BT IV - Chapter 34

The battle unfolded in slow motion as Micah watched.  Squares of soldiers, each a thousand strong, marched from both sides toward the river, forming battle lines on its banks to prevent the other side from finding a shallow stretch and chancing a crossing.  Periodically the flash of spells or blessing erupted as the forces on opposite banks tossed attacks at each other, but they rarely landed.  The river was almost 300 paces wide, and there was more than enough time for defensive spellcasters to raise barriers that deflected or absorbed the attacks.

At one point, an overly ambitious Sandrovok captain led a company into the water, using some sort of blessing to create a bridge out of ice, only for an entire thousand person Pereston battalion to turn their attention to them.  Arrows and spells splashed into the water, destroying the fragile bridge and killing a dozen or so of the attackers.

But other than that, the battle quickly turned into a stalemate everywhere but the bridgehead as both sides waited for the bulk of their army and siege weaponry to arrive.  Even at the bridge, not much progress was made.  Constant combat was killing warriors on both side, but there just wasn’t enough surface area for more than 20 or so soldiers to fight at a time, and both armies had more than enough reinforcements to make up for their steady stream of casualties.

It took a half hour, but Sandrovok broke the stalemate.  A quartet of war lizards left the trees and methodically made their way toward the river where they came to a halt.  The palanquins on 3 of them fell away revealing teams of enchanters operating small catapults.

A cheer went up from Micah’s side of the river, and a second later a trio of glittering spheres were arcing through the air over the water.  They exploded 10 paces off the ground above the Pereston forces, unleashing waves of fire and storms of lighting as the enchanted missiles shattered and vented their fury onto the waiting forces.

Many of the defenders got their shields up in time, locking the circles of metal together to form a sort of defensive turtle shell against the elemental magic raining down on them.  Their tactic saved lives, but it didn’t prevent damage.  Almost 20 percent of the defenders fell under the force of the attacks, severely injured and unable to fight.

Porters dragged screaming men and women to the healers in the rear as the lizard riders loaded their onagers a second time.  Micah squinted against the noon sun, watching the defenders frantically apply poultices and drink potions as they tried to regain the hit points they had lost in the first attack.  About 45 seconds later they fired, blanketing the same region of the Pereston lines just past the bridge in acid and ice.

This time, their defensive tactics weren’t enough.  Shields snapped under the strain and warriors fell earlier, leaving gaps in their defenses.  Acid mist poured in, melting flesh from bone and disabling almost as many defenders as it killed.

A shiver went up through the Pereston lines as the war lizards began reloading.  The elemental enchantments being used on them were expensive, but their range and area of effect were unmatched.  Without a siege weapon of their own, they had no choices other than to weather the attacks or retreat.

But they wouldn’t retreat, Micah knew that.  The Third Prince didn’t care about their lives.  It was always going to kill them, but it kept a small number of people alive to fight its wars until the time came for the final round of sacrifices.  The soldiers might not know that, but they had served under “Baron Hurden” for long enough to know that a second step back would lead to all of their executions.

The third volley killed the better portion of the Pereston battalion.  Those that could still raise their shields did so, but they were hurt and isolated.  Many of the injured hadn’t even made it to the rear before the shells exploded unleashing gale force winds and razor sharp hail.

Men and women died, shards of ice penetrating their bodies and pulses of air scouring their skin and flesh from their bones.  Officers shouted commands for the remainder of the unit to refill their ranks, but the survivors were too injured to move.  All that was left on the riverbank mud, churned with blood and dappled with limbs.

Adrian Harris shook his head, eyes wide as he watched the destruction.

“By the Sixteen,” he remarked, awe filling his voice.  “How can they just stand there and take blows like that?  Hundreds of men and women that have trained for years wiped out in a matter of minutes, just like that.”

“Their commanders aren’t giving them the choice,” Gwen responded from atop her war lizard.  “Usually in wars of this nature, the first side to bring out their heavy weaponry can force the other back so long as they are willing to pay the cost needed to operate their attacks.  Sometimes the defenders will be forced to weather the assaults while they wait for their own equipment to arrive, but that is why we mounted our most powerful siege enchantments on lizardback.  It gives the Sandrovok army the mobility needed to fire first.”

The catapults began to load their fourth volley, and finally the Pereston army reacted.  Circles of green runes appeared in their rear ranks, summoning a constellation of portals.  20 to 30 Brensen stormed out of the holes in space, reaching with their claws toward the Sandrovok lines even as they furious flapped with their vulture wings as they tried to cross the river.

“Desperate,” Gwen said dispassionately.  “A costly mistake.”

Hundreds of attacks arced up from the defending battalions, whole companies focusing on individual daemons.  Arrows darkened the sky, individually not doing much damage, but at some point the simple momentum of the arrows began to disrupt and slow the Brensen.  The real damage came from spells and blessings.

Flaming chains exploded from one company as someone activated their blessing, grabbing a monster from the air and pulling it squawking to the ground where swords and axes fell upon it, hacking the creature apart in a matter of seconds.  Boulders launched themselves from the river bed, knocking daemons from the sky where they impaled themselves on massive icicles that appeared without warning in the water.  Magic flashed as fire, wind, rock, water, and plants hardened themselves into different forms and crashed into the daemons, plucking some from the air, killing others, and battering the few survivors.

There were no real spells to support the daemons.  Of the two Pereston battalions in range to support the charge, one was devastated and the other was so far away that only a handful of its longest range spells could spatter droplets of acid and fire across the Sandrovok ranks.  Damage that would be easily healed as soon as the doomed assault ran its course.

5 brensen made it through the gauntlet of magic and steel to swoop toward the catapults atop the war lizards.  The operators didn’t even seem to notice, methodically reloading their weapons and aiming them toward a fresh Pereston unit.

Just before the daemons arrived, the palanquin on the fourth war lizard burst open, revealing a man in his early twenties.  He held up both hands and Micah could feel high level spell forms of both wind and earth growing in each outstretched limb.

A wave of wind, speckled with glittering blades of diamond-hard glass, exploded forth from the man, shredding the attacking daemons.  They dropped to the ground, evaporating into Elsewhere as they fell.

The man clicked his heels together and performed a courtly bow to the Pereston lines, drawing a tumultuous cheer from the Sandrovok soldiers even as he slipped a crystal battle ax over his shoulder.

“Those daemons were almost as strong as a battalion,” Gwen said, shaking her head.  “If they had been used when our soldiers were completely engaged with Pereston’s army, they could have inflicted ruinous casualties.”

“But an unsupported charge during a stalemate is as good as suicide,” Drekt finished for her, his voice a thoughtful rumble.  “The second they crossed the halfway point in the river, they became the target for every warrior that was just sitting there with nothing to do.  As strong as they are, most daemons can’t withstand the attacks of an entire army.”

“Most daemons?” Adrian asked, worried.  Near the front, a horn blew and soldiers began moving out of the way, making a clearing in front of the bridge even as the catapults continued to lob elemental stones at the defending army.

“Greater daemons like the one I fought in the village can ignore any number of attacks,” Micah replied, eyes trained on the battlefield as a series of combat enchanters began assembling contraptions of some sort near the south bank of the bridge.  “They generate an aura like the diamond I fought at the border.  Anything, be it a person, an arrow or a spell, melts when it enters the space around them.  A thousand attacks are the same as one to them.  It simply can’t penetrate their shell.”

“But I watched you,” the Barron stuttered, “you fought it to a standstill before both of you collapsed and it began dissolving.  If it can just ignore attacks-”

The horn blew twice more, and Micah felt a surge of magic from the front as the enchanters began their rituals.  Shouts erupted from the Pereston side of the river as their opponents realized that something was happening as well, but a steady barrage from the catapults devastated any unit that tried to move and reinforce the defenders that were still locked in combat around the bridge.  Already their numbers were beginning to dwindle, and it was only a matter of time before the Sandrovok soldiers broke through on their own without any further help.

“I am resistant to the ability Baron,” Micah replied.  “But that doesn’t mean I am immune.  Some of the strongest blessed can probably survive a minute or so near it, and we have equipped them with weapons they can use to fight back, but in reality they are the only people who can even hope to slow the daemons down.  Everyone else won’t even work as a delaying tactic.  They’ll just die.”

Near the battle site, the ritual was coming to a close.  Micah could feel the energies swelling as the pieces of obsidian and steel began to slot together under the enchanters’ guidance.  The Pereston army had clearly noticed their progress as well because the trickle of companies trying to sprint across the killing ground between the rest of their forces and the isolated groups fighting back around the bridge transformed into a tsunami.

They didn’t have time to prepare defensive spells or put up shields before they ran to support the defenders.  Instead, they just ran in a disorganized mass across the torn and uneven mud of the river bank. Elemental blasts ravaged them as they ran, each catapult taking nearly a hundred lives per stone.

“Truly desperate,” Gwen remarked, shaking her head.  “They should have backed away from the river as soon as the siege machinery came within range, but even if they were foolish enough to try and hold their position, they should have fallen back when they saw us empowering the golems.  The summoned spirits that animate them don’t last all that long, but they’re virtually unstoppable unless you have something of comparable power to check them.  All they need to do is back away and the golems would have run out of energy before they could do much damage.  Even if they can hold, they’re going to cripple the better part of a legion just to stop one battalion from crossing.”

On the battlefield, the rituals finished.  A half dozen human replicas, between 5 and 10 paces tall and made from steel and obsidian stood up, glowing with a dim golden light from the runes carved all over their prodigious bulks.  The Pereston soldiers that made it through the catapult bombardment threw themselves into the attacking line like dervishes.

It was like life or death didn’t matter to the attackers.  Their only goal was to try and break the attacking force before the golems arrived.

The Sandrovok soldiers let themselves get pushed back.  It hardly mattered.  Their reinforcements were disorganized.  Half dead, injured and no longer sorted by carefully balanced teams.  All they had was an unbreakable fervor, and high morale wasn’t exactly a weapon that could be used to crack a golem’s defenses.

The puppets stalked forward, swinging waraxes and clubs to and fro.  Each blow killed a half dozen attackers, but Pereston didn’t have the levels or tactics needed to stop the giant war machines.

So they died.

A couple of the counter attackers managed to slip through the steadily advancing cordon of golems only to be torn apart by the freshly regrouped Sandrovok units.  The horn blew three times, and a second later everyone heard the single beat of a massive drum.  Micah’s skin stood on end as a wave of magic followed in the sound’s wake.  He could feel a slight increase to his body and agility stat that quickly began to fade.  It wasn’t strong, but in a tight battle, even a slight increase in someone’s attributes could make all the difference.

It beat again, and the Sandrovok army cheered.  First one battalion and then another began to march in time to its steady beat, crossing the bridge in the wake of the unstoppable golems.  On the North bank, the Pereston general frantically tried to pour more soldiers into the bridge’s defense, but it was clearly a lost cause.

Hundreds died.  Even when summoning circles began to open up, bringing almost 60 fresh onkert to the battlefield, it barely did anything.  Those that were far from the fighting were burned by fire or shocked by lightning from the trio of catapults.  Those that were nearby barely fared better than traditional infantry as they were torn apart by the golems’ attacks.

By the time the golems slumped and tumbled to the soil 8 minutes later, their energy spent, almost 4 whole battalions of Pereston’s soldiers were dead or dying, and the river had been thoroughly breached.  The defenders had put together a new battle line, but they were stretched thin by the circular intrusion, about a league in diameter, of attacking soldiers.

“I think we’re going to win!” Adrian said excitedly.  “We’re driving them back, and with the losses that they’ve taken its only a matter of time before their morale gives out and they have to retreat entirely.”

“It is a bit early to make such predictions,” Drekt replied.  “We have pushed them back by exposing high level blessed and using magical artillery.  Pereston surely has similar resources that have not been committed.  After all, we’ve seen a number of them in action to date.  It would be foolish to assume that they are simply going to end things here.”

“But that is nothing before Sandrovok’s might!”  The Baron was practically hopping in his saddle.  “You’ve seen how powerful our army is.  They might be able to slow us for a bit, but nothing can actually stand up to our full force.”

Drekt didn’t respond with words, but his dismissive grunt said more than a half hour of screaming at the pompous young man.

“Why do you fight if-” the Baron began only for Gwen to cut him off.

“Silence.  Drekt is right.  This is a victory for us, but only a minor one.  Pereston was clearly fighting for time and to control the battlefield.  That leads me to believe that they have more forces nearby.  An army large enough that they think can beat us outright.  So long as we can cross the river here, we won’t run the risk of being counter attacked while vulnerable.  The climactic battle is yet to come, but we will be better prepared for it after the past hour.”

“Yes Princess,” the Baron said grudgingly, unwilling to argue further with her despite the reluctance and pride on his face.

The Sandrovok army surged forward once again, breaching the defenders lines.  A cheer went up as an entire battalion poured into the gap formed by the sudden attack, allowing the invaders to flank both wings of the Pereston army at the same time.

The battle was as good as over.  Without the need for their special unit to lift a finger, Sandrovok had broken the defenders, and in a matter of hours their thrust into Pereston’s underbelly would begin.  Still, Micah couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy.  They hadn’t fought a single forgotten, and the only daemons to challenge them had been from the lowest two tiers.  There wasn’t even a high level blessed with the army that could serve to counter the catapults that had forced the situation.

It was a victory, but it felt hollow.  It had been too easy.

A twinge of magic in the air far above them drew Micah’s eyes upward.  The sky was overcast, the heavy clouds and mist that choked the forests around them blocking his view.

More magic began to gather, and a flash of realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.

“No,” he whispered, eyes widening.  “It’s too soon.  It took all 5 years and the sacrifice of most of Pereston to construct it last time, The Prince couldn’t have-”

His words died on his tongue, transforming into lies as a great mass of stone pushed its way downward through the clouds.  Across the the entirety of its bottom, ritual circles the size of buildings glowed and sparked, spitting globs of green fire that floated down toward the forest, river, and waiting armies below.  When they landed, they erupted.  Everything near them died.  Plant, animal, Sandrovok, or Pereston, none of that mattered in face of the intense and corrosive soul fire.

The structure began to take shape as it came closer to the ground.  What had looked like an unrecognizable mass of stone turned into soaring towers and gates, forgotten and daemons pacing back and forth atop thick and heavily enchanted battlements, leering down at the gawking and panicking army below.

Atop each corner of the structure sat one of the crystal war machines that had killed so many soldiers at the border.  All 4 of them hummed with power, projecting a weaker but much larger aura of death and unreality that covered the entirety of the enchanted building.

“What in the name of-” Adrian began only to trail off into silence as almost 100 forgotten jumped from the flying castle’s walls, growing wings of green flame as they fell.

A half second later, the sky practically grew dark as hundreds of the familiar skeletal birds went to the air alongside large numbers of brensen and luocas.  Frantically, the Sandrovok battle horn began to blow a new series of notes, an urgent request for reinforcements.

Micah swallowed.  The reinforcements wouldn’t make it in time, and even if they did, he wasn’t sure how they could turn the tide of the battle that was to come.  For every stride he had taken to grow more powerful, the Third Prince had taken 2.

A pair of greater daemons lept fron the castle’s walls, slivers of magical glass appearing under their feet as they descended toward the ground.  One of them resembling a tortoise with the head of a squid while the other looked more like a hairless gorilla with a back covered in throbbing pustules.

They were overmatched.  He could fight one greater daemon, but the elite warrior by the river would need help with the second.  Of course, that was presupposing that the rest of the forces descending from the castle planned on leaving them entirely alone.

“Well,” Gwen said bitterly. “I suppose that’s why they refused to give up a step.  Reinforcements were already overhead.”