She actually pouted at that. “Aw, but I like the blood spray. I even get a regeneration boost from it. Not that I need one anymore.”
“You worry me sometimes, you know that?”
“I know, Daniel. I worry me sometimes, too. But it’s the price I pay for the power I have. As long as I don’t start going berserk I think I can handle it, and if I do mess up I trust you to reign me in. Why do you think it was so important to me, to make sure you know how to handle me?”
I sighed. “Yeah, I get it. I’m not thrilled about it, but I do understand. I’m just afraid we’ll manage to survive Ragnarok, and then find out you can’t stand to go more than a few days without killing something.”
She smiled. “Sex does it for me too, stud. If I get like that, just tie me to the bed and fuck me senseless.”
I mussed her hair. “Nut.”
She snickered. “You bet. Hey, if I have to, I can sacrifice some of my power to become more human again. But that kind of worry is for after Ragnarok.”
“I guess so. I take it you got the sample?”
She held up the bloody spike. “Right here.”
“Good. Let’s get home, then, and I’ll take a look at it.”
The flight back was surprisingly short, although it was a good thing we’d decided to end our trip when we did. There were darker clouds rolling in from the north now, and a hint of snow in the air. As we landed I made a mental note to stick close to home for now, until I came up with some way to deal with the enemy’s habit of turning the weather against us.
We ran into Tina at the entrance to the residence area, where she was having a conversation with Sefwin while a mixed group of dryads and dark elves stood around listening. They both greeted us warmly, although Tina was a bit nonplussed by Cerise’s gory appearance.
“It’s straight to the bath for you,” she announced firmly. “What did you do, go swimming in monster blood?”
“This is what happens when you stab a felwolf in the heart,” Cerise explained with a laugh.
Tina wrinkled her nose. “Well, it’s gross. Come on, let’s get you cleaned up before you start to smell.”
Sefwin watched them go with a smile.
“I have to admit, I’m a little jealous of you,” she said conversationally. “Where did you find such an amazing collection of magical beauties?”
“Hecate works in mysterious ways. I take it you’re going over security?”
“Yes. If you don’t mind, I’d like to set up this barracks area off the palace entrance as the headquarters for the Secret Service. That way we’ll be conveniently close to hand if something ever goes wrong here. I assume that was the purpose of the layout?”
“Yes, that’s fine. Are you going to have enough space, though? I wasn’t thinking about putting in training areas or an administrative office when I laid out this area.”
“I have some ideas on that, if you can spare me a few minutes,” Sefwin replied.
“Sure.”
She led me back through the heavy iron door to one side of the entrance hall, and into the open space beyond.
“Obviously the ready room should remain as it is,” she began. “But I’d like to subdivide the barracks halls into smaller rooms, with each one set up to accommodate a team of four to six. For an elite force such as you proposed I think small, close-knit teams are the best organizing principle. The storeroom at the end of the hall could be turned into a reasonable office for me, and the mess hall can double as an assembly area.
“For training areas, I was actually hoping to make use of your palace. Some of our training will need to be in emulating servants, which will mean working closely with Avilla. For sparring practice, well, I assume you’re going to want a suitable area somewhere in your palace anyway. Your children will need to be taught one day, yes? So perhaps we could work out what your needs will be in that area, and my people can staff the facility?”
“That makes sense,” I began, only to be interrupted by a faint sense of unease. I stopped, frowning.
The floor was vibrating. What could make a mass of stone and iron three feet thick vibrate?
My question was quickly answered. In a matter of seconds the vibration grew into a violent shaking, and a tremendous roar filled my ears.
“An earthquake!” Sefwin shouted incredulously. “What do we do?”
The shaking was so violent I had to take to the air to avoid being knocked off my feet. Sefwin handled it better, balancing lightly on the balls of her feet with her knees slightly bent.
I put my hand on the wall, and felt the island’s magic. There was a drain on the structural reinforcement spells, but it was minimal.
“The citadel will stand,” I assured her. “Check your people.”
“Yes, milord.” She glided across the trembling floor as easily as if it were standing still, and opened the door.
There was a final heave, bigger than the ones before, and then the earthquake ended.
I followed Sefwin out the door, and found her elves helping the dryads back to their feet. I saw a couple of bruises here and there, but no real injuries. That probably shouldn’t be a surprise, considering how tough they were.
“Stay on alert,” I told Sefwin. “Get in touch with the sentries and find out if the enemy is doing anything. I’m going to check on the girls.”
I found them all in the breakfast room. Tina and Cerise were wrapped in towels, looking quite put out as a couple of maids dried their hair. Elin had a big bruise on the side of her face, and Avilla was fussing over her. The rest of the maids were all huddled in the kitchen, looking scared.
“Are you alright, Elin? What happened?”
“My new bookshelf fell on me,” she complained. “It was rather painful, but I shall be fully healed in another minute or two. Really, there’s no need to fuss.”
I checked her anyway, of course. Yeah, massive bruising that was already mostly healed. No other injuries.
“I’m just glad you’re alright,” I said. “Is anyone else hurt?”
“I was in my kitchen,” Avilla said. “My wards handled it fine.”
“We’re okay,” Tina said. “We were in the shower, and Cerise almost fell. But I caught her before she could break the tiles.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Miss death and destruction can’t keep her balance during an earthquake?”
“Hey, I was surprised,” Cerise exclaimed. “It could happen to anyone. That was weird, though. I didn’t think they had earthquakes down in this part of the country.”
“We don’t,” Elin agreed. “I doubt that it was a natural occurrence.”
Gaea was an earth goddess, and in Norse legends Loki was supposed to be responsible for earthquakes. Enemy action was all too possible.
“Cerise, you’d better get dressed for another fight,” I decided. “Elin, we’re going to have injured people. Can you set up a healing station and take care of them?”
“Of course.”
Tina bit her lip. She was trying to put up a brave front, but she was obviously frightened. So was Avilla, for that matter.
“Are we in danger, Daniel?” Avilla asked. “Will the Black Citadel stand, if that happens again?”
Apparently I was stuck with that name now. Ah, well.
“You’ll be fine, sweetie. I built this place tougher than that. The earthquake didn’t do any damage at all to the citadel. It barely even put any strain on the reinforcement spells.”
“The palace won’t fall down?” Tina asked.
“No, sweetie. No matter how bad the ground shakes, the palace won’t fall down. But Kozalin is another story, so I’d better see what’s happening there. Cerise, why don’t you stay here and keep an eye on the girls for now?”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” she said. “Come on, Tina. We’d better get dressed.”
I found Demetrios in the bunker on top of the arcology tower, peering out over Kozalin with Marcus and Gronir. There was a light snow falling now, and a lot of smoke rising from various points in the c
ity.
“What do we know?” I asked as I stepped to another window.
Demetrios glanced up at me, and grimaced.
“Less than I’d prefer. It sounds like we came through with just a few injuries, nothing Elin can’t heal. Kozalin didn’t get off so easily, though. There are collapsed buildings all over the city, and several long stretches of the city wall are down.”
“We can’t see it from here, but judging from the signals we’re hearing it sounds like the apes are massing for an assault,” Marcus added.
I frowned. “It’s going to be dark in an hour. Damn, a night battle is going to be complete chaos.”
“I think that’s what they’re counting on,” Demetrios said. “They’re camped in the open, so if they knew the earthquake was coming it wouldn’t have done much damage to them. With the city defenses in disarray they don’t need an elaborate plan of attack, so they called up a light snow to hide their movements from us. Next they’ll send a large force to flood in through the breaches in the wall and do as much indiscriminate damage as they can.”
“They won’t beat the wizards just running around in a mob like that,” Gronir observed.
“No, they won’t,” Demetrios agreed. “Brand won’t fall to anything short of a well-coordinated assault, either. But they could easily occupy the Trade District, and a confused battle in the streets will bleed the garrison white. We need to do what we can to mitigate the damage, or the city’s defenses will fold completely over the next few attacks. Daniel, will the mortars work in this weather?”
“Easily,” I told him. “The wind will make them less accurate, but that’s not really a problem when you’re aiming at something the size of an army. Of course, we’ll need to see which direction they’re approaching from.”
“Pelagia can clear away the snow for a few minutes,” Demetrios said. “Perhaps longer, if we muster Nethwillin’s mages to support her. Once our gunners find the range it won’t matter if they lose visibility, they can just keep firing anyway. Correct?”
“Yeah, that will work. Ideally we’d catch them by surprise, though. I’ve got my flight working now, so I could head out to the wall and signal when they’re close enough to see from there.”
Demetrios studied the falling snow for a moment. “Yes, that should work. We’ve still got half a mile or so of visibility, and the snow isn’t dense enough to muffle loud sounds. If you open fire with your explosive rounds we should be able to see it from here. That will be the signal for Pelagia to part the snow so our mortars can find the range.
“But if they attack on a broad front we won’t be able to stop them all with a bombardment. Captain Rain, assemble your men at the gates and prepare to move out in the skimmers. We’ll use your firepower to stop any enemies who threaten to penetrate beyond the Trade District. I’ll send a couple of the Nethwillin mages with you for support.”
“I don’t want them out of communication,” I said. “Things can go bad really fast against an enemy with this much magic.”
“A fair point,” Demetrios agreed. “One of Pelagia’s hamadryads has mastered the art of speaking with her subordinate dryads through their trees. I can have Nomiki prepare to pass messages, and send one of her girls out with Rain’s men. Probably Hela, she’s good at keeping her head in a fight.”
“Alright, that will work,” I agreed. “I’d better get in position while you get things ready here. Once we’ve seen how the bombardment works out I’ll fly back so we can plan our next move. I’m leaving Cerise here for now, so send for her if there’s a threat to the island.”
“I certainly shall, my lord,” Demetrios said confidently. “Good luck.”
I nodded, and headed for the door. It was a tremendous relief to have someone reliable to hold down the fort while I was gone. Marcus was a competent enough officer, but I couldn’t help but remember that his command would have been slaughtered by Hel’s undead troops if I hadn’t happened to come back at just the right time. Not to mention that when I first met him his company had been cut to pieces fighting a series of monsters. He’d never made a mistake I could really blame him for, but at the same time I wasn’t willing to put my girls’ lives in his hands again.
Demetrios was another story. He knew more than I did about magical warfare, and the way he easily adapted to all the complexities of the magic I was building did a lot to put me at ease. If the enemy did pull some fancy trick to circumvent my defenses he’d catch on right away, and do something intelligent to counter them. With Cerise to back him up I wasn’t worried about anything getting through.
Kozalin, however, was another story.
Chapter 19
The earthquake had made me suspect that the enemy leader was a little more capable than he seemed. The results of the mortar attack confirmed it.
I opened fire with my revolver as soon as I spotted the first mass of triceratops cavalry looming out of the snow. I was surprised when the group I was firing at turned out to be small enough that I could actually stop it, killing several of the giant beasts and setting the leather and wood fighting platforms the others were carrying on fire. Then the weather suddenly cleared, and I could see what the enemy was up to.
I’d expected a huge mob of andregi rushing across the snow in a packed mass, which would have made a perfect target for my mortars. Instead they seemed to be staging half a dozen separate attacks on the various points where the city wall had collapsed. In each case there were a few dozen triceratops leading the charge, with several hundred infantry immediately behind them. But after that the remaining troops were a lot more spread out. Companies of about a hundred marched along in open skirmish formation, with a hundred yards or more of open ground between each group.
Normally an approach like that would have been useless, since it would just allow the defenders on the wall to fight them piecemeal. But with half the city busy dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake there weren’t nearly as many men on the walls as there should have been, and the officers were just starting to think about defensive positions on the collapsed stretches. A packed mass of dinosaurs would go right through them, and the infantry formations were easily big enough to hold a breach while reinforcements trickled in.
With only four tubes my forces couldn’t lay down fire over enough ground to stop the whole advance. I saw a heavy barrage come down on the forces headed for a breach in the Military District’s walls to the east, quickly homing in until the shells were falling among the advancing enemy. To the west another cluster of explosions descended to halt the attack on a breach near the edge of the Wizard’s Quarter. But that left the rest of the attacks to go through virtually unopposed.
Demetrios must have seen the problem, because the eastern battery quickly began walking its fire back and forth in front of the walls. But my mortars weren’t accurate enough to be very effective at that, and most of the rounds hit empty fields instead of enemy troops. Their dispersed formations filtered in around our fire, and I could see they’d already broken into the Trade District in at least two places.
Then the snows closed in again, and I lost sight of the big picture.
Things didn’t get any better after that. I flew from one fight to another, trying to use my mobility and firepower to stop the enemy advance. But it was like fighting smoke. There were never enough of the enemy in one place to stop me, and several times my intervention saved garrison positions from being overrun. But I could only be in one place at a time, and for every fight I joined there were a dozen others I couldn’t see.
Brand and his company of heroes didn’t seem to be in the fight, and the Conclave’s forces were focused mainly on protecting the Wizard’s Quarter. So that left just me, the regular troops and a few dozen knights with magic weapons to fight for the Trade District. Within an hour there were bands of ape men rampaging all over the district, killing civilians and threatening the other quarters of the city. The earthquake had left several sections of the city’s internal walls in ruins, and the garr
ison was forced to divert thousands of men to protect the breaches and prevent the enemy from getting into the other districts.
Here and there I saw local civilians gathering to defend their homes, just like they had in Lanrest. But the andregi were bigger, stronger and considerably tougher than a normal man. Their raiding parties easily cut down mobs of shopkeepers armed with nothing but truncheons and the occasional dagger. For that matter, even regular soldiers didn’t do especially well against them. When they clashed both sides took heavy casualties, and that was a losing proposition for our side.
Once I saw how badly things were going I flew back to my island, to confer with Demetrios while the sun sank below the horizon. By then Tavrin and Pelagia had joined him in the rooftop bunker.
“I sent Captain Rain’s force to help keep the enemy out of the Temple District,” Demetrios told me. “They’ve turned back a couple of attacks and killed hundreds of the enemy, but I don’t think it’s wise to keep them there after dark. They don’t have proper night vision, and the enemy is showing some talent at infiltration tactics. I’m thinking we pull them back to defend the island, and let Cerise take Corinna and her girls out hunting. Nethwillin can field a few squads of elite night fighters as well, and between the two groups we should be able to stall their advance for hours.”
“Any word on what everyone else is doing?” I asked.
“Brand and Prince Caspar were out leading a raid on a temple the enemy had set up on the ruins of another city,” he replied. “It sounds like the andregi were conducting mass sacrifices to empower a strategic curse, and Brand was hoping to disrupt their casting. They’re only just returning to the Iron Citadel now, and Brand hasn’t issued any orders yet. The wizards have been defending their own quarter and watching for traps.”
“This is turning into a disaster. Were they attacking at the same time every day to make us complacent?”
“Probably. I’d advise you not to get too eager about throwing yourself into battle here, either. We’ve seen that the andregi can get fairly tough, and a confused situation like this is a good opportunity to set ambushes for enemy heroes. There’s a good chance they’ve got elite hunter teams set up in the Trade Quarter by now, waiting for a good chance to take out a careless wizard.”
Extermination (Daniel Black Book 3) Page 29