"Looks like things are heating up over there. What say you and me hustle over and join in the fun?"
"Commander Billings would have our butts for breakfast if we tried leaving our posts. The gate attack could be a diversion for something bigger somewheres else. Remember the fire giant battle? The army of giants that attacked here and a hundred umber hulks burrowed underground and attacked on the other side of the city? Nobody ever saw 'em coming. Now, where would we be if some of those wall defenders had left their wall and come over here to share in the fun?"
"Damnation, you're right. Hate to admit it. What say after our shift here, we go and ask old Billings to be transferred over to the Death Gates. You and me being sixty years old should have some say in where we defend Phlan."
"Now there's an idea. Especially if that ugly Red Wizard is going to lead any more armies against us."
At the Death Gates, the battle was warming up. Marcus's mercenary troops, hauling ladders and siege engines, slowly approached the walls around the gate. The northernmost entry into the city, this main entrance had been built and rebuilt over the stormy, war-torn history of Phlan. Now, this gate was larger and better fortified than any normal gate.
Two huge gatehouses of red Dragonspine stone stood a hundred feet apart and jutted out a hundred feet beyond the walls. The three-story towers were crowded with archers, and equipped with cauldrons of burning oil and small catapults. The double-door gates rose thirty feet. Each was made of aged oak, bound with thick bands of iron to strengthen the doors. The effort necessary to open and close the gates required huge counterweights and pulleys.
Behind these towers, a deadly passage connected with another set of towers embedded in Phlan's walls. The passage could be showered with arrows or burning oil by the defenders of the city. Even if the attackers broke through the outer doors, they faced the passage of death and another set of double-door gates lined with arrow slits, allowing the defenders to pepper the passage with feathered death.
The last assault by Marcus and his army had barely scratched the first pair of gates, but the wizard was convinced the battle would be different this time. The siege towers rolled grimly toward the walls. In the last attack, rolling towers like these had been burned by catapult fire attacks before they'd reached within a hundred yards of the gate. Now, flaming shot bounced off the magically protected surfaces of the steadily moving siege engines.
"They're fireproof, fools," Marcus shouted from behind his army. He ordered his nightmare into the sky and watched the battle from a hundred feet off the ground, remaining far enough away to be out of range of most spells and stray catapult loads. "You won't be burning my siege towers again!"
Hordes of ogres pushed the engines of destruction. The six siege towers moved faster and faster toward the walls. A hundred heavily armored troops were hidden in each tower. The ogres and the men inside became more and more eager to face the defenders of Phlan. When the siege towers closed in on the walls, small bridges would be lowered. The troops inside could stream over the protective wall, attacking Phlan's troops.
Six loud crashes erupted suddenly, and the towers fell, crushing hundreds of men unlucky enough to be in the vicinity.
"What in the name of Bane himself?" Marcus couldn't believe his eyes.
A chorus of cheers arose on the walls.
"Did you see that, Ston? It worked! I told you it would! The wizards dug a bunch of pits fifty yards from the walls, and every tower smashed into one. Wahoo!" Tulen hopped up and down with glee.
Marcus fumed. Now he could see the clay-lined pits that had been cleverly covered so the weight of a few men wouldn't spring them. The full weight of a heavy siege tower was needed to break the covering. The wizard's flameproof towers lay in splinters.
"They'll pay! Those fools will pay for every day of delay they've caused me. I'll burn them in eternal fires!" Marcus began to wheeze and tried to calm himself. "This is a just minor setback. My own little surprise will get them. Just wait and see."
Marcus watched from on high as arrows, crossbow bolts, and catapult rocks rained down on the mercenary troops as they rushed the gate, spurred on by the fearsome troops behind them. For a while, they made headway behind the army's mantelets. These mobile wooden walls rolled ahead of the troops and absorbed most of the deadly missiles. But as the attackers got closer, many of the heavy crossbow bolts found their way through or around the mantelets to find soft flesh behind the wood. The mercenary numbers were quickly reduced.
None of the defenders paid much attention to six axe-wielding troopers running slightly ahead of the other mercenaries. These warriors looked like all the others, but the missiles that approached them bounced inches away from their battle-hardened bodies. To the defenders on the walls above, the shots simply looked poorly aimed.
The axemen easily reached the first gate. Instead of hacking at the oak walls, they dropped their axes and drew small scrolls out of silver tubes. Each warrior glowed with magical protections as he read spells specially designed to blast open the gates.
Too late the defenders recognized the men for the spellcasters they were. A sheet of burning oil poured from the top of the gate in an attempt to burn the mages or at least foil their spells. The oil poured off an invisible magical barrier and fell to either side of the spellcasters. The Death Gates opened, groaning, and the attackers rushed into the tunnel. The next gate was in sight. With leaders such as these, surely the enemy couldn't fail.
Three hundred of Marcus's mercenaries that remained outside the gates ran into the tunnel. Anything had to be better than the rain of death outside. Orcs, ogres, and trolls rushed in, hurling rocks, arrows, and sling bullets at the defenders. The fighting grew more intense.
In the tunnel of death, three of every five men died from arrow wounds as they tried to approach the second gate, which stood only a hundred feet away. The six wizards reached the gate without so much as a scratch. Their spells found the locks and bars of the inner gate.
As the portal swung open, the mercenary swarm smelled victory.
From their position on the wall, Ston and Tulen could see the gates open, exposing the broad inner streets of Phlan to the enemy. Filling the streets, prepared to greet the enemy, were wave after wave of pikemen all set to receive the charge. At the front was their leader, a warrior-cleric wielding a glowing blue hammer.
"Welcome to Phlan!" Tarl shouted.
Brittle recognized the gates for the death trap they truly were. He had laid siege to such places in ages past. His human troops had been directed to make the initial attack so he could get his elite army close enough to execute his own tactics. At his command, the ogres pushed the trolls toward the walls on either side of the gate. Brittle strode ahead of his troops to the red walls, attracting hundreds of arrows and crossbow bolts, all bouncing harmlessly off his enchanted bones. Another dry chuckle testified to the advantage of not having flesh.
Watching from on high, Marcus couldn't believe what the fool, Brittle, was doing. The remainder of the troops could stroll right into Phlan! Instead, the ogres were herding the trolls to the walls where they could be easily shot by arrows.
"Roast his bones, that fool Brittle. Now I have to go in and save him and my army."
The Red Wizard commanded his nightmare to circle over the troops at the rear. Swooping down over the warrior skeletons, the nightmare snorted smoke, its red eyes blazing. Marcus bellowed at the reserves and ordered them forward. A clattering army of armored bones creaked across the field. As they moved, Marcus cast spell after spell of protection. Little flames of magic burned over the bodies of all the skeletons. Other spells increased the speed of his small force, allowing them to swing their weapons faster. The wizard hid himself in a tower of intense flames. As he commanded his troops into the valley and toward the gates, he lost sight of what the rest of his army was doing.
The ogres had teamed up and were tossing trolls to the tops of the walls. The trolls landed hard, but weren't harmed by the impact. In the e
ntire history of Phlan, this tactic had never been used against the stone walls. Within moments, fifty green, seven-foot-tall trolls were clawing and biting the defenders.
While the trolls waged their battle, ogres and orcs raised the long-forgotten ladders and climbed up onto the walls without resistance. Brittle was the last to climb up. His toothy mouth grinned at his exceptional strategy.
Tarl and the Warhammer of Tyr battled the enemy spellcasters while pikemen decimated the mercenaries. The strategy had been practiced often by the Death Gate guards. Tarl gave the signal for a sheet of burning oil to fall behind the attackers, cutting off their retreat. Then the cleric moved in for close combat with the six enchanted wizards. Hundreds of pikemen slaughtered mercenaries to the last man. Neither side considered surrender. In this battle to the death, there could be only one survivor.
Far above Tarl's head, Phlan's spellcasters stood on an enchanted rainbow. Using a spell that had required decades of research, the men and women stood astride a ten-foot swath of energy. Beneath the feet of every priest and wizard, the path matched the chosen color of the spellcaster's energy. Ten-foot blocks of green, blue, orange, yellow, purple and a myriad of subtle hues alternated in the path of protective magic. Lightning bolts, balls of fire, swarms of magical hornets, showers of ice, and other enchantments rained down onto shrieking monsters.
Ston shouted to Tulen over the clashing and ringing of the battle. "You should see it, Tulen! The magic stuff is broiling everything it hits! And the trolls are getting hacked to little green pieces! Ooh, there goes an arm! There goes another arm-and a head! Come on, guys, set them on fire before they regenerate! You know it doesn't take trolls long to pull themselves together!"
Most of the trolls were chopped down before the ogres and orcs even got into the battle. A dozen warriors were assigned the task of dousing the trolls' remains in oil and setting them ablaze. The stench was nauseating.
But soon the ogres were smashing into the organized lines of defenders on the wall. As the armored, pig-faced orcs entered the battle, Brittle felt a surge of confidence. Casualties were high, but his troops were holding rank and showed no sign of retreat. The frenzy was so thick that he no longer worried about his troops routing.
Then Brittle noticed something he hadn't expected. Another red stone wall stood a hundred yards farther into the city, and another, and another farther in. This blasted city was ringed with walls! Brittle hoped the Red Wizard had some brilliant fallback.
Meanwhile, Marcus was enchanting himself with magical strength. Astride his steed, he led the skeletons to the outer red stone towers. He couldn't imagine failure.
"Ubinosis erronazanz blutuphonkrar!"
The gates that had stopped him before were blown to bits, crushing ten skeletons.
"There! Those gates won't be a problem again." The wizard smirked.
Arrows, crossbow bolts, and rocks all turned to dust as they struck the magical flaming barriers around the Red Wizard and his steed.
Black magical flames burst from Marcus's fingertips and burned the bodies of the dead mercenaries to ashes. The floor of the deadly passage, choked with bodies moments ago, was now covered in black soot. All Marcus could see now was the open gate ahead of him. Finally, victory would be his.
"This is how war should be-with me in triumph! Where is Brittle, that fool? He could learn from this!"
Marcus rode proudly into the city of Phlan on his snorting nightmare, a sulfurous cloud surrounding him. To his left and right stood massive squads of defenders. But they were too far away for Marcus's spells of destruction to reach.
Only a lone man, a warrior-priest, stood before him.
"I've seen you before, priest. You caused me trouble in the last battle!"
Tarl saw only a pillar of flame, but knew the Red Wizard spoke from within. He looked around the city quickly to assess the situation. Everywhere, Phlan's defenders ably challenged the hordes of monsters and soldiers. Far above him, the magical ribbon wove across the sky, rainbow energies surging down on the enemy. Tarl picked out Shal's shade of purple and sighed, knowing that she was safe and her efforts were making a difference. He turned back to the Red Wizard.
"What have you done to the city of Phlan?" Tarl shouted. Sweat coated his forehead as he swung at a few undead soldiers who got close enough to worry him.
"Puny human! My warriors will destroy you!" Marcus ordered his skeletons forward to attack the priest.
As the mass of clacking, enchanted bones approached the cleric, he lifted his hammer. The holy relic glowed with a blinding blue radiance. Tyr's power was strong in Tarl. The nearest attacking skeletons instantly turned to dust at his feet. He knew no fear. Rank after rank of skeletons approached and were destroyed in mere seconds. A heap of dusty armor and weapons lay at the feet of the cleric as he gazed into the center of the flaming pillar.
"Answer my questions now, wizard, or feel the might of my god!" Tarl moved toward the pillar of flame.
A magical parchment in Marcus's hand burst into flame as it launched a fireball, a circle of fire, and a mass of writhing, burning tentacles at the cleric. The priest was blotted from sight by the powerful, dark flames, but his hammer absorbed every bit of the fire magic and glowed brighter for the forces that were contained.
To his horror, Marcus had discovered that the blue weapon was capable of absorbing any nearby spell on command. His tower of flame and all his protections vanished as the damnable cleric approached.
The furious Red Wizard yanked at the reins of his mount, launching himself over the wall in a streak of flames. As he flew upward into the sky, purple and orange streaks blazed after him and surrounded him. Marcus retreated from Phlan, leaving his troops to fend for themselves.
The bright, streaking path of the cowardly wizard's retreat caught the attention of Ston and Tulen. They slapped each other on the back and hopped around on the wall, cackling in delight. Marcus's flashy exit was also noticed by Brittle.
"By the gods," the skeletal leader hissed. "We'd have won this battle!"
Brittle and the ogres had cleared the defenders from the center gateway. The trolls were destroyed, but the orcs still were fighting with vigor. Yet Phlanish reinforcements were on the way, and Brittle could see spellcasters floating toward the gates.
"Retreat! Leap from the walls!" Brittle took his own advice and jumped down. He'd be damned if he would allow himself to be destroyed twice in a thousand years-especially because his commander was an idiot and a coward. If he ever got his bony hands on that Red Wizard, there would be a real reckoning.
An enraged, wild-eyed Marcus screamed profanities as he burst into the spellcasting chamber of his red tower. The massive pit fiend calmly sat cross-legged, levitating a few inches off a glowing pattern on the floor.
Some of the wizard's rage and frustration lessened at the comical sight of his fiend looking small and silly, floating above the floor. But then the creature stood up, still floating, and there was nothing comical about the beast anymore. The smell of stale blood filled the room, and the massive monster stretched from wingtip to toe. The fiend was a horrid monster even among its own kind. Marcus noted that the creature seemed even bigger and more powerful now than it had when it had first entered this world at his summons.
"How have you lost now? Latenat!" the fiend hissed, dripping green goo that sizzled as it struck the black stone floor.
The offended wizard stared sternly at the pit fiend, then held out his hand. A ball of black mist masked a large object in the wizard's grasp-the fiend's heart. The creature bowed its head. Marcus held the key to the fiend's existence on the Prime Material Plane-its name-and the one thing that could be used to destroy it utterly-its unbeating heart. If the wizard wished to, he could send the pit fiend screaming back to the Nine Hells or even destroy him outright at any time.
"I led a perfect battle!" Marcus shrieked and paced about the casting chamber. Tiny red flames sparked and vanished on the wizard's cloak as the room became filled with m
agical light. The room grew brighter and brighter, and the pit fiend seemed to shrink a bit. Marcus knew that fiends preferred the dark.
"It is time you realize what type of foe we face down there," the wizard ranted. "I have led too many unsuccessful attacks against Phlan. That thrice-damned place is a city always ready for battle. This time we actually broke through the gates, but got no farther. Next time you are going down there to aid the attack yourself."
"I thought we agreed that I would defend this tower and concentrate on gaining us more power. You're supposed to be leading the armies. Latenat!" The pit fiend was careful about the tone in his voice.
"I don't care what we agreed on! Phlan must be conquered, and the troops you've given me aren't strong enough. Bane is going to own both our souls! Then where will we be?"
"I will go back where I came from, no better, no worse. You, on the other hand, can expect to find yourself transformed by an amazingly painful process into a larva. You will then be thrown into a ten-mile-high mountain of scummy larva much like yourself. You will then be toyed with or devoured by some minions that you will find most unpleasant. Latenat!" The fiend's tone was matter-of-fact, but inside he was secretly gloating.
"Know, my master, that I have been in contact with clerics of the great Moander. A branch of their sect is now on its way with a new army for you to command-an army of troops that won't be affected by arrows or stones. This army will be sure to break down all the walls of Phlan and give us the souls we need.
"I have fulfilled my part of our bargain. I have sent some of the mercenary troops into the dark pool to appease Bane. These humans were fools. I told them they would be made invincible by the enchanted pool's ebony waters. They never realized they were destined to feed Bane. He was grateful and appeased, at least temporarily. He told me to compliment you on your progress. What more, master, can I do for you? Latenat!"
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