Rustling dried leaves on the far side of the room signaled a slight breeze moving into the entry chamber. With it, the scent of burning wood, smoke, and ash, grew stronger. Carried along with it was a foreboding sense of trepidation. The feeling was cemented in my belly as a distant explosion thundered from high overhead. Stella and I faced one another in abject fear. My mind raced with dread too quickly to process. My senses dialed to their maximums creating a hypersensitivity to the slightest sound, smell, or tremble in the ground under my feet.
Fear gripped my chest and I was unable to speak aloud what the detonations and burning lumber meant. Flinching at the sound of a third explosion, my face was aghast, my breaths coming in quick ragged succession.
“We have to get up there!” Stella agonized her voice tight with unease as her lips trembling. Her expression matched the lead weight firmly solidified in my stomach. The battlelord had not been bluffing, damn it all. The city was under attack.
I rushed away, Ripley following closely on my heels. Stella flew through the air to grab at my shoulders, anchoring herself as quickly as she could. A shout from behind stopped us dead in my tracks. Turning around, the urge to exit still hot in my body, we found Tallos standing stationary near the wooden rack with dozens of amber-colored jewels. Lined in neat rows, hung the mining lamps we first inspected upon entering the silver mind those many hours ago.
I shot my friend a heated questioning glare. “What?” I growled before softening my voice. Tallos wouldn’t have stopped up if it wasn’t important. “You heard Stell, we need to get up there.”
“If there is a battle raging up there and by the sound of it, it is, remember it's pitch black outside,” Tallos replied quickly as he pointed a finger to the night behind us. “Men don’t see too well in the dark. Unless they knew this battle was coming, they could be unprepared to handle this threat. They don’t have Darkvision like we do. The dwarves can see everything out there as clear as we can, perhaps better. We need to even those odds.”
With this last statement, he pointedly looked at the dangling spotlights. Tallos’ comment didn’t quench my urge to dart away, but the more he spoke the ingenuity of his idea felt like it was as good a reason as to hesitate to provide aid to the city.
“Great idea,” I complimented Tallos’ foresight. Rushing to his side, we began storing the small devices as quickly as we could. “Remember, to activate them, just say ‘illuminate.’ They function as a spotlight, but any bit of help we can provide could go a long way in saving lives.”
“When we get to the battlefield, let’s activate them and have you and Ripley throw them all over the place,” Stella added as she pressed a finger over and over against each lamp on the highest row. With every touch, another clasp disappeared into my inventory. “Take a look at that small lever, there. I think this adjusts the lamps so their light is cast off in a wider area.” Working together, we gathered all the amber stones.
Without another word, with me leading the way, we scrambled to the exit in a mad rush. Stepping outside and the cool night air, the sound of battle grew stronger. Our thundering footfalls against hard stone mixed with the distant clatter of steel on steel. We were several hundred feet below ground level, the twisting path expanding outward with each turn of the pyramid excavation site. If memory served, this was once an iron mine dug out by the citizenry before the plentiful silver mine had been discovered. The laborious uphill run soon had my breaths coming hard and fast.
As we ran, I tilted my head upward trying to catch any glimpse of what was happening. The sound of battle grew more distinct with each passing moment. All we could see in our sunken position were tall plumes of smoke twisting skyward. Each reflected hues of fiery red and burning saffron. Much of the city was on fire by the look of it from our limited sightline. Though normally unseen in the night sky, clouds far overhead flared with similar colors as more explosions rang out. It must be a nightmare up there.
As we rounded the final turn, the surface level only feet away, my keen senses began detecting sounds of anguish and the smell of split blood. This marked the first time I regretted having the elvish ability granted by my chosen half-elf race. Battle cries from human and dwarven voices alike sounded like one stretched-out furious growl. My heart flinched a little each time a howl of agony reverberated. Such sounds only capable of being uttered at the precipice of death.
The cacophony of frenzied shouts, and screams of suffering, seemed to reach down into my core. A detached part of me felt this battle was ultimately my fault. We could have warned the city! My internal voice accused me. Yet, a greater part of myself, one capable of looking at the situation objectively knew we had done the best we could, with the information we had available. Had we left to warn the city, we wouldn’t have been able to return to continue the fight with the cooldown timer the silvern travel nodes all had.
Perhaps we should have returned to the city after destroying their explosive ballistae, my inner thoughts criticized. No! Stop! I told myself. With everything we learned, this battle was likely inevitable, regardless of what we did or didn’t do back there. My steps grew more solid as my confidence steeled itself. Our actions below had tipped this battle in the city’s favor, I was confident of this. Now was not the time to look behind. We could judge our actions later. Until this battle was ended, we had to move and think about the present.
Cresting the final rise, the familiar mortared wall came into view. It did little to hide the tragedy far afield. Fire dotted much in blazing crimson and vibrant yellows. Pillars of smoke and burning embers dominated the skyline over the city proper. Perhaps two dozen smoky fingers reached to the dense clouds above. Though the scene was heartbreaking, I realized with a start, much of the city was actually untouched. Yes, buildings and homes burned haphazardly, but I had been expecting far worse than this Perhaps we had done more for the city with our actions than I realized.
The sound of battle to the west of the city was another fortuitous sign. It meant the dwarves were not fighting in the middle of a city full of hapless people. The fighting was likely limited to the guards and capable soldiers stationed in Mammoth, judging by the sound of steel against steel.
We needed to get into the fight. Once more we moved with alacrity as we rounded the short wall ringing the excavation site. In short order, we came upon an intense battle between armored guards and silvern warriors.
Throngs of men battled with swords, axes, spears, and tall shields. Our enemy were entirely outfitted in shining plate armor with a similar assortment of weapons hacking and slashing against armored men. It was a scene of utter chaos. There seemed to be no order in the fight, men were fighting not in squads. It was hundreds of individual battles without coordination.
As quickly as we could, we tried to take in the status of the battle, hoping the guardsman had the upper hand. It was quickly evident that was not the case. As Tallos had predicted, even with a haphazard assortment of burning torches spaced unevenly around the field of battle, few men had enough light to effectively see their adversaries. The enemy, on the other hand, moved with precision, easily identifying the heat given off by all living beings. In their eyes, the men they slaughtered were as easy to see as this battle was being fought under daylight. We needed upend their advantage provided by the cover of night.
As Stella began pulling the three or four dozen mining lamps we appropriated, my eyes roved over the back lines of the dwarven formation. Not a single crossbow ballista was evident anywhere. Instead, five catapults were far back from the battle, slinging burning balls of fire far into the city a goodly distance away.
“Illuminate!” Tallos shouted as he adjusted the tiny control wedged between the amber jewel and the silver clasp. The orb burst with light, casting everything around us in moderate light. His shout was quickly followed by another, then another, with Stella matching him word for word. With each lamp shining brightly, they were handed over to the prepared Ripley. With strength far exceeding any of ours, she was making easy work of launching the brilliant orbs over the battlefield.
With my quick inspection completed, I joined the team in our initial endeavor. As each orb landed, hurrahs and cheers of appreciation sounded from the men as they waged war. Finally able to see their enemies clearly, morale began shifting towards the defenders.
The increased brilliance across the field of battle showed me many hard truths. More men had fallen than dwarves thus far. Worse, the silvern steel comprised in every dwarven weapon had the terrible effect against human flesh. Even the slightest cut elicited a shout of pain akin to someone hit by a Klingon pain stick. The toxicity of the metal turned a minor injury into a momentarily debilitating stun. More than once, a guardsman suffered a miniscule hit from a dwarven short sword, to only be left reeling in pain allowing a follow-up killing blow to end a man’s life.
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Our efforts to illuminate the battlefield had not been for naught, however. With the battlefield awash in overlapping spheres of light, it was now evident the human fighters outnumbered the dwarves' warriors by at least two to one. Better still, being were no novices to battle, the ability to see their foes clearly allowed the guards to better respond to the chaos of battle.
I was no military prodigy, but watching the numerous frays had me confidently thinking the dwarves fought better as individual skirmishers. One against one, the dwarf would often come out as the victor, but now, for the first time in the battle, the human guards didn’t need to mirror such tendencies. Being able to see their enemy and friends alike, the defenders linked up, formed ranks, and turned the combat of hundreds of individual fights into one of with interlocking shields and hacking counterattacks.
A pair of rocketing burning balls of fire and pitch over our heads reminded me we had a decision to make. Should we aid the guardsman on the field of battle, or, with our superior flanking position, should we engage the largest threat to the regular citizenry? The decision was not a hard one, in actuality. “The catapults,” I stated to Tallos and Stella, who both quickly nodding their assent. “We’ll be more effective there since I don’t have access to my magic.”
Without my spells, our party was little more than two warriors, a hunting cat, and a ranger. Against a large-scale battle, we would be helpful, but that assistance would be limited. We could offer more in the defense of the city by taking out the catapults, which thus far were untouched by the defenders. The decision made, we moved off in their direction with stealth.
Each catapult had a crew of four dwarves working tirelessly at locking, loading, and firing the deadly weapons of war. Comprised of what I assumed was hardened mushroom, the thick timbers created a large base frame placed horizontally on the ground. An A-shaped vertical section at the front would catch the long arm as it was fired. Two dwarves worked diligently as they inserted and removed thick spokes into a cylinder barrel at the rear. Rotating this created tension and stored enough energy to throw burning projectiles hundreds of feet with ease. Once ready to fire, another dwarf would load what appeared to be a short hollowed-out mushroom stalk newly brimming with scorching charcoal. The final dwarf had the responsibility of firing the device but would first issue commands to the other dwarves to adjust the catapults aim as needed.
It was an effective group, whose practiced movements showed how often the dwarves utilized their weapons of war against other civilizations. The remaining four catapults looked to have crews similarly skilled, able to fire every minute or two. The siege engines were not unguarded, however. Standing nearby were approximately ten armored dwarves overlooking the battle, warry eyes scanning for any threats to the catapults. None had caught our stealthy approach thus far.
We would be grabbing their attention soon enough.
An unusual flash of light from the side caught my attention, causing me to turn in its direction. Near the edge of the central fighting, a lone humanoid figure stood out amongst the rest. Hovering over his head was a globe emitting dazzling light thirty feet in all directions. A fireball rushed away from the man. He wore a simple blue robe with a wide leather belt cinched around his waist. Dangling from the belt was a spell tome and an assortment of potions, most blue marking them as mana potions. It was Marrek, the man we had saved from execution. He was wreaking havoc among the dwarven soldiers, the fireball detonating severely against a particular clumped congregation of the short-hulking warriors.
“Ha! He said he was done helping the city,” I voiced in a hushed tone. We were nearer to the catapults and didn’t want to inadvertently give away our stealthy approach.
“I bet the guards are thankful he’s here now,” Stella commented from my shoulder. “His magic is pretty fierce by the look of it.” As she spoke, an astonishing bolt of electricity shot from Marrek’s palm, lancing in an even line of brilliant energy, entirely unlike my twisting and homing chained lightning. The bolt speared through a half dozen dwarves, many falling to the ground lifeless after its passing.
Judging we were close enough, I held up a closed fist to bring our group to a halt. We crouched lower, wet grass attempting to cling stubbornly at our ankles. Burning ash was thick in the air, and the dwarves using a nearby bonfire to set their ammunition on fire. Without having access to my spells, I would have to rely on my new wands. Taking a moment, I reviewed my recent acquisitions.
{Wand of Fireball}, {Wand of Grasping Roots}, {Wand of Fire Stream}, {Wand of Mana Barrier}, & {Wand of Undulating Fire Serpent}.
“I’m going to start with my fire serpent wand,” I said, laying out the first step of my plan. “I’ll fire off the three charges, one each against the nearest three catapults. Then, I’ll use my fireball wand at the remaining two trebuchets. We will attract the attention of those guards over there when I do. So, when they reach our position, I want you, you and you, to engage them.” Ripley, Lowki, and Tallos nodded their heads in understanding.
“Before they get to us, I’m going to use this wand of fire stream,” I continued, rolling the wands in my fingers. “Based on its description, it works similarly to my flamethrower spell. I intended to keep shooting the catapults with fireballs until they are nothing more than burning kindling, or the guards get here. Any questions?”
“What if more than those guards come?” Tallos asked, eyeing up a distant band of dwarves, probably the commanders for their army.
“Then I’ll join you and fight in melee range,” I answered, running a hand through my brown locks. “I may not have access to my spells, but my mana is still available. My empowered aegis is more powerful than ever. Plus, I have a fair share of mana potions that will help should the fighting get heavy.”
Thinking of potions, I handed Tallos several more healing potions, some the most potent we had. He would need healing far more than I did, as long as I had mana to spare. Tallos stored as many as he could on his belt, the rest going into his backpack. He whispered a thanks before nodding his readiness to begin.
“Don’t forget about your ring of blind rage,” Stella offered as I was about to raise my first wand towards the enemy. “Remember, you’re immune to mind-altering effects, thanks to your clearheaded perk. It will double your strength and constitution, making you more effective in melee combat.”
“Thanks, Stella,” I uttered before looking to my right hand where an unassuming silver band set with a single ruby gem sat. The last time I had used its power, the ring had allowed me to emerge victorious against the Hunter, Adom the Savage. Perhaps it would aid me as well here. I nodded at Stella and gave one final look to each party member. Lowki was low to the ground, his eyes staring at the nearby dwarves. Ripley nodded her skull-capped head, her red eyes shining with a smoldering intensity. Tallos tightly gripped his powerful bow, an arrow already notched against the string. We were set.
“Ok,” I whispered, more to myself than any in our party. “Here goes nothing.”
Holding out my hand, I aimed the serpent wand towards the nearest catapult. The workers nearly had the firing arm nearly cranked down. I willed the magic of the wand to come forth. Targeting the catapult instead of the workers, I hoped it was the better choice. What emitted from the wand was far grander than whatever I had been expecting.
A serpent of fire roared to life as it streaked away. It had the look of a wingless wyvern, as wide around as my torso, with scales the size of my hand. It undulated through the air, building speed and momentum as it shot forward. Right before impact, the fire serpent was as fast as one of Tallos’ arrows. It slammed into the mushroom wood with a vengeance, instantly setting everything touched ablaze. Like a great boa constrictor, the fearsome serpent twisted around the throwing arm and the front vertical frame.
Whatever cords the dwarves used in the construction of the catapults were no match to the conflagration tearing them apart. Within moments the binds began snapping, one after another. The launching arm and bucket bucked upward, but whatever strength the snake had was more than enough to halt its forward motion. The release of all that stored potential energy did little more than rock the catapult a foot off the ground as the great serpent constricted itself around the cracking catapult.
Twice, followed by a third in rapid succession, two more fire serpents raced across the darkness to similar results. Three of the catapults were rendered useless in a matter of moments. The small group of workers attempted futility to fan at the flames, but the power of the serpent was not so easily swayed. When a worker got too near, the snake head would lash out, biting down and injecting liquid fire through fangs wreathed in flames. Those dwarves died swiftly as their bodies were burned away from the inside.
Only taking the time to see how successful the first serpent was at destroying the first catapult, I didn’t pause as I fired off the wand's three charges. Without hesitating, I stored the empty wand away, before switching to the fireball wand. Holding it steady in my hand, one fireball followed another roared across the empty field. These balls of fire were not as quick as the flying flame serpents, but when they finally reached their intended targets, the resulting explosion was something to behold.
While the snakes did wonders on the first three catapults, the detonation of these fireballs caught the entire battlefield's attention. Men and dwarves alike turned at the massive explosions cascading among the remaining siege engines. The human soldiers were apparently far more familiar with the work of magic, so were quicker to reorient on their personal battle. More dwarves fell to human blades.
Before my first fireball had been sent careening toward the further two catapults, the nearby dwarf contingent responded to our threat and were already sprinted in our direction. They would reach us in a matter of seconds. Judging I had enough time, I sent another two fireballs to ensure the work was done. Dwarven shouts and shrieks promised each companion a merciless death as the warriors approached.
The dwarves in the lead were soon close enough to make out my expression as I stepped in front of my friends. They had been expecting a frightened foe but only saw grim determination written across my elven features. It promised them death.
Less confident, their movements slowed for a moment before their comrades rammed into their faulting steps from behind. Picking up their strides to avoid stumbling, the contingent of dwarves charged heedlessly on. Ripley fanned out to the left as Lowki did the same on the opposite side. Tallos' bow creaked behind me as the bowstring reached its maximum draw. I leveled my wand.
Shaped like a half-open Renaissance fan, the wood narrow at the handle before widening like splayed fingers at the tip, I held the wand of fire steam at the approaching horde.
Mentally commanding the power within to activate, the world in front of me devolved into hellfire.