0:000 on the 81st day of Winter

We moved into the streets of Cinder as dawn was breaking.

"Move in groups of at least ten." I said. "Spread out and try to keep out of each other's way. Use the lasers in short bursts to avoid draining them too quickly. We go north."

They let out a yell of triumph and we moved out together. Groups spread out in both directions. People wanted to check on their homes and businesses. We could hear sounds of fighting nearby but it was hard to tell the right direction because of how sounds echoed off the stone streets and buildings. I held the artificial core in one hand wishing I had made it into a more ergonomic shape for carrying than a heavy sphere. I walked slowly keeping a careful eye on our surroundings. Arin walked by my side with her sword drawn and a cane to help her.

Then the first demons came into sight. A column of kith marched towards us from the north.

"Stay calm and line up a shot!" I yelled holding up my hand.

I was telling them to stay calm while trying to suppress my own panic. Only about half the group had remained nearby, the others having spread out to other parts of the district. I waited until the demons were less than fifty meters away before dropping my hand.

"Fire!!!" I yelled.

It was totally unfair. The demon lines were cut to pieces like they had been thrown into a blender. One moment they were rushing towards us ready for a brutal slaughter. The next they were nothing more than chucks of burnt meat. A ragged cheer came up from our group growing as people overcame their fear and realized what had just happened.

"Everyone, recharge your lasers." I yelled, holding up the artificial core. Suddenly, I was in a press of bodies holding their laser pointers to the artificial core for thee marks before moving off and being replaced by others. Somewhere between ten and fifteen people could recharge at a time so we were ready to go before half a measure had passed.

"Forward!" I yelled.

We walked around the piles of demon body parts. It occured to me that all the problems I had so much trouble with in the laser cannon's design were solved. All I had to do was let go of the idea of building up my personal combat power. Counter to my intuition, I could only make the laser cannon idea work by giving the power away. At the next intersection we were ambushed by sekteth. They had been hiding in the farms, above where we could see from the street. My new laser cannon didn't hesitate. Lines of darkness tore through the monsters and all died before they hit the ground. By then there were groups returning to recharge after clearing out the adjacent streets. I tried to keep a slow but steady pace forward. We went west one block to line us up with one of the major service ramps onto the northern wall. Then a group returned with some new faces.

"Mage Aegis!" said Hogarth. "Do you have any more weapons? My nephews want the power to fight."

I nodded and dug in my pouch for the extras. Several more groups arrived and our company grew.

"This is just incredible." said Arin. "You realize you've given all of them the power of a mage. At least for a short time."

"Ya, I wish I had thought of this sooner." I said. "I would have gotten soldiers to carry them. I hate putting civilians at risk like this."

She shrugged.

"These people are as much soldiers as anyone. Demons don't distinguish so why should we?" she said, then she got a thoughtful expression. "This could double the effective mage population of Cinder."

"I don't see it like that." I said. "These are just weapons. Weapons give power to the powerless. Of course, once people have power that can change them. I need to be really careful about who gets a hold of these in the future."

"Oh that bread is out of the basket." she said. "How many people do you think have already figured out that they can recharge them in a fire like they do for light magic cores?"

My eyes went wide. I hadn't considered that. That would totally work. I basically just gave guns with infinite ammo magazines to a bunch of civilians. Crap. Oh well. Nothing for it now but to try and get as many as I can back if we survive. I ran out of extras to hand out at the next intersection. Several people had returned bloody or battered but I hadn't heard of any deaths yet. We came to a stop one block south of the wall. I wanted to wait here until all of us were gathered so I sent runners to try and pull all the scattered groups back. Looking around I could see people's grim determination. Most everyone had gotten a chance to check on things, making sure friends and families were safe before returning to recharge. After another score of measures everyone was gathered and accounted for.

Arin and I led as we walked north. There, at the end of the street, was a large ramp with stairs along either side. At the top waited every kind of demon. There were dozens of kith and sekteth, two morgeth, and even a killalith. More dangerous, at least to this group, were the flyers. There were several decades of verktoth which are giant mosquito gorillas with dragonfly wings. Again I questioned if this was a good idea. Turning back to the group I called out.

"Bode! Anke! Come up here." I said. Soon, both had made their way forward.

"Take three decades each and climb to the farm levels of these buildings." I said, pointing to either side of the street. I dug out two of my three spare radios and set them to an open channel. Giving them one each and keeping one for myself, I explained how they worked and what I needed them to do.

"Your only job is to take out flying demons. Can you do that?" I asked.

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"Yes!" said Bode, eagerly. But then he just stood there looking around. Anke looked incredulous.

“Why me?” she asked. That was a good question. It was mostly because I remembered their names off the top of my head but I couldn't tell them that. I had no clue what I was doing leading civilians into a fight but I needed to do my best to give them confidence. I moved closer and grabbed Bode’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Look around you.” I said. “Can you see six people in this crowd that you know well?” Bode started nodding right away and, after a few marks, Anke joined him. “Pull them into a group and tell them to bring everyone they know with them too. Keep that going until you've got at least thirty people.”

Bode gave me a quick thanks before running off to grab his friends. Anke was still scared but her confusion started slipping into resolve as she ran off too. Good. Two measures later we were ready.

We walked forward confidently. When we reached the base of the ramp the demons moved. The front row stepped back to reveal a line of kith holding what looked kind of like stone riot shields. Great, just great. Thinking quickly, I realized that the shields would likely protect them long enough to get into melee.

"Hold!!!" I yelled as loud as I could. I held up my hand. A few shots went off from our side and I had to yell again. "Hold, or Mez damn you!"

The shots cut off and everyone looked at me. That was when the line of kith advanced. Then I realized that, while the shields mostly protected the kith from the front, they didn't form a seamless shield wall. I turned to my right.

“Everyone on this side!” I yelled. “On my command to fire, aim for a gap between shields on that side!”

I pointed as clearly as I could toward the left side of the advancing line. I turned around to my left and repeated the instruction. When the kith were half way down the ramp, the verktoth took flight.

"Farm teams. Shoot the flyers down. Out." I said into my radio.

I had no more attention to spare as just then the kith broke into a run. There were a handful of our side that lost their nerve and fired their lasers early. Just as they crossed a twenty meter range I let my hand fall.

"Fire!!!" I yelled, opening with my own laser. The right half of my line shot at the left while the left shot at the right. As the first shield fell it opened a larger gap that everyone else could exploit.

It was like armored knights charging a machine gun nest. They fell apart. After five marks there were less than ten kith still standing. Still, two made it close enough to attack. The first crashed into our line already dead only killing a single man while the second got two swipes with its burning claws before going down. Six people lay in bloody heaps at the bottom of the ramp. In the skys, the verktoth had tried to come around behind us to flank our lines but the teams at the farm level had cut them down before they could attack.

Then someone screamed. The morgeths had lined up on the sides of the ramp and spit globs of acid down on the people at each end of our line. They had immediately pulled back so our line of sight was blocked. Looking forward they weren't sending another line down to fight us. They wanted us to come up the ramp where we would get surrounded and killed. Thinking fast I gave a command.

"Move back!" I yelled and we started walking back away from the ramp. It took several marks for everyone to realize the retreat had been called and we lost three more people to acid before we moved outside of their range. Then I pulled up my radio.

"Farm teams. Change of plans. Move to the edge of the roof as close to the wall as you can get. Use all remaining charge to shoot the big demons spitting acid on our people from cover. Over." I said.

"This is Bode, okay I hear you, we are moving now."

"By the hundred gods - this is Anke, same here. Wait, aren't we supposed to say over? Ya, over."

"Anke and Bode, thank you. Out" I said, then I refocused on the battle at hand. The group had moved farther away from the ramp to avoid the acid spitting demons. I passed the artificial core to Borghild for everyone to recharge off while I watched the buildings.

"Get ready! We charge the ramp on my command!" I yelled.

People were nervously glancing at the corpses of the people that had died. Was this really the right approach? Could we sneak in behind them somehow? No. Single file up a set of stairs would get many more people killed. We just had to get up that ramp and this would be over. Then I saw lines of darkness cut across the gap between the buildings and the wall.

"Now! On me!" I yelled while rushing forward. Arin was right behind me bounding quickly if a bit awkwardly on her spring foot. I put the radio on my belt and drew both laser rods. I was screaming when I started climbing the ramp. Half expecting a counter charge, I was surprised to come to the top of the ramp to see the demons in full retreat. Slowing to a walk I stopped screaming and looked around for a trap.

"Ha! Look at those assholes running!" yelled Arin.

Looking behind us I saw that everyone had followed me. The morgeths were visible now, both of which were cut to pieces and on fire. The farm teams had distracted them for long enough for us to get close and about a hundred people had focused on taking them out first. The retreating demons had bottlenecked at the siege tower and the sekteth all started climbing over the wall to get away. Our group hit their lines and cut them to pieces. Even the killalith was cut down as it tried to use water magic to flee over the wall.

We had won. We had actually won. Arin and I walked forward across the large triangular segment of wall. People were at the crenellations shooting down at the retreating demons.

"Cease fire!" I called out. "Recharge and stand ready."

I recalled the farm teams and got my radios back. I tried to assess our position but didn't have enough information. Switching my radio back to the command channel I listened to try and get a sense for the broader state of the battle. Most of the legion was engaged at the northwest and northeast bastions with a minor skirmish at the western wall. I waited for a break to interject a report.

"Command, this is Theod Aegis. I gathered three centuries of civilians, gave them magic weapons, and retook the northern wall. We will hold this position until we can be relieved by legion soldiers. Over."

"Theod, this is command… say that again? Over."

I repeated myself. After a long pause Command spoke up again. This time it was a woman's voice.

"Theod, this is command. What kind of magic weapons? Over."

"Fresin, is that you?" I asked. Then I thought better of my question.

"Command this is Theod. I mass produced the light based weapons I used during the wall breach. Over."

"That is… well that's the first piece of good news I've heard all day. Theod, how are the civilians holding up? Can I send them into another fight? Over."

Fresin was her usual unflappable self, but I could still hear a hint of relief in her tone.

"Command. There are elderly and young people in the group, even a few kids we have to look after. We would probably need to switch out at least half our number to be ready for another fight. Over." I said.

There was another long pause.

"Theod this is Fresin. I'm looking at the board here. The demons committed their whole army to this attack. Every century we have is currently engaged but also means everything they have is also engaged. That means their main camp is completely undefended…"

After a few seconds it was clear she had trailed off in thought. I looked out across the killing field around the city to spot their camp. They set up in a clearing about three kilometers north of the city. The trees between here and there had been cleared out, probably made into siege towers, so it was a clear shot. Just a walk in the park.

"What do you think?" I asked Arin. She had been listening to the conversation with wide eyes and had seemingly come to the same conclusion.

"Torching their camp could end this today." she said. "We have to go for it!"