Standing atop the outpost’s southern berm, Edwin looked towards Artelby in the nightly gloom. The guards were slowly making their rounds on the wall, visible whenever they crossed the light of the lanterns spaced evenly along the battlements. Everything seemed quiet. Glancing to the side, Edwin could tell that General Asher was coming to the same conclusion, as 5th division’s commander nodded slowly, then turned and walked back into the outpost.
“It seems our preparations have remained undiscovered,” Asher told the waiting group of people. “If you are ready, we can begin.”
All eyes turned to the ritualist team, who squirmed under the attention of the assembled officers and masters. Of the three, only Archibald managed to remain calm. He didn’t even give in to the temptation to check the ritual one last time, having done so at least five times since arriving at the outpost half an hour earlier. “We’re ready,” he answered instead, his voice certain.
As if on cue, the catapult beside them fired, the arm flying upward with a swoosh and slamming against the wooden crossbar. The crew immediately began winding it back, while its commander checked if the stress of the continued firing had caused damage to the siege weapon.
“Good to go,” he gave his verdict after carefully examining its moving parts.
“Very well,” Asher said. “Load it.”
The crew carefully pulled off the tarp that was hiding the Wall Slicer from prying eyes and began rolling it onto the waiting basket of the catapult. It had ended up as a perfectly smooth sphere of rock around a meter in diameter, with the magesilver lines of the ritual slightly depressed. It wasn’t perfect; the spacing especially was off in a number of places, but a few millimeters here and there wouldn’t cause it to fail, even if it reduced the mana efficiency.
Once the sphere was loaded, Archibald approached and carefully primed the weapon by inserting the mana crystals that would power it. Eight specially made crystals were set in the prepared holes and clamped down. When the last one was in, Archibald looked back to the gathered leaders. Master Gregory exchanged a look with the general, then gave Archibald an imperious nod.
“Begin.”
Archibald placed his hands on the sphere and closed his eyes. A soft, blue glow began to emanate from the crystals and swirled through the magesilver spiderweb that connected them. Cautiously, Archibald stepped back from the active ritual. The commander of the catapult crew checked the work of his men one last time, then looked to Asher for the final order.
“Fire.”
Whip-Crack!
Edwin followed the flight of the Wall Slicer, the blue glow of the spinning sphere clearly visible against the black sky. As it sailed through the air almost ponderously, everyone in the outpost held their breaths. At any moment, Edwin expected shouts of alarm to sound from the wall, maybe even a mage on duty to raise a shield to block the sphere and shatter their plan before it had truly begun. Neither happened. The Wall Slicer reached the apex of its flight and began its return to the earth. The many practice shots the crew had done over the last days showed, as it was perfectly on target. Edwin’s eyes itched as mana flooded them, showing him the final approach of the projectile.
Just before the rock smashed into the outside of the wall at roughly two thirds of its height from the ground, the ritual activated. In the blinding flash of blue light that turned the night into day, Edwin swore he could make out the confusing lattice of impossibly thin mana blades that sprang into existence around the sphere and shot out in all directions, filling the air with streaks of nigh-transparent energy. It only lasted the briefest of moments, then the ritual dimmed, its power spent. When the now lifeless sphere impacted the wall a fraction of a second later, it went right through.
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Panicked screams sounded across the divide. The men atop the wall were unharmed by the initial effect, the thin blades dispersing in their auras before they could touch flesh, but that changed when the solid stone they were standing on dissolved into small, pyramid-shaped pieces. The wall crumbled, screams of surprise turning into screams of pain as the sentries fell into a heap of sharp and pointy pieces of rock.
Where before the wall had been an unyielding bulwark, there was now a gaping hole maybe eighty meters wide.
“It seems we were successful,” General Asher said quietly. “Sound the signal, if you please. This was the easy part.”
Just as horns rang out from Artelby to rouse the Marradi troops from their slumber, another signal sounded from the outpost. From his vantage point on the berm, Edwin could see the gate of the Harvand camp opening, disgorging the first of 5th division’s troops.
“Master Gregory, I think we have seen quite enough. Would you provide us with some cover?”
“Certainly, General. Bernel, whenever you are ready.”
The young mage walked up the berm, coming to a stop next to Edwin and closing his eyes. It took him longer than it had the previous times Edwin had seen him use the spell, the eyes of his superiors piercing his back doing little to help his mental equilibrium. Eventually he managed to calm his mind, and with the sound of rushing wind, a roiling wall of fog crept out from the outpost.
“Adventurers!” Bordan shouted. “Enough lollygagging, we’re up! Follow my voice, gather on me!”
Carefully as to not stumble into anything, Edwin made his way to the northern side of the outpost and out the gate, where 9-1 was gathering. Once everyone was there, they set off into the mist, making sure to stay close together so nobody got lost. With his vision impaired, Edwin’s ears were working overtime. Behind them, he could hear armor jingling and the stomping of boots as first division’s heavies crossed the open ground towards the breach. On his right he heard the shouts of the confused and alarmed Marradi as Artelby awoke, finding themselves in straits much more dire than they had gone asleep in.
Navigating the mist was hard, but Edwin’s senses helped immensely. With his enhanced hearing, he managed to keep the cohort at a roughly equal distance from the walls. Behind them, their comrades had already reached the breach, though the noise of battle grew more and more distant.
“Did we go too far?” Leodin hissed. The marksman hated the fog, as it robbed him of his biggest advantage, cutting his range down to almost nothing.
“A little further,” Edwin whispered back. If he concentrated, he could use the sounds of battle in relation to the wall beside them to approximate how far they had gone.
“Here should be good,” Bordan said a minute later. “Everyone shut the hell up! Alright, let’s go.”
They crept towards the wall, throwing worried glances upwards. So far from where Bernel had used the spell, the fog was considerably thinner than where they had started. It still provided good cover at a distance, but if a sentry stepped up to the battlements and looked straight down, they would easily see them. That was why they had chosen to creep around the entire fortress and approach it from the south, which hadn’t seen so much as a Harvand scout in over a decade. The guards on top were probably too busy craning their heads and wondering what was happening at the breach to stare into the mist.
Arriving at the wall, Edwin placed his back against the stone, scanning the mists behind. After a few moments, they were joined by two men wearing robes. Journeyman Hafarn was breathing heavily, while Master Gregory wasn’t – Edwin suspected the older man had healed away his exhaustion, a technique that was frowned upon for students wishing to study through the night but was perfectly appropriate in war. Bordan and Gregory communicated with gestures, the former pointing out an area of the wall. The master materialist ran his hands along the stone, then drew a triangular shape onto it with his finger. Bordan nodded, and Gregory began.
There was nothing to see, just a bald, old man in a wet robe resting his hands on a wall with his eyes closed, but appearances were deceiving. Less than a minute after he had begun, Gregory opened his eyes and stepped away, gesturing to Salissa. Edwin’s teammate came up beside him and put her hand where his had been. Almost soundlessly a triangular wedge as tall as a man slid out of the wall ever so slowly, held by Salissa’s telekinesis. It grew longer and longer, making Edwin realize just how thick the wall really was. He couldn’t even imagine having to break it with conventional means.
The prism finally slid free of the wall, hovering out a little further onto the foggy field before settling on the ground. The adventurers held their breaths as those next to the hole peeked inside. Edwin couldn’t make out what was on the other side, only darkness and indistinct shapes. Bordan tapped him on the shoulder and gestured him inside. Edwin took a deep breath and tightened the grip on his glaive, then he led his cohort under the wall and into Artelby itself.