"Back away from her," came a voice. They all looked over to see Jenna, standing on thin air, a compassionate look on her face. "I'll take care of her, but it's best if you're not close to her." Then she smiled warmly at them. "I promise," she said, giving Dar a wink.
"Go on," came Tarrin's voice. Dar whipped his head around and saw Tarrin standing right behind them, when he hadn't been there only a second ago! "Go. We'll take care of her now. She'll be just fine."
Dar nodded mindlessly, and then he found himself being pulled along by Azakar as the Mahuut pulled him away, trusting in Tarrin and Jenna's ability to help. Szath seemed defiant, then found himself being lifted into the air and set gently on the ground below by one of them--he wasn't sure which. Dar watched as Azakar dragged him away as the two of them got on either side of the Wikuni, and were talking to her even as he felt...something, he wasn't sure what, but something pass between them. He couldn't hear what they were saying, couldn't make out what he was feeling, and at first it seemed to be doing nothing. Keritanima rose up onto her feet as her screams became horrific, a sound of incredible agony, and then her feet actually lifted up off the wall! She seemed to hover there, screaming mindlessly as the power of Sorcery roared into her unchecked, reaching what he could see and sense and feel was a crescendo, an absolute limit that heralded the inevitable destruction of his friend. The power built and built until it reached that point, and her screaming became even louder, even more terrible, searing itself into his memory as one of the things he'd wished he'd never heard...and then she just stopped. Dar distinctly felt the power rushing into his friend also just stop, defying everything he'd ever been taught. Her body suddenly began to glow, and then a sheathe of light surrounded her, just like the concave four-pointed star at the heart of the shaeram a light that seemed to simply dissolve away her clothes. He wasn't sure what he was seeing, what he was feeling, but he knew one thing for certain.
Keritanima had just done the impossible! She had avoided being Consumed!
Tarrin and Jenna made no moves towards her until the light faded, and then Jenna wrapped her arms around the Wikuni and kept her from collapsing to the wall's floor. Jenna was weeping, but the look on her face made it clear that they were tears of joy.
Chapter 36
The battle continued to rage, but for the moment it raged around the congegration of Sorcerers on the wall.
Tarrin had sent the three Sorcerers in Keritanima's Circle back with her, getting Dar off the battlefield and quelching Ahiriya's objections by threatening to do something very unpleasant to her if she disobeyed him. Szath and Azakar formed the core of the guard escorting Keritanima off the field, and when they were safely on their way, Tarrin and Jenna turned their attentions to the wave upon wave of enemies that assaulted the gaping hole in the city walls. Though Tarrin's body was still back at the Tower, he had formed a direct strand that ran straight from the main Conduit right to his projection, meaning that he could weave spells with very little extra effort involved. That meant that he could bring very nearly his full power to bear against their attackers. With only a look passed between them, Tarrin raised his projection into the sky, a sky still being fought for control over by the Aeradalla and the Harpies. He rose up over the battle, seeing the assembled allied races defending Suld struggling against the Goblinoids. The Fae-da'Kii and the undead had been destroyed, and all the humans were being held out of the battle, though Jenna's Elemental still sought to chase them down. The breach was being contained by the Ungardt, Arakites, Selani, and the Centaurs, with the Arakites and Ungardt forming a solid wall against which the Goblinoids threw themselves, as the Selani and Centaurs picked off those that managed to squeeze between burning buildings and try to escape the phalanx blocking their path. Tarrin looked down at them and felt a sudden burst of indescribable pride, to know that he was a part of something so great, so grand, so far-reaching in its depth. To be a part of a joining of human and non-human, friends and enemies, all uniting to stand for a common goal. Tarrin had defended the icon. Now, he knew, came the grim task of killing the army assaulting his city.
Paws wide, the concave star of the Goddess formed around his projection, even as it formed around his body inside the Tower, floating within the Conduit inside the heart of the Tower, inside the very room in which Jegojah tried to kill him so long ago. Tarrin opened himself to the Weave, allowed it to fill him to his capacity, so much that his teeth actually began to throb, that his eyesight shivered with every beat of his heart. He reached his pinnacle, and then bent about the task of repelling the invaders.
His first attack was as grisly as it was devastating. Forming a solid mass of Air, he slammed it down onto the largest concentration of Goblinoids he could see, who were bottled up on the grand avenue leading from the east gate and into the city, held back by the Arakites and the Ungardt. It struck like a mountain, crushing the Trolls, Waern, Bruga, and Dargu that were pressing the defenders' lines. The mass of Air was perfectly shaped to kill every Goblinoid in the street, yet did not so much as shiver the hair of the Ungardt and Arakites holding the line, nor did it collapse a single building. Goblinoid bodies were suddenly squashed under that invisible mass, reduced to gory red stains and blots on the flattened ground, their weapons and armor pulverized by the blow. The very few that had survived that attack, who were literally tied up in the lines of his people, were quickly cut down by the defenders. To their credit, they only gawked a moment before a quick-minded lieutenant commanding the Arakites barked a series of orders that caused them to reform into a moving formation, then began advancing back towards the wall step by step. Tarrin looked up, and then sent a multitude of tiny darts of magical power away from him, streaming glowing smoke as they streaked away, and they sought out and brought down every Harpy within a longspan of his projection. They streaked up into the sky and unerringly found Harpies, attacking those closest first, but each remaining one losing its bead on a Harpy once it was dead, only to turn in its flight and go after another. Tarrin recharged and released the spell again and again, sending out more than enough of the magical missles to find and kill virtually all the Harpies in the sky. Once that was done, he knew that the Aeradalla would stop fighting the Harpies and start shooting any enemy that moved on the ground below, adding to their confusion and terror.
Tarrin wasn't the only one to use powerful magic. Jenna had gotten up on the wall, and she was weaving a spell of her own, one so large and complicated that it took her nearly three minutes to finish it. When she was done, she raised her hands up towards the sky and released it, a sky which suddenly began to spin up clouds from nothingness. Jenna was manipulating the weather, the most powerful thing a Sorcerer could accomplish, and as the battle continued to rage, a dark, black, seething mass of clouds formed over the city. The sky grew darker and darker, incredibly dark, and rumbles of thunder began to run through the clouds above. When it was primed and ready, Jenna brought down her hands in a snapping motion, and an absolute avalanche of lightning, so much that it turned the sky bright, blinding white, lashed out from the clouds and came down into the human reserves still stationed across the fallow fields from the city wall. The lightning blasted through their ranks, exploding when it hit the ground, electrocuting the metal-clad men lined up in their neat rows--at least where the Elemental had yet to reach, anyway--and set fire to the grass in a heartbeat, leaving behind scorched earth and a large number of dead bodies. The blast of thunder that rocked across the city was loud enough to shatter windows all over the city, so loud that it was felt more than it was heard.
The wonderful thing about using the weather to attack was that the main energy needed to weave the spell was the part of creating the conditions. Jenna didn't have to fuel the storm to keep it going, only having to guide the quite natural processes that caused lightning, then direct it as it flashed from the clouds above. She had reached as far as she could reach with the lightning, enough to get a good part of the enemy reserves, but the rest were too far away for the lightn
ing to reach, not without increasing the size of the storm. And Tarrin knew that she couldn't do that. She had made it as large as she could make it without inviting T'Kya's wrath. She kept raining lightning down wherever she saw a large concentration of enemies, moving the lightning closer and closer to the city to stem the flow of reinforcements. The Goblinoids that were trying to get into the city stopped rushing towards the walls, some of them diving to the ground, some of them turning around and fleeing back towards their army's reserves, some running in circles or in random directions.
Tarrin wove together a massive, intricate weave of Fire and Divine power, charging it with a great amount of magical power, then he released it. The Elemental spirit which answered his calls flowed into the magical construction he had created for it, and then it manifested before him as a gigantic scorpion of fire, fifteen spans long and with a tail ten spans on its own, dropping to the ground below. Tarrin instructed it to attack and kill any Goblinoids it could find, not to harm the humans, Wikuni, Were-kin, Centaurs, and Selani engaging the Goblinoids, and to render aid to their allies if it saw them in danger of being cut down by the Goblinoids. It assured him it understood the situation, and then waded into the fight with its fiery claws and stinging tail flashing out to strike at their enemies. Tarrin had dropped the Fire Elemental right in the breach, just behind the rubble of the wall, where it could assault the Goblinoids from behind even as the Arakites and Ungardt pushed them back into the Fire Elemental. Now he could concentrate somewhere else and allow his Fire Elemental to act on its own, adding more power to their efforts.
There was still stiff resistance, despite the power of the spells he and Jenna used. He absently incinerated a ki'zadun Wizard, who was using magic to send sheets of reddish fire up at the wall, fire from which the Wikuni musketeers recoiled savagely. Fire would ignite their gunpowder and kill them, and the Wizard seemed to understand that. When the fire stopped, the fifty or so odd Wikuni, all of them mismatched in appeareance but wearing those same red and blue uniforms, all knelt at the command of their officer and then fired their muskets down at a group of Goblinoids that had just climbed over the rubble of the wall. They pulled back to reload, and were replaced by a troop of Sulasian archers, who rained arrows down on the Goblinoids trying to crawl over the rubble of the wall until the musketeers were ready to fire again. The few that did manage to get over rubble alive were either blasted by Jenna's lightning, or found themselves facing a merciless Fire Elemental. They shrieked in panic and agony as Jenna's lightning pounded among them, and then the creatures, stunned by the thunderclap, were rent to pieces by the solid fire claws of the Elemental, or were speared by its tail, or were simply trampled under, where the intense heat the Elemental radiated set fire to their clothes, fur, and hair. Even a glancing blow from the Elemental left charred wounds in its wake, making the creature absolutely deadly to its enemies.
Tarrin saw that Goblinoids were still trying to climb up the walls. He saw a contingent of Arakites and Wikuni pushing ladders away from the walls with long poles, and in another area, they were fighting at close range with a large number of agile Dargu that had managed to get onto the wall. Tarrin realized that he'd wear himself out trying to kill them all, when he could simply do what Jenna did before him. Now that most of the enemy Wizards were dead, they wouldn't be able to stop them a second time. He drew in all the power he could, and then wove together the seven flows to form a Ward, charging it so it would last about an hour. Given the short duration, it allowed him to make its physical dimensions impressive, and he set it so that it ran about ten spans away from the outside edge of the wall, extending about a half a longspan from one side to the other. Wards had to be enclosed, continuous, so instead of a globe or sphere, he formed it as a rectangular box that was twenty spans wide, which brought the outside half of the wall into its area of protection. That made it as good as a wall, one that reached the whole area in which the Goblinoids were trying to climb the walls or enter through the opening Jenna had formed.
It took more than what he could hold at one time, forcing him to weave the Ward in stages, and it took him nearly two minutes to complete. But when he released it, the time and effort were more than worth it, for the Goblinoids on the walls, trying to climb up the walls, trying to climb up the rubble of the wall, they all simply dropped stone dead wherever they were. Those Goblinoids racing forward crumpled to the ground the instant they crossed that invisible boundary, slain by the power of the Ward.
The storm over their heads began to drift east, carried by the sea breeze, out over the reserves of the ki'zadun, but as it moved, it left Jenna's control. The sudden deluge of rain and lightning did probably cause them some problems, however, for it made it hard for them to see that their Goblinoids were dying off at an alarming rate. Tarrin looked down through his projection, seeing that without the influx of reinforcements, the Goblinoids in the city that were still alive were being cut down quickly, overwhelmed by the superior skills of their human, Selani, Wikuni, and Fae-da'Nar enemies. Even if they committed their human elements, this battle was won.
So why did they continue to press the attack?
It made no sense! They'd lost their Demons, their Priests, most of their Wizards, the Fae-da'Kii, and now they were going to lose their Goblinoids. Why continue to attack? What reason did they have? It was madness! Were they so single-minded that they would throw their entire army away? Were they so afraid to go back and face Val without a victory that they were all willing to die here and now? Tarrin looked out over the reserves, seeing a dome of dryness that held Kravon and that six-armed, snake-bodied Demoness, the one commanding the battle for her side. What was she doing? Was she a total incompetent?
The bodies kept piling up around the walls, and the forces within were starting to run out of Goblinoids to fight. They had slaughtered a huge amount of them before, and what were left either died outside the walls or were cut down by the defenders within. Many of them stood in place, catching their breath, as a few small pockets of fanatical Goblinoids were surrounded and crushed by the defenders, but they were few and far between.
Tarrin turned to look at the Demoness as the storm passed. They had nothing but their human reserves left, about five thousand troops, and that wasn't a match for the force they would have to challenge. But still she didn't order a recall. Instead, she looked down at the emaciated Wizard and said something. Kravon nodded, and then called someone up to him. A small man scurried forward, holding a strange black metal device. What was that thing?
Kravon held it in his hands, and Tarrin could see that he was saying something. No, he was chanting. He was using magic! Tarrin sent his awareness over towards them, and as it got closer, he could sense the power of that black metal rod. It was some kind of magical artifact, and it was powerful!
That had to be their trump card!
Tarrin immediately reached into the Weave and tried to block its magic, but he found himself facing a black wall of impenetrable strength. He couldn't affect that strange thing! He felt at the power, and realized that it was the residual power of a god's might. A god had made that thing, and he couldn't affect it!
Kravon finished, and held up the metal rod. It seemed to pulsate, and then a strange blackness issued forth from it, like some kind of black cloud. It rolled forward, towards Suld, growing larger and thinner as it moved, becoming like a fog bank but easily seen through. Tarrin watched it coming, worked out a spell of Air that would repulse it, and then wove and released it. A sudden gust of strong wind blew out over the wall, rushing towards that black cloud--
--and then passed through it without doing anything.
It was a magical effect! And he could already sense that he could do nothing to prevent it. The black cloud rolled over the more distant bodies, those slain by cannon shrapnel, muskets, and arrows. And to his horror, those dead bodies began to move. They began clamoring to their feet, even as the black cloud rolled forward.
In horror, he realized why they had thro
wn away their army. To use that metal rod and cause them all to rise again as undead.
He spun around in the air and looked around. The defenders were absolutely surrounded by the bodies of their enemies! When that black cloud reached them, they'd be overwhelmed!
He realized immediately what they had to do. Pull back to where no fighting had taken place and reset their lines.
Using Sorcery to augment his voice, he shouted down to them quickly. "Everybody fall back! Fall back to the Fountain of the Swans! Damn you all, fall back right now!"
Some of them didn't speak Sulasian, mainly Wikuni, but when the ones on the walls looked out over the battlefield, saw the undead bodies rising up, even as the human reserves roared war cries and began to charge, they understood. "Jenna, Keeper, get everyone back to the fountain, and do it now! We have about two minutes to retreat, or we're going to be surrounded by undead!"
In a near panic, Tarrin mulled over and rejected any number of ideas to try to stop or slow down the black cloud, from an anti-magic Ward to trying to kill Kravon before it reached the wall, but it was moving too fast. He didn't have time to do anything, and besides, they'd need him to help get everyone pulled out. They weren't going to be able to retreat fast enough, and the people on the walls were going to have to literally fight their way out. He wove together a large weave of Air and used it as a giant hand, scooping up the Wikuni, Sulasians, and Arakites on the walls and depositing them on the ground quickly and gently as officers began barking commands for them to retreat. Jenna, clever Jenna, used Sorcery to obliterate as many bodies as she could as the defenders began to run into the city, clearing before the roiling black mist that crept towards them, with the shouts of the ki'zadun reserves behind it. Tarrin did the same, using vast sheets of fire to incinerate the bodies on the walls, both enemy and friend, making it hot enough to burn them beyond mobility. Tarrin could see that Jenna was starting to get very tired, and he couldn't deny that Sorcery was starting to become harder and harder to use himself.
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