Glory to the Brave (Ascend Online Book 4)
Page 87
“Up next?” I heard Halcyon grumble from my right, the man having at some point slid in beside me during the chaos. “We haven’t been down since this battle started! Ugh, I knew I should have rolled a melee class.”
“I think it’s far too late for that, Hal!” I called back to the mage as another round of the straggling spirits and shadows that the mages’ sweep had missed climbed over the edge of the wall ahead of us once again, prompting all three of us to dive back into the fray. “Besides, you don’t like being up close and personal with things!”
“That I sure don’t!” he replied as he conjured a spray of lightning in front of him, the white-hot bolts of electricity lancing through a pair of identical-looking spirit spiders and wiping them away in a burst of magic. “Damn, I’m running low on mana again! How much longer until those things get there? Do you think you can manage without me a stretch?”
“About a minute, give or take!” I shouted back to the mage as I glanced past the three shadows that I was fighting and towards the charging dervishes, seeing that they were about to hit our first line of traps and trenches. “So if you need a break, take it now! Things are going to get a hell of a lot more hectic once they get here!”
“I don’t doubt it!” Halcyon said with audible relief evident in his tone as he stepped backward out of our line, both Amaranth and I adjusting our position to account for his departure. “And thanks, Lyr!”
With only enough time to grunt in response to the mage’s words before I found myself under attack once again, my world fell into the frenzy that was combat, all thought fading from me. In its place was a flurry of seemingly disconnected moments where I either dodged, attacked, or rushed towards an attacking invader. So much did everything begin to blur together that I didn’t even consciously realize that dervishes had arrived until I was pulling Savagery free from one’s midsection, ducking under its feeble attempt to slash me. Drawing the blade free with a wet sucking sound as I evaded its attack, I didn’t waste the time to finish off the now mortally wounded creature. Instead, I lunged forward even closer toward it and drove my shoulder into its lower body, using my positioning and strength to send it toppling backward and over the edge of the palisade. It was perhaps a cruel thing to do to the hapless victim that was trapped inside the abomination, but the cold calculus of war left me no other option.
Not if I wanted to have a chance against the five other dervishes climbing the wall on either side of Amaranth and me.
Watching for a second as the dervish flailed before falling out of sight, I was forced to whirl and shift my attention towards my new attackers, the world around me slowing as I activated Alacrity. Dodging and parrying in the seconds that followed, I felt like I’d been thrown into a blender, barely even being able to move an inch without being threatened by a razor-sharp blade arm. Fortunately, though, I didn’t need to fight for long before the tides changed, my desperate defense buying enough time for Freya to come and rescue the three of us, the woman having seen our struggle from farther down the line. In barely a handful of seconds after her arrival, one of the dervishes was falling to the ground, the skull housing the spirit that animated the mud-covered horror having been shattered, leaving the magic to unravel itself. Another soon followed, its chest singed and rent open by a blast of powerful magic. That left only three for the four of us to deal with on much more favorable terms for the next few seconds. During that time, we managed to take down one more of the constructs before our skirmish effectively reset itself with the arrival of another three dervishes climbing over the wall’s edge to join us.
“These things are endless!” I shouted as the four of us downed another of the original set of abominations only to see that several more were in the process of climbing the walls on either side of us, their ranks joined by a scattered crop of both corrupted spirits and shadows. “Are we even stopping any of them out there before they can get to us?”
“We haven’t been overrun yet, so we must be!” Freya replied in a somewhat breathless voice, the woman pirouetting to the side to avoid a pair of stabs from her opponent, using that opportunity to glance out and over the wall. “Damn! It looks like they’re focusing their efforts on wall sections, rather than hitting us all at once! I think they might have managed to get a foothold farther down the line, too!”
“Great! Just what we need! How bad is it?” I asked as I used another of the spells that I’d learned from Janus and sent a blast of ice-cold air towards the dervish I was fighting, causing the mud on its body to freeze and crack.
“Bad enough that I think I might need to grab a bunch of people and go—” Freya started to shout back to me as she thrust her spear into the chest of the dervish she’d been fighting. But before she could finish speaking, she was interrupted by a large plume of fiery magic exploding at the lip of the ramparts in front of us, sending a wave of red-hot fire washing over all of us, the dervishes included.
“Ah! Where the hell did that come from?” I shouted, trying to stay ahead of my opponent as we both staggered backward from the shockwave that the magic had brought along with it, the flames thankfully somewhat blunted by both my shroud and my protective shielding.
“I don’t—” Halcyon half-replied from somewhere on my right before suddenly spitting out a curse at the top of his lungs. “Shit! It’s coming from the siegebreaker! They have mages and others on its—ah! Get down!”
Moving the instant I was able to register the man’s words, I threw myself sideways and into the only open space that I had available to me, partially landing on Amaranth as I did so. Wincing from the awkward landing, the dodge came just in time to avoid being speared by an arc of dark lightning, the black and purple magic lancing all along the rampart’s edge, striking both adventurer and construct alike. But where I saw the players scream and writhe from the spell, the constructs, shadows, spirits on the wall had the opposite reaction, gaining both strength and speed from its touch.
“Damn it! They’re throwing corrupted magic at us!” I exclaimed, recognizing the magic’s effects as I moved to scramble back up to my feet, raising Savagery up above me to block a pair of slashes from the dervish I’d been fighting. “We need to stop them before they do that again!”
“It might already be too late for that, Lyr!” I heard Freya shout back as I finished rising to my feet, using a well-timed Flameburst to blind the dervish attacking me. “I can see them flooding onto the wall farther down. I think that last blast took out almost everyone there! If we don’t push them off quickly, we might lose the ramparts entirely!”
“Then take as many people as you need and make sure we don’t!” I called back, parrying another slash from the dervish and temporarily pinning the blade arm in place, which allowed Amaranth to pounce in close and deliver a mighty paw swipe its leg. Deforming from the impact, the blow caused the limb to give out and sent the creature crashing to the ground where the cat then promptly bit down onto its skull and crushed it with a single bite. “The three of us will hold things together here as best we can!”
“I can do that!” Freya replied as she twirled her spear to catch an attack from a construct on its haft before retaliating with a series of three strikes almost faster than my eye could follow, the final strike sending it over the rampart’s edge. “But what are we going to do about the casters?”
“Hit them back as hard as they hit us!” I answered as the woman ducked out of line beside me, and I shifted to take her place, finding myself up against a pair of spirits, the constructs having mercifully been thinned out for the time being. “If they want to throw magic at us, then we’re going to throw some back at them! Hal and I just need a bit of time to make that happen!”
“Then I’ll try and buy you as much of it as I can!” she promised before moving to run off at a sprint, her voice calling out for both Constantine and Drace.
“Damn, Lyr, are you sure you didn’t just oversell it a little bit?” Halcyon replied as the woman left earshot range. “Because, have you seen
the thing since the orcs started casting?”
“Of course I have,” I said to the mage as I exchanged another series of blows with the two spirits that I was fighting, managing to slash both of them at once with a wide cleave before bathing them with a blast of fire that had them lose their shape and unravel. Exhaling in relief to see them fade away, I took the opportunity to look out over the wall, searching for the siegebreaker.
To my dismay, it only took me a second to find the creature, the massive monstrosity having managed to close towards the town even faster than I’d expected over the course of the battle. Based on my quick glance, I guessed that the war beast was barely more than couple hundred feet away from us, with each stride it took rapidly causing that gap to shrink. But as my eyes shifted upwards to the orcs that were perched on the creature’s back, I suddenly got a better idea of what Halcyon had meant by words earlier.
Broken up into two distinct groups on the siegebreaker’s rather long spine, one on its head and the other further back towards its rear, I saw that they’d been divided based on role. Those standing towards the front of the creature were responsible for throwing the spells that had struck us earlier, the majority of it appearing to be the mundane regular kind that we were all used to, with the rare burst of dark corrupted magic overshadowing it. Conversely, those on the rear of the beast were all gathered around a dark and ominous sphere of some kind, channeling its energies into a hazy aura that surrounded the siegebreaker—an aura that I saw was capable of turning ballistae bolts ever so slightly so that they missed hitting the creature, or blunting the spells that were sent towards it, preventing them from even touching the orcs standing upon it.
“Oh,” I finally managed to grunt as I stared at the monster, feeling my earlier confidence start to wane. “I see.”
“You see,” Halcyon stated in a dry tone. “I hope you see a solution because that thing is shrugging off our spells and bolts like they’re nothing. Unless, of course, your plan was maybe using your magic to hop over there and politely asking for them all to leave?”
“You know what?” I replied back to the mage, a thought suddenly coming to mind. “That’s not a bad idea. I think I’ll do exactly that! Do you think if you and your casters get together you can crack that shield for me to land on it? Then I’ll try and keep them from raising it again.”
“What?” Halcyon demanded, his eyes moving from me and onto the siegebreaker ahead. “Shit, Lyr, I was just joking when I said that!”
“Well, too bad, then, because it’s still a good idea and keeps us from cooling our heels and waiting until they come at us!” I said as I scanned up and down the line close to us, my mind already trying to figure out how I would put my idea into motion. “The question still stands, though: can you burn through that shield of theirs?”
“Uh, well, probably!” the man replied, his voice hedging as he gazed out towards the oncoming monster. “But it’ll need to be closer so we can hit it reliably.”
“By the time we’re ready it will be,” I said as my eye landed on a figure that I knew would be able to help us. “Drace! Over here! We need you to fill our spot in line! We have an idea to hit the siegebreaker but need to move!”
“Hit it?” the warrior demanded as he began to rush towards us without a second’s hesitation. “With what? Harsh language and mean gestures? That thing is still too far away, and that damn shield is blocking everything we throw at it!”
“Which is why I want to take it down for good,” I replied as the half-giant seamlessly slid into our spot on the ramparts. “But I’m going to have to do that from the inside.”
“The inside?” Drace repeated, his head turning to look towards me. “You mean you’re going over there. Onto the thing’s back.”
“That’s the plan,” I said, giving the man a single nod before I resumed scanning the ramparts searching for people that I could tap to help me.
“Well, fuck me if that isn’t something,” Drace grunted back, shaking his head as he replied. “I don’t know what else to say other than good luck, Lyr. Hopefully, you can pull it off.”
“Me too,” I agreed, giving the man a brief farewell wave before Halcyon, Amaranth, and I darted off, the pair moving to follow me as we rushed along the ramparts.
As we did, I made sure to shout at any spellcasters that we passed for them to follow us, managing to conscript both Caius and Donovan along with several others in the process. Arriving at our destination at a run, we all piled onto the platform that we had emplaced the massive ballista that was the Beast on, surprising both the siege crew and the defenders surrounding it. Fortunately, that surprise only lasted for a few seconds until I managed to explain to the group what I was hoping to do.
“So do you think you can skim a bolt over its head and into that group if we can get that shield down?” I asked Ameron, who we’d chosen to serve as gunner for the massive siege weapon.
“Without a doubt,” the elf affirmed, his gaze turning away from mine to glance towards to Halcyon and the other spellcasters as they readied themselves, someone having dropped a mana totem to help them regenerate their energy. “I’ve already tried with two bolts the second they shot their first spell and had it skim off whatever’s protecting them. The best I’ve been able to do since is stick the thing in the legs, and that hasn’t done anything to slow it.”
“Well, hopefully, bringing the shield down will solve that problem,” I said as I turned to glance towards the siegebreaker and then again towards Halcyon. “How is going, Hal? Are you almost ready to go? That thing is starting to get close!”
“Pretty much, Lyr. We’re just waiting on your go-ahead,” the mage replied as he turned back towards me, a look of concern on his face. “But before we do, are you sure about this? You and Amaranth are going to be alone over there, and you’re likely going to face hard resistance. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if Zhul is on that thing.”
“He probably is,” I said with a shake of my head, despite feeling a touch of reservation at the thought. “But I think we can hold out as long as we have to. I sent a couple runners to round up Janus and whoever else can make the jump that they can find and send them here, but there’s no telling how long it’ll take them to get there. We need to get those shields down so you guys can start roasting and shooting the damn thing. Worst case if things go sideways anyway is that I respawn and lose a few minutes getting back into the battle.”
“I can think of a lot more worse case scenarios than that, Lyr,” the mage stated with a shake of his head. “But you’re right. We need to do something, otherwise, that thing is going to be basically unscratched when it hits the wall. Are you ready?”
“As I’m ever going to be,” I answered, glancing down to Amaranth as I spoke. “What do you think, big guy?”
the cat replied eagerly, letting out a loud purr of anticipation.
“I’m going to take that as a yes from him,” Halcyon said, motioning for us to get in position. “Let’s get this going. Just wait until we’ve done our second round before going. The shield should be gone or weak enough for you to get through by then.”
“Sounds great to me,” I replied as Amaranth and I moved over to the laneway that had been cleared out for us, its straight roughly twenty-five-foot-long path leading to and ending at the wall’s edge. Taking up position at its rear, which was conveniently just a few feet behind Ameron who stood behind the Beast’s firing mechanism, we had a perfect view to watch the spellcasters work.
“All right, people!” Halcyon exclaimed as everyone finished lining up in a way to give them a clear line of sight to the siegebreaker. “You all either know what we’re doing here or are about to figure it out really fast because we are starting in five seconds! So pop your cooldowns and drink a potion now!”
d the casters begin to channel their spells, the sheer amount of magic that filled the air in the seconds afterward causing my hair to stand on end.
Leaping out from each of their outstretched hands as they all finished their spells at the same time, the space between the palisade and the siegebreaker was abruptly filled with a chaotic maelstrom of elemental power. Crossing the distance the fastest, I was able to follow the magic in time to see several bolts of lightning impact the orcs’ shield first, causing it to immediately thicken and glow with energy. Next came fire, arriving to slam into the barrier just as the crackling electricity began to fade, its intense heat and potency boiling layer after layer of the protective magic away, causing the air itself to ripple. Then lastly, was the ice, the big and relatively slow-moving projectiles slamming into what remained of the now-wavering shield, going as far as to pierce through in sections and splash against the siegebreaker’s untouched side.
“That was a great opening start, everyone!” Halcyon shouted as the flare of magic came to an end. “Now let’s do it again with feeling before they can regroup and recharge that shield! We’re not going to stop until that thing is a smoking hole in the ground!”