The army stopped a few hundred paces away from a structure of stacked rocks, three times as tall as the buildings in the villagers they had destroyed; wall, but a wall without a ceiling. The djinn didn't circle around to the gate, as Sevareh had suggested, but instead simply moved to a section of wall, and set up defensive lines on all sides. Peri watched from the walls, green and blue wings glinting in the light of the sun.

After an hour of setting up, clusters of djinn started hurling flaming balls of rock at the walls, most, but not all, of which were caught in shimmering light, and hurled back. The peri had their own magii on the walls, among the glinting wings.

The djinn moved around the returned ammunition, mostly, letting it fall amidst them and only moving to put out the flames once they landed; screams still occasionally reached Soha's ears as somebody didn't move far or fast enough. Soha stood with Mehr, Hvare, and Harabi, on the northern flank of the army; Hvare and Harabi keeping a close eye on the actual north left Soha, following Mehr's example, free to turn and watch the odd game being played.

Most of the flaming balls of dirt and rock that got through impacted the walls with a harsh and resounding cracking noise. A handful missed the wall, flying too high or too low; smoke rose to the sky from those that had landed behind the wall, while those that had fallen short bounced across the ground, setting dry grass on fire until rolling to a stop. There was an increasing cloud of smoke filling the air in all directions, as fires spread both inside and outside the walls.

Soha still felt oddly empty, and distant, like watching somebody else move and act from behind the eyes. The past week - two weeks? Had it been a month now? Time felt like a blur, an endless sequence of walking through hills, forests, and plains, periodically interrupted by the destruction of a peri village. How many had Fan ... or had it been Sidou? Soha felt ... odd. It was hard to remember, which was ... new. Twenty seven? Had whoever it was said they'd burn twenty seven villages in retribution?

They had passed twenty seven villages some time ago. Maybe. It was hard to count; they all looked alike, particularly after the djinn left, bodies piled into a building that was set aflame. All the djinn smelled like smoke, now, all of the time; the smell soaked into clothing and didn't come out.

The air was filled with shouts and screams.

Djinn cycled out in the siege duties; then cycled out again. The loop-bound stood watch. Night came. And morning again. The loop-bound stood watch. The walls still stood, above a field of ash; the stones were cracked, and there were fewer peri on top of the walls, and more and more of the projectiles collided with the walls; some seemed now deliberately aimed over them, and the smoke beyond was heavy.

It was midafternoon when the first section of wall actually collapsed, black and sooty stones suddenly revealing white and gray on either side, as a large section tumbled forward into the ground, leaving a small hill. A cheer erupted from the djinn; Soha could see skeletal fragments of burned-out buildings through the gap.

What exactly was the point of this, now? Had they gotten the retribution Fan had said necessary, or hadn't they? It had been Fan, Soha was pretty certain now. Thousands of peri dead, hundreds of their own people who had fallen prisoner to the geis of the enemy. How many lived in this ... city, this Chefeld? It was enormous. Thousands? Tens of thousands? The number was incomprehensible. Hundreds must have died already to the siege projectiles and the fire. They could just leave now.

But they didn't. Projectiles continued falling, the gap in the wall widening, more and more of the ruined city behind being exposed to view, before bein demolished by projectiles that seemed to be aimed into the city itself. More fires spread, the smoke thick.

A call was raised; the djinn army started moving forward. Harabi and Hvare moved with them, maintaining their position at the northern flank of the army; other loop-bound began dashing towards the city itself, leading the front. But others remaining encircling the army as it moved east, towards the burning city.

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They had nearly reached the gap when the force rounded the corner to the north; peri marched in rows and columns, speartips pointed to the sky, as they marched. Other calls from behind, to the south.

"Alright. Prepare to hold a retreat." Harabi spoke calmly, watching the approaching forces. The peri army just kept coming - dozens of peri appearing in view every second as the wide column wound its way around the curve, a never-ending line of soldiers.

Another call from behind, which Soha couldn't quite hear over the din of soldiers marching - Harabi, however, froze, turning slowly in place around, to stare in the direction the call had come from. Soha's gaze followed Harabi's. The soldiers were starting to run, straight into the gap, spears falling as they linked shields and started forming defensive lines.

"No." Harabi's voice was still calm, but it was a restrained calm now, voice trembling. "They're going to attack from the city as well, you old fool. What are you doing?" Harabi had stopped; Hvare had stopped. Mehr looked between the two, and then just kept walking, joining the others as they filtered towards the gap.

"Sevareh wants to win this." Hvare set a spear butt to the ground, twining an arm around it, to lean on its support. "The fires in the city might keep the city forces from approaching all at once; they're likely at least partially occupied with - "

And a resounding, prolonged crunching crash interrupted Hvare, as a boulder the size of two djin stacked atop flew through the djinn forces from within the city, spraying blood, limbs, and viscera through the air. Soha's eyes followed the projectile as it moved; the bodies of the djinn soldiers didn't crush, they simply flew apart into pieces. It passed through the army in the space of a heartbeat, and then hammered into a hill on the far side of the clearing the army had previously occupied.

Soha barely had time to recognize that it had punched a hole through the djinn forces before a second, and then a third, followed behind. The lines of soldiers wavered - and collapsed. Djinn started running away from the city.

Soha turned back around - the column of peri from the north had not headed directly for them. They were being encircled, and peri started leaping into the air, abandoning their tight columns to fly more rapidly through the air, to complete the encirclement.

"Well, so much for that." Hvare straightened again, lifting the spear. "I think that first boulder punched through the center column; Sevareh is likely dead. Harabi, I think you're in command." And the djinn started loping off, trying to head off the fleeing djinn. Harabi was looking from the three piles of shattered rock, that had been the boulders that had pierced their armies, to the encircling forces. The djinn started speaking, but not to Soha, or indeed anybody at all; Harabi's attention moved around the battle, muttering quickly.

"I think that's all they could manage of that, or they would have thrown more. That was just intended to break our morale. DJINN! To ME, you fools!" Most of the nearby djinn listened; others continued running straight for the rapidly-shrinking gap to the west, where columns of peri from north and south were moving to meet. Hvare was headed straight for the closing gap as well, but Hvare's charge was lead by a speartip.

Soha simply ... stood, uncertain what to do here. The peri in sight were all too far away for Soha's mind-stilling to work. Well, as a group; concentrating, Soha could work on one at a time. Individual peri started collapsing.

And then one didn't. That one spun, looking straight in Soha's direction, and then started running forward, straight at Soha; six others immediately turned, following the one. Soha's lips tightened in concentration, trying again; the vibrations slowed, but wouldn't ... quite ... stop.

And then something struck the ground, dirt flying up into Soha's face. No. The ground itself struck Soha, a large expanse of flat earth rising up and hammering straight into Soha. The sky suddenly tilted down, and Soha stared straight into the sun briefly, before it whirled away and the ground was there again.

And then Soha's mind, the familiar vibrations, started slowing, dimming. Reshaping. What was this? Soha's attention dropped entirely from the physical, to this entirely new assault. Confusion. Pain - oh, Soha suddenly knew exactly what pain meant. Panic. One after another, vibrations arose, shattering each new effort Soha put forward to still the last. Anxiety. Lustfearangerpainmiserypanic -

Silence filled Soha's mind, silence unlike anything Soha had encountered before; like the striking of the massive bell that called meals, only inverted. A ringing in the mind that was nothing, nothing at all.

A peri face appeared in Soha's vision. Cold green eyes, blue and green wings behind, a sharp nose and long silver hair, a confusion of images Soha struggled to sort through.

"Got one."

"Good, the other didn't survive the assault. Never seen a djinn use a geis before."

"That wasn't a -" the voices trailed off into a meaningless buzz.