by D. R. Rosier
He sat on the bench a little longer, at least until his cock had calmed back down. He just hoped Lori hadn’t noticed the tight strain in his jeans.
The Ford flier was cherry red, not exactly stealth material, but he figured from the ship’s deck looking up they’d see the darker bottom of the truck. Even if they did see it at a thousand feet or so, they were hoping it’d be out of range and unable to be aimed at. If they were wrong, well Cassie would be able to evacuate via teleportation if Kim and she were targeted effectively.
The entire passenger seat was ripped out, and there were four steel bars mounted in there instead, each one with a large gold disk with large inset gems at the top mounted on the poles. He imagined the things hummed with powerful magic, but he couldn’t feel it.
Cassie grinned, “I think we’re ready, it should take us about a half hour to get into position.”
He nodded, “My two thousand are already in place, and I should have another thousand to safely test with by then. How are you on magic?”
Cassie shrugged, “About three quarters? I’m fine. Get going, it won’t take the zombies long to load up seventy steel basketballs.”
He nodded. There were large storage bins in the back to keep them from rolling around, and he thought most of them could fit. He claimed a quick kiss from his mate, and he hated the feeling of walking away from her as he kissed Kim too. Normally they all fought together, he got the logic of it, but he hated being separated.
It was almost guaranteed their plan would go sideways at some point, he just hoped it wasn’t the bombing part that went wrong.
The weapon itself looked pretty cool, and there was an illusion of the ground right below the basketball hoop. It was a circular looking dish of an illusion, the outside of it showed the ground normally from distance, but the center of it looked like a view through binoculars, presumably to better see the target from up at a thousand feet, and there was a small circle in the center of it which was presumably where the molten metal would hit when it was dropped through the hoop.
The rest of them took off at an easy jog which was quite fast given Sy’lia’s enhancement spells. He raised up the groups of dead enemies as they passed them, until he had a thousand or so, and they started toward the beach. They’d stay out of sight range of the enemy of course, until Cassie had bombed the hell out of the ship. He really hoped the shields wouldn’t stop the attack, because that would put them back to square one. They could adapt and improvise for almost any other failure in the plan, but not that one.
He moved over a bit, right next to the graceful elf.
“You’ve been quiet this morning, everything okay?”
He’d noticed she’d hardly said a word all morning, and she looked more than a little distracted. If she was having second thoughts about assisting them, or what they were doing, he needed to know.
Sy’lia replied, “War is a grim business. I’m not blaming you for defending your land. The blame for this lies on their ambitions, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel the tragedy of their deaths. Life is precious.”
He nodded in agreement. Life was precious, and good, that’s why it had to be defended. He’d rather not be fighting himself, but his people were flourishing because he was strong enough to do so. He also got the impression the elf was worried about something else, since she was avoiding looking into his eyes.
Sy’lia said, “You should also know that I’ve also made recommendations to send in elven teams. To discuss trade and education on the current world, and our ancient healthcare through magical herbs and compresses that are just as if not more effective than the poisonous medicines your modern medicine had.”
He smiled, “That’s good news. So, you’re satisfied with what you found?”
She grimaced, “I’m satisfied you’re not currently a threat, though I worry about the future. No one starts out corrupt, or wanting to be corrupted, but the temptations of the dark uses you put your power to aren’t to be ignored lightly. That said, I can find no moral fault with your actions outside of those uses, and even admire your stances on many things. I do not question your intentions.
“So, my recommendation just means that I believe it isn’t dangerous for us to do so at this time, that you are not our enemy, and it will very likely benefit us in the future to have a peaceful and mutually beneficial arrangement between our people. It’s also just my recommendation. The council will get back to me with their decision on what they want done. Honestly, I don’t think they’ll disagree, this territory would be far safer to send our people into than others.”
He smirked, “You’re pretty admirable as well, except when you get on that dark use soapbox.”
Her eyes crinkled in confusion, it was adorable, “Soapbox?”
He laughed, “Human slang. It means to be preachy, and judgmental.”
She nodded, “History is on my side of the argument I’m afraid. Our history and memories go back a long way, Sean. Every life sorcerer we’ve encountered has turned… wrong from such uses. However, you seem to be doing a good job of ignoring that inevitable truth. So far.”
He said, “Perhaps, but did those life sorcerers have my support? I credit my mates with keeping me on the straight and narrow, and offering me an avenue of relief for the dark urges that doesn’t taint my soul.”
She bit her lip, “I won’t say that’s not possible, but it’s an assumption you don’t need to risk.”
He ignored that and asked, “What can your people offer, besides medicinal and medical training in a world of magic.”
She said, “When we returned, we were shocked by your cities. We were also surprised that the animal populations hadn’t doubled, all the animals on this plane had been hunted to near extinction. We can teach your people to not overhunt an area and what signs to look for. You’ve learned and adapted quickly to survive and flourish, but if you aren’t careful you could once again destabilize the environment with overhunting.
“Without technology to aid in shipping, it would be hard to compensate for that kind of thing. Your communities will have to get their meat locally, which means overhunting an area could be devastating to their survival. We can offer teachings on many things, to improve things and so you live closer in harmony to your surroundings. We know humans will never be elven in that way, in perfect harmony to nature, but at the very least respecting nature as it relates to your own survival as a species is important.”
He nodded, “Just let me know when they decide, and I’ll let my leaders know to expect company.”
Sy’lia nodded with a pensive smile on her face.
He asked, “Is anything else bothering you? You seem… upset.”
Sy’lia blushed, “It is a personal matter, and not about the efforts which brought me here.”
He grunted, “Fair enough. Well, we’re becoming friends, even if we frustrate the hell out of each other sometimes. Let me know if you need an ear.”
If frustrate the hell out of meant that he wanted to strangle her several times a day. She really was a pain in the ass when she started to browbeat him about his zombies.
She bit her lip, “I’ll keep that in mind. Don’t worry, my attention will be where it belongs when battle is met.”
He nodded and had to be satisfied with that answer. She was stubborn, got on his nerves, but was also admirable in a lot of ways. Not to mention nice on the eyes, but he pushed that out of his head.
They got set up a little over a mile away behind an abandoned building. The enemy wouldn’t be able to detect or see them there. His three thousand zombies were in a semi-circle around the beach, at around the same distance. There was nothing to do now but wait and watch. He had a few birds keeping an eye out, and of course Sy’lia was also watching through the eyes of wild animals.
Lin stood at his side, often touching his back or arm and highly alert. Sy’lia still looked a bit preoccupied, but he’d let it go until battle started, and would only comment if she didn’t snap out of whatever had
a hold of her thoughts.
Lori looked thoughtful as well, but her eyes had taken on that cold cast, and her presence as a priestess of shadows was strong. She was very alert as well, and obviously in the zone. Similar to him, all the little details and dramas in their lives took a backseat when trouble was on the horizon. She was turning into a warm woman at home, even around him, but the seductively cold priestess was there to kick ass. She was very… compelling, and she would be truly terrifying if she wasn’t solidly his ally.
People were complicated, and never one thing.
Mara and Emily had also put aside their banter and smiles, but they looked more serene than cold, incredibly confident wrapped in the warmth of their goddess’s power, but just as focused on what was coming.
Their readiness helped him to focus as well. They were all ready, and he focused most of his attention on the bird above the ship, and the Ford bomber slowly floating through the sky. He imagined true flight would take a lot more magic, but a gentle and slow levitation and lateral movement must’ve cost a lot less. It was still a very strange sight to see.
Of course, that’s when things went a little wrong, looks like their race for their standoff solution might’ve been a tie.
Chapter Thirteen
“The ship just dropped its ramps. They’re delivering another two thousand troops, no more tanks yet, just the two new ones and the one we missed yesterday are on the beach.”
Lin asked, “Cassie?”
He grunted, “Close, they’re over the beach at about a thousand feet. I’m going to guess another few minutes before they’re over the ship. Shit. Wait, the three on the beach are heading back to the ship, and three different tanks just came out. They have something new attached to their hulls. Fuck.”
Mara said, “Later, if you’re good.”
He snorted.
Mara smiled serenely, “We have to assume the new thing is to take down zombies. The question is if it’s strong enough to get through the long dagger protective enchantments.”
He nodded, “What are you saying?”
Mara said, “When you send in the test zombies, you need to send at least a handful of our true army with those blades. The temporary troop fodder won’t prove anything, if the tanks cleanse them when they get to a certain range.”
He grunted, “Good point, I’ll make it happen. The good news is Cassie should be in place before those troop ferries can drop off and go back for more. She’s about halfway to the ship already over the water from the beach. Worse comes to worse, she’ll have to destroy the tanks before we can move in.”
Lori asked, “And if they move out before that happens?”
He… had no fucking idea.
“We’ll do something clever and kill them all,” he bluffed.
Lin giggled, and Lori chuckled rather sultrily. He pushed that away, her natural tone of voice was far too seductive for his comfort, and he told his misbehaving libido she didn’t mean anything by it.
He said, “I’m not sure, obviously the zombies will avoid the tanks, and we’ll have to take them down, or avoid them until Cassie manages to. It’ll get messy.”
He drained all his army zombies to about a half days’ worth of life force to conserve a little better. Just in case they started to drop like flies because of those tanks. He had no doubt if they were successful, they’d be getting a huge surplus of life force after the battle, especially if they were facing four thousand troops plus who knew how many on the ship. Still, the more he saved the longer his protective community zombies would last during peacetime.
Then again, he wondered if the world would ever run out of assholes to put down.
“She’s close.”
He watched curiously as Kim picked up one of the steel basketball sized bombs, and then simply dropped it through the hoop. The ball froze for a split second as it got halfway through, and then turned a cherry hot before it was released. He imagined that pause was both to give the magic time to turn it into a red-hot meteor of steel but also to bleed off any side momentum Kim put on it, so it’d drop straight down on the target.
There was some wind, but a ball was pretty aerodynamic, and the things weighed hundreds of pounds, the wind wouldn’t be blowing it off course. Kim was putting the third ball into the basket, when the first one finally reached the ship. The red-hot molten ball of steel slammed through the shields, but it also was slightly deflected by the rounded magical shield around the ship. It only winged the large tower, before crashing into the deck and exploding into burning metal as only part of it broke through the deck into the next level.
The next ball did the same thing, literally falling into the hole the first one created, as did the third.
He sent to Kim and Cassie, “At a guess the magical batteries are recovering the shields quickly, I’d suggest floating to your right about fifteen feet, to adjust for the shield deflection. That should make it fall right on the tower.”
Cassie replied, “We’ll try it, Kim keep dropping balls as I move slowly.”
That seemed to do the trick. The next ball slammed into the edge of the tower and broke through, even after being deflected. The next one hit a couple of feet away, and so on. They dropped almost twenty more balls, strafing the tower. The tower was fully ablaze, and he suspected it would fall soon. Regardless, there was no way anyone was still in there alive and at the controls.
He sent twenty zombies, fifteen temporary and five with blades at the beach, to see what would happen. He cursed, when the turrets on the ship moved and opened fire.
He sent, “They must have a secondary control room, or the tower was just an observation post.”
Cassie replied, “We’re on it.”
Less than two seconds later one of the ship’s turrets were annihilated by the small magical made meteor. Hell, being pure steel, it was a lot more damaging than a meteor of rock and trace metals would ever be. The gun turret was all twisted steel.
The problem was it would take time for Cassie and Kim to clear the deck, so far the enemy hadn’t been able to return fire, she was too high up in the sky, and too small of a target. On the bad side, it was time they apparently didn’t have, because the four thousand troops on the beach had split up into three groups again, but this time were all staying close to the tanks instead of spreading out in platoons as the moved out to the east, south, and north.
He said, “Shit, retreat. I’ll leave a few zombies here to meet them outside of the range of the ship, to see what those tanks do. We can’t afford to lose all of them at once.”
They retreated about a half mile, his group and all the zombies, except for another fifteen of them, ten throwaways and five with swords to meet the southern group as a test of the tank’s new magical device.
That did buy them a little time for Cassie to continue taking out the turrets along the length of the ship in two rows. The huge ship was burning, but it was so big and mostly metal, so he wasn’t sure they were doing all that much damage to the thing outside of clearing the deck of weapons. They got almost half of them in the next few minutes.
That’s when things went a little wrong again, and ten sorcerers and ten priests ran out onto the ship’s deck. That number told him there were probably five tanks left on board, if that’s all they had, five of those four-man teams. Regardless, the dropping balls of molten steel stopped destroying turrets, as they were redirected into the ocean.
That had to be costing them a shitload of personal magic, the only question was how long they could keep it up, and if Kim and Cassie would run out of steel balls to drop before that happened. Cassie must’ve come to the same conclusion, because Kim kept dropping the balls.
He told the others what was going on, and then reported their test results. As soon as the tanks were within about fifty yards of the test zombies, the new attachment on their hulls flashed with a bright white light.
The enemy soldier zombies just fell like their strings had been cut, while the five enchanted dagger wielding zom
bies managed to last just about two seconds, before they too fell to the ground cleansed of power.
“Shit, we need to destroy those tanks.”
Lori asked, “What happened, exactly?”
He told them.
Lori nodded thoughtfully, and then closed her eyes as she let out a sigh.
Shadows gathered around her feet and circled around her like excited puppies, and then raced off and slammed into ten of his zombies. They looked darker, like they were standing in the shade instead of sunlight.
Lori sighed, “Send them for the tank coming our way, now. The spell I just cast doesn’t last long, about ten minutes. I’m hoping between the enchantments on the daggers and my shadows, they’ll be able to resist the cleansing light of the tanks. At least long enough to destroy it, anyway.”
That… would be awesome. He gave them their orders, and they raced off. There were a lot of troops between them and the tank, but their speed and strength should let them cut through the lines quickly, before most of them could react.
He checked on the bird, and nothing had changed there. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. The molten steel balls were still being deflected into the ocean, but there were only seven priests and seven sorcerers left on deck. Which meant the other three of each had been exhausted and went back down below.
Still, they didn’t have an endless amount of steel balls, he wasn’t sure yet who would win out.
The zombies must’ve been running at least thirty miles an hour, and off the beach there was a lot of cover to hide their approach. When they got within fifty yards the device on the tank seemed to automatically activate. The zombies kept running. They hit the enemy lines like a tsunami hitting shore, and he felt five, six, then eight life forces slam into them as they cut throats and stabbed hearts opening a hole in their lines.
