Two days after the incident in Dustreach, Daraken decided to take advantage of the situation to attack Furion. Or he would, in an hour. Turb was unfortunately not able to determine the composition of the attacking force, or their threat level.

Raiks knew that any attack would be taken out of the Black Legion's main camp in the Needle. Even though they were on the other end of the continent, portals would completely nullify the distance factor. The only reason they weren't using them to raid the Outer Regions was a lack of terrain knowledge, and maybe a desire for contiguous territory.

But taking forces out of their base left it more vulnerable to a counterattack. Darius and a few others were in the process of organizing a raid on the Black Legion's headquarters with the aid of a new contact in Arexia, and the perfect time to attack would be when a sizable chunk of their assets were deployed into a field operation.

Raiks had decided to build the defense force in Furion around ranged combat. The backup plan was to retreat, and it would be far easier to retreat from a ranged firing position than to retreat from the midst of a melee brawl. The core of his formation would be a dozen bolter-wielders and four archers, capable of raining a barrage of arrows down on any attacking force. Each of the archers were given several explosive arrows, to use against concentrated enemy formations, as well as some other trick arrows.

They would be supported in this by two field healers, and by Bouldos, a dwarven mage specializing in earthbending and stonecraft. Over the past few days, he had undertaken a project to replace Furion's wooden palisades with durable stone walls, and was currently almost complete. Even if the walls were not enough, he would have other means to slow down the attacking force.

Lorso and Silence were the most recent addition. Raiks still had his doubts as to whether the duo could be trusted, but they filled in some gaps in his current forces. Lorso could bombard enemies from the air and take advantage of an unprepared attack team, or provide additional medical aid to injured teammates. Silence, as a brawler, didn't fit well with the ranged strategy, but he was tough enough to stall enemies if they did get in melee range, and fast enough to get out of trouble on his own if he was about to be overwhelmed.

Unfortunately, Annabelle wasn't ready to return to the field yet. She claimed she was fine, but Lunima said otherwise, and Raiks trusted the healer's knowledge more than a soldier's eagerness.

He activated the command table, giving him an overhead view of the city and the area around it, and waited.

**********

A portal appeared, two kilometers distant from the city due to interference. The portal was massive, and the reason for that size quickly became apparent when the beast stepped through it. A Blade Wyvern was leading the attack.

The Blade Wyvern was a brutal land predator, a distant relative of the dragon that had vicious impaling tentacles instead of wings. It looked like a giant red-scaled monitor lizard with two tentacles jutting out in between each of its limbs. It had a tongue that could reach out and grab its prey, and its tentacles were sharp enough to rip through armor and slice men clean in half. They were somewhat intelligent, and incredibly difficult to domesticate and train; according to intel, this was one of three tamed Blade Wyverns that the Black Legion had obtained from a city in the Otherlands, through either trade or conquest.

Platforms were mounted on top of the wyvern, carrying about a dozen men. It was also carrying an unusual arcane focus on its back, a glass sphere hovering above a pedestal, operated by one of Daraken's apprentices. Further, it was supported by a throng of undead skeletons, marching in front of the beast, armed with various melee weapons.

Raiks ordered his forces to organize on the side of the city that the attack was coming from. At the same time, he gave the go-ahead to Darius to begin his operation. As the results of that operation were irrelevant to the battle at hand, he did not monitor Darius' force further.

The monster advanced at a speed far slower than what it was capable of, being forced to match speeds with its far slower skeletal guards. At about half a kilometer from the walls, the Blade Wyvern stopped entirely. The enemy apprentice channeled energy into the arcane focus, and it began to glow with a yellow light.

It's a siege weapon, Raiks realized, even before the focus discharged a bolt of energy towards Furion's new walls. A burst of yellow light emanated from the impact point. It seemed to have no effect at first, but then the wall crumbled and collapsed. Thankfully, none of his soldiers were dumb enough to stay on that wall, and they dashed off of the collapsing section to escape harm. Bouldos attempted to repair the damaged wall section, but the stone collapsed again each time he moved it back into place. Bouldos claimed that whatever had been done had rendered the stone unuseable.

It fired another blast into the walls, blowing another hole. Then, the skeletons charged forth. It was a simple strategy: destroy the walls to leave the Resistance vulnerable to melee, then send troops that were resistant to projectile weapons. If it succeeded, Daraken would avoid having to commit a giant monster, and could avoid causing collateral damage.

"Lorso, see if you can take that siege weapon out from the air. Everyone else, get off the walls and prepare for close combat." He couldn't risk anyone being caught in a collapsing wall segment, and he didn't want to know what the weapon's effects would be on a human target.

Lorso launched herself high into the air, and threw a fireball towards the Blade Wyvern. The fireball detonated against a magical barrier, having no effect on the Blade Wyvern or its riders.

The wyvern's siege weapon attempted to fire on Lorso, but missed the small airborne target by a wide margin. The mage operating the weapon left his position, and engaged Lorso himself. A bolt of black lightning arced from his hands, and shot across several hundred meters of intervening distance to impact Lorso.

She was briefly stunned, and knocked into a freefall which she quickly turned into a controlled dive. She briefly engulfed herself in flame (or, more accurately, a self-healing burst that looked like flame). The mage fired off another lightning bolt, but Lorso blocked it with a jet of flame, before retaliating with another fireball that was blocked by the magical barrier around the Blade Wyvern.

As the skeletons moved into range, Raiks advised his soldiers to aim for fully-charged shots to the head, the only part of the skeleton that could reliably be hit by an arrow or bolt at range. A few of the skeletons were brought down by ranged fire, but they were still mostly unaffected by the barrage, and closed in on the two gaps in the wall.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Luckily, Raiks had more than just archers and crossbowmen.

On the left flank, Silence stepped forward to engage the skeletons. Skeletons, despite being resistant to piercing or cutting, were quite vulnerable to blunt force, a fact that Silence took full advantage of to dismantle the skeletons that approached the chokepoint. He was hit several times by their weapons, but pushed through the injuries, seemingly unconcerned.

On the right, Bouldos collapsed a section of the wall onto the breach, crushing half a dozen skeletons that pushed through and isolating several more on the other side. While the skeletons in the back climbed over the new rubble, the isolated ones in the front were overwhelmed by focused fire, and barely even got to melee range before they were brought down. Once the skeletons managed to climb over the wall, Bouldos then launched the rubble backwards, destroying even more of the skeletons, and buying enough time for Silence to rush over to that flank to finish off the survivors.

After the skeletons were defeated, the Blade Wyvern advanced, but this time at speed. Despite its relatively short legs, it was able to rush forwards at an incredible speed, and with enough momentum that it could most likely shatter whatever section of the wall it hit.

Silence, in response to this, picked up a large chunk of rubble and chucked it at the Blade Wyvern. The anti-projectile shield around the Blade Wyvern flared up to block the hit, but the impact force still hit the beast, staggering it and slowing its charge.

"Silence could use a few more rocks," Lorso said. Raiks relayed the order to Bouldos.

Bouldos used his abilities to create several more large rocks for Silence, and he picked up the largest one. He seemed to struggle just to pick it up at first, but then, as the Blade Wyvern recovered and resumed its charge, he found his strength and threw the boulder into the shield. The wyvern saw the attack coming and braced, and again the force of the boulder was deflected off of the shield.

"I'm going to need to synchronize attacks, " Lorso said, likely more for the benefit of Raiks than for actually communicating the plan with Silence. She levitated up from behind one of the walls, and began charging a powerful attack.

"She's vulnerable, " Raiks commented. "Bouldos, see if you can give her some armor, without causing her to drop out of the sky."

Bouldos prepared to throw a stone shield up in front of Lorso, as soon as the enemy mage attacked. But even though the mage could have taken a clear shot at Lorso, he instead retreated behind the arcane focus, and began channeling energy into it for another blast.

Silence hefted a third rock, then hurled it at devastating speeds. The rock seemed to be moving as fast as a bolt from a bolter, as Silence pushed himself to his limits.

At the instant that the rock impacted the shield, two things happened. Lorso released her charged attack, in the form of a beam of concentrated fire aimed at the Blade Wyvern's arcane focus. But, the mage operating the arcane focus fired the weapon, straight at Silence. The shield was shattered by the rock's impact, allowing Lorso's beam to score a direct hit that melted the weapon and its operator, and caused the Wyvern's other riders to bail out. But the damage was already done.

Silence began to struggle to stay upright, and it seemed that his willpower was the only thing keeping him up.

"He was hit by a matter-disruption weapon," Lorso said, relaying information from Silence. "If anyone else was hit they would be goo right now. He can survive it until it wears off, but another hit will be lethal."

The Blade Wyvern, now wounded and bereft of a gunner, charged forward in a rage, heedless to the safety of its former passengers. It was heading straight towards Silence, and it would be nearly impossible to deter. Silence staggered backwards, but Raiks could tell he likely wouldn't be able to make it to safety in time.

"Slow it down, any way you can!" Raiks ordered.

Lorso called up a wall of fire, but the wyvern charged straight through it, taking minimal if any damage in the process. It wasn't a true dragon, but its scales could still shrug off heat.

Next, Bouldos slammed his staff into the ground, causing spikes to blast up underneath the wyvern. It was impaled in multiple points, and slowed briefly before it broke through the spikes and continued forward.

The team's archers opened fire, launching two volleys of explosive arrows at the wyvern's head. The wyvern's momentum caused it to barrel through, but it was briefly dazed, giving Bouldos the opportunity to turn the sand underneath it into quicksand to trap it.

With the beast immobilized, Raiks ordered the remainder of his team to move forward and focus on its leg joints. Though dragonscales were incredibly resistant to damage, there were gaps in the scale coverage around the joints, enough to allow several shots to penetrate and stick in. Lorso, who had briefly disengaged to check on Silence, returned to the air, and began charging up a second fireblast against the Wyvern.

The wyvern, enraged by its injuries, let out a massive roar that managed to cause Lorso to lose her spell. Then, it began to drag itself free from the quicksand. The archers each fired shock arrows, delivering electrical currents that disrupted the Blade Wyvern's movement, but that only delayed its escape.

Thankfully, they had slowed it down enough for Silence to get to safety. Lorso disengaged from the fight to heal him.

"Fall back!" Raiks ordered. "Fight it in the city, it's too large for the streets!" Also, they would be closer to falling back through the portal, if they proved unable to defeat the beast. Though by fighting it in the city, they would cause collateral damage...

Collateral damage which would be on Daraken's head. At least, if their propaganda campaign went well. Daraken had already been publicly shamed for sending an assassin into Dustreach, so this would put further pressure on him and garner more support for the Resistance.

The Blade Wyvern managed to lurch forwards and fire out its tongue, grabbing a soldier with the tip. The soldier was pulled back towards the Blade Wyvern, and then it rapidly impaled the man multiple times, tearing him apart. The wyvern swallowed the remains, before shaking itself the rest of the way free from the mud trap. It rushed forward towards the stone walls, and pushed in through one of the breaches, collapsing the wall around it as it pushed through.

As the resistance forces fell back, one archer decided to stay behind and attempt a daring maneuver against the Blade Wyvern, despite the objection of Raiks. He scaled up a section of wall that was still standing, and waited for the Blade Wyvern to approach him. When the Blade Wyvern closed in and reared up in an attempt to grab him with its tongue, he jumped down, and fired an arrow straight through the wyvern's eye. By combining the power of his fully drawn bow with the downward force added from the drop, his arrow was able to penetrate the wyvern's protective inner eyelid. After taking the shot, he landed with a roll to the side.

The wyvern acted like it was only mildly inconvenienced by the loss of an eye (which, to some extent, it was, given the regenerative abilities of dragons). However, the arrow then disintegrated into ash. The bleeder arrow was a surprisingly effective arrow, disintegrating shortly after impact to remove the blockage the arrow created on the victim's blood flow. But though the spray of blood was impressive, it wasn't a killing blow like the archer thought.

The wyvern stabbed the archer through the back with a tentacle, almost killing him. But Lorso hit him with a bolt of healing flame, stabilizing and letting him escape. The Blade Wyvern shot out its tongue, and Lorso lit it on fire, causing the Wyvern to recoil.

Raiks realized that there was another threat on the field. Behind the Blade Wyvern, back at the breached wall, a group of Black Legion soldiers were climbing into the city. He had thought they had been eliminated after their mount was destroyed, but they had chosen to dismount and continue on foot. If they didn't take down the Blade Wyvern fast, they would be facing two threats at once.

Despite the numerous injuries the Blade Wyvern had sustained, it was still fighting, and it had a squad of Black Legion soldiers rushing in to support it. They could likely still win, but they would take significant casualties in the process. He was considering delivering the order to retreat, but decided that the casualties would be worth it if they could hold the fight here.

Then, the second phase of Daraken's attack began.