Zeke surveyed the battlefield, taking in the situation. They had been fighting through the Imperium for what felt like an eternity, and though most of the cities had been abandoned, there had been enough resistance that it had required significant effort to progress.
And now, they had finally arrived at their destination.
Eldoria was an enormous city, normally housing more than ten million people. And it was built on a scale to accommodate that population. In addition, it was one of the world’s most important trading hubs, so it usually played host to at least a million foreign traders. So, to call it huge would have been a vast understatement.
Zeke had never visited the largest cities back on Earth, but he’d grown up in the information age, which meant that he’d watched plenty of movies and seen more than enough accounts on the internet to know just how large a city like New York was. Eldoria was larger, and by an order of magnitude.
“I thought Westport was big,” said Tucker from beside him.
“It is,” Adara stated, standing at Zeke’s other flank. “Eldoria is just bigger. Some people say it’s the biggest city in the Eternal Realm, but it’s hard to compare when the other largest cities are halfway around the world.”
“Celestium is bigger,” Jasper stated. The dark elf was on the other side of Adara, but his voice was clear when he added, “That’s the city of the High Elves. Their kind rarely leave their city, so it houses their entire kingdom.”
For his part, Zeke had difficulty believing any city could be much bigger than Eldoria. Its walls extended hundreds of feet into the air, according to everything he’d been told, almost as thick as they were tall, with whole communities living within. Zeke could see the tops of buildings and statues peeking over the edge of the wall.
The edifice itself was carved with hundreds of runes, meaning that it would be almost impossible to breach, and from what Zeke understood, the entire population of Knights had been recalled for its defense. In short, the city of Eldoria was buttoned up tight, well defended, and nearly impregnable.
If he’d had the full breadth of his power available, Zeke felt certain he could have destroyed the walls and given his army free passage into the city. As it was, he wasn’t certain he could bypass even the weakest spots.
“Don’t sell yourself short. You’ve been practicing.”
Indeed, over the previous couple of months, while his army continued its advance, Zeke had spent nearly every waking moment in training. For whole days at a time, he toiled away in the Hunting Grounds, fighting against ever escalating copies of his former enemies. It was built to restrict the usage of skills, so even if most of his weren’t locked away by Oberon’s cage, he would have been forced to fight hand-to-hand.
And he’d made staggering progress.
If he’d had to guess, he would have estimated that he was only using a third of his true strength and even less of his agility and dexterity before he’d begun his training regimen. Now, he was closer to sixty percent. He knew he had a long way to go, but he’d already made a ridiculous amount of headway.
“You call it a guess? I literally told you those numbers,” Eveline pointed out.
“I know,” he acknowledged. “You’re an invaluable tool.”
“Ugh. Don’t call me a tool. It’s gross.”
Zeke let a tiny smile turn up the corners of his mouth. However, it faded soon after when he began to realize that taking the city would require a significant amount of sacrifice on the part of his army. Many kobolds and beastkin would die.
“Is this worth it?” he wondered aloud.
“What?” asked Adara.
“Taking this city. They don’t really have anything we want,” he stated. “It might be better to just move on. I can find the last two pieces for his quest somewhere else.”
That would go a long way toward preparing his body to handle his true power. He didn’t think it would be as simple as that implied, but he knew it was a necessary step in the right direction. Whatever the case, taking Eldoria was probably needless, at least regarding his personal progression.
“Yes,” said Silik, who’d remained standing silently behind Zeke the whole time.
Zeke turned to look at the big kobold. Seeing that he wanted to say more, Zeke told Silik, “Go ahead.”
“Many are held captive within that city,” he stated. “We have a responsibility to free them. Even if the cost is high, we must, because we can.”
“Well said,” Tucker agreed.
The others voiced their agreement as well, which told Zeke all he needed to know. The fact that Silik had spoken up was probably enough on its own. The kobold general rarely offered his opinion outside of matters concerning military strategy, so when he did voice his thoughts, it was impactful. The fact that everyone agreed with him was just icing on the cake.
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“Okay. So, we’re going in,” he said. “How should we do it?”
“The sorceress,” Eveline said, manifesting beside him. “She can create a spell that encircles the entire city, and she can weaken the walls.”
“But not bring them down?” Zeke asked.
“Doubtful. If she’d been gaining levels all this time, perhaps she could have managed it, but she’s been stagnant. Slowing down has consequences,” Eveline answered.
“I see.”
Just then, Pudge arrived. He’d been scouting the area around the city for the past few hours, so Zeke hoped that his brother had found something important. He asked, “Anything?”
“No,” Pudge answered. “The entrances have all been sealed. Even the sewers are blocked off and guarded by powerful enchantments. We will not enter that city without bringing them down.”
“Dammit,” Zeke muttered. “I guess we do this the hard way, then.”
After that, they retreated a few miles to the camp surrounding the latest gate position. Once there, he sent Pudge inside to fetch Kianma and Sasha so they could add their input to the planning stage. Meanwhile, Zeke and the rest of his brain trust set up in one of the tents that had been erected by the kobolds. It was not a particularly opulent affair, with the most prominent piece of furniture being a large table that hosted a map of the area.
Soon, Kianma and Sasha arrived. The former, with characteristic stoicism, but the latter, with no small degree of trepidation. Clearly, she remembered what it felt like to participate in mass slaughter, and she very much did not want to repeat it.
Hopefully, she wouldn’t need to.
After a little discussion, Zeke broached the pertinent subject. “Sasha, I know you’ve been trying to leave war behind,” he said, his hands on the table as he leaned forward. “I get that. But I need you to create one more spell.”
As he explained what he required, her frown deepened. Finally, he ended by saying, “If everything we’ve seen so far is accurate, you won’t kill a single person. Your only job is to sunder the wall’s defenses. Do that, and we’ll take care of the rest.”
At present, Zeke had close to a million kobolds at his disposal. Most weren’t of a level to fight a Knight of the Radiant Host toe-to-toe, but they were more than capable of contributing to the battle. What they lacked in quality, they more than made up for in sheer numbers – especially when their unerring cooperation came into play.
The backbone of the army was around a hundred thousand strong, with most of them having progressed to the first threshold at level seventy-five. Quite a few, like Silik, had blown past that mark.
Zeke suspected that no one outside the tower had any clue just how many kobolds he had at his disposal. To most, one kobold looked much the same as any other, and he’d made it clear that he expected them to cycle the participants in every battle. On top of that, they were truly dedicated when it came to grinding out levels. The dungeons were in constant use, and when they weren’t fighting for levels, they were in the Hunting Grounds perfecting their techniques.
If Zeke had tried to create perfect soldiers in a laboratory, he couldn’t have come up with anything better than the kobolds.
And now, the full might of the Crimson Tower was on the verge of being unleashed.
“This is going to change everything,” Eveline stated within his mind.
“I know,” he responded, watching as the others continued their preparations. Sasha hadn’t been happy about having to participate, but she’d agreed that it was the best plan.
“Her soft heart is working against her,” Eveline pointed out. “She’s made friends with many of your citizens, and she knows that she can save them. That’s worth more than your little speech.”
“It wasn’t a speech,” Zeke said. “I just told her the situation.”
“Sure.”
Zeke resisted the urge to shake his head, but both he and Eveline knew she was right – as was usual. For all that he resisted her influence, he couldn’t deny that, without her, he would have long since been lost.
After everyone had settled on a plan of action, they all went off to make their own preparations. There were materials to gather from storage, defenders to organize, and a spell to create.
For his part, Zeke mostly had nothing to do, so he settled down in the center of the tent and began to meditate. It didn’t work, though. Of all the battles he’d fought, the stakes had never been higher than they were concerning the assault on Eldoria. He just hoped it went according to plan. Otherwise, a lot of his people were going to needlessly die.
* * *
Ignatius peered into the glass orb, seeing only the barest flickers of movement within its abyssal depths. “What are they doing?” he growled. “I can’t see anything! Is this thing broken?”
“No, your grace,” said one of the mages. “They are too far for us to sense it properly, but we suspect they have enacted some sort of countermeasure against scrying.”
“And you can’t bypass it?! They are primitive beasts! What kind of mages are you?” he demanded. When one of them tried to answer, he cut her off, saying, “Never mind. Just…just go.”
The mages scurried out of the room, and he turned to one of his advisors. Another unqualified idiot. If Abigail had been there, he could have sent her out to ascertain the nature of the threat. But she hadn’t been seen since the ill-fated attempt to ambush the leader of the kobold horde. He feared that she, along with the rest of the Knights he’d sent, was dead.
That fateful day was when everything had changed. He’d overplayed his hand, sending nearly a thousand of his most powerful Knights. At the time, he’d thought it was overkill, but as it turned out, he should have sent even more. They’d all been slaughtered or captured, and what’s worse, Ignatius didn’t even know how many of the monsters they’d taken with them.
How large was the army arrayed against him? Ten thousand peak monsters was enough to have killed the Knights he’d sent against them, but he wouldn’t have been surprised if there had been double that number. He still didn’t know how they managed to move so quickly, and his own force had barely managed to make it back to Eldoria in time.
“How long can we last?” he asked the advisor.
“Regarding food and water, indefinitely. Some of the slaves may be forced to go on short rations, but citizens will have everything they need,” the advisor stated. “In terms of morale, the soldiers are ready to meet the enemy on the battlefield. The non-combatant citizens are understandably less enthusiastic about the coming battle.”
“And the defenses?”
“The runes on the wall are fully charged,” was the answer. “The mana batteries will last for at least a decade under heavy fire. Much longer, if the enemy lacks the power to tax it.”
“They have power. Their leader is known for shattering defenses,” Ignatius stated. It was due to that that he’d had Eldoria’s walls reinforced a dozen times over the course of the last couple of years. His craftsmen had been working on it ever since the fall of Adontis, and he had been assured that it would take the power of a god to knock them down. “Call upon the Siegemasters. We will attack at dawn.”