Arrival

by William Dickey

  As I neared the inner wall, I issued orders to the men stationed there. “Defend the retreating soldiers and focus fire on the closest enemies as soon as they're in range.”

  The men on the inner wall released everything they had. Mages and artifact-bearing knights let loose bolts of lighting and bursts of flame. Thousands upon thousands of arrows filled the air like rain thrown sideways under the fierce gusts of a storm.

  The front lines of the beastmen horde suffered heavily under this bombardment, eventually forcing them to pull back and let the remaining human forces get to safety behind the inner wall as they waited for the gilaphants to catch up. The beastmen wouldn’t attempt to take the wall without gilaphant support and the gilaphants were too large to make it down the narrow city streets, requiring them to bulldoze their way slowly through the outer city.

  An hour later, as the gilaphants prepared the next push, I casually walked over to a specific place along the wall where I had cordoned off a five-foot area around a large metal brazier.

  Zelus waited by the brazier, he’d helped set it up and was eager to see it go off.

  ‘You think they have any idea what’s about to happen to them?’ asked Mai tilting her head towards the massing beastmen forces.

  “Not a chance in hell,” I replied.

  My only regret, most of the beastmen forces were still huddled back at their original campsite. Only a quarter of their forces were inside the outer walls, waiting for the final breach before moving in.

  I placed a hand over the brazier nervously. I never had a chance to test it beforehand. Like the superMIC, it was only good for a single use. I only hoped Zelus had followed the directions carefully. I focused on the simplest of sigils. The very one that had been my first, fire.

  A narrow spark of flame flashed down the brazier, over the side of the wall and to the ground below. From there it branched out in a dozen different paths, which then divided into a dozen more. Each branch led to a small carefully sealed barrel of black powder.

  Small little pops, barely audible over the rumble of amassing beastmen, filled the air. The firebombs were small, after making all the weapons, armor, artifacts, and other tricks, I had run low on materials and had to be conservative. Still they didn’t need to be very big. Most of the buildings were made of wood and had roofs made of twigs and hay so there was plenty of fuel.

  I watched the beastmen realize what was happening, the look of surprise as fires appeared all across the outer city. The look of terror as it spread and they all began scurrying. The look of despair as the fire surrounded them, cutting off all paths out. They died, horribly. Their screams pierced the dull steady roar of the fire as it consumed their flesh and turned everything, even bone, to ash.

  You gained a level

  You gained a level

  You gained a level

  …

  …

  …

  You have gained greater insight to the art of sigil casting

  †Sigil Mastery† has reached level 5

  Through your efforts in multiple fields, you have gained greater insight into the universe

  †Otheristry† has reached level 10

  You have learned an †Otheristry† related sub-skill: †Pause†

  †Pause†

  Freeze time for 3 seconds for the cost of 1/3 max stamina and mana.

  Effective time increases as †Otheristry† increases

  Cost decreases as †Otheristry† increases

  All told, I gained 12 levels. Not a bad haul. Pause was powerful and defied the laws of this world since no magic I’d ever heard of could control time. But its effects were brief and expensive. I doubted I’d use it much, for now, but at least Otheristry was now more than a pocket.

  The city continued to burn long after the last screams died out. I told all the soldiers on the wall to relax and sent many of them away to get some rest. It would be hours before the fires died down and the ground cooled enough for beastmen to pass through and that would be only if they came at all.

  I’m not sure how many died but it was somewhere around ten thousand. That was more beastmen dead than in the battle at Monstone pass, the wrath of the superMIC, and probably all human-beastman conflicts in the past century combined. The giant reptilian elephants were among the deepest inside the city and they weren’t exactly the best runners. With their size, they were able to survive the fire for a time, but eventually the fire consumed them like everyone else. The beastmen’s primary means to get through the wall was gone.

  I stayed to watch the fire. Somehow, I thought I’d feel better. I remembered the scene at Mill Valley. The roasted skeletons clutching each other. I thought I’d feel better knowing that I’d evened the score, but I felt sick.

  I looked out trying to see what the beastmen were doing but all I could see were flames. Looking at the scale of the destruction, I felt somehow certain that this was the end. No one in their right mind would continue a campaign after this. Oh, how wrong I was.

  Chapter 35: Possessed

  Mood at camp was dour. After the complete thrashing, they’d given the humans back at Monstone Pass, Othan morale had been at an all-time high. According to prisoner interrogations, the vast majority of the city’s most able defenders had already been lost. And while the large walls were impressive, without sufficient manpower they shouldn’t have posed much of a problem.

  Yet somehow, the humans had defended themselves with surprising tactfulness. The way they had dealt with the initial probe violently countered their artifacts, making all the time the Othans spent capturing mages and all the time spent forcing them to craft artifacts and mana crystals worthless. Now no Othan was willing to carry the accursed devices.

  Then the humans managed to repel the gilaphant charge by burning down half of their own city. It was madness. Who could utilize such deranged tactics? What sort of people were they dealing with? One thing was certain. This was not the same enemy they’d faced at the pass.

  Izusa watched the city burn with her squad from several miles away as they awaited further instruction. Technically, they were there to aid in the battle, but in light of the scouting operations, they’d been conducting the past several weeks, their posting was mostly decorative.

  “What do think is going to happen?” Talia asked.

  “Continue to fight,” Izusa answered.

  “Of course, is obvious, but how?” said Talia. “Inner wall looks a good ten or fifteen feet taller, don’t think we can jump it. And with all the gilaphants burned up, we lost our wall breakers.”

  “Be patient we’ll see soon enough what the gensel comes up with,” said Izusa. A horn signaled in the distance, signaling certain captains to join for a meeting.

  “Now can find out,” said Talia.

  “No,” said Izusa. “We are only a part of the reserve force. There is no need to go. We will not be taking part in this advance.”

  “Well don’t think can stop,” said Talia.

  “Go ahead,” Izusa yawned.

  Talia shifted to her bird form and flew towards the main force to get better eyes and ears of what was going on. After a few minutes, Talia rushed back to Izusa's side.

  “Won’t believe what decided to try,” she said. “Are doing a drop.”

  I patrolled along the top of the inner wall, spending as much time looking into the city as I did looking out at the enemy, reminding myself just why I was ignoring my natural inclination to hide in a hole. The city itself was rather subdued. Despite the dire circumstances, despite the fact that they were all scrunched into the small inner city, despite the thousands dead, people’s moods were surprisingly up. I guess that’s what happens when you’ve traded with the enemy at five to one in your favor. We’d lost a few thousand good men today, but their lives were well spent and over ten thousand beastmen had met their end.

  The situation was still bad though, the enemy had several times that to lose, but so far things had gone well enough for people to retain that spark o
f hope that could guide them through even the darkest of times. Soldiers nodded their heads in recognition as I passed by. I nodded back stone faced, hoping my apparent confidence would help alleviate their worries.

  “Hey Titania,” I said as I passed by.

  “What can do for?” she asked.

  “Just looking around,” I answered.

  “Not much to see. The smoke blocks everything and won’t be gone for hours. We can’t move out, the beastmen would decimate us without the protection of the walls. So for now we are just holding. Go rest. Call the moment something happens,” said Titania.

  “Haven’t you been here all day?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Titania admitted.

  “Then maybe you should rest,” I suggested.

  “Am fine,” said Titania flatly. “Am better suited for the long hours than most.”

  “I have to say, I’m a bit surprised. I thought you weren’t interested in this war. You said before that’s why you didn’t march north with the campaign a couple months ago,” I said.

  “Mind remains unchanged,” Titania admitted. “Would avoid this fight if could, but see no way around it. When it comes to life or death, will choose life always.” Titania stated this last point even firmer than her normal tone.

  I turned my head to peak over the wall toward the enemy camp. The smoke remained heavy in the air blocking vision. Still, I stared out.

  “Said couldn’t see anything,” reminded Titania.

  “You may not be able to but I can,” I said.

  “How?” Titania asked.

  ‘Because he has me,’ Mai answered, appearing by my side. ‘Uhh, Isaac, you’re going to want to get a look at this.’

  The artificial being enhanced my vision, clearing away all the obstructive particulates in the air. I saw movement on the horizon. Far off in the distance the beastmen gathered around a variety of large winged creatures. There were awkward black birds with pink heads that except for their size looked like condors. There were bear sized Hercules beetles whose wings flapped in a vigorous blur to achieve liftoff. There were even great winged beasts that would have looked like dragons except that instead of scales their bodies were covered by thick leathery skin, like the hide of a rhinoceros. As each of the flying beastmen took off, they carried a score of comrades clinging to handholds on the flying beastmen’s armor or ropes running down their bodies.

  I turned to Titania immediately who was following my gaze into the thick smoke.

  “Hurry, get up,” I said with a sudden concern. “Get everyone up.”

  “Wha-? Why,” Titania asked.

  “They’re coming,” I said. “They’ve loaded up on large flying beasts and they’ll be here any minute.”

  “How?” Titania started before my words sunk in and she snapped to action. “To arms. Everyone to arms. The beastmen are coming. Start the alarm.” The bell tower down in the city started to ring, rousing all the soldiers who weren’t within reach of Titania’s larger than life voice.

  “Explain? What’s happening?” Titania asked now turning back to me, I was her only eyes after all.

  “They’re taking off now,” I said. “Maybe a hundred…”

  ‘Two hundred and forty-two,’ Mai supplied.

  “Two hundred and forty-two flying beasts. Each carrying 10 to 20 soldiers. That’s…” I did a quick calculation in my head. “Three thousand or so beastmen that could be on us any minute.”

  ‘There’s 3461 to be exact,’ said Mai.

  “What are they doing now?” said Titania.

  “Flying away,” I said.

  “Good,” said a nearby foot soldier who’d overheard the conversation. “They’re leaving. Ha-ha, I can’t believe we actually made it.”

  ‘Pssht, dumb jarhead,’ Mai snickered.

  “They’re not,” I said, ruining the couple seconds of good cheer that permeated those in earshot. “That doesn’t explain why they’d have to fly away. They could just walk. We wouldn’t have chased them.”

  I kept my eyes on the group filling the skies. Sure enough after picking up some altitude and gathering in a proper formation, the flying behemoths circled back around towards the city.

  “They’re coming back around. Have the archers start firing we need to try to thin their numbers before they get here,” I said.

  Titania ordered multiple volleys in the direction I indicated. Arrows fanned out all over the place, but few hit their mark. It wasn’t that the arrows couldn’t reach. The bows I had provided were absurdly powerful, capable of sending the tiny iron points half a mile. But there was just too much sky for them to shoot at without aim. The archers might as well be trying to shoot down the moon.

  “Save the arrows,” I told Titania. “Just keep people trained on the sky, fire when they can see.”

  “How long do we have?” Titania asked.

  “Not long maybe a minute,” I said.

  ‘47 seconds,’ Mai interjected.

  “47 seconds,” I repeated.

  The beastmen were flying relatively low, only a hundred feet or so in the air. This was more than high enough to get over our fifty-foot wall but not so high that it would bring disaster if we took out some of the flying beasts before they could land.

  “Do you think we should evacuate the walls?” I asked. Against this sort of attack, our walls would be useless. The beastmen would just skip it and start ravaging the city from within.

  “Can’t,” Titania answered. “If we leave the walls the beastmen outside will start jumping over like before. Then we’d have a lot more than 3000 to deal with.”

  “Then how would you deal with this?” I asked.

  “Fight flying with flying,” Titania suggested.

  “Are they ready?” I asked. “They haven’t had much time to train.”

  “It’ll be enough,” she said excitedly.

  “Go, I’ll take care of the wall,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said as she hurried off, waving her hands frantically to signal the others in her squad.

  During the few weeks we’d had to prepare, I’d also armed a small group with replicated flying claws for Titania to personally train. The flying claws relied on powerful electromagnets to cling to surfaces so Titania had large metal plates mounted on buildings all across the city. For the week before the beastmen arrival, the group had spent a couple hours each day practicing. Their swinging between skyscrapers was the talk of the town and although they had yet to perfect their technique, at least they weren’t crashing into each other anymore.

  People shouted as giant shadowy forms of bird and beast emerged from behind the curtain of smoke. Arrows and magic shot up at the flying beasts while their torsos tended to be armored their wings weren’t. Hot globules of blood poured down as several of the beasts had their wings shredded.

  ‘Damn momentum,’ commented Mai, to which all I could do was agree.

  Several arrow-ridden beasts fell just shy of the wall, but many more were moving fast enough to still make it over. Worse still, two of the dragon beasts crashed on top of the wall itself, crushing dozens of my men while delivering dozens of theirs where they could do the most damage.

  As beastmen rained from above, more ground troops struck from below, taking advantage of the distraction to hit us while we weren’t looking. They didn’t see the same success as they had when they hit the outer wall, the inner wall was one and a half times taller and the best beastmen jumpers died trying to mount the outer wall. Still the wall couldn’t hold them back undefended. Many were forced to focus their attention on beastmen scaling the wall lest we’d have even more work cut out for them.

  As the flying beasts flew over the wall and moved deeper into the city, the men on their backs bailed off. The landing was hard but not too bad for someone who was prepared for it. With the hundreds of beastmen soldiers landing it was literally raining men.

  Several dozen of Titania’s flying claw squad took to the sky, hacking and slashing everything in their paths as they
swung rapidly from one skyscraper to the next. Unlike the dinky arrows, the sword slashes of the human flying squad did massive damage to the enemy beasts’ wings. A slash or two on any wing was all it took to send it tumbling from the sky. Hundreds more, both human and beastmen, died as falling wyverns and condors crashed through buildings before cratering into the ground.

  Fortunately, the streets were mostly clear of noncombatants. Children and the elderly were all safely tucked away in barricaded basements and towers. Most of the people in the streets were the wounded and various support staff, healers, couriers, cooks, and the like. They had only a minute of warning before the first beastmen landed. They didn’t stand a chance. Thousands died in minutes as the beastmen who survived the crash spread out across the city. The advantage in speed, strength, and stamina possessed by the beastmen was compounded with the lack of preparation by my forces so although outnumbered, the couple thousand rampaging beastmen took control of the city within minutes.

  The beastmen held the city, inside and out while I held the wall with the main force and Titania’s flying squad held the skies. After clearing out the flying beasts, her squad started attacking the beastmen holding the inner city. Unable to utilize their favored swords and axes without landing and sacrificing their mobility, her troop relied primarily on artifacts. Beams of fire and ice cascaded from above. Some beastmen fought back with bows and arrows while others lobbed their axes in long arcs at support wires.

  Meanwhile, since the beastmen had successfully infiltrated the inner city the fighting on the wall became a war on two fronts. Beastmen from both inside and out swarmed the walls, trying to force themselves up and over amidst a storm of physical and magical projectiles. No matter how many were injured or killed, they just kept coming.

  While the beastmen on the outside were far greater in number, the ones coming from the inside were the bigger problem. The walls were designed to prevent people from getting in, not out. The outside may have been a towering fifty-foot face, the inside was far from it. Large staircases ran from the ground to the top every few hundred yards and the inside of the wall lacked a bulwark, the waist high protrusion soldiers could duck behind to avoid projectiles.