It hadn’t been a grind, as it had been much too active for that to be a factor. While chasing the Hea all over the place and digging them out of the shadows and rocks as they tried to be clever about ambushing was on the tedious side, the fact was, we didn’t really have a lot of trouble finding them (much to their dismay) and we certainly didn’t have a problem killing them.
So, over the past few weeks we had indeed driven the Hea tribes back across the plains of eastern Osteth. We’d been both merciful and merciless about it. There were no prisoners, as none had been taken during the Fall, and we returned that in full measure. If they wanted to run, we let them run.
If they wanted to fight, we killed them all.
Summons and Spawn points across the entire plains were Sealed en vivus, and their potential forces had basically dwindled by the hour. The fact the Aun were the most enthusiastic forces doing the Sealing, propitiating the spirits of the enslaved and the fallen and sending them on ceremonially, certainly had no effect on Hea morale as they lost any overwhelming numbers they had, and still found themselves unable to deal readily with an organized army on the march, nosirrree.
If they fought, they died, and virindi-bonded respawn magic notwithstanding, they really died and did not come back.
They were no longer immortal warriors in a great game. They were just the Hea, and they were being killed.
There were only a couple attempts to fight, by overconfident chieftains who didn’t comprehend that there’s a lot of difference between once and done, and do-over-endlessly. Challenge combats to their position everyone lived through were definitely not the same as an organized battlefield under Warlords who knew what the Hell they were doing, leading soldiers trained in team tactics and able to overcome warriors of superior numbers and skills simply by working together and doing what they needed to do.
Soldier mindsets were some of the toughest things for barbarians to learn, caught up as they were in cultures of either hunting or glorified combat that made them great adventurers, and grossly inferior in the true arts of war. The Hea had played at being soldiers, but they didn’t have the actual training and discipline needed to really do the job, only making the jump to a conqueror’s mindset under the instruction of the virindi.
Their religious and cultural background certainly didn’t support them, and the virindi themselves were of scant help on a psychological level, being of the mindset of manipulating puppets who were proving not to be so adept at the job as the Isparians they’d once driven away successfully.
This was war, and Isparians were very familiar with war.
-------
So it was that the armies of the Freeholders eventually drew up outside the walls of Fort Dryreach, now the last redoubt of the Hea in the lands of Osteth.
It was a formerly Aluvian holding, lost during the Fall like the rest, and gleefully claimed by the Hea as they had taken it once before. A sprawling place with lots of room, it was now packed with thousands of Hea civilians in crowded conditions, as well as surrounded by thousands more of the remaining Hea Summons that were standing in lines both on the walls and around outside it, living obstructions for the army of vengeful Freeholders come to deliver the same kind of treatment their friends and families had received during the Fall.
Pretty much every fighting soul from the Vesayans was here, including the King and Queen Mother, who had actually been quite active in leading companies on the battlefield and on the hunt. If they were following Diviners sniffing out the Hea for the latter, nobody cared when the arrow fire flushed them and they died fleeing from their failed ambushes.
There’d been a lot of sniping attempts and sneak attacks, and nobody had any sympathy for the overconfident Hea who thought they were being clever about such things. A whole generation of young Hea who’d never known life without being immortal were being wiped out, and it wasn’t going well for them.
Thus bringing us to our current position near Dryreach.
---------
“How many virindi in the place?” Briggs asked me directly.
“Three dozen or so, by the divs. They sensed me looking and tried to block it, but I only wanted numbers, wasn’t worried about the details.”
“Do you believe they are here to fight?” King Borelean asked urgently. Nobody wanted to see high-tier magic we couldn’t match flying out to one-shot people.
“No. They are taking pains to remain out of line of sight and out of range of archery.”
“Ah!” Queen Elysa smiled suddenly. “That was why you had Warlord Kris fire her Autobow over the walls…”
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
“And she split a flagpost doing so. Yes.” Queen Elysa looked impressed at the feat at such a range. “That was specifically to tell the virindi that we could reach them, and they better stay under cover, or they’re going vivic and not coming back.”
“So, they are here to evacuate the Hea back to Marae Lassel.” Aun Hemenua said with some relief. Not having to slaughter kin, even if they were estranged, was always better than having to slaughter kin.
“They were brought here originally by the virindi, they can be sent home the same way. Whether or not they can thrive on the island is another matter, but I imagine if they get rid of the olthoi there it will be possible.” I shrugged – it was not our problem. “They still seem unwilling to leave the virindi after all this, so they get to live with the results.”
“The virindi are indeed a separate problem to deal with. Removing some of their pawns here doesn’t mean we’ve really touched their power. However,” Briggs’ voice dipped dangerously, making the toes tremble, “I want them off the mainland here. Not in the Dires, waiting to come stalking back for a little vengeance. I’m aware there are plenty of Hea clans still in the Dires. If they are going to the Dires, we’re going to be fighting them again.
“If that’s so, I want the Portal blown, the place Interdicted, and we’re going to slaughter them here and now, rather than play cat-and-mouse with them over the coming months and years.”
“Aun Hemenua, you may wish to send a runner to convey that sentiment to the Hea leadership. I can indeed ascertain where the Portal the virindi are going to bring up will go, and if it’s not to Marae Lassel, there’s going to be a big explosion, and then a lot of Hea are going to die.”
The tall green shaman bowed slightly, motioning to one of his attendants and quickly making gestures over a hide, causing glowing symbols to etch themselves onto it. The initiate bowed and trotted quickly away, directly towards the gates to Fort Dryreach a quarter-mile away.
“You can reach that far with your magic?” King Borelean was impressed.
“Yes. There are ways to enhance the range of magic to incredible levels, and Dispels are a cross-theurgic discipline that benefits from such things enormously. I can reach what they are doing, I can target them by merely gaining a little altitude, and I can shut them down,” I confirmed.
Eyes looked up at the sky, wondering how high I would have to get, and how I would get there. None of them asked, however.
The magic field here was very hard on flight magic, it turned out. You could fly… just not very high, very fast, or very long. The weight of the magic field here seemed quite biased against the magic, which I actually thought was really smart. Having static ground fortifications was stupid if you didn’t have control of the air, and the only things the Empyreans had proven to have that flew were massive floating platforms channeling huge amounts of magical power to do what they did… and even they didn’t get more than a hundred yards off or away from the ground.
I didn’t think it was a worldwide effect, but it certainly contributed to all the stuff that might be able to actually magically fly not being able to get more than a certain height off the ground, in reach of ground attackers all the time.
“We need to drive the point home that they don’t have a choice in that matter,” Kris pointed out sharply. “Some of them are still sure they can fight, and others will feel that obeying us while they are fleeing is simply an unacceptable stain on their honor. I would prefer that they be utterly crushed and running to run, and not thinking of anything but not getting themselves slaughtered.”
Eyes turned on Aun Hemenua, knowing he understood the Hea best, despite the differences the virindi had inflicted upon them.
“They know the living walls failed them. The stone walls give them some hope. Maybe Isparian walls will defy the Isparians, especially since they are linked to the ley lines and we cannot harm them. I have been told we do not truly have the normal numbers required to breach the walls of a fortress like this?” the Aun asked, looking around.
“That’s true,” Briggs rumbled. “In a classical engagement, with no magic involved, you want a minimum of five to one, and ten to one is preferable.”
“Then break the walls, and they lose all hope. Can this be done?” the elder shaman of the Aun asked calmly.
Everyone turned to look at me. I, in turn, looked at the fortress walls over in the distance. “If I can Shape up stone walls, I can Shape down stone walls, especially once I cut them off the ley-line. But there’s a small problem of the Summons standing between me and those walls.”
“Cleaning off the Summons should provide no obstacle, and we can either chase them off the walls, or your Shards will basically sweep them from the tops, right?”
“Yes.” No need to deny it, and the archers there were basically lower-Level Summons that would not survive a Shardray.
“Okay. Start moving the troops up, the goal is to clear out the Summons on this side and make sure they don’t move any more onto the ground outside. Then we move the Lady Magos up, and she removes their walls.” He looked around once. “Any issues or problems with that.”
“I watched you pull up castle walls and fortress lines out of the stone that would take months or years to erect, and now I get to see you take them down. And here I thought I had seen most of what magic had to show me in life,” Queen Elysa smiled at me.
“If they could secure their ley line connection, removing the walls would not be a tactic. However, that doesn’t secure the stone outside their walls. I could, for instance, simply start a ramp here, build it up around me, and make a beeline right for the walls, raising a path directly to the top of their walls above and around me as I did so.”
There were murmurs from all around as everyone pictured the tactic, the stolid lugian Kopf representing his king looking the most pleased.
Briggs smiled hard, having come up with the tactic. If it came to a sudden fight, our army would be able to flow right over and past the walls and into the heart of their fortifications almost immediately, completely bypassing their protection!
I hadn’t been using my ability to Shape Stone in such amounts publicly recently, and only in the simple forms of walls around the town. The Hea doubtless believed I was tapping ley lines to erect the things where I had, and they had no reason to fear that power.
“If ye drive the ramp right up to the walls now, the Summons are mostly useless and we don’t even have t’ fight,” the Mick pointed out. “All they can do is mass troops at the point o’ entry an’ hope they might stop us.”
“True,” Briggs acknowledged. “But I do want to kill all those Summons, this is a fine excuse to do so, and our Lady Magos can wall off reinforcements so they can’t be brought in from the other sides to replace those we are slaughtering.
“And this is about absolute despair. Look at the fortress out there, and then picture it with the entire wall facing us no longer there at all.”
Everyone stared that way, picturing it all.
“We’d murder them,” Kris stated confidently, four pairs of canines gleaming.
“Half an hour. Let’s get the forces in position. They are Summons, we don’t need to show any mercy or consideration. Wipe them down, and let the Hea despair,” Briggs ordered, and it was so.