by Amy E Hix
When they approached the unicorn, nearly three-hundred meters from the rest of the group, they found it with its horn bloodied, standing over a dead Orc Scout. The Scout had been placed there in an attempt to spot potential invaders from that location.
However, Killian had put very few Orcs on duty in this area; a just-in-case scenario to play out. After inspecting the entrance to the mines, they determined there was only one and returned to the group.
“An Orc Scout, by himself,” Zaaid reported as they fell back into formation.
King Naethan then paced himself to walk beside Darian for a moment, “You know, that gives me an idea. Tomorrow morning, once the bulk of the fight is completed, we should use these entrances to surround the Orcs left inside the caverns.”
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” Darian replied, “My people know these caverns far better than the land surrounding Aheb’an. We will be in our element.”
The King smiled. For a long time after that, he walked with Darian and King Ederich, discussing the way he wanted things to be after the war. King Ederich was making a conscious effort to remember all that was being said.
“Take this whistle with you. It will call the Rocs once daylight comes, should you need them.” King Naethan handed the whistle over to King Ederich.
From time to time, I used my field glasses to view the landscape ahead of us, to the west. Before long, the Sun had become completely hidden, leaving the sky bluish shade of gray. The nightlights from the sky seemed brighter here, reflecting off the golden grass of the plains to the south.
Behind us all, Solecreation’s group was keeping a constant eye out to make sure we weren’t being followed. Two Unicorns traveled with his group as well. They were great at helping to detect evil, even in the dark.
As we moved forward, I overheard some of the warriors from Rhalas discussing their journey thus far: the encounter with the sea serpent, then the Luminomes, and finally the Ancients.
King Naethan’s speech back at the meeting spot made me realize the genuine concern he had for the people. He didn’t have to be here. He could have just stayed in Celestra. Back in Minzkala, Zaaid had told me that it had begun as a mission to root out evil before it could spread; but after spending so much time with the people of Gael, the King’s compassion for us had grown.
Natasul and Jaerra walked side by side, both thinking of the ‘what ifs’ of war, recalling the moments they had together along the journey thus far. Jaerra had made him sad back on the ship when they discussed the idea of her moving from Vamei after the war was over. She told him it would be too hard to consider.
After the others had returned to their cabins aboard the ship, she eased his mind by mentioning nothing more about the matter. Instead, she allowed him to wrap his arms around her from behind as she looked on the waters. She had turned to face him at one point, and between the kisses, they sat and talked about everything they could think of, their faces close together.
He loved the way she looked at the ground and smiled, always deep in thought at what was being said. And she loved everything he was telling her. He was humble in his beliefs but had such a strong conviction about the way he envisioned the world should be. She agreed with nearly all his ideas, and in the ones she didn’t, it didn’t matter anyhow.
Winge walked with Ryan and Solecreation. They talked about how things would be after the war. They discussed the lands of Sapir, and their possible re-habitation. The cities were becoming crowded in Maralune already. To have space to spread out and farm the land would be very beneficial to the people of Maralune.
Ever since the Digvi’ja had begun to gain control in the western hemisphere, the people had increasingly moved their families into the city walls. The few farmers that remained in the countryside now faced the possibility of being killed or tainted. A world without the tyranny of the Digvi’ja would allow them to once again use the lands for the purpose for which they were designed.
The warriors slowed their pace before coming to a halt. Motions were made throughout that indicated they were approaching Aheb’an. Turk could see that Alusia was once again in front with the other warriors. He had been with his mother in the beginning. He remembered to say all the important things along the way, recalling how he felt it would be important given the unpredictable nature of war.
In the distance, there were hundreds of thousands of members of the Legion walking around. They weren’t working. It looked like they might be having a party. Some of them were dancing, some using jovial gestures while talking to others. There was laughing, and a few lively roars from small pockets of the Legion’s members.
The Unicorns began snorting and hoofing the ground below. After receiving the information Alusia had brought back and using a set of field glasses, King Naethan examined what little he could in the dark skyline.
The Forest Elves told him what their ultra-vision allowed them to see, which gave the King a better picture of what needed to be done. Solecreation and Captain Kellerson were summoned to the frontlines for instructions.
“The entrance to the city should be on the south end of the walls, if I remember correctly,” King Naethan told them, “Those of us from Minzkala will travel straight in to the eastern walls with the majority of the teams from Rhalas. Solecreation, take your team and thirty others to the north. Go as far around the city as you can. Try to get to the west wall and help us surround them if possible.
“Darian, have your people surround the city, send forty-thousand with Solecreation, and about ten-thousand south. Split the rest, half to travel with us, half to the north. Captain Kellerson, take twenty of the remaining teams with you and head south with the Luminomes.
“I’ll send one of the Enchantresses around with instructions to sound the Elk’s Horns when the time of attack has come. Take the guard towers out along the way. If you are spotted before we have the chance to get in place, go ahead and blow your horns.”
“Want us to surround the group now?” Sigge asked the King.
“Yes, we won’t be together again until after the battle.”
All the Spirit Healers, over two-thousand of them, stood along the edges of the group. They positioned themselves equal distances from one another. Raising their staves into the air, they called in unison for the Spirit of Sovereignty to fill the warriors’ hearts.
A strong wind began to pass through the crowd. It enveloped each warrior with a cyclone of spinning air. It left them feeling as if they had taken a huge gulp of cold air into their lungs. The chills ran through their bodies and they all felt invigorated as never before.
Welkin looked pleasantly surprised, “Nice, how long do we get to keep this?”
“It’ll take us on until daylight at least,” Raffe told him.
The leaders began to complete the tasks assigned to them. Solecreation led his warriors through the brush and the trees near the cavern entrances to the north. The Herd of Virtue went with them, marking out nearby signs of danger and in some cases, racing off to take care of the problem before the group was detected. They had the easiest route. Most of the Legion’s members were on the south side or inside the city. They also had the trees to provide more coverage as they traveled the ground.
Captain Kellerson and Darian were on their way south. In some spots, they had to drop to their bellies to crawl along the grasslands.
They made a wide loop around the south end of Aheb’an and continued to travel north back toward the city. They could see the stations set out in the grasslands, and for the most part, tried to avoid them.
When they were almost certain they would be spotted from one, however, they commenced to make their way to the station to kill the guards there. So far, they had been successful in completing their attacks before any of the guards could send off a warning to the city.
The Blade Mavens and the Champions would climb the towers with their cloaks up. They m
oved swiftly and tried to make it appear as though they were Orcs, sometimes loading up a crate from below to carry with them. When they reached the top and began the assault, the ground members of each team backed them up; launching everything they had in the way of inconspicuous attacks.
For the most part, during this preliminary phase, the Pyromancers and Demon Masters had very little to do. Their attacks would draw too much attention. So, they pulled out daggers when possible and began to strike furiously at any nearby targets, creating a little comic relief to the situation, for they were found very inadequate with this method of combat.
King Naethan and his Court as well as the class leaders from Rhalas and two-hundred teams traveled the ground between them and the city of Aheb’an. The Centaurs found it harder to move with them through the fields. At one point, they decided to stay back near the trees and enter the battle a little later, once the horns were blown.
“Are we heading anywhere in particular once we get inside the city walls?” Zaaid asked the King.
“Yes,” he replied, “See that tower there?” The tower was the tallest structure within the city; of course, Zaaid saw it. But it was also near the back walls, which meant they would have to fight just about everything within the walls to get inside.
“What’s there?” he asked.
“Shift.”
That was all they needed to know. For two years, the Court members had searched for the missing Enchantress. They had all grown fond of her throughout her training. She had become a Minzkalan, which made her the utmost priority.
The King thought that if they could get her out early, not only could she help them in battle, but Chesed’reg would be left with nothing to make his deals should they find themselves in a compromising situation.
“Did they get the Wyvern?” Zaaid asked the King.
“Yes, but I’ll take care of that. You guys just focus on getting Shift out of there.”
Twenty-Six
The Sounding of the Elk’s Horns
On the north side of Aheb’an, Solecreation’s team found quite a few Orcs who had snuck off alone to take a break. They quickly killed them along the way. As they got closer to the walls of Aheb’an, they could see that there were small groups of Orcs on the eastern side, setting up for a ground assault.
Solecreation stopped them, “We’re close enough to the walls to wait for the horn now.”
On top of the walls, they could see figures of Grosteques now resting. They were in their stone form and posed no threat unless they were awakened.
They could also see the Carrion Drakes in various locations around the city walls and on the towers. They were asleep as well, but given the slightest disturbance, they would become alert. They were trained for guarding the walls unlike the Grotesques, which relied on individual commands from their master.
Darian had the Luminomes in position around the southwest walls.
King Ederich was busy with his men, taking out the Orcs who happened to be working on the stations between the valley pass and the city.
As King Naethan’s men approached the eastern walls, they spotted a few Orcs working outside the city’s walls. There were only about twenty of them in number, and with a time-released attack of silent arrows by the Archers, the Orcs standing outside were eliminated.
The King’s group snuck around the walls and used them to hide the shadows of their bodies. Their destination was the front gate. The activity there was much greater. The King decided to take his elite crew inside, hopefully undetected, to breech the tower before they blew the Elk’s Horn. Those left behind were given instructions to blow a horn should any problems arise.
Pinky cast his mass invisibility on the Minzkalan group. King Naethan led the way. They easily slipped past the Orcs at the front gates, but when the King noticed a Digvi’jan Warlord patrolling, he decided to pause for a moment. If close enough, the Digvi’ja would be able to detect them through the invisibility.
The King led them around the inside of the outer wall. There were only two Giant Slickers on the route between them and the tower, and they managed to avoid both by stepping over the chains that held the beasts and walking single-file.
The entrance to Killian’s Tower was going to be the real obstacle. There were Warlords crawling in and out of the place, as well as Orcs they would have to pass close enough to touch.
Moving into the doorway as fast as possible would be the goal, for they wanted to attract as little attention to themselves as possible.
Alusia focused on one of the Warlords headed into the tower and entered him without any problems. Traveling inside the body, she sketched the corridors in her mind and studied the numbers of Orcs and Warlords they would need to consider as they entered.
When she came back, she reported, “There are three Warlords around the entrance. Every now and then, two of them walk up to the second level of the tower and look around the ledge. The last one stays in the corridors below. The Orcs are everywhere following no particular path. All of the leaders are in their chambers on the third level.”
“What’s on the second level, besides the two who patrol that way?” the King asked her.
“Nothing.”
“Let’s try to make it to the second level and take those two out first.”
They set off toward the entrance with a plan in hand. They were itching with anticipation, the adrenaline already rushing through them like a rapid river from the Spirit of Sovereignty. It took a little time for all of them to make it past the few first Orcs.
At one point, Welkin was caught with the Warlord coming up from the lower corridors. However, before the it noticed him, he slipped between two of the columns holding the entrance open.
The trip was easy for Zarathustria and Alusia, who just transferred themselves to the rest of the group once all were inside. They were now on a staircase that led them to the left, away from the lower corridors. Two flights of stairs carried them to the second level, where they could already see the head of one of the Warlords coming toward them. The time had come.
“Zara, go see about the others and give me a report. And tell them to give us five minutes, then sound the horns simultaneously,” the King ordered.
Zarathustria vanished from sight, camouflaging herself, and then transferred to the location of the other warriors. She zipped off to each group of warriors around the city of Aheb’an, collecting reports and giving them the King’s instructions.
“Go, Kal,” King Naethan said.
Kaliesto
I rushed into the room with the two Warlords in it. Welkin was right behind me. We took the blows while the others came out of their invisibility spell and began to let them have it.
The walls around the ledge provided just enough cover from the ground for the four Pyromancers to use a few fire spells, but they kept them low to the ground. Alusia noticed them using caution and threw up a concealing curtain around the tower walls.
Zaaid smiled, “Nice one.”
The Digvi’ja proved to be worthy of carrying the lead for the Legion. They were tough to bring down, though the small amount of damage they put out made it easier to keep hammering away without too much difficulty. If there had been more than two, it would have been a different story.
Core and Jinx stood at the door to help hold off anymore that might show up while Archaos and Mabashi fired a cycle of arrows repetitively at the two targets. The first was a prismatic arrow to daze them, then vortex to create giant holes in the armor. They would end with fire or poison arrows to cause significant damage to the Warlords.
In addition to keeping our minor wounds healed, the three Spirit Healers would occasionally toss in a swarm of insects to confuse the Digvi’ja’s movements. Fouad doled out the paralyzing blows, then plagued the targets with disease and sickness.
The final blow to the first Warlord was Cyrow’s cauterizing woun
d as he reached around the upper chest, and cut the Warlord open from behind. The other one went down seconds later with a pyroblast from Shelija.
We got ourselves cleaned up from the battle as the Elk Horns began to blow from all directions around the city. The deep resounding noise pulled the attention of the Orcs and Warlords and caused them to run to the walls and gates of the city to see what was coming.
Stheta and Mank worked to quickly patch up the wounds Welkin and I had received. We reapplied beneficial spells and prepared ourselves to face the Wyvern.
Chesed’reg and the other leaders had been awakened by the horns. As they rushed to the portal, wishing to escape to the safety of the tower, they found me and Welkin coming up the stairwell. Welkin saw Jenla, the female Digvi’ja, beginning a spellcast in his direction and backed inside the corridor to wait for the others.
I struck Greshan across the shoulder with my sword, but Greshan didn’t stop to fight me. Instead, the leaders disappeared. When the King came into the room, he decided we should go for Shift while the cowards were penned up in the top of the tower. We would enter the lower tunnels that Alusia had scouted. Once the tunnels were cleared, we planned to rescue Shift from Malakael’s chamber.
“Cyrow, Zara, stay with us once we get there,” the King ordered as we made our way down, “We’ll have to get inside the chamber quick. Kelara, close the door behind us asap. Kal, you take everyone else and clean up these hallways. We’ll all meet back at the entrance.”
When we entered the tunnels, we found two entrances to what lie below.
“There’s a giant loop through the dungeon area. Go to the right,” Alusia directed.
Alusia then topped off our haste and we proceeded into the tunnel. We soared through the gobs of Orcs that were heading to the surface from beneath the city.
We had one more Digvi’ja to take out, a Warlock with powerful magic, capable of large amounts of damage. With one strike of his scepter, a magic bolt could send a warrior, whether he had previously died or not, straight back to Minzkala.