I was lazy, it was just hard enough to meditate, keep up in three spheres and four skills, and still find the time to spoil and spend time with Gwen, as well as just relax.
Gwen patted my ass again, and said, “I have no complaints about his… stamina.”
I actually blushed, I wasn’t even sure where that came from. Well, we did have a few marathons, what I meant was I didn’t know why she’d say that in front of others. She wasn’t shy about sex at all while in private in bed, on the contrary she could be wonderfully expressive and wild, but as they say, she was usually a lady in public. I blew it off, and decided it was some female dynamic between Gwen and Cassie, and not about me at all.
Guy code was much simpler, so I didn’t have a clue what it was about.
I didn’t think she was jealous, or claiming her territory, but I really had no more time to waste thoughts on it, not with the enemy bearing down on us.
Wynn said, “Fire!”
The first round was magic at a distance, outside weapons range and further complicated by the trees of the forest, but the enemy hadn’t been prepared for forty-three spells, instead of eight. If anything though, they lost all sense of caution and raced into range as they fired back. We ducked behind the walls for a moment, which were marginally effective.
Island Kingdoms' War Page 17
