“North wall!” Diane shouted as the walls shook with the thunder of giant boulders being thrown at them.
They have catapults. Of course they have catapults! Finn snarled in fury as he turned to race along the top of the wall, sword in his hand. Rosa leaped ahead of him.
The pair had barely had a couple of hours to recoup, gather their senses, and survey what was happening on the field below before the next wave of the siege had begun.
Durzog had split his army and brought up his ‘ogre-carriages’ through the gaps. In addition to the small teams of riders on their backs, the ogres were dragging rudimentary catapults behind them. They’d clearly been constructed out beyond the tree line.
There were so many of them, they had a seemingly endless amount of labor. Finn grimaced as he saw a large, dark shape arc high into the air—very high, he thought as he watched the boulder come down.
“Clear! Everyone back!” Diane shouted, but it was too late. The boulder slammed into the top of the wall with an explosion that ripped the battlements apart and took a line of fleeing Malvanite guards with it.
“No!” Diane screamed.
Those who had managed to escape staggered to hug the walls in terror.
“Finn! We have to do something!” Rosa skidded to a halt, looking down over the walls.
“Careful!” Finn grabbed the back of Rosa’s shirt and dragged her back as short, ugly arrows flew over the battlements. The walls were high, but the trolls were strong—and they had longbows.
Rosa growled in frustration as they waited for the hammer and crack of the arrows to fade. There were screams and shouts from their side as a few of the defenders on the walls were struck.
“Get them to a healer!” someone shouted.
Finn looked up and down the line of huddled Malvanites. They were scared. They had never been in a battle like this before. The monsters thrown at them by the Celestial Engines had met the walls and been easily dispatched. They lacked the experience, and Finn said as much.
“They’re going to get it now,” Rosa said, although her voice was full of the same misgivings. “They have an entire city, walls the like of which I’ve never seen. They have a good chance of surviving…if we can just even the odds,” Rosa said, waiting for the last arrows to hiss past. She twirled her staff to gather Air energy, waiting for the next of the catapults to fire.
Finn realized what Rosa had seen. Durzog was shifting his means of pummeling the walls.
This is a game of attrition, isn’t it? Durzog just had to keep them busy and wait them out.
There was a loud thwap from beneath as the next two boulders were sent flying, but Rosa was ready. She leaped into the air, higher than any normal human could ever leap, and twisted her body as she swept her magical staff before her.
She sent a burst of fierce blue energy surging toward the rising boulders, her magical storm catching them and flinging them to one side. One hit the wall where it was thicker, while the other struck the battlefield itself, ploughing through a line of five or six trolls.
Rosa landed with a gasp, her eyes gleaming from all of the experience she was amassing, Finn was glad for her, but he feared the worst.
She can’t keep this up for long. Neither of us can!
>
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> Name: Finn Callahan
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> Level: 26
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> Health: 576 / 776
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> Mana: 480 / 800
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> Stamina: 375 / 604
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“Finn! Take out the catapults, as many as you can!” Diane shouted.
What choice do I have?
Finn jumped up, activating his blade to send another Fire-bolt at the line of catapults, but this time being as careful as he could with his powers.
>
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> Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
>
> You have struck the Level 17 Troll Catapult for 200 points of damage.
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>
The flame struck the first of the giant wooden constructions, engulfing it. Finn grunted as he flicked his blade with both hands, sending a surge at the next in line.
The inferno continued to engulf the first, spattering over the ogres and the troll machinists before bursting over the next in line. The first catapult exploded under the onslaught, while the second was turned into a towering bonfire.
>
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> You have destroyed the Level 17 Troll Catapult. Experience awarded.
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> You have slain the Level 15 Troll Gunner. Experience awarded.
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The messages continued coming as more Trolls and Catapults fell to the flames, and Finn could see that his experience was shooting toward the next level. He wouldn’t make it now, but he would advance soon.
His Mana was dropping fast, though. He only had one powerful attack left, maybe two, but then he would have to take time to recover.
Something nagged at the back of Finn’s mind. He could almost see the solution, but didn’t quite grasp it.
Stars of Ascension, why didn’t I play more war games back on Earth! He had never had enough time, but just then, he sorely wished he had put the hours in when he had the chance. I would be leveling up a lot faster. Everyone would.
Being higher leveled made them stronger and gave them more abilities, but without rest, they would still not gain the amount of Mana needed for the big attacks.
“Diane! Does Malvas have catapults of its own?” Finn turned and asked as cheers and cries of victory spread along the walls. The raging fires below continued to burn and chase attackers away from the wall.
“Simple ones, much smaller,” Diane replied, nodding toward the south wall, where guards were using what appeared to be braided rope to fling what bits of masonry they had. “But they’re designed for when they’re at the base of the walls. We don’t have anything long distance, save for our bows and our magic.”
Our magic… Finn blinked. Of course. Malvas had to have a pretty impressive Hearthstone, didn’t it?
“How much Mana does your Hearthstone have? You have thousands of people here. Surely the stones capacity is large?!” Finn demanded.
Diane made a face. “Much of the Malvas Hearthstone is already committed to wall defense. Any attacker attempting to destroy our walls has to already fight through a pretty impressive shield, but with all of this bombardment, it’s going down rapidly! And the rest I am using as a health store for the guards!”
Finn nodded. It was a good stragegy, holding reserves back for a long siege like this, but it didn’t satisfy the fiery soul within him. He wanted large, destructive magic so he could slap Durzog’s horde so hard they decided to turn tail and run back to Termulain…
Back to Termulain… A thought poked at the back of his mind. There was something there, a weakness, wasn’t there?
“Durzog is a long way from home,” Finn murmured out loud.
The defenders had to scuttle to hide from another rain of arrows that struck sparks around them. Finn knew that both sides would get bored of this eventually. Durzog must know he couldn’t break the walls with arrows alone.
He must be buying time, but for what?
Finn shook his head. Rosa and Diane crouched on either side of him.
“They have a far larger army than we do,” Diane said.
“But you have the supplies to outlast him, right?” Rosa asked.
Diane shrugged. “I don’t know. They have the entire forests and fields behind them. They can restock their troops at any time.”
“No, they can’t,” Finn said firmly. Both women looked at him. “He’s a long way from the Termulain Trading Post, which is the marketplace for the Elder Realms in our own zone, right?” Finn placed his thoughts in order, one after the other, until they made sense. “I don’t know how the politics work, but with Blackwood, we faced random war-band and horde attacks as various chiefs and bosses were sent out by their realms. I think they had to be brave, or already heroes, or chosen for the task.”
“So Durzog was chosen to lead the trollish invasion of the New Zone?” Diane said.
That much was probably obvious, but it was more than that. Finn could feel the beginnings of an idea forming.
“Yes. I hope so. He managed to unify the zephyrs as well. He thinks he’ll take me, and he’ll take the largest realms here in the New Zone… But he might be overreaching, right? He’s a long way from Termulain, and an even longer way from his original home realm. That makes him vulnerable.”
“Oh yeah, some few thousand vulnerable, by the looks of it.” Diane made another face as she peered between the battlements at the armies below.
“Okay, he’s strong, I will admit that, but strategically, they’re vulnerable. They’ve come a long way to get here, and they must either have brought enough supplies to get them going or be scavenging in the forests. If we can disrupt that, then we’re looking at an enemy desperate to feed itself…”
Woo hoo! Some of that European Medieval History paid off after all!
“Well, how do you propose we do that?” Diane asked.
Finn scanned the battlefield. He could see seas of armor-clad trolls waiting for their turn to attack the walls. They were organized in columns with thick, malformed snakes that Finn guessed must be hiding ladders, or else trolls were really expert climbers.
There were cracks in the outer walls, and now there were several places where the top layer of blockwork had been entirely removed. There were at least two places where they had to create wooden walkways to replace the gaps…
But the walls of Malvas were still standing, at the very least. They wouldn’t fall any time soon, Finn thought. That meant Durzog would have to bring in his troops for a troll-to-man attack, which would be a bloodbath and put them at a severe disadvantage.
He saw the small groups of the ogres being loaded up with supplies to take to the front.
Supplies! Where was the food coming from? He tried to follow the lines of fast-moving trollics bearing crates and barrels back and forth, until he saw the tents at the back, right next to where the rest of the airships were moored.
“The airships,” Finn said. “They must be the ones ferrying supplies back and forth from Termulain. If we can take them out…”
“Those airships, you mean?!” Diane asked in horror as the two more of the available five rose to join the one circling the battlefield.
“Yeah, they’ll be heading east and southeast, I bet you. They’ll be heading back to Termulain, a journey I guess will take them a day or so…” Finn said.
The three airships banked and turned…then swept straight toward Malvas.