The drums grew in volume until the booms echoed off of the mountains miles away. The strings vibrated with low tones or shrill cries with the beat of the drums. Mana swirled and flowed all around them as mages took their fair share from the air around them. Yutrad looked on as every preparation was made before the combined forces’ assault on the walls.
Bumble, his unfortunately named assistant, stood beside him at the top of his flagskiff’s control tower with a clipboard resting on his forearm, “Admiral, it looks like everything is ready. The mages’ enhancement formations are ready, the cannons are primed, the troops are armed and prepared, and we’ve dropped off any excess cargo at the fortress. Do you have any other orders?” he asked.
Yutrad looked to his left, seeing the warskiffs of Nolus nearly ready to begin their bombardment. The same was true of Gribnik’s, Mount Averus’, and Nikolan’s skiffs. Only the twin Affex skiffs were unprepared, with men dashing about on their decks for one reason or another.
“I do,” Yutrad said, “Tell the mages to pace themselves; I don’t want a surprise retaliation and all of our magic support to be too tired to help. That, and send a readiness notice to the reserve skiffs.” His assistant nodded, walking off to complete his orders. Barely holding in a sigh, Yutrad thought back to the horrible plan their little council had come up with.
The first step was to use their cannons and the mages to bombard the wall, killing enough of the defenders to make the next step easier. The second step was to continue the bombardment while smaller skiffs closed in on the softened wall, loaded with the most fanatic of fighters— the type who would barely bat an eye at mortal peril. They were to stop their bombardment as the smaller skiffs approached the wall, instead relying on the most accurate mages to support the strike force. Once the strike force disabled the Sky Guardians, the bulk of their forces were to be brought from the backline to gain total control of the wall.
It looked like the perfect plan on paper, but it completely ignored many valid questions, such as whether or not they would be safe during the bombardment, how the shock troops were supposed to pass the thaumotoxic nozzles running along the wall, or even if the shock troops could contend with the almost-certainly large amount of soldiers and other large Clockworks stationed there.
The plan was, in Yutrad’s honest opinion, a desirable outcome for the council. Despite butting heads earlier, Ajex was in complete agreement with the Duke about a frontal charge, though stipulated that she wanted her troops to be the first in the fighting. Dan completely agreed with the tactical plan, offering to give fire support when needed and the plan developed from there. B’yldynl had no problems with the plan, as his skiffs had plentiful mages and the Affexes simply agreed on the principle that the other might sustain more casualties. That left Yutrad, Uskia, and Vaes, the replacement for Aetra, in a tight spot. They agreed on the condition that all of them contribute to the main assault with their own troops.
Bumble came back and nodded to Yutrad as he looked over the small number of skiffs he brought out for the bombardment. He brought ten in total, though they were his largest and more heavily-armed skiffs. In terms of numbers, they had a hundred and fifty large skiffs resting just at the maximum range of their guns.
A thunderous boom echoed across the sands and shook his skiff. He turned to see smoke trailing from the largest cannon from Dan’s skiffs. His men in the control tower turned to him for orders and he simply gestured ahead. Nods followed and fiery blooms sprouted from the cannons of his skiffs in mere moments. Before long, the entire combined fleet let fire rain on the wall, barely caring for the horrible accuracy at their range.
The rain of death continued for a few more moments before Yutrad noticed something wrong. The Sky Guardians began to lower their cannons at the fleet. Were that not odd enough, the barrels of the cannons began to glow with an iridescent mix of reds, blues, browns, and blacks. “All skiffs forward!” the admiral shouted, “Now!” At the tail end of his words, multicolored bursts of fire bloomed from the barrels of the Guardians and five rounds slowly arced across the field.
He almost fell back as the skiff surged forward, along with his entire fleet. He looked behind his skiff and saw that most others decided to do the same as him, a few opting to turn and maintain distance from the wall. The artillery continued to fire, even less accurate than before. The drums and strings, faltering for only a moment, returned in force, cutting through the air and filling them all with some magic or other.
Dozens of smaller skiffs emerged from their impromptu charge, skipping over the small dunes before them. Men and women with Traits to deal with bullets stood at the front of the strike skiffs, wielding large blades and shields.
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He almost missed the moment when the Guardians’ shells met the ground. Just as he was turning back from giving evasive maneuver orders, he saw a surge of fire and fury explode from the place the fleet was but a minute before. The sand beneath the fire did not char, but it turned to glass. The glass made from sand turned to dust under the chaotic explosion, only adding to the lethality.
Yutrad had no illusions that the explosion could and would kill anyone who was even remotely close to it, thanks to the fine glass particles. Gasps and stares abounded in his command tower and even the Guardians stopped firing to glimpse the destruction wrought by their abnormal attack.
“Stop gawking and get back to work!” Yutrad shouted, slamming his fist into the closest steel wall, “Or would you rather end up in the middle of that!?” His words jolted them all back to reality and they returned to their work, “Slow down, bank left, and circle around!” he shouted. He did not want to test how it felt to be in the middle of whatever the Guardian shot, and he decided that changing course would make them unpredictable, or at least less predictable.
As his fleet was performing his orders, another massive shot rang out from the wall, aimed at the approaching warskiffs. Most had the sense to slow and copy his fleet’s movements, some even turning fully around, but a few Gribnik skiffs were not so fast on their feet. The round aimed at them slammed hard into the front skiff’s deck. A moment later, the whole skiff, along with whoever was manning it, was engulfed in flames. Fires charred the skiff’s clocksteel. Force ripped it apart like a tin can. Magic of some kind made the skiff’s shields shatter. The devastation was not reserved for the skiff directly hit, either. The smaller skiff beside it was thrown into the air by the explosion, jagged shrapnel tearing into the hull like a massive hungry wyrm.
Another salvo thundered from the wall, cutting high into the sky and falling like meteors onto a large group of junkskiffs, wiping them out. While Yutrad watched skiffs become scrap, his own crews were shooting shells at a rate that would have made their drill sergeants proud. Or corrective counselor, depending on the source of his crew.
He shot a look at the wall and held in another sigh when he saw that the strike force was approaching the base of it. “Stop the bombardment. Our forces have reached the limit zone. Only high-accuracy mages from here out,” he commanded, a chorus of affirmations meeting his words.
He was ready to begin the long, arduous process of keeping his skiffs out of danger when something caught his eye. Just as the thaumotoxins began to pour out of the wall, the strike force mages doing whatever necessary to keep the deadly magic out of their systems, the middle of the wall opened up like a gate. He was barely able to process the development when two Stranglers surged from behind the wall, followed by a Mini-Goliath.
The Stranglers were, essentially, house-sized Clockwork snakes with fire-spitting heads while the Mini-Goliaths were medium skiffs on legs with massive cannons, as opposed to their warskiff-sized normal counterparts.
Breath almost catching as he saw the enemy approach, Yutrad pointed at the emerging vehicular Clockworks, “Bring us in close and open fire on the Mini-Goliath!” he shouted, voice nearly drowning out the new round of chorused screams that were the Guardians firing. Not one of them questioned him as the skiff fleet turned and rushed toward the new contenders.
As they approached, they watched as the Stranglers circled the strike force, fire being fended off by teams of mages. The Mini-Goliath fired its cannon, but could not hit the small skiffs that had taken to dodging the enemy rather than climbing the wall. A minute later his crews opened up with their own artillery. The small skiffs had the good sense to retreat when he and his fleet arrived, so there was no chance of friendly fire.
Their shells slammed into the closest Strangler, but a bigger explosion echoed off to Yutrad’s right. Turning, he watched as a Guardian shell turned one of his warskiffs into a burning pile of scrap. He tore his eyes away from the heap and looked up at the wall to track the Sky Guardians. They were in a far worse state than he had anticipated, with multiple shells from the combined fleet hitting the base of the cannons.
Another shell salvo, likely from Mount Averus’ warskiff, tore into the cannon-topped tower as Yutrad looked back at his foe. His fleet had to kill the Stranglers and the Mini-Goliath, or else the strike force would never make it to the wall.
He kept his skiffs away from the wall itself— the thaumotoxin was still in the air, after all— but continued landing shell after shell into the three titans on the battlefield. He let his captains take local control of their skiffs and took control of his own. Shells were traded between his skiff and the Mini-Goliath. His fleet tore apart the resilient Stranglers eventually.
With a final salvo, the Mini-Goliath fell to the sand, kicking up a cloud of burnt and charred sand as it landed. He immediately called them all into formation and made a tactical retreat. After a headcount, he found that he lost three skiffs throughout the entire engagement. It was nearly a miracle, mostly possible with the occasional support from his allies, but he still mourned for the men he lost along the way.
He prayed to the two Creators that the souls of his men were put to rest, he prayed to them that his men’s families would find peace, and he prayed to them, most of all, for the crazed heroes storming the wall, even as he watched them breach the lowest level of the massive structure.