“You army types need to calm your tits. There’s no way walls this strong will fall, and we have enough food stored up to last us a whole season. I don’t see what you’re all shaking in your boots over.”
“Don’t talk about things you don’t understand, you idiot. You better not get assigned to my squad.”
Orders had been sent out that morning for all the guards in the city to meet at the four city gates the next day and get placed in various squads in the army to fill holes left by killed soldiers. Arlette believed that Supreme General Erizio Astalaria also wanted to establish tighter control over the guards by integrating them into the Army's existing power structure. Along with those orders had come the caveat that, should the Ubrans arrive that day, they were to meet up the moment that the Ubrans were spotted. And so, Arlette found herself at the north gate of the city, standing in a crowd of guards and soldiers, waiting to be assigned to her squad while trying to ignore the fact that she hadn’t been able to eat dinner before the horns blew. To help keep her mind off her empty tummy, she focused on the ongoing nearby conversation between a guard and a soldier.
“I’m just saying,” the guard replied, “that whatever happened in Begale won’t be happening here. I would know, I used to live there. These walls are far higher.”
“The walls weren’t the problem, you fool. They just came through the gate, busted it down like it was made of string and fluff. We didn’t stand a chance.”
“And I’m telling you, the gates and the traps we have installed here are leaps and bounds better than anything Begale had. See those slits all along the walls and ceiling of the arch?”
Arlette glanced towards the nearby gate. The four gates were the only ways into and out of Crirada, each one connected to the inside by a massive arched passageway through the wall wide enough that six full-sized wagons could drive through side by side without problems. All along the tunnel, Arlette could see slits and small holes in the stone, as well as a large slit in the ceiling by the nearby tunnel entrance.
“Let’s say that they somehow bust the gate open,” the guard continued. “If that happens, then we lower portcullises down on either end of the passage, trapping the Ubrans inside the tunnel. All those holes connect to rooms all around the passageway, where our people can wipe them out using arrows and fireballs and whatever. It’s a death trap. Doesn’t matter how many get in, we’ll kill them all.
“And that’s assuming that they even get through the gate in the first place, which they won’t. Do you have any idea how many Feelers it takes to open and close the gates here? It takes eight of us working the pulleys as hard as we can to move them. They’re thicker than I am tall and solid metal to the core, and the metal beams bracing them are each wider in diameter than a well-grown tree! You could give twenty Feelers a whole day with a battering ram and they wouldn’t make more than a dent. Meanwhile, we’ll be raining all sorts of doom down on them from up above. There’s nothing to worry about.”
The soldier let out a soft, scornful laugh. “You have no idea what we’re up against. Do you think we just sat there and let them walk into the city? No! They have a monster on their side, something stronger than any person could ever be. She ran up to the western gate and knocked it clean off its hinges in a single blow. We didn’t stand a chance.”
“Oh come on, the gates and walls are three times thicker here than in Begale,” the guard protested.
“All that means is that she’ll need three blows instead of one.”
“Then what, though? She’ll still get slaughtered in the passageway. I know Begale didn’t have any traps like what we have here.”
“Won’t matter. The monster can’t be killed.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s true. I saw her take a spear to the throat while at the same time getting disemboweled, and she took it like it was nothing. They say that death itself has no hold on her and that she’s taken a thousand killing blows but never fallen.”
“Come on, there’s no way one person could be so strong,” the guard said, laughing in disbelief. “You’re just messing with me.”
“If only that were so. You’ll see. If we hold a full day it will be a miracle.”
“Then... why even try?”
“What else is there to do but fight? If all running does is buy you another day of running in fear, is it not better to face your enemies with your head held high?”
“I just-”
“Attention!”
Suddenly the conversation cut off as all the soldiers stood up straight while a man in a fancy uniform strode out in front of the gathered crowd. He glared at the guards in the way that an annoyed father would glare at his misbehaving children until everybody was quiet. Then he spoke, loudly enough that all could hear.
“All right everybody, listen up! I am Major Berriaga, and I’m in charge of you sorry lot! We don’t have much time, so I’ll leave it up to your squad sergeants to explain the details to you. Once you are assigned a squad, that will be your new unit for the duration of the battle here. Your squads will be assigned a shift. While you are off duty, should you hear three horns, you are to report to your designated area immediately to fight off the incoming attack. Now I want you all to listen for your names. The orderly who calls for you will send you where you need to go. That is all.”
Without another word, the major strode off and his subordinates began to call out names. Arlette listened for hers, and it wasn’t long before a man called out “Lucana Domatin” and sent her off to the twenty-ninth squad. She approached the group of four and presented herself to the leader.
“Lucana Domatin, reporting for duty, sir,” Arlette said, snapping a crisp guard’s salute.
“Hmmm, welcome to Squad Twenty-Nine, guardsman,” the man replied, his eyes inspecting her from top to bottom. “I am Sergeant Vero Muga, but you can just call me Sarge. Pay attention and follow my orders to the letter, and you’ll fit in just fine here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So this is what we get to replace Askoa?” asked a scornful voice off to the left. “What a bunch of crock.”
Arlette looked over to find a somewhat well-built man in his mid-twenties with long, red hair glaring at her derisively. A large two-headed axe leaned against his right shoulder. Arlette felt her ire rise just by looking at him.
“We going to have a problem?” she asked, keeping her voice calm and cold.
“What’s this? Fresh meat’s got a mouth!” His grip tightened on his axe.
Raw anger began to build inside Arlette but she tamped it down as best she could. People like this, the small timers who acted like they were hot stuff, had always driven her crazy. Back in her Ivory Tears days, she would have told this loser to crawl back into whatever hole he spawned from, and when that inevitably led to a fight, she would have gleefully laid him out. But she couldn’t risk that anymore, not while she had bigger fish to fry. So, as hard as it was, she held her tongue.
“Knock it off, Lezo,” a short woman nearby snarled. “She’s here now and you’re just going to need to fucking get used to it.”
“Fuck off, Kima. You know I’m right. Look at her. She’ll never hold a candle to Askoa.”
“This asshole is Lezo Zambudio,” the sergeant said, completely ignoring his subordinate’s attitude as if it were the norm. “And the lady is Kima Escarain. They’re our two Feelers, and they handle the front line along with me.” The man patted the large shield strapped to his back.
Arlette studied the woman briefly, and the first word to come to her mind was “short”. She stood even shorter than Arlette, to the point that the spear she was currently leaning on was nearly one and a half times her size. Her black hair was cut to be little more than the width of two fingers. Yet the shortest thing about her seemed to be her temper, given the look she was currently giving Lezo.
“And that bundle of energy over there is Danel Ipizu, our Observer,” he continued, pointing towards a small, thin man with long, blond braids of hair falling down past his shoulders. The man was currently leaning against a nearby barrel, not even looking at anybody. Danel gave a slight wave with one hand, still not making eye contact with anything but the ground. “He doesn’t talk much. You’ll get used to it.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” she deadpanned. All in all, the squad seemed like a motley collection of weirdos and misfits, hardly the most impressive bunch. Then again, this was simply a normal squad in the Eterian Army, not some elite division or something. It made sense that these people would be mediocre soldiers.
“How about you?” Sarge asked. “You’re a Feeler too, I assume, since we’re down one Feeler.”
“I fight melee, single longsword, but I work best with hit and run attacks. Space is good. The more I can move, the better I can be.”
“Hmmmm, we can work with that,” he said with a satisfied nod. “So, our shift is the day shift for now, from three to thirteen.”
“Got it. Do you need me to stay with the squad or can I sleep in my house?”
“Well, we don’t exactly have a barracks here, you understand,” the man chuckled. “As long as you are where we need you when we need you, I don’t think there’s a problem.” He leaned in closer, his voice dropping low. “I mean, let’s be honest. The city won’t hold out for more than a day or two at most anyway.”
Arlette repressed a sigh. This was something she’d been worrying about since the Eterian troops had come marching through the gates, their heads drooping like wilted flowers. She’d put herself, and by extension Sofie and Pari, in harm’s way for one reason, and one reason alone: vengeance upon perhaps the one man who’d hurt her more than any other in her life. She’d stayed in this city to find him, stop his plans, kill him, and grasp revenge in the palms of her hands for perhaps the first time in her life. Only then would she no longer feel afraid for no reason in the middle of the night. But one thing she’d never considered was a world where Sebastian wasn’t needed. If the city fell tomorrow, she’d have endangered her life and the lives of people she cared about for nothing but a fanciful delusion.
“Then if you don’t mind, sir, I would like to head home and get some rest before tomorrow morning.”
“Very well, dismissed.”
Arlette snapped a salute and turned to leave.
“What, running away already?” Lezo quipped as she passed. Arlette clenched her teeth and kept her lips sealed. “Figures you’d be a coward. You’re a guard, after all.”
“Big words, coming from somebody who ran back here looking like his daddy spanked him.”
Shit. The words had escaped Arlette’s lips almost by reflex, and before she realized what she was doing it was too late and the damage was done.
“What was that?” the axeman growled.
“You heard me.”
“Don’t think you can act tough with me. You might like to pretend you got guts, but if you had any real courage you would be in the army fighting for the country. Instead, you decided to spend your days inspecting wagons and all that other sissy shit while the real heroes fight on the front line. You’re trash, and you know it.”
“You wanna go?” Arlette’s hand went to the pommel of her sword almost automatically as she looked up at the taller man, a glint of violence in her eyes. She’d had a feeling that it was always going to come to this. Maybe if she just put the loser in his place, she could put this shit to bed now.
“That’s enough, both of you,” the sergeant butted in, his large shield blocking Lezo’s way while a sword blocked hers. “Nobody is fighting anybody, especially now that the Ubrans are here. If you both somehow live through this, you can settle your stupid bullshit then. Understood?”
“...yes, sir,” they both reluctantly replied.
“Good. If I hear that either of you is getting after the other, I'll throw you both over the wall myself. Now get out of here, all of you. Get some rest and report to the top of the north gate tomorrow at three. Dismissed!”
----------------------------------------
“Back already?” Sofie asked as Arlette entered the house for the second time that evening.
“Food,” Arlette replied. Sofie handed Arlette one of her culinary creations, two pieces of bread with some meat and vegetables in between. Out of all the strange food ideas the younger girl had, this “sandwich” was perhaps Arlette’s favorite. Her stomach growling even as she sat down, Arlette began to wolf the meal down. “Where’s Pari?”
“She’s worn out from the day so I put her to bed early. But seriously, I thought you weren’t going to be back until the morning or something.”
“I got lucky,” she said between bites. “I’m on day shift, so I don’t need to go back until the morning.”
“So the Ubrans aren’t attacking? I thought it was a little too quiet.”
“Nah, they just got here, and probably were marching all day. You never want to attack when your soldiers are more exhausted than the enemy.”
“So... if they aren’t attacking now, they’ll attack tomorrow when you’re there.”
“Yep!” Arlette swallowed. “Though that doesn’t matter. Everybody who can fight needs to be on the wall when an attack comes. That reminds me. We need to talk about what you should do when there’s an attack. Whenever you hear three horns in a row, that means the Ubrans are coming. When that happens, you need to be ready to hide somewhere that they won’t find you, and you don’t come out until I come back. If the city falls and I don’t come back, I want you to stay hidden for at least two days. The Ubrans shouldn’t want to kill civilians, they want to conquer them, so as long as you are hidden during the conquest, you should be fine.”
Sofie frowned. “Don’t talk like that. You’re going to come back.”
“There are no assurances in the world, Sofie. Nobody’s invincible.”
A glum silence settled over the room.
“So what are your teammates like?” Sofie finally said. “Nice people?”
“They’re a bunch of assholes. One guy is a loudmouthed idiot, then there’s a woman who looks like she’ll bite your face off if you even breathe wrong around her, the support’s so busy looking at his own two feet that I doubt he even knows what his squadmates look like, and the sergeant seems like a bit of a pushover for somebody who’s supposed to whip the rest of them into shape.”
“Sounds like a pain.”
Arlette let out an amused snort. “Actually, it’s kind of nice. Reminds me of the good old days, dealing with all the idiots in the Ivory Tears. Anyway...” She got up and stretched. “I think it’s time I went to bed. I’m probably going to be out before you wake up, so remember what I said.”
“I will. Sleep well.”
----------------------------------------
“This isn’t right.”
“Hmmmm?” Arlette said to Sergeant Muga as she stared out at the massive sea of tents encompassing the city. The Ubrans had spread out over the night, setting up camps on all sides of Crirada so that the capital was entirely encircled.
“This isn’t what they did last time. Last time they didn’t surround Begale. They just set up camp to the west of the city, then attacked only the west gate. This is... different.”
“Isn’t this basically standard siege tactics?”
“Yes. But they didn’t use standard tactics before. They didn’t need to. You play by the book when you don’t have anything better, and they do.”
“The monster?”
“Right. Something’s off.”
Arlette considered his words as she stared out at the thousands of Imperial soldiers camped out to the north of the city. By her best estimate, the Eterians had perhaps two hundred thousand able bodies with which to defend the city, a strong, impressive force by almost any measure. But judging by just how many Ubrans Arlette could see, it was possible that the Eterians faced a force of perhaps a million troops, five times their number. Even with the defensive advantages of the wall, holding out against such overwhelming odds would be a daunting task.
That wasn’t to say that the defensive fortifications wouldn’t help immensely—they would. Large ballista emplacements all along the wall were poised to send large bolts of death hurtling down on the invaders, while metal containers filled something known as “Ocasta’s rain” were placed all down the wall for the defender’s use. Named after the first commander to use it in defense of a fortress, Ocasta’s rain was nasty stuff. It consisted of clumps of rags dipped in a special sticky, flammable liquid made out of who-knew-what. Once lit, the rag clump would stick to whatever it landed on and the flames were notoriously difficult to extinguish. When dropped from a wall down upon unsuspecting enemies below, it looked from afar like flaming raindrops plummeting towards the earth. As long as the walls and gates held, the defenders would be able to do tremendous damage to the Imperial attackers. But only as long as the walls and gates held.
“They’re getting ready,” Kima muttered, standing up on her tiptoes to see over the protective stone barrier that lined the outside of the wall’s walkway all around the city. The barrier stood up to Arlette’s shoulders, with slits every few paces for archers and whatnot to use for cover while attacking.
Kima was right, the camp was stirring, troops forming up into large orderly groups. Arlette’s grip on the barrier tightened as she realized just how many archers she could see. As somebody without a shield, it looked like she’d be relying on the stone to protect her. Other than archers, Arlette noticed a large number of soldiers holding long ladders, as well as an assortment of siege weapons she’d never seen before that looked like large wooden logs attached to a sling.
Suddenly, the sound of three long horn blasts from far off reached her ears. The Ubrans were making a move on the southern gate?! Then, only moments later Arlette heard the same signal from the eastern gate, and then the western one, and then a loud series of three blows from the horn nearby. Turning back around, she saw that the columns of Imperial soldiers were now heading her way. It seemed that they were going to be attacking on all fronts after all.
The battle began rather slowly, as the columns approached, their shields held high to block the rain of arrows launched from the wall. Soon the Ubrans were close enough to return fire, and Arlette had to duck against the barrier to avoid the sudden barrage. Others protected themselves with shields, though not entirely successfully—she heard several screams and saw a few people fall to the ground clutching their legs. Strangely, she found herself wishing for Ubrans climbing over the wall. At least then, she’d be able to do something, rather than focus on her helpless uselessness. The attackers would also likely stop shooting their arrows, as they’d be just as likely to hit their own.
The area was beginning to get noisy as soldiers shouted orders, fireballs flew overhead, and the screams of thousands of Ubrans signaled the start of the first escalade attempt. A loud clanking sound signaled the firing of a nearby ballista.
“Incoming!” a nearby soldier cried. Arlette peeked up over the barrier for a quick second and swore, scrambling to her right as a large, flaming boulder bigger than her body sailed right towards her previous position. With a loud “CRACK!” it collided with the top half of the barrier, shattering both the barrier and itself and scattering balls of fire around the nearby area. A series of screams could be heard as dozens of similar projectiles collided with the barrier and the walkway.
Arlette peeked above the wall again, this time to take a better look at the siege weapons that had launched such dangerous projectiles, and swore again. How were they so far away? They were beyond even ballista range!
As she watched, a metal ladder swung up to rest against the barrier about twenty paces to her right. Then a second one popped up ten paces to her left. Quickly, Arlette ran to the nearest container of Ocasta’s rain and grabbed two handfuls before returning to her spot. Arlette put them down beside the barrier and grabbed one. She pulled a bit of cloth out so it was hanging down below the rest of the clump, peeked down at the frothing sea of Ubrans below to search for a target, lit the hanging piece of cloth, and then tossed the whole clump over just as the larger mass caught fire. Timing was important when dealing with Ocasta’s rain. If you dropped it too early, you were just throwing a sticky bunch of rags. If you threw it too late, the residue on your hands would light as well, and then your hands would be burning with no good way for you to extinguish them without a water Observer nearby.
“Incoming!”
Arlette looked up again just in time to see the siege weapons activate, their central pole rotating towards the walls like a person’s arm, the sling whipping up and around like a wrist and flinging another volley of flaming rock her way. She had a bad feeling about them; their range was absurd! Luckily, this time none of the rocks were headed directly for her position.
All around her, soldiers worked their hardest to fight off the incoming Ubrans. Some, like her, threw Ocasta’s rain, while others simply shot arrows or flung their own created fireballs, rocks, icicles, and the like. The Feelers clustered around the many ladders that now rested against the wall, using their might to try to push the ladders off the side, while Feelers down below fought back. Her side had the advantage in terms of leverage, but the Ubrans could concentrate more people around the ladders down below than the Eterians could up top. Over the din of the battle, Arlette could make out the “wham!” of a battering ram beating against the north gate off to the north, reminding her that this was a multi-front battle.
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All around the city, the same fighting was going down as the attacking Ubrans would try to push for weak points in the Eterian defense and create a breach wherever they could. Arlette hoped that Supreme General Astalaria was as good as people claimed, because holding off a tide of soldiers from all sides simultaneously was no simple task. It would take somebody of superlative skill to manage such a feat against such overwhelming odds.
“Incoming arrows!”
Arlette ducked down behind the barrier again as another wave of pointed death crashed against the walkway. More screams came this time than the last. She looked about for her squad but found that they were all crouching together like she was about forty paces away. She should probably join them, she figured. Ubrans would be atop the wall pretty soon, and they were supposed to be together so-
“Incoming!”
The shout interrupted Arlette’s thoughts and she glanced back towards the siege weapons as half of them swung about again. Their payloads arced through the air towards the wall, but they weren’t flaming boulders this time. She squinted at the projectiles for a moment as they came closer, trying to figure out what they were, before nearly rearing back in shock.
What in the world?! People! They were throwing literal people at the wall! Were these people insane? Who would willingly sign up for such a thing?!
As the incoming live projectiles sailed near, they opened up some sort of cloth sheet which billowed out behind them, catching the air and slowing them down just enough for most of them to land on the walkway without killing themselves, though Arlette did spot one who overshot and tumbled screaming down the inside of the wall, the crazy fool. Within a moment, they had their weapons drawn and an all-out melee began around each of the Ubrans.
“Squads, form up!” somebody called, and the cry spread along the wall. Arlette hopped out of her spot and sprinted towards her squad, which, along with another squad, had engaged one of the Ubrans. This Ubran wielded two large swords, one in each hand, and it immediately became clear that he was quite strong. His movement speed and power easily outclassed his opponents’ and while he was losing the fight, he wasn’t losing anywhere nearly as quickly as a single person should when up against nine opponents.
The two squads were working well together, using teamwork to make up for their large individual power deficit. Sergeant Muga used his large shield and his sword to fence in the Ubran on one side, while Lezo did the same beside him. Kima twisted and ducked her way around the two of them, harassing the Ubran with spear pokes from odd angles, while Danel slicked the ground with ice, making it harder for the Ubran to maneuver. The other squad stood on the opposite side, using their own tactics to achieve the same goal. Still, the man would not go down easily, using the reach of his long, large swords to fend off the attacks and strike back when he could.
Arlette threw out three illusory throwing knives as she approached, sending them whizzing through the small gap between Muga and the other squad. Normally, she would have thrown at least one actual knife in amongst the fake ones, but she was afraid that if the Ubran dodged then she would end up hitting her own ally on the other side. Either way, she didn’t need the knives to connect, she just needed the Ubran to see them and react. He did, twisting himself to the side while bringing a sword about to deflect the one headed towards his side.
The action led to his doom, as in his panic to avoid the incoming projectiles, the man opened himself up to Lezo’s axe, which buried itself deep into his side, just below his armpit. A sword stabbed into his back moments later as the other squad struck as well. Just as Arlette was about to congratulate them, a loud series of “fwump” sounds off to her left caught her attention.
Turning towards the sounds, she found a second wave of thrown Ubrans landing on the top of the wall. These ones, however, had no weapons in hand. Almost by reflex, Arlette shifted towards the closest new Ubran, her right hand pulling out a real knife this time and whipping it towards the woman. The woman ignored the incoming weapon as she concentrated, the knife burying into her hip. Arlette was right behind the knife and nearly upon her when suddenly a large volume of strange liquid shot out from in front of the woman, spraying the entire area, especially Arlette, who took a large amount of it square in the face and chest.
Arlette gritted her teeth and swung her sword with her eyes closed, feeling the blade sink deep into flesh. The torrent of liquid lessened but did not stop, so Arlette yanked her sword out and swung again. This time she felt her opponent crumble and the spray stopped.
Arlette opened her eyes, feeling fortunate that she’d managed to close them just before getting blasted in the face. She’d gotten lucky. Normally, the pain of being stabbed with a knife was more than enough to stop an Observer from manifesting. However, it seemed that this person had been drugged or something to ignore pain, as she hadn’t cried out or even made a noise during any of Arlette’s three attacks. Instead, she’d continued to spray this liquid as much as she could. If the woman had been able to make fire or something else deadly, Arlette would have been dead. But instead, she was just coated in this slick, viscous... oil?
Arlette took a sniff. Yes, this was oil. Oil observers were rare, especially since there wasn’t much use for them. What few there were usually made a living creating lamp oil for those rich enough to own oil lamps. What was one doing on the battlefield?
Arlette looked about and saw squads cutting down the other Ubran Feelers and Observers. Strangely, it seemed that the other enemy Observers she could spot were also oil observers, each spraying as much area as they could with as much oil as possible before being taken down. Strange. This entire tactic had been a suicide mission from the start. The Feelers, while strong, were nowhere near powerful enough to break so many Eterians on their own. It was as if they had been sent to do nothing more than buy the Observers time, as if the whole point of it all was the cover as much of wall in oil as possible, even at the cost of their lives...
Oh no. Arlette turned back towards her squad and began to run, peeking back for just a moment to see exactly what she’d feared was coming: another massive volley of arrows, but this time the arrows were on fire.
“Get behind me!” Sergeant Muga cried, holding his large shield aloft. Arlette obeyed, sprinting as fast as she could towards her only chance at safety. Perhaps her top half getting blasted with oil actually ended up saving her life, as it had blocked the oil from covering the ground behind her. In fact, that was the only area around not covered in the slippery liquid. She dove the last few paces, rolling behind her commander’s wide metal shield just as the wave of arrows landed.
All across the city the wall burned, flames shooting high into the air. Smoke poured out, filling the sky, enough that Arlette could see that fires raged all the way across Crirada’s walls. The Eterians were in chaos as entire groups of defenders were cut off from each other by burning ponds of oil. That was when the first Ubrans crested the walls.
“Forward!” Sergeant Muga shouted. “We must hold as many off as we can!”
Together, the squad ran towards the outer edge, Arlette right with them, though making sure to avoid the flames so she wouldn’t become a human torch. Other squads made their way towards the outside barrier as well, but nowhere near enough to stop the Ubrans from getting safely onto the walkway.
Arlette split off from the others slightly and charged a man wielding a spear, a second Arlette splitting off to the left. The man didn’t know which one to focus on, and Arlette was able to slide beneath the spearhead as he swung awkwardly at both of them. Her sword flashed out, severing his arm. With a quick twirl, she spun about and embedded a knife into his throat. One down, but even so, in the time it took for her to kill the man, two more Ubrans had crested the wall.
Rolling to the side as a hammer slammed down where she’d been just a moment before, Arlette hopped back and threw three knives at the newcomer, one real and two fake. The man flinched back as he saw the blades flying towards him, Arlette coming in right behind them. He swiped his hammer in an arc that swept through the path of all three knives, knocking the real one away, only to find one sword arcing towards his throat while the other went for his knee. Human instinct overrode training and he brought his hammer up to block the blade approaching his neck, only for it to pass through the hammer’s shaft as if it wasn’t real. It wasn’t. The man fell over as a sword sliced through his left knee, severing the tendons and ligaments. Arlette brought her sword, the real one this time, down into the prone man’s throat.
Arlette tugged at the sword, trying to pull it from the now-dead soldier’s neck, but it was jammed in there pretty deep and wouldn’t come out. Putting her foot on his skull, she tugged for a moment before releasing the blade and throwing herself to the ground as a ball of fire sailed through her last position. Shit. With the upper half of her body soaked in oil, just a single speck of flame would be enough to put her in mortal danger. She was fortunate that the oil burning along the wall was largely concentrated to the inner two-thirds of the wall in order to give the oncoming Ubrans room to gather on the wall, or there would have been no place for her to fight.
Pushing herself into a crouch, Arlette spied the fire Observer as she hopped down from the outer edge of the wall. The woman already had another ball of flame forming. From her crouch, Arlette hurled one of her four remaining knives at the Ubran woman, along with three illusionary blades this time, but the woman seemed ready for it and easily stepped aside. Perhaps she had seen Arlette’s tactic when she’d used it a moment ago against the hammer-wielder. The Ubran woman sent her new flame hurtling towards Arlette, who once again dove out of the way, but this time the flame burst into a multitude of smaller flames just a few paces in front of Arlette. Just one of the smaller flames caught Arlette right by her lower left side, but one was all that was needed. The oil began to burn.
In a panic, Arlette rolled along the ground, but the flames continued to grow. She could feel the feel her skin begin to sizzle. Quickly she pried her cuirass off and then ripped off her oil-soaked shirt and her undershirt as well. Another fireball sailed her way. Summoning all her strength, she threw herself clear, rolling and patting herself to put out the flames as best she could. To her relief, most of the oil had been on the clothes and armor, which were now blazing piles a few paces away. It seemed that she’d managed to put out the fire on her own body before it reached her face and hair, meaning she’d escaped sure death with only a severe burn to her side.
There was only one problem: she was sitting on the ground on her rear, in no position to evade, and the Ubran had another fireball about to head her way. Arlette began to twist, trying to roll to the side and avoid it, but she knew that there was no way she’d be able to get completely out of the blast radius. But just before the woman released her flames, she rocked back and the fire sputtered out. A large icicle as long as Arlette’s forearm and just as thick, protruded from the woman’s chest, piercing her heart. She fell over, dead.
Arlette traced the angle of the icicle back to its source and found Danel looking back at her. He nodded and turned back to helping the other squad members.
Of course. Arlette had gotten so used to fighting on her own the last few seasons that she’d forgotten how to fight as part of a team and had overextended herself to nearly deadly results. Quickly she got to her feet and ran to the corpse of the hammer-wielding Ubran, successfully pried her sword from his neck, and went to join her squad.
Together they fought, the five of them, along with the other valiant defenders, now as a team. The three Feelers engaged the enemy while Danel provided support, shooting out icicles when he had an opening. Arlette alternated between the two roles, sometimes engaging an enemy in melee combat when needed and other times stalking about the group, waiting for the right moment to throw a knife or charge in and strike.
They made a good team, all things considered, but as time went on, Arlette couldn’t help but come to the conclusion that their fight was a hopeless one. The numbers were just too great. She and everybody else on the Eterian side were about to run out of energy, while the Ubrans kept coming and coming with no end in sight. The defenders were slowly being pushed back, trapped between an ever-increasing number of Ubrans on the wall in front of them and the still flaming lake of oil behind them. Arlette could already see how this was going to end. It was going to take a miracle to keep Crirada from falling before the day was done.
But then, over the din of the battle, over the battle cries and the screams of the injured and the still-constant “wham!” of the battering ram against the north gate, Arlette heard a roar off in the distance. The roar was answered by a chorus of other roars, all off to the north. Arlette paused. She knew that roar; she’d heard it once before. There was no way she would ever forget the low, growling, furious howl of a jaglioth.
“It can’t be!” Sergeant Muga exclaimed. “Kutrad comes!”
Arlette couldn’t believe her eyes. Charging south towards the northern Ubran camp came a wave of jaglioths, dozens and dozens of them. On each of the ferocious, gigantic man-eating beasts rode two people. Surging southward was the pride and joy of Kutrad’s military, the Jaglioth Cavalry.
Jaglioths, with the mass of ten or more men each, were not made for long journeys and were normally quite slow, but when one got up to its impressive top speed, little could stand its way. The oversized predators swept through the Ubran camp, tearing through tents like they weren’t there as Ubrans scattered like leaves in the wind. Within moments they made it through the camp and washed over the siege weapons, the soldiers atop the terrifying beasts launching fireball after fireball to turn the weapons into little more than glorified bonfires. Then finally, they crashed into the sea of Ubrans closer to the wall, bowling them over like insignificant twigs.
Faced with this sudden onslaught from the rear, the Ubrans broke and ran retreating towards the east and west as the Eterians fought and rooted them on. Suddenly, the Ubrans atop the wall found themselves without reinforcements.
“They’re trapped up here now!” somebody shouted. “Let’s wipe them out and see another sunrise!” A deafening cheer followed, and the Eterians surged forward with renewed vigor.
----------------------------------------
Arlette slowly made her way home as the sun set, her body aching. Now that the battle was over and the adrenaline had worn off, the pain she'd been ignoring for the past hours could no longer be ignored. She hurt all over, from the burn on her side to several long cuts on her arms and legs. Still, all things considered, not too bad a result for a battle that long and heavy. Within a few days, she’d be fully healed.
As they had fought against the remaining Ubrans on the wall, the Jaglioth Cavalry’s charge had eventually petered out; jaglioths couldn’t keep that sort of momentum up for long. Still, by breaking the attack on the north wall, the Kutrad forces had freed up the Eterians in that area, allowing them to send large-scale reinforcements from that area to the other three-quarters of the city. Soon after, two long horn notes sounded from the west Ubran camp and the rest of the Ubran attackers had pulled back. The battle, at least for the day, was over.
Arlette shivered. Kima had been kind enough to loan Arlette her coat to cover up her naked top half, though not before a few choice comments from Lezo. The smaller woman’s coat, while helpful, was still not enough to ward off the winter evening’s chill.
As she walked, Arlette pondered the day’s events. The battle had been very straightforward, with the Ubrans relying on numbers and some interesting tactics but little else. No knives in the back, no sabotage, no Sebastian. Was he truly here? No! He was here. He had to be.
There had been no sign of the unkillable “monster” either, for some reason. It made no sense. Why, after she had apparently brought every other city to its knees in just a few hours, would the monster not appear now, for the most important battle? Were the Ubrans holding back? Or was there another reason?
Arlette mentally shrugged. Such matters were of little concern to her. Either the monster would show up or she wouldn’t, and there was little Arlette could do about it either way. Arlette was more concerned with her own goals, anyway.
“Are you really a guard?” an unfamiliar voice asked off to her side. Arlette froze, her head whipping about to find Danel leaning against a wall in a nearby alleyway, his violet eyes staring unsettlingly into her own.
“What are you talking about?” Arlette asked, playing the clueless guard role as best she could.
“It’s fine, I’m just curious is all,” he said looking about. “Don’t worry, we’re alone.”
“No really, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Arlette protested.
“Let’s be real, Lucana, if that is your real name,” the blond-haired man replied. “No guard has that many battle scars. No guard has even a fifth as many battle scars. You aren’t really a guard. Or at least, that wasn’t what you did until recently.”
Arlette’s hand slowly inched towards the handle of her sword at her side. “And what do you think I used to do?”
“I don’t know, fight battles, destroy a city, run from bounty hunt-”
Arlette’s sword flashed forward, coming to rest against Danel’s throat. “Who sent you?” she growled.
Danel backed up against the wall, his hands up in a pleading position. “Woah, woah, hold on. I didn’t mean anything-”
“Who. Sent. You.”
“Nobody sent me. I’m just a guy, that’s all. Just a soldier in the army.”
“Bullshit!” Arlette’s foot lashed out, catching the man square in the gut. He gasped as he bent over in pain.
“It’s true!” he wheezed. “I’m just a guy who likes puzzles, and you...”
“I’m what? A puzzle?”
“Yeah. You didn’t make any sense. You’re way too competent for a guard, and the way you fight, I’ve only ever seen one person fight the way you do, four years ago when my old squad was helping round up some bandits with a few mercenary bands. But that person is supposed to be dead, so I got curious. You’re a mystery.”
“You were watching me during the battle?”
“I’m the squad Observer. Keeping an eye on all my squadmates is part of the job. Look, if I had anything against you, wouldn’t I have just let you burn to death instead of saving you?”
The man had a point, though Arlette was loath to admit it. Still, she kept the point of her sword to his neck. “What do you want?”
“Like I said, I was just curious. Now that I know that you’re... you, I just want to know how you’re still alive. I need to fill in the pieces, is all, or it will bother me for the rest of my life.”
“Sorry, but I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Oh, come on. Maybe I can find a way to help you or something? What are you even doing here, anyway? The bounties said you were Gustilian.”
“I’m hunting.”
“Hunting what?”
“That’s none of your business. What’s with you, anyway? Aren’t you supposed to be the one that barely talks to anybody in the squad?”
“Well, you’re not like them. You’re... interesting.”
“Look, I’m going to say this once, and that’s it. Stay out of my way. And if you tell anybody about this, I will end you and everybody connected to you. So back off.”
“Alright, alright. I get it. Just tell me this: is what you’re doing going to hurt our side?” He stared again into her eyes as he asked the question.
“No.”
“Alright, I believe you. I’ll keep my mouth shut around the others. But maybe when this is all over, you’ll let me know how you survived your own execution, yeah?”
Arlette lowered her sword. She knew that it would be safest for her to kill anybody who knew her true identity, but she couldn’t bring herself to kill somebody who’d done nothing against her just for the crime of figuring out who she was. “...I’ll think about it.”
Danel smiled a warm smile. “I look forward to it. Well then,” he said as he stepped away, “I’ll see you on the wall.” Then he turned the corner, leaving her alone again.
Arlette resumed her walk back to her house, now feeling far more paranoid than before. If a random person could figure out who she was, then Sebastian would figure it out eventually. She needed to find him and finish this, and soon.