Saryn zoomed through the obsidian palace on all fours, running between legs and slipping behind tapestries as only a feline could. Though she took care never to touch the plate armored guards or annoy these humans. They did not belong to her, and paid zero fealty to the house of Green. Running through the corridors she evaded Orion, nimbly dodging his human form while Lyra ran on all fours behind her, crying out ‘sorry’, ‘excuse us’, and ‘where did that little twerp go!’. A fitting announcement for Saryn’s debut on the battlefield.
She bore her fangs, racing across the open courtyard to scale the obsidian walls. Tragically, the obsidian rebuked her claws, causing her to skitter ten feet up the wall and lose traction, slipping down it.
“Stupid wall.” Muttered Saryn, dashing towards the nearest stairs. Soldiers came and went on the steps so she was forced to run up the bannister, Then hop the remaining ten feet to reach the ballistae nest she’d been so eager to see. Yet the engineers were standing idle, watching their fellow warriors die beyond their reach.
“Idiots!” Shouted Saryn, spooking the menage-a-twats. “Don’t just stare! Load a bolt, deliver our fury before the enemy comes here!’
“Oi, I think a cat is talking Jerry.”
“Shuddup and start cranking.” Said another man, grasping his own half of a mechanism and smiling mischievously.
“Pick a target little missus, I’ll bet you a day's rations we’ll hit the target and it won’t be ‘armed.” Said the third man, picking up an untipped shaft of pointed wood.
Easiest bet I’ll ever win. Thought Saryn.
“I’ve got a gold coin for every target who survives. Just let me pick em.” She ordered, brandishing two gold coins. Her bravado made the men chuckle, kicking off a strange bout of terrible singing.
'Eave-'o, the sinew groans,
Crank it back till marrow moans!
Up she goes, wi' iron's grace,
Aim 'er well, lest she disgrace.
Stone an' steel, let fly, let fly!
Let t'heavens 'ear our cry!
A crack, a boom, a bloody plume,
Send 'em swiftly to their doom!
“At your leisure.” Said the head engineer, a smug look on his face, as if he’d already won her entire purse.
Saryn pounced, landing atop his shoulder. Her lithe weight barely moved him and he gave a concerned side eye towards her claws, surprised to see his shirt undamaged. Yet the fun was only beginning.
“Aim at that bear, the one with walrus flippers.”
“Aye, flipper the bear, that on’s a demon maam. Sure you’ve got ta gold to throw away? Shot ten bolts at bloodless ones like ‘im.”
“Doesn’t matter, just aim true.” Ordered Saryn, reaching out and touching the shaft with her finger, careful to keep it out of the ballistae string’s path.
“Got him lined up, now move your fingers lest the string rips em off!”
Saryn tapped into her magic, engulfing the shaft of fletched wood in flaming shadows.
“Oh shit.” Whispered the engineers in unison, pulling the trigger in surprise.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
String whooshed forward, launching the bolt three hundred yards, a distance that Saryn pictured within her mind. She wasn’t enhancing the bolt’s capacity for damage, no, she was using it to deliver a poisoned pill. Her darkness was a shield, reducing air friction around the spear while she mentally guided the dart. It collided with the bear, flames vanishing, as the dart entered behind the bear’s front shoulder. It shuddered, stumbling sideways. The darkness and flames vanished, with the flipper bear turning to growl at Blackwood Castle.
Then it exploded. Fire bursting from its eyes, ears, and mouth. The eight knights it had been toying with cheered, finding the courage they had lost. While the two mortal bears who were following the demon scattered, fleeing the battle.
“Lass, do that again.” Said the eldest engineer, breaking into his own song. The engineer’s way of coordinating with each other. Siege machinery could tear off a hand, so the songs were an important way of keeping everyone moving to the same tune. Zigging and zagging without the loss of digits.
Wind the winch an' load the beast,
Set the bolt, a savage feast!
Let the might o' cord an' wood,
Make our point well understood.
Bolts o' iron, sharp an' true,
Whistle death as they pursue!
Wiv a twang, a snap, they sail,
Pierce the foe, 'ear 'em wail!
Saryn enchanted the bolt, and the master engineer sent it, this time a demonic hellhound exploded. Chaos reignited as the battlefield began to shift against the monsters. For every shot was a guided explosive. Each bolt slew a demon, scattering the mortal monsters that seemed tethered to Pandora’s monstrous subcommanders. The engineers aimed well, and selected targets that cleared paths between the surviving warbands. Allowing the captive remnants of the three thousand to band together, growing in numbers and momentum with every ballista bolt. Still, it was only a fragment of the army, and this solitary ballista soon expended her darts.
When they ran out of darts, the surrounding engineers provided theirs, alternating winding duty to keep the ballista firing.
“A dozen demons slain.” Muttered Orion, quickly lending his own power to the bolts.
“Keep going Saryn! Shoot the bad doggies!” Cheered Lyra.
Once victorious demons had failed to finish the slaughter. Their tormentous trap for Hamilton now became their undoing as they were picked off by guided ballista spears. Their encirclement broke, allowing whomever had endured to pick up their arms and wounded brothers. And soon there was a trickle of men heading for Blackwood castle.
Without demonic coordination, monsters scattered, turning upon each other as their loyalty was tested by the scent of blood and fresher prey. Hellhounds hunted bears, deinonychus ganged up against wyverns. Talons slashing into their unprotected wings before being slashed to pieces and run through by venomous stingers. Scything insects hacked into anything they could, wounding humans and demons alike.
But there were far more demons on the field than humans.
Total defeat ebbed away, with squads of men carrying wounded towards Blackwood Castle. But a hundred survivors barely registered against the tally of five thousand dead. An hour after Saryn began sniping, Nyota pushed her way onto the battlements, Cedric at her back. Together they joined the fray, Cedric incinerating any demons within range. While Nyota lent her lightning to the fray. Each bolt stopping the beastial hearts of a dozen creatures.
“Pew pew” and a score of demons melted into slag, forever poisoning the earth they died on.
Where the ballista’s bolts had proven lethal, lightning proved conclusive. Whatever demons remained in the wreckage fled, and with them so did their mortal counterparts, scattering to the four winds. Many foolishly ran towards Blackwood castle. An error that the defenders took full advantage of, mundane arrows and ballistae pierced hides and punctured eyes. Littering the field with corpses and clearing the way to safety for several hundred tortured men. They rushed into Blackwood Castle with all the speed of a three limbed puppy, dragging the few wagons they’d been able to preserve.
Eager for supplies and men, the gates were opened, allowing any who could reach them to enter. No wards were used, nor were any magi present to screen the newcomers, for they had all given up hope and gone to the hospital wing to aid with mana.
Several figures with hoods to cover their faces entered Blackwood Castle, carrying men who were already dead at their side. Each entered the gate and surreptitiously scattered, going their own way, for each possessed their own mission, and their own goals. Two headed for the stairs, exchanging their corpses for spears on their way to ‘rejoin the fight’. One slipped into the ballista nest, offering the spear to the ballistae crew, though it held the projectile backwards, aimed at Saryn’s heart.
The second shade maneuvered behind Lady Nyota, struggling to overcome its terror as she hurled bolts of demon slaying lightning across the open battlefield. Her aim never erring, nor her fury dwindling as she killed. Now the shade pressed closer, pushing through the press of humans, for they felt unease at the being’s passing, sensing its otherworldly malice, yet not comprehending the fallen man’s demonic nature.
These shades were tainted men. Those cowards who fled Pandora’s presence and fell to her corruption, forever doomed to suffer under her orders, and forever damned to her enslavements.
So they aimed their spears at felinid hearts.
The first at Saryn’s.
And the second at Nyota’s back, with none to stand between them.