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Omnisophix rouses itself from a long slumber. An ember glow fills its darkened eye sockets and stone lips creak wide to reveal wicked obsidian fangs. Though it cannot see in the traditional sense, it is aware of its 3 brethren waking concurrently.
Its master is dead, and master had been very clear about what was to be done IF he was no longer alive. It steps down from its pedestal with a lightness and grace that belies its sturdy construction. It has a bag to secure.
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Maegara is no stranger to Bracadan tricks.
"Gargoyles!" she shrieks to her sisters as she scrambles to take off while clutching the bundle of books and parchment.
She isn't fast enough. A glossy black form slams into her, and in an instant of rending claws and gnashing jaws her long and glorious career is brought to a close.
Omnisophix turns wordlessly to its companions, silent communication passing between them. The bundle of parchment is grasped in a single bloody paw and the onyx figure launches into the air.
The remaining gargoyles turn in unison to watch it go, scanning the sky for threats. Several stichos veer off from the formation to follow the gargoyles' wingmate and the silent flock shoot into the air on tight intercept courses.
Deadly fighters in their own right, the harpies are no match for the finely-crafted constructs. Shards of obsidian and volcanic stone are shorn loose by Nighon steel, but in return their flesh is rent to tatters by fangs and claws of igneous glass. The air fills with red mist, cooling and falling as crimson snow, as one by one Omnisophix's pursuers are slain.
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The skies above the tower are not the only site of chaos and violence, the wizard not the only objective of the infiltrators. The hamlet surrounding the Astronomy Tower is filled with screams as the harpies wreak their toll on the wintry town.
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Gannulus awakens with a start, the blurred lines of a warning-sigil growing clearer as he rubs the sleep out of his eyes. An uncommon warning, it takes him a moment to parse the glowing glyph. His heart leaps into his throat as he decyphers the meaning. Their hated subterranean foes are never truly out of reach, but an attack so deep within Bracada's borders is nearly unheard of.
He grabs his focus and steadies his voice before he channels it into the twisted warren of gremlin-dens in the workshop below.
"Arise and make ready to defend the town, we are under attack by forces from Nighon. Dress and arm yourselves, masters are to assemble their cohorts and meet me at the doors."
He hears grumbles at their rude awakening, then chitterings of fear at news of the attack. The blue-robed masters growl at their subordinates, who reluctantly fall in line.
He spins protective charms through the fibres of his scarlet robe. It brooks no comparison to Erathian plate mail, but should give sharp blades and wicked talons equal pause in a desperate melee. He girds his focus in spells of warding and striking to amplify its potency in close combat. Finally, he dons a pair of brass-and-leather goggles, their lenses a wine-red glass. With a whispered word the darkened corners of his study sharpen and resolve into focus. Magelight from his staff, visible only to the goggles, bathes the room in an ethereal glow.
He speaks the tripword to awaken the golems, one of iron and the other gleaming marble. The massive figures creak and groan as magic limbers their joints. He notes Greem's excellent repair work on the iron golem's finicky knee. If the enterprising little gremlin survives the violence ahead he'll be forwarded for consideration as the shop's newest shiftmaster.
Battle-ready, he leads his company through the broad wooden doors of the 'shop and out into the cobblestone street. Chaos greets their senses immediately, the glow of a few growing fires lending dim illumination to the nighttime streets. Though the sky is not filled with them, darkened shapes wheel and curl overhead as they pick their targets and ready themselves to swoop.
Gannulus shakes his head at the disorderly state of the militia response. It costs him precious spellpower, but he fires a mighty flare skyward. It does double duty, both blinding the attackers and highlighting them starkly against the midnight backdrop of the starry sky.
He directs Flig and the rest of his shift to take position on a nearby rooftop as he goes. The diminutive shapes clamber up the access ladder and spread out on the flat surface.
Marked by the flare, a wing of harpies are caught mid-descent. The night air becomes a shooting gallery as the gremlins whirl and release their slings.
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Diaphane screeches and shields her eyes as the radiant orb screams past. It carves crazed lines into her retinas even through her dry, papillated eyelids. She shakes her head to try to clear the blazing afterimage, but the damage has been done.
She banks furiously in a tight zig-zag, hoping to throw off the shooters on the ground, but she is too close to miss. A leaden bullet smashes into her wing and the hollow bone cracks. She spirals downwards, shrieking fiercely.
In spite of her impaired vision she spots a blue-robed gremlin co-ordinating the aim of his coterie, and angles for his rooftop. She lands atop him in a blizzard of silver feathers and whirling talons. His slight frame offers little resistance, and in an instant she turns on the rest of the unit. They swing their slings like tiny flails that sting each time they pelt Diaphane's skin, but they are not strong enough to bring her down. They scream like rabbits as her vicious blade and deadly claws paint the air and ground with their blood.
She howls skywards for her sisters to rescue her, and a pair of neophytes descend to render aid.
-÷-
Gannulus winces as his sense-link to Flig is forcefully severed, shaking off the feedback of living through another's death. He fights the urge to vomit as he casts through the aether to link himself to the iron golem.
It is hefting gremlins from the street up to a vantage point that lacks ground access. They grumble as it deposits them in an undignified heap, but Gannulus ignores them as he directs the golem towards Flig's post. He spends more power to hasten its movement with concentrated gusts of wind. It builds up a head of steam as it goes.
-÷-
"My wing is broken, fools! That is why I called you down here!"
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"We barely made it here carrying just our blades and rations, do you expect us to carry you all the way back to Nighon?"
"Of course not, you imbeciles! But I do expect you to carry me out of a hostile city!"
"Gah! So be it then. Steel yourself, it will hurt when I grasp your wing."
"I know that, fledgling! Now get down here, or the Lady herself shall hear of your reticence!"
Lost in the hissed conversation is a growing rumble, like the pounding of a rapid-fire millstone. The rooftop beneath Diaphane's feet begins to tremble with the bass thud of some immense weight at immense speed. Gritting her fangs in pain as her sisters grasp her wings, she becomes dimly aware of the sound just as it seems to stop.
-÷-
Gannulus huddles in a stony alcove, flanked by a pair of gremlin minders to alert him to danger. His attention is several blocks away, occupied with keeping several tonnes of high-speed iron balanced and in control.
Through the link, his eyes see stone and brick buildings flash by as the golem's heavy, loping gait drinks up the cobblestone streets. His destination lies ahead, on a rooftop which emanates the screams of the dying.
Nearly a decade ago, a yet-unknown Bracadan alchemist by the name of Josephine discovered the process that enabled the construction of golems. Building on the principles of gargoyle animation, the process is slightly easier on one's mana reserves and treasury whilst resulting in a larger, more durable - and commensurately slower - magical construct.
She immediately licensed her process and soared to the highest echelon of Bracadan society. Not long after her overnight success, she refined the process to allow working with smelted metals rather than rough stone to allow for lighter, equally sturdy golems at only slightly increased cost.
Praying that he has judged the distance properly, and that Greem's knee repair was as thorough as it looked, Gannulus plants one of the golem's massive feet so hard that individual cobblestones spray outward like clods of dirt. As its mighty bulk slides forward, he plants the other foot and heaves the entire metal frame skyward.
For an instant he is soaring through the air with an absurd grace for such a large hunk of iron, bending the golem's tortured knees to gather its legs below him. Then he slams into the side of a stout building so hard it cracks the walls.
An access ladder breaks free from its mooring as the building sags on its foundation. The final, dying breath of the haste spell lends its aid as the mage-captain hauls with all the golem's might to pull it over the edge of the rooftop.
Most golems are built with proud, impassive human faces. Gannulus was met with great disdain from his colleagues when he asked the artificers to fashion his in the image of the fearsome Tatalian jagh-war.
Gannulus locks eyes with Diaphane as the golem's head crests the ledge, and her look of terror satisfies every internal debate he's ever had about his golem's appearance.
Her sisters turn at the sound of her fearful shriek, and Gannulus' sense of satisfaction only deepens as their features twist with cold fear. Up in the mountains the air is thin, and their harried wingbeats do far too little to lift them away from the roof.
In two great juddering strides the golem crosses the space. Its huge hand clamps shut like a steel trap on Diaphane's talons, the fracturing of her hollow bones lost in the howl of enchanted iron carapace.
Before her sisters can release her Gannulus bends the construct at the waist and pitches the group hard into the rooftop's stone slabs. Organs burst, bones splinter like kindling, and liquified avian sprays the adjacent building's wall. The roof slab breaks in half, and the mess of feather and jellied remains tumbles into the space below. The building groans in protest, this last blow finally destabilizing the reeling structure.
The shattered building begins to list with the incredible weight atop it, and Gannulus bends the golem's knees to slide along the smooth surface. Sparks fly and masonry sails through the night. With careful timing, he leaps again into the air. The golem reaches out on its way to the ground and snatches another harpy as her enomotia wheels by, bringing its massive iron hands together with a deafening thunderclap that drowns out her death cry.
Gannulus severs the sense-link with a command to return to Snick's unit and resume the defense of the market district. His own senses rush back to him with disorienting suddenness, and he places a hand on the cold stone wall to steady himself.
"You all right sir?" queries one of his minders.
"A little unsteady from all this aethercasting, I just need a moment Smig."
"Could travel on foot, sir. Allows you to replenish your reserves."
"Are the harpies no longer a concern?"
"Numbers thinned, sir. Others withdrawing or moving to reinforce elseplaces."
Gannulus' brow furrows in concern.
"Then we are entering the next phase of their attack. We should move quickly."
The gremlins don't need to respond, already forming up to keep an eye on his blind spots as they make their way through the streets.
-÷-
High above the unfurling chaos Aphame labours under a terrible weight. Her sticho has a special task. Though it has been a burden thus far, their role in the attack is among its most important objectives.
Just a wingspan away her sister stares ahead in hateful determination as she beats furiously against the thin air. Close enough behind her that she can hear the wind through their feathers, another pair of sisters strain themselves just as dearly.
They lag behind the main body of their unit for more than one reason. Their detour, slight though it was, is also why they fight to remain aloft now.
They are carrying between them a shining slab of wrought metals and alchemical components. A fearsome Bracadan land-mine pilfered by a turncoat with a personal vendetta against the college of mages.
One of the insular nation's finest weapons against a siege, these hefty contraptions can make casualties of an entire infantry column, or render a siege engine into kindling and scrap. Their creation is one of Bracada's most carefully-guarded secrets.
In the hands of her worst enemies, there is no estimating the damage that could be wrought by a well placed mine at just the wrong moment.
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