The fight at Stonefort had been ten to one in losses, which wasn’t good enough, not nearly. Of course, the ratio had been a lot higher before the teleport attack had happened. We’d need to make sure the inside of the city stayed secure. I just hoped they had a good plan to follow for that.
“Everyone sleep?”
They all nodded. There was more than one set of haunted eyes around me, probably like mine, but we were still determined to finish this and protect as many as we could.
Cassie said, “We’ll stop them here.”
Gwen nodded, “Damned right.”
We ate quickly, all of us felt a sense of urgency, despite knowing the enemy probably wouldn’t show up until midday at the earliest. We also had no idea where to go to get our assignments. Apparently, nowhere, since Annabelle marched into the room a few moments later.
She looked absolutely exhausted as she collapsed into a chair. Of course, she’d been up the rest of the night, adjusting and making new plans of defense, and handing out orders. The price of leadership.
“When you’re done eating, head out to the back courtyard of the castle. You’re a part of the quick response teams. You’ll be briefed on what’s expected, and where you’ll be posted. I need to get some sleep before the enemy shows up.”
I replied, “Yes, princess.”
She smiled tiredly, and then got up and left the room.
It didn’t take long to finish up breakfast, and I felt a lot more awake as we got up and headed into the hallway. The atmosphere in the castle was a little frenetic, as pages and even guards were running around trying to get things done. No one gave us a second look as we headed down and out of the back doors of the castle.
The parade grounds were stuffed with about a thousand people all facing one direction except for a noble in the front of everyone, who must have been in charge of this force. We exchanged glances and then joined the crowd. There was a current of low murmuring in the crowd, and the soldiers and even undying looked unsure and worried about the task ahead. I hoped the noble had a good speech prepared.
A few more trickled in and joined the crowd over the next ten minutes, until it stopped.
The noble cleared his throat, and I felt him cast an air spell.
“Morning. Last night the enemy took Stonefort through trickery. They teleported their numbers inside the city to several locations over a two-hour period. Then at some signal, or perhaps just a certain time, they attacked the city from within as they poured out of the buildings. Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen again here. We believe the dark elf master somehow infiltrated Southmere as well, and he has teleport points.”
He paused for a second.
“Worse, we can’t depend on the enemy acting the same again. If we could, all we’d need to do is approach the reported point closest to us, kill the enemy as they waited for the appointed time, and cut off the possibility of teleporting by filling the area with stone.”
There was some dark muttering in the crowd. Obviously, some of them hadn’t really thought things through, and had thought it would be that simple. That there’d be more complications had already occurred to me. Of course, I had the benefit of hindsight, when the small and cloaked flying dark elf units had infiltrated and caused havoc in the streets of Aladell.
“Silence! The enemy is not stupid, not the ones in charge at any rate. They must have alternate and fallback plans in place. The moment we take a teleport point, and the enemy knows they can’t wait around for reinforcements anymore, they will all start to act immediately after teleport and not wait around for more. Either to start chaos in the city by running through setting fires, or perhaps some other distraction more suited to small and mobile teams in the city. They’ll be unlikely to take the gate with a small number, but they could do irreparable harm in the districts, or through rear surprise attacks against those manning the walls.
“If not, good and well, but not making a plan against that kind of thing would be foolish. When your groups are assembled, your primary charge will be to move quickly to a reported point in your sector, enter the building and kill the enemy, then fill the room with ice or stone in a square foot lattice.
“You will also split up your team in three parts just in case, so you all know what to do if things get… more complicated. You’ll need to assign someone to quench fires, and you’ll need one man that goes to the teleport point alone to block it off, while the rest of you hunt them down as quickly as possible. If you don’t make those determinations in your group ahead of time, resources will be mismanaged, either fires will get out of control, or the enemy will evade you.
“We’ll be splitting into a hundred teams of ten, the city is big but that should get us very good coverage. When a teleport point comes in, the closest team will be sent, while the four surrounding teams in the grid will be notified to prepare to stop and capture any enemy forces that try to escape the first team. If more than one teleport location in the same grid happens closely together, the closest second team will be sent to deal with it, while another team will be put on alert to watch for the enemy escape.”
He looked around, “This will work, and we will stop those evil bastards. We’ll put them down fast, hard, and decisively to safeguard this city. In a moment, I’ll ask the undying to come forward first, a group at a time. Your groups will be supplemented with guards to reach ten, and you’ll be assigned a post. After that, we’ll assign guard squads. Any questions about your responsibilities before we start?”
One of the guards asked, “A lattice?”
He frowned, “Yes. The rooms may be too large to simply fill with stone, that would take a lot of mana for one person. However, if you create a small rounded stone pole from wall to wall every foot in all three directions throughout the room, that would be effective and cost a lot less mana. Basically a frame, a room full of square foot outlines in three directions. Like a wire cage, just in three dimensions instead of two. Anything else?”
“If we lose our Earth Sphere wielder?”
He nodded, “Good question. Use ice to do the same thing, and report the location with command. We’ll make sure someone with earth is dispatched within the hour before it can melt.”
He looked around, there seemed to be no more questions. He hadn’t given his name, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to ask. I also noticed that everyone looked a lot more confident about today, now that we had a solid plan to deal with it.
“Good, let’s get set up. Make a hole! Undying groups, line up please.”
The soldiers split apart, and they left an empty space like an aisle between them. We went into the empty space and lined up. There were a few groups ahead of us, and a bunch behind us. Most of the undying parties were four to six people.
We wound up in the market district, not very far from the gate. We had four guards with us, one of which had earth which gave us two people with earth. I assigned him to be the one to shut down a site in the second scenario, where the enemy would have already been there and gone. Dan had volunteered to put out fires, which was fine with me because that would free me up to kill the evil bastards.
In our grid, we had an inn and tavern, a stable, a second tavern without rooms which was just a large bar and grill type place with entertainment, a general store, a weapons shop, a tailor, and last but not least, a house of ill-repute. That inn and that last one bothered me, not because of their profession, but because it would be filled with people.
The street as a rule was empty, the street vendor locations abandoned, and all the citizens in their homes for the most part during the siege. But… the inn was filled with sleeping undying groups for the night shift, and of course the house of ill-repute was where all the ladies of the evening lived, and I was sure some of the undying were staying there as well.
The only building I wasn’t worried about was the stable, that building was the only one without a basement.
Since Lara and I had the Life sphere, I decided we should patrol our
area every ten minutes or so to get our detect life aura into every building we were responsible for. It only took two or three minutes to walk an easy circuit up and down Market Street to do so. I was sure they had it well in hand, and alerts would go out, but maybe that would save a minute or two in our response. Especially if too many things started to happen at once and Catalina and the king ran behind as they got buried in reports to make.
Besides, it was something to do, and standing still on a corner all day was just… boring as hell.
The morning was a little disconcerting in that we couldn’t watch for the approach of the enemy, but we could gauge the people on the walls near the gate. It wasn’t until mid-afternoon that they became very alert, which told us the enemy was coming into range. Soon enough, battle would begin. I’d fought the enemy enough times to know they wouldn’t wait to attack, just take a few minutes to circle the city and prepare. That whole attack at dawn thing was a load of crap, at least in this war.
Last time, they’d waited for night before they did the teleport invasion, I had the feeling they wouldn’t wait this time. Last time, they’d counted on secrecy, this time they knew we were aware that they had teleport points in the city.
Steve said, “Here we go.”
Lara smiled, “It seems wrong, but I’m glad the waits over.”
She cast the enhancement spell. Might as well, it’d give her something to do, and she could just refresh it every few minutes.
Dan asked, “Do you think one of the teleport sites will be here?”
I shrugged, “Probably, we’re close to the gate. I imagine this area and the castle would be prime targets to teleport into.”
We waited tensely the next twenty minutes, and there was no mistaking it when it started. Explosions filled the sky over the wall, the soldiers returned fire, and the sound of the charging enemy rumbled through the streets. It seemed wrong not to be on the wall, but we had a job to do in the city, even if no one teleported in.
“Circuit.”
Gwen grinned.
We walked up market on one side, and then walked back down on the other. At least, our assigned area of market street, which was fairly small.
Cassie said, “So far so good.”
I sighed, “You just had to say it. Murphy…”
Cassie snorted in disbelief, and then Lara and I turned our heads toward the tavern at the same time.
Cassie tilted her head, “You’re kidding me.”
“Nope, you jinxed us, remind me to thank you later.”
Gwen giggled as we moved toward the tavern.
My communicator went off, and sure enough it said we had an ingress at the tavern.
“How many?” Steve asked.
“Fifteen, in the basement. Normal party order, with two guards in the front with Gwen and Dan, and two in the back with Steve.”
We headed into the tavern, and toward the back door. So far, the enemy was standing still and waiting for more people, or maybe a certain time. That sounded right, they’d make things more complicated later on, when they knew we were on top of things their orders would change.
Gwen pulled her sword as she opened the door to the cellar, and we rushed down the stairs.
Lara cast a spell that filled the cellar with a light that was almost blinding.
The space wasn’t all that big, and the enemy dealt with the surprise of us showing up by drawing swords and they started to prepare spells. There were two dark elves, and thirteen orcs.
I released a fire blast into the crowd, I’d been preparing it since we entered the building so had quite an edge on casting speed. The two dark elves were toast, as were the six orcs standing the closest to them. That left eight that were just damaged. So much for their spellcasters.
Gwen, Dan, and the two soldiers engaged them with swords. Between the bright light, and the explosion of fire, they quickly slipped through the enemy’s guards and took four of them down. Blood flew, and limbs fell to the ground.
Cassie took down three more with a lightning ball that caused an explosion of electricity to jump from enemy to enemy, while missing our four in melee range.
That left just one left, which fell to Steve’s crossbow. Then he raised dead on the fifteen of them, and we turned around and left. No one had gotten so much as a scratch for our efforts, we’d obviously caught them by surprise. Steve sent the undead to the walls.
Dan stayed behind a moment on the stairs, and he took the time to fill the room in with that earth lattice to prevent further teleports.
I took a moment as well to send a message that they’d been taken care of. Of course, they’d feel if the enemy life signs disappeared from the city, but they couldn’t depend on it. The enemy could have cloaked for all the king and Catalina would know. It was just a verification thing.
Cassie smirked, “Say thank you.”
I laughed, wise ass. I had told her to remind me.
“Thank you for jinxing us.”
My communicator went off again, and I took a look.
“East side group has teleporters. Let’s block the side streets to the east both north and south of us, split up. Me, Gwen, Dan, Cassie, and Ken. The rest of you take the north one. That puts a healer in both groups, and a light person in both groups to keep up our bonuses. Earth too.”
Ken was air, the guard with earth was Levin. The other two soldiers were Robert and Christopher.
The five of us moved south, and paid more attention east, but we were vigilant in all directions. The team there should have things well in hand, I expected that it would take the enemy longer than a minute to figure out they’re being countered so well.
Ken asked, “Murphy?”
I laughed, “Mischief maker. What can go wrong will go wrong kind of philosophy. It’s also a warning against tempting fate. Saying all is well is just asking the universe for trouble.”
Cassie shook her head, “Coincidence.”
“Maybe.”
I actually didn’t believe it at all, I was more a shit happens kind of guy, but teasing Cassie was fun, and it helped us relax a little in a very tense situation. Or maybe I believed it a little, because I didn’t tempt fate if I could help it, and I had been known to knock on wood on occasion. Still, even then it was more tongue in cheek than true superstition. The explosions of spells, light, fire, and darkness ranged along the walls at random in a constant deadly cacophony. Cries of pain and death reached our ears from the wall by the gate, just fifty or so yards away. Our northern team was about two hundred feet north.
The communicator went off again. It’s what I got for being assigned leader of the group. Gwen’s was going off as well, but she’d ignore it as long as I was still alive, she was the official second in command for this mission.
“All clear, let’s do a circuit and pick up our other half.”
Dan said, “I wonder why we just didn’t put that lattice thing in every basement in the city at the start. I could have done it in our assigned area in about thirty minutes.”
I shrugged, “They might have above ground coordinates too. I’m pretty sure they did do that inside the castle. Better to have a quick action plan and react than to guess and put us all on the walls. If they’d guessed wrong we’d have had issues. Plus, I think that also takes pressure off them protecting the grand enchantment, one less master to deal with since his power is being wasted on this.”
Steve added, “It also would have tipped off the enemy that a full infiltration and take down wasn’t possible. This way the first wave waits for us to come kill them, and we get maybe a thousand easily killed enemies without collateral damage before they figure it out. If we’d blocked them from the start, they wouldn’t have lost any of their people before they switched to a slash and burn plan.”
That was a good point.
We picked up the others and started back south. I figured we’d stop in the middle and wait for a while, but a quarter of the way down I detected more orcs and dark elves in the basement of the inn
and tavern.
“The inn, same plan.”
The communicator went off, and I verified, just to make sure it was only the one location. It was.
That time it didn’t go off quite so well, they didn’t wait for us this time. The enemy raced up the stairs, and they released destructive spells as they charged toward the door outside.
Gwen and the two guards drew swords to defend, as did Dan, but Dan also focused on putting out the fires the bastards had just set. The common room was a mess besides, other spells were used to tear the tables and chairs apart into kindling.
I sent a fire blast at one of the dark elves, and Cassie hit the other one. Of course, I was controlling the targeting with control fires concepts, there’d be no collateral damage from my fire. The dark elves were the most dangerous, the orcs were kind of fodder, and except for the chiefs, shamans, and some few of the guards in their clans they didn’t have magic. It was also a foregone conclusion that those exceptional orcs weren’t being used in these suicide missions.
Between the two of us, we’d almost killed them all.
Gwen’s sword arm dropped to her side as she released an exploding spike of darkness, that ripped into the few that were left and put them out of their misery.
I was starting to get the impression that ten of us was overkill. Orcs were easy to kill ten levels ago, now they just… weren’t even really a threat. Of course, I didn’t say that out loud, I didn’t want an orc sword in my back after all. Their only true power was in overwhelming numbers, like the horde outside.
I truth, I could have just pumped twice the mana into my attack and just killed them all, but I was sure the rest of the party wanted some action. It was just the dark elves that gave me pause.
The inn’s common room was a blackened mess, and a site of destruction, but Dan had put the fires out and the undying sleeping above us were safe.
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