Battle Mage: Forging New Steel (Tales of Alus Book 9)
Page 45
Still, if left alone; the viles would eventually begin to dig through the wall. Xander aimed down the slight angle of the wall firing arrows looking for exposed flesh and weak spots on the monsters. Some trolls joined in the attack striking the wall with a giant ram capped with a metal head. He could feel the impact almost as well as he had the earlier cannon fire, though it could have been those as well since he could still make out the thunder of continued fire. Defending against the soldiers had distracted him from what transpired beyond his part of battle.
As he fired his arrows catching trolls in the neck killing one and wounding a couple more; the fleeing trolls might have thanked him as one of the other defenses of the wall came to life. Oil poured out from points along the upper part of the wall. Spraying out from the stone, the attackers and the earth around them were hit by the heated oil. Screams of the Dark One’s army began; and when the battle mages cast their fireballs down at the ground, fire erupted along the base. Even the black armor couldn’t prevent such injuries as the oil sunk into the armor and into the cracks between catching fire burning the wearers from within.
When the enemy army suddenly pulled back leaving its dead and dying at the base of the wall, a cheer went up from the defenders. They had withstood the enemy at their freshest. If that was the extent of their fight, Xander thought maybe they would last after all.
Sebastian paused as he followed the other battle mages towards the wall. Too few had received the runes so far leaving the mage an advantage in the run over his comrades. The owl mage paused to kneel and closed his eyes letting the others continue without him.
“Freedom,” he ordered the spell to send his mind riding on the winds. Like a hawk, Sebastian winged his way far quicker than he could run. If not for the danger of the situation and call to arms from the wall, the mage might have let himself enjoy the flight more. Even so, he sped along the currents feeling the freedom his trigger word implied.
A flicker of light south of the wall caught his eye east of the river not far from Northwall. Moving closer, the mage also noticed darker shapes moving in the darkening light. The first moon struggled to shine through the clouds above Southwall making the hills nearly as dark at their peak as their valleys though it wasn’t technically night quite yet.
Picking his currents carefully to move closer to the shadows, Sebastian discovered black armored soldiers moving with crag trolls, armored viles and the fire urchins which towered over the orcs and goblins like adults herding their children. Their numbers were hard to make out as they streamed between the hills keeping the rises between them and their target. If any watchers looked to the south, a troll crossing a ridge would give the whole attack away.
Sebastian’s face frowned as his mind reacted on the wind. The mages looked to be outnumbered at least three to one on this side of the river. Moving to the west side, more shadows mirrored their fellows to the east. If the army was solely made up of orcs and goblins in the black wizard hunter armor, the mages could be outnumbered and still feel they had the advantage; but the huge, armored units could take on several battle mages and win by themselves.
Fighting the urge to return to his body with the news, the mage proceeded to check the wall and his body made a gasp at the sight. A massive army assaulted the wall from the north, but even the thousands attacking the wall made less impact on him than the sight of the remaining wall between the Twin Towers. It was cracked leaving tears in several places over the four hundred feet between the towers. The only reason any of the wall stood at all was the effort of the wizards using all their strength to resist each strike.
Working together in groups, three to five wizards joined their strength between the cracks powering the earth wizards. Three of the squads were stranded where they stood on spires of stone that they held together by sheer will and magic.
There was damage to both towers and fire ravaged the land immediately north of the wall west of that tower. Oil burned everywhere, even on the wall where the fire climbed the liquid as it slowly trickled down the stone face. It was a defense that wouldn’t last, but the wall was known to have a reserve of oil that was capable of using the defense three or four times depending on the control of the oil’s release.
He saw the strange magic driven cannons to the north and wished that he had a spell that could tear them down from afar.
“Wind arrows,” the battle mage whispered from his body as his arms took the frame of an archer. Whistles of wind caught the ears of the closest mages making them stop to watch the owl at work. Rumors of his strange skills and spells yet to be taught had made their rounds through the mages of Hala by now. He had fought the wizards with power and spells beyond any other mage making them both curious and jealous of his ability, but they needed him.
Falcondi Westlin stopped calling her squad of mages and ordered them to stand guard around the man. She knew his worth as much as anyone and refused to leave him unprotected as he worked on the wind.
To the north, wind arrows struck men and orcs around the distant cannons. A few fell causing the enemy surprise, but he couldn’t do enough with just arrows it seemed. Even sending a few at once to strike the army; Sebastian was a gnat biting a dog. The enemy armor could absorb the strikes often as not and he was getting nowhere.
The mage thought to a time at sea on the Malaiy frigate searching for the Grimnal and their battle with the black ships. Though he had never tried using the new spell which suddenly came to mind, Sebastian paused to draw his sword and plant it in the ground before intoning a new spell, “Air cannon.”
His left palm held up before him, Sebastian called a powerful blast of air sending it towards one of the strange earth formations used to support and protect their cannons. The extra power gathered through his weapon was necessary to drive the magic so far. Perhaps three miles from his body, the first cannonball of air was aimed into the side support of the cannon driving through the stone in one blow. With one side removed, the arch sidewall collapsed onto the long tube crushing the strange mechanism. It was designed to withstand the force of the explosions from within, but the tons of rock hammered down nearly pinching the cylinder shut.
“Air cannon,” a second powerful blast rushed north drawing the attention of the mages beneath the spell and even the dark army moving north inside of Southwall. The first blast had stalled many as they questioned the sound as it passed overhead in a whoosh of air. As each successive wind cannonball passed over them, the northward marching forces slowed fearing what kind of magic was at work above them.
From his vantage north of the wall, Sebastian didn’t worry over the concerns of those to the south. Each cannonball took all of his focus to drive across multiple miles to accurately strike each cannon frame the same way. Warlocks were too slow to block the element with their darkness shields. They were still confused by the attacks. The wizards at the wall had been unable to send their spells as far and no one could see the air constructs as they flew.
When the shields raised before the last cannon would have stopped his frontal assault, the owl fought his new spell and caused it curve around the shields. Sweat poured from his forehead as he struggled with the near impossible nature of his task, but Sebastian let the next cannonball fly towards the west more before towing it back towards his target. It swept through the west sidewall breaking it and crushing the upper part of the cannon tube with just the power of the spell before the stone could further destroy it.
The final cannon fell and Sebastian sagged to his knees even as he leaned on his sword. With the waning vestiges of his strength, the owl returned his mind to his body looking over the battle field and wall as he returned. Portals flickered in the towers and at their bases as the other cities sent the first of the reinforcements to the wall.
Returning to his body, Sebastian saw ten mages in a circle around the hill guarding him. When his eyes snapped open and his hand began to root in his bag for his canteen, Westlin reacted and moved to kneel on one knee by his side.
> “What was that?” she asked less worried over him teaching her a new trick than to understand what was happening to the north.
Gasping after swallowing the water to open a throat which felt raw from the power of magic, Sebastian’s fingers found some food in the pack he was glad that he had taken from those found at the corps assembly ground. The young mage took a breath and answered, “There is a large force between our mages and the wall, probably three times our size. The wall between the towers is breaking. It was struck by cannon fire and other magic. If the wizards there release their earth magic, I don’t think any of it will stand even if the enemy stops attacking the stone over the Cadhalla.
“I took out some strange looking cannon that the warlocks were using, so hopefully that will give our wizards the chance they need to hold the line.”
“Air cannon? Was that even a spell you withheld from us? It looks to have drained you, so I can assume that it is beyond any other mage aside from you. I could feel the increase in power when you cast each one. How can you be so strong?”
Ignoring her final question in the quick series, Sebastian replied, “The wind arrows weren’t enough to do anything to the enemy, so I took inspiration from my journey onboard a frigate to create a cannonball spell of a sort.”
Helping the mage to his feet while he stuffed two sandwiches into his mouth almost as one it seemed, the falcondi glanced to the other mages shaking her head as she asked, “How far away did you send those spells anyway?”
“A few miles,” the owl stated as he felt his strength returning to his body and most importantly his legs.
A couple whistles of appreciation came from around the two as the others listened while keeping watch for the enemy.
Sebastian’s eyes focused on the falcondi and he warned, “When we close on the enemy, we need to make sure that we fire everything we have into them as soon as we see them. The force ahead of us has more crag trolls, fire urchins and armored viles than we fought with the nomads. There are also the black furred beasts I think they briefed us on called kiriaks.”
Westlin frowned at the last, even as she sent the mages back into motion to rejoin the others to the north. “Kiriaks aren’t very good fighters. They are almost never seen wearing armor. They might be strong, but their flesh is no tougher than a man’s. I wonder why they have them with the southern forces.”
Remaining silent for a moment, Sebastian was unsure. Training at White Hall covered many things including the strange creatures found among the Dark One’s forces. Kiriaks were hardly more than an afterthought in his training since they were rarely seen in the field. If they were hard to control and unwilling to wear armor, he wasn’t sure.
A mage within hearing range answered in the pause, “In the early days of the wall, weren’t kiriaks used to scale the stone without using ladders? They are like natural climbers and even find ways to climb the smooth stone.”
Westlin cursed under her breath before saying, “If they can get up to the top of the wall fast enough to catch our people from behind, they might throw our defense into disarray for the regular troops to tear into the wall or into the towers.”
Knowing they had needed to stop these monsters behind the wall already, this knowledge just made the mages all the more determined to stop them before that could happen.
Chapter 32- Spiders on the Wall
The whistle of arrows in the darkening sky pierced the dull roar of flame consuming grass and oil. Both those of enemy orcs and goblins as well as the sounds of Xander’s compatriots firing in return came from around the mage making him miss the sound of solid air shafts crossing the wall from over a mile behind him. He was also too busy to see the enemy dying near the cannon.
Booming explosions still shook the night as the warlocks continued to batter the wall between the towers. Their continued focus was the only thing letting the cadet know that the wall must still stand. He didn’t know how it could possibly be intact after the flood and cannon fire, but Xander doubted that they would continue to waste their time on ruins. Unfortunately, his mind wondered at the fate of the wizards who had disappeared through the west tower near the beginning of the battle and did not know if Shaylene or Haylee yet lived.
When the strange sound of the first air cannonball flew over his head, the soldiers and mages couldn’t help looking up though there was nothing that they could see. The collapse of the first cannon was almost an afterthought and the defenders didn’t even notice the stone falling onto the tube used to launch the stone ammunition. A second passed further to the east taking out the second cannon and someone on the tower exclaimed, “The enemy’s cannon are destroyed!”
“Vision,” Xander intoned creating the night vision spell easily. While his vision wasn’t enhanced to see across great distances, he could make out the enemy well enough to see two of the enemy weapons had been destroyed by the strange sound. It had to be a spell, he thought turning his head to look behind him.
Using a blue shield held between him and the enemy archers just in case a shaft should clear the wall with his attention on the south, Xander quickly crossed to the southern side of the great wall and gasped. He expected to see reinforcements, after all someone was destroying the enemy cannon somehow. Surely they couldn’t be far since the wizards on the wall couldn’t reach with enough force for their spells to be useful so far.
Instead of wizards, mages or the soldiers of Southwall in their armor closing on the wall; Xander spotted monsters.
“The enemy is behind us!” he cried out in shock.
His mentor Gareth appeared at his side along with several other soldiers. The falcon called on a spell no mage enjoyed using, “Battle cry.”
Turning to face the tower, the man’s voice boomed over every other sound reaching the other side of the Twins and beyond as he warned, “Enemy south of the wall! Prepare to defend north and south!”
Cries of alarm and disbelief echoed along the line. They were already struggling to hold out against the army to the north. How could they possibly hold the wall against a force from the south? Doors at the base of the towers were a vulnerability and arrows flying from the north could reach soldiers on the opposite side of the parapets with only a modest bit of luck. It would be dangerous for anyone volunteering to operate on that side even without a new force to deal with besides.
More sounds of invisible air projectiles flew further to the east. Xander took another quick look to see all of the enemy cannon destroyed. Where had these spells originated? Even from the monster’s proximity to the wall, such a feat would have been impressive. Were reinforcements coming from somewhere even further south of the enemy as well?
Xander could only hope.
Palose watched as the viles and crag trolls met light resistance. He was impressed that the defenders of the wall had even noticed the attack before the first creatures had begun breaking down the wall and doors of the towers. Black furred kiriaks dropped down running on all four appendages. Their arms were longer in proportion to a man’s and didn’t need to slow as they propelled their bodies at the wall with great speed. Unlike the massive creatures hefting giant hammers or claws that could cut through stone, the kiriaks weren’t meant to deal with the wall itself.
Like dark furred spiders, dozens of the creatures seemed to scale the wall almost as quickly as they had run to meet it.
Arrows and magic tried to cast them down, but the kiriaks were so swift and nimble that most reached the top of the wall to batter at the men of Southwall unscathed. Maces and clubs were the beasts’ preferred weapons. They weren’t particularly intelligent creatures, but they held enough intelligence to know that swinging the weapons in their hands was an advantage over fists and claws. Palose had barely seen these monsters, but his short time near them made their intellectual deficiencies easily noticed.
Of course, kiriaks weren’t bred for their intelligence but their innate ability to climb almost any stone face, even the smooth, mortared bricks of the Northwall.
The door of the eastern tower was struck a splintering blow from a crag trolls’ hammer. To the monster’s surprise, stone was revealed behind the wooden barrier. The wizards had already barricaded the Twins.
Palose had been trained on the safeguards of the wall while a cadet at White Hall. If an enemy managed to get behind the wall, a tower would shift stone to remove the weakness of the door at the base of the fortification. They wouldn’t be able to escape from below, but the defenders had the wall to use as a road from one tower to the next for a thousand miles or more.
That the wizards had been able to shift the stone in time impressed the dark mage. It was an emergency contingency that wizard and mage alike were trained to perform, but no one ever actually did it. An earth or stone moving spell would be trained on a block or two of stone as a student, but once the battle came he was surprised that they would think to enact it with so little time.
He had heard the amplified voice like the next tower or two to the east. A battle cry was as much an emergency spell as the closing of the tower doors. It would tear up the man’s larynx making him hoarse for awhile, but it had managed to scrape together some defense at least. Palose was somewhat impressed with the speed of adjustment, though he had been through the training; the dark mage often felt that was a lifetime ago and easily forgotten.
Even so, as he watched the kiriaks distracting the men and women on the wall; Palose thought that such actions from the defenders of Southwall would be useless. They were trapped between two significant forces brought together by design to destroy the Twins. As unprepared for the attack as they were, he couldn’t see how they could resist two armies attacking from both sides. The south side of the wall in particular was more vulnerable, since wizard magic had only been concentrated on the north face to make that impregnable.