Dawn was breaking. Under normal circumstances, I would find it uplifting. However, today it only filled me with dread as the invaders were lining up to surround the campgrounds. I doubted this would lead to a siege, since dad was right about their numerical superiority. There were so many of them, they could just assault us directly. At least from a conventional standpoint. We could only hope that the prep work that was done yesterday would be enough.
The inside of the wall was now lined with runic enchantments, and while I didn’t recognize the effect of the runes, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was some kind of defensive measure. Maybe blocking teleportation or a shield to stop arrows. They must have worked through the night to finish them all because I couldn’t remember them being worked on yesterday. Then again, I was busy with forging.
As it was, I didn’t doubt for a second that they would be of some use. Uncle seemed pleased to see them, as he exited the probable cabin along with Sarirrva, whose expression was somewhere between excited and bloodthirsty. Another reminder that she wasn’t human. To her, the upcoming battle was just a way to let off some steam.
“Hey Ashes, we should probably get some food before everything goes to pieces.” I turned around. Amber was rubbing her eyes and looked at me, then nodded towards the main bonfire. Several cauldrons were hanging over the fire and I could see steam rising from them. I got a bad feeling about this. “Battle stew?” Amber, with a similar expression of grim determination as my own walked past me. “Probably. We should get some, either way. I mean, sure it tastes horrid, but will give us the energy we need to fight the whole day. Besides, at least Granite makes it less horrid than most.”
I couldn’t argue that. The horrible goop that was battle stew contained so many *mystery* ingredients that I would say it was closer to a witch’s brew or potion than food. Whatever extra ingredient Dad added made his version just as effective, but you wouldn’t feel the urge to puke every time you took a spoonful. For what little that was worth. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted for my first, and maybe last, meal in a day. However, I didn’t have a choice in the matter, as I knew I’d need my strength.
Uncle seemed to have noticed the stew as well, and if his expression was anything to go by, he wasn’t about to partake. Couldn’t say I blamed him. I wasn’t looking forward to this at all. We reached the cauldrons and a helmeted head poked over the nearest. “Ah, yer awake, get yerself a bowl and get some grub, won’t be long before we’ll be fightin’ for our lives no doubt.” The din of the helmet made it difficult to hear which Duergar was talking, but it wasn’t dad. The bad feeling I got earlier intensified.
After forcing down the horrid concoction and rinsing my mouth with some water, I parted ways with Amber and headed towards the wall. Amber was busy brewing healing potions for the wounded. We might have fortified the camp into a fortress, but we held no illusion that we would get out of this unscathed. This also wasn’t a dungeon, so resurrection wasn’t possible either.
As I felt the nervousness bubble up, I took a deep breath to center myself. There was nothing I could do to prevent this upcoming assault. Even now, I could see the enemy army prepare their forces. I just hoped Uncle could come up with an answer for any potential War Mages among them. They might be highly regulated in standard warfare, but these people didn’t give a damn about agreements between nations. If they did, they wouldn’t use void magic, after all.
In the distance, a signal horn sounded. Shaking me from my thoughts, I focused on the approaching forces. They were surrounding the camp from three sides, with only the river stopping a complete encirclement. Good thing the river sides were sheer and impassable. The river itself was also impossible to traverse without a bridge, as the current was turned the entire area into rapids due to all the rain water.
A bear beast-kin walked up beside me. I think she worked as Ursus’ assistant? She raised a large bow, almost as big as I was, and eyed the approaching throng of people. “Brace yourself. This will be a rough fight.” I glanced over to her. “Same to you.” Part of me was tempted to open up with some magic. However, I didn’t know if the extreme changes in temperature would go well with the hidden blast potions. I should’ve asked when before parting ways with Amber.
As soon as that thought crossed my mind, the first potion bottle went off, sending a huge cloud of mud, wet dirt, and water skyward. I didn’t doubt for a second that the one who set it off, and those close to them was out of the picture for good after that blast. However, the others didn’t even pause, but kept moving forwards without even looking at their fallen comrades.
“They don’t care about losses, it would seem.” She pulled out an arrow, knocked the bow, then fired. I looked over at the beast-kin. “More likely, their minds are too spellbound to care. If they even have any sense of self left.” I could see her clutch the bow tighter as she nodded and let loose another arrow. “Indeed, then let us hope that is not our fate as well.” By now the blast potions were going off so often, the explosions were just one continuous noise.
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Despite the heavy losses, they pressed through until they reached the wall. With the potions now spent or covered by people who somehow didn’t set them off, I saw no reason to hesitate any longer as I channeled my power into Insult and let out a torrent of fire that twisted and stretched out as it poured down the wall in a lava like manner. A gout of cold energy from Injury froze the ground underneath the invader’ feet, making it slippery and hard.
The liquid fire spread across the top of the wall, creating a barrier that poured down the outside wall. Even with this obvious death approaching the attackers looked for ways to climb the stone surface, while others began calling for the conjuration of ladders. That meant there was at least one conjurer with them. As I puzzled over this, a whistling noise caught my ear and an arrow froze in midair right in front of my eyes.
I took a step back and noticed more arrows began raining down, only to stop once they got close to the wall and hang there as if stuck in an invisible log. The warding runes from last night, no doubt. “So that’s why the Duergar made that horrible racket. It seems I owe them some thanks.” I glanced over and realized I wasn’t the only one who would have been skewered by an arrow if not for the ward. Just as I was about to answer, another explosion went off right outside the ward, sending a gout of flame over me and my companion.
I was fine, but I could see her flail and wail in pain as the flames surrounded her. The ward stopped the fireball, but the detonation still hit us. I reached out to the flames and her screaming turned to groans as the flames moved away from her and then dissipated. With the flames gone I could see her singed fur and several horrible burns. “Get to the potion lab and get some healing potions before those burns fester. You’re no good to anyone dead.”
She gave me a pained nod and weak smile as she hobbled off the wall and was helped by a passing feline beast-kin. Well, if they liked fire, why not give them some of their own? I reached into myself, searching for that spark of power I felt back at the enemy encampment. I could feel it now, far stronger than before as I accessed it. The power surged through me and I could feel my body tingle from the barely contained inferno within.
However, this time, instead of feeling drained I felt energized. The fire burned through my body, turning me into a living bonfire, before the flames coiled up like a serpent and blasted down the wall and into the enemy formations. There, the now living flame rampaged around on its own like a wild beast. I didn’t know exactly what I did, but I knew that fire would only strike at my enemies. Should anyone else get near, the flames wouldn’t harm them.
Before I could celebrate my success, the flames I conjured along the wall flickered, then faded out of existence. “Counter Magic?” The beast-kin glanced at where the fire was burning just moments ago. “That or enough Void energy present to suppress it, my mother said that happened a century ago during the war, and she lived through that mess.”
A moment later, a ladder slammed into the wall, only to slide away because of the frozen ground. I set the top of the ladder ablaze and kept fueling it even as the mage in the throng below tried to dispel it. “Looks like they only dispelled the fire, or the ground wouldn’t be frozen.” As I spoke, two Beast-kin rushed past and dumped the mud like content of a cauldron they were carrying down onto the attackers.
All around me, I could see more people reinforcing the walls as the archers pulled back, and a general melee broke out in a few places where the ladders weren’t being pushed back. There was a high-pitched whistle as another fireball exploded in midair as it crashed into the barrier in the distance. The ladders were now coming so fast there was no way to keep them all away. “I suggest you put the bow away. We’re about to be busy here.”
Instead of an answer, the head of the first man who came up over the wall went flying, lopped off by a battleaxe with a huge axe head. “Don’t worry about that. My forte is melee, not archery.” She looked more comfortable with the axe than she had with the bow, that was certain. I backhanded another attacker, sending him backwards off the wall with the same difficulty as I would have with swatting a fly.
That gave me pause for a moment, but I decided not to question it. It was either because I was still recovering back in the dungeon, and so not able to access my full strength, or maybe someone dropped a strength potion into the battle stew. Either way, it didn’t matter because I did not have the luxury to ponder it. Soon it took everything I had just to keep this section of the wall from being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
The pressure was relieved as more beast-kin surged up to the wall to join in the fighting, many carrying the very weapons I forged yesterday. With these reinforcements, we were holding, for now. The fighting continued for a while, and we kept the upper hand thanks to the defender’s advantage. After fighting for almost an hour, we ran into our first problem. Out of nowhere, the barrier protecting us from projectiles was hit by a massive explosion.
I could see the light out of the corner of my eye from whatever that impact was. “Here’s hoping the runes can withstand that-” My next words drowned in another massive bang, and now we could see cracks forming in the barrier itself. “So much for that.” The runes weren’t made to take repeated poundings of such a magnitude. To my right, the beast-kin woman, whom I still haven’t gotten the name of, yelled over the din of the fighting. “You think it will hold?”
A third impact and now the sky was more cracked than anything. “No, I do not…. BRACE FOR BARRIER FAILURE!” As if on cue, I could just make out a massive purple orb careening towards the barrier, only to detonate on impact. The barrier shattered, causing the caught arrows to fall from the sky and rain over everyone on the wall. Nothing too dangerous, but we were now wide open for bombardment until the runes recharged, and there was another wall of arrows already flying towards us.