Stone Raiders' Return (Emerilia Book 6)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Don’t worry, there will be a use for us soon enough,” Deia said.

  “We’re just used to being down there with them.” Gurren gestured at the advancing Warclans with their Elven support.

  “When is it our turn?” Steve’s axe whistled as he spun it in his hands.

  “Once they start trying to pick off the Warclans with ranged magic and they stay inside their barriers, that’s when we attack.” Deia looked to Suzy. “How about our reinforcements—how are they doing?”

  “They’re advancing from where they got dropped off, but are going to take some time before they get into position, though. Look, seems that they buffed their troops. I think they’re starting to take us seriously.” Suzy pointed at the glowing soldiers.

  “Now, watch how a Warclan does it,” Lox said proudly.

  The shield wall of the two combined clans seemed to drop, digging their points into the ground just moments before the Gudalo forces slammed into them.

  The war drums beat out a pace as swords flashed, cutting down the attackers. They tried to flow around the edges to only find themselves met by the DCA.

  Spearheads of Mana stopped any advance; the DCA stopped the enemy before they could advance down the Dwarves’ flanks.

  “Damn, I know that the Devil’s Crater Army were a strong bunch, but we couldn’t really see it when they were fighting the Demon Horde. Now, they’ve got armor and they’re fighting a reasonable opponent. They’re pretty impressive,” Lox muttered, holding his chin in thought.

  “The average level of a person in the DCA is about 150—there are higher and lower, but that’s normal. The Demons are also Creatures of Power. The Beast Kin have their own racial traits as well as more training and usually higher levels,” Anna said proudly.

  “Even though they’re fighting a buffed enemy, I’d say that they are the stronger opponent,” Deia said. “They’ve been bloodied and they learned from their battles. I think comparing the fighters they are now to the fighters they were just three months ago is hard.”

  Gurren grunted in agreement. Lox could only nod as the enemy actually reached the DCA. They were shredded by swords. The DCA worked in a group fighting technique: They would fight asindividuals, but band together and then draw apart. They were fluid in their actions, knowing what was going on around them at all times and reacting. It allowed them to draw on their warrior skills instead of fighting in formations that didn’t fit them. They didn’t fight clean either.

  The Dwarves acted as a single entity, but the DCA acted like hundreds of them working together, supporting one another and using their full range of skills. They operated best in tight-knit, small groups, not massive formations.

  The Dwarven formation moved forward. Their blades cut those who dared to challenge their shield wall. Artillery bellowed overhead, smashing into those coming through the breaches. More and more groups were making it through with their barriers still functioning.

  Elves and other groups of archers let loose with their arrows. The forces that came from the Zolu tribe lands rode on their various steeds, firing arrows over their allies and harassing the forces that entered the Stone Raiders’ fortress.

  The sky was illuminated with the constant ongoing magical battle between the attacking army’s and defender’s mages.

  ***

  Geswald looked over the reports he was getting in. Esamael wasn’t the only person with eyes and ears around Gudalo.

  The army at Emaren had moved through the teleport pad, securing it and their foothold in the city, as they advanced forward toward the royal palace. It seemed that someone had tipped them off as they were running into heavy resistance. People were fleeing the city to try to get away from the fighting.

  The city was weak with all of their best fighters off at the Dwarven tournaments.

  Still, it seemed that no one from the royal guard had gone into the tournament, including the royal wizards, who were putting up a fight against Esamael that was tearing up the city.

  It seemed that Esamael had people to clear out the teleport pad and secure it in Haugr as well as others to destroy the magical circle that was running around the city, empowering the guards who served there.

  Even without the buffs of being in their own city, the guards, as well as the royal court, were putting up a fight. It seemed that the army based to the north rushed toward them with all speed.

  Closer to home, Geswald had received reports that the southern army that protected the Gudalo border were now moving northward.

  They were moving with an army of five hundred thousand, with the first group of one hundred thousand already visible on the horizon—the others just hours behind them.

  Geswald had seen the war machines that they brought with them. They would pound on the city’s barriers and then walls until they secured multiple breaches and then stormed the city.

  There were only thirty thousand soldiers within Emaren. Defending a heavily fortified position didn’t take a lot of men, but if the southern forces were able to break in, then it was going to be hell within the city.

  Geswald had already made plans for that possibility. If Esamael sent back forces, then they could defeat the oncoming forces rather easily. If Esamael took the throne and killed Sigaird, then it might split the southern border army in their decisions to follow a dead king with no heirs or King Esamael.

  Even if it only caused mistrust, then Esamael’s army could use that to their advantage.

  What worried him was Verlun.

  He looked up from his interface, looking over to where Verlun lay. Night had come not that long ago, but over Verlun, the ongoing light display of magical spells was easily visible. Whoever was over there was throwing some serious Mana around.

  He had lost contact with his various eyes and ears within the city hours ago. After that, he had been relying on those who were with Loughbreck’s forces. They had talked about how walls were coming out of the ground and then they had stopped sending messages.

  Geswald scratched his face nervously.

  There was an army of nearly three hundred thousand attacking the Stone Raiders, but with all that he had heard and seen about them, he didn’t feel good about the battle.

  “Pete!” Geswald yelled.

  Moments later, his trusted aide arrived.

  “Find me someone who can do animal possession magic. I need to know what is happening in Verlun,” Geswald said.

  “Yes, Master Geswald.” Pete bowed his head and turned out of the door he had barely walked through.

  Chapter 22: Rise and Shine

  Dave shifted, groaning. His muscles were all tense, as if he had worked till he dropped and his mind felt as if it was a gear box chugging to start.

  “Look who’s up,” Bob said nearby.

  Dave looked around, finding himself in one of the laboratories. It looked as if it had been pretty messed up. “What the hell happened in here?” Dave ignored the angrily blinking notifications.

  “You happened in here,” Bob said.

  “Thank—” Dave started to talk, but his words sounded sluggish to him.

  “You?” He finished off. Dave quickly tried to remember what had happened, as well as think of various different projects to occupy his mind and take up his Intelligence so that he didn’t feel as though he were in some bad slow-mo movie.

  “Ugh, that’s annoying,” Dave said.

  “I would think so. You kind of got stuck in a loop, it seems. Can you remember what it was about?” Bob dropped a book into his bag of holding and faced Dave.

  “Hmm.” Dave focused on the other parts of his mind that weren’t focused on trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Okay, so I added some new stats, changed my master summoning to Master of Space and Time, then added Gravitational Anomalies. Then I just got overwhelmed with knowledge; was like I was a light bulb and the information that was supplied was the battery. I started to solve problems that I had and other problems I hadn’t even thought of. I got m
ore and more information and I couldn’t slow down. There was so much more to learn. It was as if I was holding a damn power station that was feeding me knowledge. All I had to do was reach out and I could connect the dots. I could create a path through it all. I saw it—I saw and understood what was going on. The theories became not just ideas that I could grasp, they became factors.”

  Dave took a breath, opening his mind once again to all he had known, all he had figured out. It was a similar moment to when he had completed his house on Cliff-Hill: a sense of accomplishment, a sense that he could do whatever he put his mind to. There were no barriers but the ones he imposed on himself. No more limits to hold him back.

  It was as if he had opened a door and looked out upon the world when he could only see it through a keyhole before.

  Bob just stayed silent as Dave felt an undeniable power run through him—not of Mana or Strength, but of solving a problem that had irked him for so long, the satisfaction of winning and figuring out what blocked his path.

  Dave looked to Bob. “I understand now. I understand the teleportation, how it works, the teleport pads, the portals, the slip streams.” Dave held up his hand. A sphere formed out of layers that seemed to appear in the air. It stopped and floated above the ground, suspended in mid-air.

  “I understand how gravity works,” Dave said, as if not truly believing the words as he looked upon the sphere he had made.

  ***

  Josh looked out over the battle inside the Stone Raiders’ walls.

  The walls had been breached in multiple locations. The Warclans were doing what they could to try to stop the flood but they were simply overrun with numbers.

  Esamael’s formations had been halted, smashing into the Warclans and then diverting around the sides, where they were picked off by the roaming groups of DCA soldiers, Elves, or other allies who had come to help.

  “Pull back our Stone Raiders to assist the Warclans and forces on the ground. Have them deploy in parties to where they think best. Get Kim and her strongest mages to stay back, as well as the summoning mages,” Josh said to Lucy.

  He opened the command channel to all of the leaders of the various allies.

  “We’re going to raise the second walls. Those who are defending the walls, pull back to the secondary walls. We will fall back there in an orderly fashion, bleeding Esamael’s army as we go. Once we reach the walls, we’ll let them swarm into the fortress.”

  “What about our artillery on the walls?” a Dwarven artillery commander asked.

  “We can pick it up and bring it to the second location,” Malkur said.

  “Good. Also, once our forces are clear of the walls, anyone with ranged attacks is free to hit that wall with anything and everything they have to kill off these damn cockroaches,” Josh said.

  The ground rumbled as a wall, much closer to the guild hall and its few key buildings, started to rise out of the ground. It was only ten meters or so tall, with firing platforms, but it was a defensible location.

  Josh changed channels. “Malsour, I need you to change the settings on the Mana barrier. We’re getting hit by those damned mages. I didn’t think that they would be this powerful,” Josh said. The Warclans were shrugging off the hits with their combined shields, but the other forces supporting them were getting hit.

  A constant stream of people was rushed through the teleport pads and into the ministrations of the doctors on the other side. The medics in Verlun were just there to heal minor breaks and cuts, stabilizing patients to be moved to Terra.

  “It will be done,” Malsour said. A metallic board seemed to appear out of the ground as a group of thirty or so people stepped onto it. It glided forward, defenders moving out of the way. It settled down behind the Warclans and in front of the secondary wall. Malsour, who had been riding the front of the metallic board, seemed to be enveloped by the ground as he descended into the ground.

  “Well, that is certainly one way to do it.” Josh shook his head. He studied the ongoing battle. He thought that the ranged magic would have had more effect on Esamael’s army. After fighting creatures in Aleph and then the Demon Horde, he was used to people just using their own strength.

  Watching a real standing army in action was a whole different fight.

  The mobile barriers were stronger than he had expected. Although his forces were stronger in a one-on-one fight, Esamael’s army was closing the gap and simply swarming them with well-trained and disciplined forces. They knew how to fight; it didn’t matter if you got a blade in the heart from a level 10 or a level 100. This was Emerilia; if you were hit somewhere vital, you were going down.

  Also, the Stone Raiders and their allies weren’t the only ones healing their people. If there were wounded, they were hauled to the rear, where Health and Stamina potions and remedies were waiting to be administered.

  “Where they can, they use consumables, soul gems, enchanted barriers, potions and spells trappedin crystal matrixes. Much easier to use that first before dipping into your reserves of Mana, creating a massive spell on the spot, or healing a complete person with just your Mana. Also allows them to do more than one thing at a time,” Josh muttered to himself with grudging respect.

  He looked at the forces streaming back from the walls. The area beyond the walls looked as if it were dawn with the explosions of light from the spells that were being unleashed to keep Esamael’s army occupied.

  “Even though they’re better than I thought, I don’t think Loughbreck is having the best night.” Josh snorted to himself and jumped down from his perch.

  “I’m going to coordinate with Florence and the people in support. Let me know if you need anything else,” Lucy said.

  “Will do. See you when this is all over,” Josh said over his shoulder. He stopped well behind the Warclans that were slowly moving backward. It was a slow and precise movement; going backward for a shield wall was tricky business.

  Josh smirked as a familiar face moved around the Warclan and made her way to him.

  “You look a lot different from your Golden Sabres days,” Josh said. Instead of wearing her golden armor, Cassie wore a ragtag outfit of leather pants with armor plates and a fur and armor top. She had changed her swords for an ebony shield with silver runes along the inside and a sword made of silver, ebony, gold, and malachite, tipped with Mithril.

  “After seeing you lot waving your damned Mithril weaponry around, I thought it was time to put on my best gear, not my matching set. Also baaabe, would you possibly let me talk to one of your smith friends who can use Mithril?” Cassie walked her fingers up Josh’s forearm as she pressed against him.

  “You know that rubbing your chest plate against me is kind of uncomfortable?” Josh said.

  “Tell me about it. I need to ask Deia how she does it. This is killing my girls.” Cassie adjusted her breastplate.

  Josh shook his head at the ridiculousness of their conversation. “You ready for this?” he asked, looking out over the fight. He had seen some of the injured pulled from the fight. Too many of the POEs wouldn’t make it till the next day.

  “I am.” Cassie nodded and looked back to him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I know that we set this up to show that we’re strong, that we have allies who will fight beside us, but…” Josh shrugged. “I don’t know. The more I come to know the POE, be around them, the more I think of them as real people. Hell, I think of them as more real than most of the people from back on Earth. Sure, they might be ones and zeroes in a machine. Hell, we might just be brains in a vat. What right do I have to say that they deserve to live or die for us?”

  Cassie squeezed his hand, taking a moment as the fighting seemed to die down while the groups separated from one another, reforming ranks and lines.

  “We fight for what we believe in and I don’t think the POE are any different. They are here because they’re our allies, because we made promises to one another. The enemy is here because they want to defeat us, to take what is ours, and control
this nation for their own gain. If we roll over for the POE, then no one is going to respect us or come to our aid. This is what we have to do. If Emerilia has taught me anything, it’s that we need to stop treating it like a game. We’re E-heads. This is our reality, our home.”

  Josh took a deep breath.

  The walls from the outer fortress were falling, creating new paths for Loughbreck’s formations. Overhead, DCA aerial forces carried artillery cannons. Those who weren’t encumbered dove and dropped Mana bombs from their chests and raked the enemy’s lines with their Mana spearheads.

  As mages got into position, they once again hammered the enemy formations, hitting barriers and dueling with other mages among Loughbreck’s barrier groups.

  “Stone Raiders are in formation and waiting your orders,” Dwayne said over the guild’s command chat.

  “Our allies are in position or will be shortly. No one on the walls,” Esa added.

  “Kim, you’ve got five minutes to soften up those barriers. Then, let the parties fight it out,” Josh said.

  The incoming fire started to hit the Mana barrier as it retracted, creating a solid magical defense and allowing the defending mages to focus solely on attacking the enemy within the fortress’s walls.

  “Well, I guess it’s about time we showed Emerilia what happens when you attack the Stone Raiders.” Josh looked to Cassie. She nodded and the both of them turned back to face the enemy that poured through the breaches and into the open land left behind by the retreating defenders.

  ***

  Deia called down a Mana firestorm onto the Water spirits nearest the Warclans. Mana fire didn’t eat oxygen and burnables, but Mana itself.

  The spirits dissolved under the spell’s workings, feeding it, turning it from a simple Human-sized spiral quickly up to a fifteen-meter-tall tornado.

  Deia moved her hands, burning away the Water spirits as the firestorm continued to grow stronger. Loughbreck’s mages attacked it, not realizing what it was. The Mana firestorm howled with angry flames; its red funnel came down into a blue flame made from pure Mana.