Norman had finally managed to figure out how to power his AOE spells after nine days of exhaustive experimenting. Thankfully the plans Eugene and Grobert had implemented seemed to be working as there were no attacks by the Brotherhood during that time.
The delayed attacks also gave the stone masons time to lay down the magical arrays – yes there was more than one array – along the border of the town. Some spots weren’t covered as the array needed to be circular to function correctly but for the most part, the city was now safe from fire. The second array Norman had come up with was one that would hopefully save as many of the greykin as possible when an attack occurred.
The thing with arrays was they needed to be simple. The more complex you made it, the more power it required to perform the action it was intended to carry out. And even a simple array used a ton of mana. So all the second array did was check for a corpse without a soul. If that condition was met, the corpse was quickly whisked away into a spell anchor that Norman had hidden inside the town. He hoped that the array would store any of the greykin bodies before the enemy could damage them too severely, making it impossible for him to resurrect them.
Norman understood that this was a gamble since a fatal blow could very well be a brain injury, rendering his efforts pointless. But he had to try something to save as many of the people as possible from what was likely on the way.
The mood in town was a bit morose even with the lack of attacks, almost like everyone in town seemed to understand they couldn’t win against the Brotherhood, that they would lose eventually. That didn’t mean they gave up though.
It was one of the things Norman admired so much about the greykin. They had all experienced death firsthand, but they did not shirk away from fighting for their life tooth and nail if they had to. And Norman meant that literally. He had seen a greykin tear into a Brotherhood soldier with their teeth after having both his arms broken during the fighting.
Nobody had been idle during these nine days, Eugene had done a fantastic job of arming the civilians within Ashvale with steel-tipped spears. It wasn’t much but it was infinitely better than nothing. The next time the Brotherhood breached the gates, they would find only a wall of steel-tipped death waiting beyond them.
Which was exactly what Norman had accounted for when he finally came up with a solution for how to power the spell arrays. Every time one of the trigger conditions was met, the array would use a living and breathing soul to power it. That last bit was important, Norman didn’t want to be cannibalizing his own people to power the spell, but the enemies… that was perfectly ok in his book. And technically it wasn’t their soul, but their life energy. As a bonus, it would probably be horrifically painful for his enemies as their life energy was forcefully sucked from their bodies.
As for how Norman knew it wasn’t the soul being used to power the array, he had simply summoned the fire mage’s spirit, the one he used as a power source for Toby’s return to life. To say that had been an angry spirit was an understatement. But Norman took precautions and banished the man’s soul after he confirmed what he had wanted.
The city did need to keep a few of the local grazers along with those stupid snake horses they had captured as early sacrifices. If the enemy wasn’t able to breach the gates but people were still killed, the animals would be used to power the array. And since the spell was filled with Norman’s blood, much like those orbs he had handed to Grobert and Eugene, Norman was excluded from the effects.
Norman had taken one of the orbs and hidden it himself. His was a little different though, he decided to utilize his very scant supply of jorik blood to ensure it worked. There wasn’t time to test if his own blood could be used on the orb meant for him. It probably would be fine, but he decided not to take any chances. He probably could have gotten some of the greykin blood but Norman hadn’t done any extensive testing with that yet and was concerned it wouldn’t work the same way.
With the arrays set up and the orbs hidden, Norman and the city were as prepared as they could be. Now they only had to wait and see what the enemy would do.
He knew Eugene had sent a pair of the guard scouts to see if the trap had been triggered, but Norman wasn’t sure when they were expected to return.
It soon became clear that the waiting was the worst part of this whole war. Norman wished the Brotherhood would just attack and get it over with now that he was ready. But another day slipped past, then another. Two weeks passed since the last attack when Eugene came to Norman with good news.
“The trap was a success!” he said as soon as he entered the throne room where Norman was eating a bland bowl of oatmeal as he couldn’t stomach anything richer due to his anxiety over the next attack.
Norman slammed his spoon down on the table. “Finally some good fucking news. What took the scout so long to return?” Norman knew it shouldn’t have taken the man more than a day to get there and back but the scout had been gone for nearly a week.
“He was counting the bodies when some of the surviving Brotherhood nearly captured him. The scout was forced to lead them around for three days before he managed to throw the Brotherhood forces off his trail. As soon as he managed that, he hurried back.”
“Sounds like they aren’t happy about walking into our little trap. How effective was it?”
“The scout counted ten dead before he was forced to run. But he said there were more inside the cave.”
Norman rubbed his chin. “Not exactly a resounding victory, but it's better than nothing. Was the scout able to tell how many were chasing him?”
“At least three classers and a wind mage of some sort.”
Norman winced at that news. He knew the Brotherhood had mages from the last attack on the city, but he was hoping they weren’t as eager to deploy them after their last loss. Also if they had a wind mage and that beast handler, it would explain how they got around so quickly.
He knew elemental mages were pretty common – among those that had gotten callings at least – even among humans. Norman’s old boss was an ice mage, although not a very strong one at least compared to what Norman was capable of doing now. But who knew how strong the man was today, it had been over a year since he had seen him last.
As for wind mages, Norman hadn’t met one in person. He had read about them on the human internet, back in Colorado, when he was scouring it for information about being a necromancer. But as with all information pertaining to magic users, there was very little accurate information to go on. One thing people did agree on was that they could make themselves move faster, which wasn’t much of a stretch. If you could reduce wind resistance or use it to help push you along, of course, it would allow you to move faster.
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Norman would normally ask Grobert about this type of thing, but the man was busy in Grothlosburg again, trying to make this trade deal happen. It seemed a bit premature to have something like a trade deal in place before this war was concluded, but Grobert assured Norman that striking a deal now would rally the spirits of the people. He couldn’t disagree that it would increase morale around Ashvale, and it was something the people sorely needed, it just felt weird to think about trade deals with an ongoing war.
With Grobert out of town, Norman sought out one of the jorik greykin for answers. They tended to keep to themselves, still retaining a bit of their pretentious attitude from their former lives. Although it wasn’t completely unwarranted. The jorik were masters of most magic, only eclipsed by the gron and their magitech.
Norman found the little magical trinket shop, that the pair of jorik had set up, and entered the building. It reminded Norman of those mall jewelry stores, with glass display cases lining the walls. Only instead of hosting cheap mass-produced jewelry, the cases contained handmade items that looked straight out of a flea market. Not that that was a bad thing. Norman found the place rather enjoyable as he looked around at the quality items on display. A jorik came out from a back room and acknowledged Norman with a shallow bow.
“Greetings, Norman. What can we assist you with today? A magical necklace perhaps?”
The jorik refused to use any honorific for anyone, even Norman or his position, which Norman actually found refreshing. He hated people bowing and scraping and stopping everything to do what he asked. True, this jorik did bow, but it was a shallow head nod to an equal more than a sign of respect.
“Sorry, I’m not here to buy anything today. I was hoping you could provide me with some information?”
“Oh. And what sort of information could a lowly jorik, like me, provide?”
“Well, I’m hoping you can tell me what a wind mage might be capable of.”
“Hmm. I assume this is information about our mutual enemy and not just a passing curiosity?”
“Um, yes. But not sure why that would matter?” Norman asked with a bit of confusion.
“Oh, but it would. While I am willing to provide information for free in defense of the city, I would need to charge you if it was personal curiosity. A man cannot live on generosity alone after all,” the man said with a tight smile.
“Fair enough,” Norman muttered. “And yes, it's about our enemy.”
“As for what you seek, I only know little. As you may already know, we jorik do not specialize as you humans do.”
Norman did not know that but he remained quiet as the man continued.
“I personally know of a wind spell to speed my movement and to create a near-cutting gust of wind. Neither of these is very effective at any range due to how wind magic behaves. Still, I get more use of the movement one than I do from the attack spell. I can’t think of any wind spells that a human would have been able to master that would have any significant impact in the battle if that is what you are worried about.”
“So there are no spells that we should worry about?”
The jorik scoffed at Norman’s question. “I did not say that. A master mage could conjure a windstorm or tornado. But those would involve many times more mana than you humans have available, as well as decades of practice. No, if the enemy is going to utilize a wind mage, it will likely be to enhance their troops' speed and projectiles. Both are simple things for a wind mage of even human blood to accomplish.”
Norman ignored the jab at humans and thanked the jorik for the information before exiting the shop. He didn’t hold the jorik’s attitude against them, even if it did annoy him. It's how they were born and raised, always thinking they were better than everyone else due to their innate talents with magic. And to an extent that was true.
Although Norman knew from personal experience that those types of thoughts tended to go to people's heads and made them think they were better than they actually were. It was one of the reasons Norman never thought he knew everything and always struggled to learn and grow. If he just assumed he knew everything, he wouldn’t have developed half the spells he currently had.
After learning what he needed from the jorik, Norman returned to the castle. While he had all of the defenses in place that he was likely to come up with in the time they had, it didn’t mean he was just standing around and waiting for the attack. No, he was working on other spells that he had previously pushed aside while he focused on the more important ones for the defense of the city. That didn’t mean that he didn’t want them for himself though. More options for protection were always better.
Unfortunately, fate was a fickle bitch. As soon as Norman stepped inside his workshop, the bell announcing the arrival of their enemies started tolling. He grabbed extra spell anchors and activated his armor as he rushed back outside.
“Nolix! Send someone to alert Grobert of the attack.” The man nodded and swiftly ran to a small building on the property.
The building wasn’t anything special, just a telegraph system set up to help send messages to specific locations in town. One of those locations was the teleporter building. A guard would step through the teleporter into Grothlosburg and use the gron phone to send a message to Grobert before stepping back through the teleporter to Ashvale. Norman knew the message had gotten through because Grobert beat him to the wall.
“What’s happening? Norman managed to wheeze out as he caught his breath. He wasn’t hearing any signs of battle, but the walls were packed with greykin.
“It looks like the enemy has decided to siege us,” The man grunted.
“What? Why?” It seemed like a strange move, even to Norman who didn’t know shit about tactics.
The enemy had to know the greykin had essentially endless stamina and didn’t really need to eat for weeks on end. The smell would become a problem eventually, but really only to Norman, he could deal with that if it came down to it though.
“I’m not sure. Let’s find Eugene and see if we can get a better look.”
The two moved through the crowded streets as people stepped aside for them. They found Eugene at one of the watch towers with a pair of binoculars as he inspected the enemy forces.
Norman sucked in a breath as his eyes landed on the enemy. He didn’t even need the binoculars to see their force was massive.
“It's at least five thousand strong,” Eugene grunted. “but they only have a dozen of those knights. My concern is the twenty wagons they brought.”
Norman looked to where Eugene was pointing and accepted the binoculars. When he looked through them, he could see the wagons. Two of the wagons looked to be normally covered wagons, the rest were those siege wagons.
“Why are they deploying them so far away,” Norman mumbled to himself. Eugene adjusted where Norman was looking slightly and his eyes landed on one of the knights. When it did, he groaned in understanding.
It was the wind mage, he could tell by the dust kicked up by the errant gusts of wind whipping about the man. The wind was caused by the mage drawing in elemental mana to recharge. He now knew exactly what they were going to do. The mage would use their powers to effectively extend the range of their siege weapons without entering the range of the city’s defenders.
As Norman continued to watch, he saw the army splitting into three groups. The other two were moving to surround the other parts of the city. Norman really wished he had chosen a city location that was a bit more defensible, rather than for its picturesque beauty.
Soon after the army repositioned, he saw trees being felled in the nearby forests. The enemy was making siege ladders. With how short the walls were around Ashvale, it wouldn’t take them long.
“You aren’t going to like this, Norman, but I think you should bunker down in the castle.”
“What!” Norman turned on Eugene, his face red with anger, only for Grobert to put a calming hand on his shoulder.
“Eugene’s right. We can’t afford to lose you to a random projectile. Everyone else is… expendable.
Norman couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But he knew arguing against the pair was worthless and would only cause confusion, so he stomped off back to the castle. Eugene snapped his fingers and ordered ten guards to accompany him. That only made Norman even angrier. These were ten guards that could be put to better use guarding the wall, instead, they were stuck guarding him like some pampered princess.