Dahlia remained silent. She was skeptical but the questionable nature of his theory didn’t mean his conclusion about what the emperor may be doing was incorrect. The man who had attacked her had mentioned that the emperor and Ahriman might be focused on power. Now she had a second hand pointing in that direction. Not that it was terribly helpful unless she knew where to look. ‘Power’ was unhelpfully vague.
“I will think on what you have told me,” she said to him, mirroring what he had told her the day before. Then she rose and left.
She made her way back to the barrack, letting her mind roll through everything she had heard. He’d told her Borreal looked as if reality changed and shifted around him. She’d wondered what his abilities were but had never dared ask. As for her and Ravin, after witnessing Mazaran manipulate the physical world to deflect fire and and an onset of enemy soldiers she couldn’t imagine him being overly threatened by anyone. Though she’d never seen Ravin pitted against a wall of pure physical energy she knew it would have effectively trapped her. Who knew what else Mazaran could do with that ability. She let it go for now. Maybe in the emperor’s city these were abilities that were once-in-a-generation but here they merely made for extremely strong captains. Once-in-a-generation was like the man who had built the wall of their perimeter and his successors. The first God-King of the city, said to be a literal son of the gods, had raised it himself. He’d infused it with energy that had lasted eons and held against all attacks. Dahlia’s abilities were nothing compared to that. The man, their God-King, who ruled over her city, held power that made his force look insignificant.
She brought her thoughts back to reality, to here and now, as she entered into her barrack. Most of the members had gathered in the yard as the time for their shift neared. Dahlia retrieved her bow and then returned to find that the full barrack, save Raschel, had assembled.
“Alright, Barrack Ten, let’s get ready to give them hell,” she called out to them.
Chapter Thirty Two
In the lazy summer sun of the early evening Dahlia listened with half an ear to Genji and a member of Ravin’s team laughing as they strove to hit enemy targets at increasingly challenging distances. They’d been at it for a couple hours now, consistently worrying the closest edge of their opponent’s forces. They would hit a man and the edge would retreat to what they felt was a safe distance. Genji and his fellow soldier would then wait until the men felt safe enough to drift just a little outside the new “safe” area and then they’d see who could hit him. The men would retreat even further and the game would begin again. It was a game in truth because Genji could hit basically anything he could see, he just wanted them to think they’d moved too far in. Ravin’s soldier didn’t seem too shabby either.
She saw movement within the forces opposite her but no one on her nor Ravin’s team had been able to catch any hint of what they were doing. She leaned against the edge of the wall and watched as Genji’s talent for mayhem bore small amounts of fruit and enlivened the otherwise dull task of watching distant soldiers and trying to derive a pattern from their movements.
Ravin had stationed them loosely, leaving Dahlia’s team largely up to her and arranging his own men by skill with ranged weapons. She’d followed suit, seeing the logic in it, and then proceeded to monitor her soldiers and the enemy soldiers. Nothing was happening now, but that didn’t mean she’d let her guard down and be caught when something did happen.
“Let me show you my favorite weapon,” she heard Genji say. Apparently it was time to take another shot. “Come ‘ere Rezzi!”
Rezzi wandered over and Genji had him crouch a bit and lean his arm on the wall. Then he proceeded to adjust Rezzi, peering down his arm, inching it left and right. At this point everyone was watching the odd scene. Rezzi seemed entirely unphased by the proceedings so Dahlia had to wonder how often they’d done this.
“Ok, watch this. That group way off to the left, a little behind the horses.”
Dahlia watched the group he mentioned, way outside of the range they’d previously restricted themselves to. She saw a small glimmer shoot through the landscape, barely perceptible against the late sun’s amber rays. Suddenly the group of men exploded.
“Shit Rezzi, nice!” Genji crowed.
“That wasn’t me...I didn’t mean for that to happen.” Rezzi sounded slightly awed.
“Shit!” Dahlia swore. “Genji, Rezzi, hit every group you can. Now!”
True soldiers, the two men acted on their captain’s order without question. They started setting Rezzi up for the next group as Dahlia saw the enemy forces start to scramble to figure out what had happened. If she was lucky they wouldn’t piece it together fast enough to prevent Rezzi from taking out another couple groups.
“Ravin,” Dahlia yelled at him, “they’re making explosives!”
Ravin started roaring orders to the soldiers. “Do what you can to slow them down! Ry, can you throw an illusion that far? Soa! Narot! Get started on a barrier! Where are the two men from Barrack Eight?”
Another of Rezzi’s strikes hit home and another explosion rocked the enemy camp. Dahlia focused her energy and sought out one of the men frantically trying to move what he’d been working on. Her blast caught him right as he picked up an armful. He went down and she sensed his pain as what he’d been carrying crashed down onto him.
“Tell Jynsen to get anyone and anything that can reinforce the gate against a blast,” she heard Ravin calling out. She focused on the next man. Someone had regained enough control over the chaos to order the men to pull all the explosive material out of Rezzi’s line of fire. She hoped her men could get a couple more before they were out of sight. It seemed Ry could not get an illusion that far out and none of her soldiers were able to take aim that far out and send a psychic shot as she was doing. Only Genji and his fellow from Ravin’s team could reach the enemy forces where they’d been pushed to and Genji was occupied aiming Rezzi so the barracks were limited in what they could do.
Rezzi got a shot off that caught the group Dahlia had been slowing down and a final explosion rocked them as the other groups managed to scramble out of range.
“We’ve given our range away now,” she called to him, “just hit whatever you can to give them a little more hell.”
“Yes, Captain!” Genji called out and started positioning Rezzi again. In the back of her mind Dahlia thought it was the oddest attack method she’d ever seen.
The explosives out of Rezzi’s range, Dahlia saw no more gain in her targeting people so she double checked that the rest of her team with ranged weapons were stationed then went to join Ravin.
“The explosives are out of range now. Rezzi and Genji are targeting whatever looks promising to try and slow them down since they’re bound to attack as soon as possible versus giving us time to prepare.”
Ravin paused and looked at Genji and Rezzi. A wide grin spread over his face and he threw his head back and laughed, “Damnedest thing I’ve seen for a while.”
“I’m convinced spreading mayhem and general indignities is part of Genji’s abilities. Imagine, being taken out by those two in that ridiculous of a manner. And what were the odds he’d pick one of the groups working on explosives?”
“Lucky for us he did. I sent one man back to Barrack Eight for supplies and reinforcements and another to Mazaran. Not much to do now but stay prepared and pick ‘em off once they head for the gate. Your men still in position by range?”
“Yes. Fidelity, Jo-jo, and Arreal have some affinity for psychic attacks as well but I’d like to keep them in reserve until we have a high-value target. Trying to hit targets at such a distance would just tax them needlessly. They aren’t able to break through shields individually from up here but together they can do some damage once the soldiers get closer.”
“Good. I’d say they planned to wait til sunset but now we forced their hand. If I were them I’d ask myself if the cover of night was worth letting us have time to prepare.”
“And
what would you tell yourself?”
“Ha. That I’d better have a damn good way to punch a hole in the barriers we’re putting up.”
“Captain! They’re coming,” Ravin’s first lieutenant, Soa, called down.
“That’s that then,” Ravin declared as he went to the look out over the gate.
Dahlia dashed back to her barrack on the other side of the gate. Soa was crouched on the edge of the wall on one side Narot on the other. A second member stood behind each man with a death grip on their sword belt, presumably to stop a fall. Ravin switched places with the man supporting Soa and crouched on the edge himself, half shielding the lieutenant with his body. Dahlia couldn’t see what the two men had been doing but she presumed it was the barrier Ravin had called for.
Ahead of them, coming towards the gate, were two structures that looked like upside-down metal canoes followed by men armed with bows. She saw boots under the canoes and guessed that they were being used to transport the explosives safely shielded from her soldiers.
“Rezzi! How hot can you make one of those metal things?”
“On it, Captain!” her soldier called back. He turned and focused, the air getting cooler around him. It was a stronger, temporary version of the spell he’d perfected on her bathtub. The metal canoe began to radiate heat as it came closer but the men under it didn’t stop.
Ravin’s men focused their attention on the other canoe. Shots of all kinds targeted the men’s feet but almost all stopped short. Someone under the canoe was holding a physical barrier in place.
“I don’t know how much more I can do!” Rezzi called. “There must be something on the inside protecting them from the heat.”
“Damn, damn, damn,” Dahlia muttered to herself. “Ok,” she called to Rezzi, “switch focus to shooting under the thing.”
The metal constructs grew closer. Ravin and his three men held their post on either side of the gate. Their only chance of stopping the men charging the gate would require breaking through whatever barrier was being held around the construct.
“Ok, both barracks!” Dahlia yelled out. “Focus on the metal one on the left, closest to Barrack Nine. Now! Fidelity, Arreal, and Jo-jo strike on my command.”
Her team shifted focus to the one Ravin’s barrack had been shooting at. Dahlia figured they had one chance to get this and they’d be better off giving up on getting both canoes in hopes of improving their chance of stopping at least one. She reached out with her senses and found a mental shield as well around the men in that canoe. It was fairly well done but not up to par with her or Mayuera’s work. Instead of being fluid with multiple roots it had been built up like a cocoon of energy and just dropped into place. It was dense but brittle if hit in the right spot. She located a weak point, concentrated energy into a spear, then forced it into her focus band. She built up enough pressure then shot it into the wall. It shattered around the men.
“Now!” She barked the command and her three soldiers hammered at the men below the structure. Dahlia forced another strike through her scatter shot band, spreading out the blast between all the men in hopes of hitting the one supporting the physical shield. The men stumbled and more of the bolts from the ranged weapons began to get through.
She heard cries around her as the enemy’s archers on the ground found their marks. She saw Ravin grab a bolt mid-flight as it hurtled towards Soa and fling it back towards the men below. The other man, Narot, seemed to have part of the shield on the gate wrapped around him, arrows stopped short when they came at him.
Dahlia focused again and shot at the men under the first canoe. Under siege from psychic and physical attacks the men fell, shielding themselves under the metal structure.
The second group reached the gate and dropped their load of explosives already lit. They quickly retreated then turned to tilt and face the canoe towards it. The first structure popped up again and two men streaked out with handfuls of explosives and threw them into the pile at the gate as Dahlia’s division struck them down. Dahlia braced herself as the explosion rocked the gate. Ravin held himself and Soa fast while the second member fell back into the soldier behind him as the barrier was shattered. The first structure exploded, the blast from the second igniting the explosives still held inside. The second seemed to be positioned correctly to shield the men and they were only thrown back a ways.
Dahlia regained her footing and leaned over to look at the gate. It was scorched and smoldering but still standing thanks to the barrier taking a good portion of the blast. She heard a whistle and a few dozen arrows embedded themselves in the gate then burst into flames. Their archers must have wrapped them in rags soaked with something flammable.
She turned to find Rezzi laying flat out on his back, exhausted and rocked by the explosion. The distance and sheer volume of fire and heat he’d moved had worn him down. She knelt and pulled his head onto her lap.
“Rezzi, can you hear me?”
He nodded.
“Good, we need you to pull out as much of that fire as you can so I’m going to do something that will block your exhaustion and let you keep going. You’re going to hurt yourself but you won’t feel it and we’ll get you to the infirmary before you do any lasting damage, ok?”
“Ok, Captain,” he said weakly.
“Drop your shield,” she told him.
He focused for a moment and she felt it vanish. She reached to brush against his mind, looking for the part of him that told him when he was hurt. She wove a temporary block on that first. Then she found the part that told him he was tired, that he’d gone too far. She isolated it and wove a temporary barrier around it. He blinked and grinned up at her.
“That feels great!”
She nodded. Hopefully he’d be in the care of a doctor before it wore off or it would feel very, very much not great.
“You’ve got about an hour, then you’ll need care immediately. See what you can do to remove some of the fire.”
Rezzi bounced up and started streaming a thin line of fire off of the gate back towards the archers. They dodged but he kept it up, slowing the rate of bolts hitting the gate. When he caught the occasional man in his stream their quiver ignited, adding to the damage he inflicted.
Dahlia swung around trying to locate Ravin. Most of the barrack members were firing at the archers, trying to stop them from pouring more flaming arrows into the gate. She left them to it and ran to lean over the inside edge. Jynsen was there with his barrack. It looked like they’d arrived in time to reinforce the gate somewhat. They were adding to that now and hauling huge baskets of sand up to the top to try and smother some of the flames.
Two men had joined Soa and Narot trying to reconstruct their barrier and stop the arrows that the archers were able to get off. Another was manipulating water from a large container to put out the hottest sections while others carried a new container up the stairs to him. Ravin had another enormous basket of sand he carried by himself. He jumped to the top of the burning gate, the flames licking up towards his feet and flipped the basket over, showering it down in one big mass. Some of it caught on crevices the fire had eaten into the wood and they reduced to a smolder. The rest hit the base and smothered a small portion that was still burning from the explosives. Then he hopped back down and came face to face with Dahlia.
Add fire to the list of things that don’t hurt the man, she thought.
“How long can he keep that up?” He asked her, tilting his head towards Rezzi.
“We’ve got an hour before he needs to be in the infirmary. He doesn’t look it but he’s already past exhaustion.”
“Your work?”
She nodded.
“Captain DeMorra!” she heard Genji call for her and she turned back towards Rezzi.
“They’re trying to block Rezzi from moving the fire,” Genji yelled.
She ran to lean over the edge and look out. Rezzi was still pulling fire off the gate but whoever had created the barrier around the canoe that had survived must have regained h
is feet enough to try and contain Rezzi’s stream. Wherever her soldier tried to direct the stream of fire an invisible barrier stopped it close to the gate a split second later. She scanned the troops below but the only soldiers she saw focusing on the gate were the men shooting arrows at it.
“He must be behind the metal structure. Give me a moment,” she told her two soldiers.
She reached out with her mind towards the canoe that had hit the gate and gotten away. She brushed against a layer of energy so thin it was like a spider’s web. Then she felt someone parry her probing. It was a strong, concentrated push against the spot she was focused in instead of a solid barrier. Well that was frustrating. There must be two men under there, one constructing the physical barrier and the other the mental. She could have easily shattered another wall but dealing with someone parrying her when she was reaching that far and hadn’t pinpointed her target was something else. It was like playing a game of cat and mouse where she was feeling around in the dark and the mouse could see the shots coming. She could win but they would effectively stall her while Rezzi’s limited time wore on and fighting the barrier drained more of his energy.
“Damn,” she muttered as more arrows thudded into the gate and burst into flame.
“What?” Ravin asked her, coming up behind her.
Dahlia: A Novel of Dark Desire Page 20