Magic Stars (Universe on Fire Book 3), page 20
“Did I say something wrong?” Vilariarin asked confused.
“Yes, you did. We weren’t close as you imagined it. We were…as a mentor and a student.” She paused and looked away. “A father and a daughter,” she whispered, the words that she hadn’t dared speak to him coming out.
“Ah,” Vilariarin said uncertainly.
She looked at him and a thought occurred to her. “Why did you ask that? Are you interested in me?”
Vilariarin blanched and his mouth opened, but he couldn’t get a word out. Remi laughed at his nervousness again and walked off, letting him catch up to her.
At the very least, he had managed to cheer her up a bit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next day came without an attack by the enemy. Their air surveillance showed that they were active—they formed lines, sacrificed prisoners, raised the dead, summoned monsters—but they didn’t march across the bridge. Instead, they waited, but for what no one knew. Remi was on the walls, wearing spare gear that had been dropped to them during the night. It wasn’t her armor, but it provided some protection at least. The enemy was doing something; she didn’t know what, but they had sacrificed a lot of prisoners, both the ones they’d brought and the ones they had captured in the city. It pained her to even watch it, but she knew that these Rzan did not hold monopoly on cruelty and evil. Humanity had done the similar things.
But her job was not to judge the Rzan, only to stop them. They didn’t have any more aces to use. They had fired all the missiles that the UTS had managed to send through, and they were being resupplied here, but aside from the weapons they had there was little that they had to surprise the enemy. The army reinforcements were still a few days away, and they did not have an exact timeline on more weapons getting sent through the portal. They were going to have to settle for the things they had here.
Next to her stood the Shaman Chief of the Enroki tribe, Sentos Plainwalker, dressed in his people’s hide robes with bones of animals and feathers hanging off it in strips. In his hand he carried a staff that seemed to have been made out of a long bone, and was capped with a gem.
The Shaman gave off a feeling of gentleness, and had a calming presence.
He had requested to join the fight today. So far he and the rest of his people that had stayed had been attached to her troops, protecting them with their shields, but Sentos said that he thought he could contribute to the battle. He had inquired about the state of the fight, of their chances to hold the wall, and had offered to use a spell. He had told her what it did, and if he was right and he could pull it off then she thought that perhaps they could delay the Rzan for another day. Remi had spoken with the Archmage and told her to what they were about to do.
They were now only waiting for the enemy to make the first move.
Their wait was over around noon, and once the reason for it became obvious, she understood. The Rzan had summoned an entire army of monsters, massive things that charged at the front, with far greater numbers than in their previous attempts. On other assaults they had used their magic users and regular troops to supplement their summoned and risen troops, and now they were doing nothing of the sort. It was a horde of the summoned monsters, followed by a horde of the risen dead. She saw spells being cast by the warlock from the other side of the bridge—they were raising the dead on the bridge as well. Quickly, the bridge was filled with a mass of monsters. The defenders fired, but there was nothing that could even slow the horde down, as there were too many of them. They just trampled the dead and continued on.
Remi glanced at Sentos. “I think now is the time.”
The shaman nodded. “This is a spell that my people had passed on through the ages, and it has been fueled over all those years. Once I use it, it will be spent, needing another age for it to be brought up to even a fraction of the strength that it now possesses,” Sentos said as his hand moved in elaborate patterns. The casting did not seem similar to what mages did; it was more fluid, more…imprecise. “Every death in our clan is honored. The souls of those whose body has passed remains to guide and protect those who come after them. Now, I will call them to service one last time.”
Sentos started to hum, and she felt a magic rise in the air, but it did not come from him—it seemed like it was manifesting from somewhere else. She saw his eyes turn all white and he raised his staff. A wisp of gray mist started to appear all around them, around the wall, down below, moving gently and dropping down before the charging horde.
And then the mist gathered, forming shapes. Remi heard the gasps as the first person-sized shape appeared from the mist. They were dressed in similar garb as Sentos, but each held a large bone axe in their hand, and were the same color as the mist. Then more shapes formed, first dozens, then hundreds, then thousands. An army of ghosts, of spirits. Sentos was breathing hard now, but more and more spirits appeared, even as those first to arrive charged the enemy.
The defenders fired everything at the spirits, but it all seemingly merely went through them. She raised her rifle, one borrowed from the soldiers as her own could only be used with her armor as a source of power. She aimed, and sent out an order to open fire. The bullets were added to the defenders’ spells, and everything crashed into the enemy horde.
The spirits, the souls of the old warriors and shamans who had lived in the Enroki tribe, fought against monsters and the undead. She saw the spirits cleave monsters in half, the shamans using spells that seemed ethereal but still did damage. It was an unreal sight, but then the mists stopped coming out of Sentos, and he slumped over on the wall.
“There, those are all of them. The old-ones who were supposed to be called only when the tribe needed them to protect them,” Sentos said. “I never would’ve imagined myself using this spell for others… Yet here we are. They will not last long. They were not meant for this world, and soon they will have to leave it again.”
“Thank you, Chief Sentos,” Remi said, and the man was helped to his feet by one of his tribesmen, who helped him off the wall.
She turned her attention to the bridge and the combat. It was brutal—the enemy’s disposable force was being decimated—but there were so many of them that perhaps it didn’t matter. They fought for what seemed like hours, the spirits cleaving their enemies and holding the line, while the defenders and the wall’s defenses fired down at them.
* * *
Dario watched from the sky as the enemy forces were being decimated, but the Rzan and their allies still remained on the other side of the city. They were not even trying to help the disposable army, which he figured was the entire point of its existence. Dario quickly realized why they had done this, just as he was sure that Remi and even the Archmage had to know. The enemy had thrown their army at them, enough so that they could overwhelm the walls and win. It was a big enough threat that the defenders would be forced to play all of their cards.
They had to be tired of having fire rained down on their heads. It was a good move, one that had paid off for them. The spirit army that the shaman had summoned wasn’t something that they could use again, and if the enemy had charged with their regulars and magic users, they would’ve been hurt much worse. The spirits seemed immune to damage, and the shamans could even cast spells. He wondered how that worked, but it wasn’t important for the battle. He and the other Dragons were watching, looking for any opportunity, any weakness, any opening, but the enemy seemed resolved not to give them any.
He could tell that they hadn’t expected it to take so long, taking this city. Their attack had been planned out: the sabotage of the northern wall, the hidden army that they had somehow managed to get to the city. The Archmage seemed to believe that they had veiled their entire army and marched it across the plains. According to her it would’ve taken an enormous amount of power, and for the Rzan that meant blood. Dario wondered just how many people they’d sacrificed to achieve that feat.
The enemy was still waiting, watching, forcing the defenders to use up all of their trump cards, and there was nothing that they could do to stop them.
The spirit army was slowly disappearing, and he saw that the enemy army was no more.
Then, his comms came to life. “Dario, I think we have a problem,” Emma said.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Look to the far north,” Emma told him, and sent him the coordinates.
He frowned but turned his eyes, looking beyond the wall of the city and the army, out at the plains, and saw nothing. He was just about to ask her to clarify when he saw what she meant. He zoomed in and took a better look.
“Oh,” Dario said. They did indeed have a problem.
* * *
Remi saw a spirit disappear, and then slowly the others did as well. The enemy force had been decimated, but it had been a disposable army, and they had just used one of their most powerful spells to stop it. She didn’t regret it; the undead and the summons would’ve destroyed the wall just the same, but now they had nothing else to use. She looked across the bridge, and saw no movement. The enemy was still not coming, and she wondered why they were giving them the time to gather themselves and rest.
Her comm chirped and Dario spoke over it. “Remi, we have a problem.”
“What kind of a problem?” she asked.
“The air-support kind,” Dario said and sent her the feed from his helmet.
She looked at her wrist unit and the holo just above it, only to see a fleet of airships coming their way. Unlike the ones she had seen in the city before, these ones were clearly made for war. They looked like wide sailing boats, or maybe very wide submarines, ones that had four stubby wings on the sides where a glowing crystal was wedged in. If she compared them to what fiction on Earth had come up with, the crystals would be replaced by massive propellers, but here they were flying with magic. They were made out of wood from what she could see, with some metal parts, and they had turrets lining the bottom of their hulls. They moved slowly, their speed not much faster than what she read zeppelins or blimps could achieve.
The turrets were what really worried her.
She ran over the walls, finding the Archmage and showing her the images.
She cursed and turned to her mages. “Get the anti-air defenses manned,” she said, and then turned to look at Remi. “I wondered why they had come only with their army. They have a powerful fleet. They probably knew that they couldn’t keep the airships hidden, so they sent the army ahead.”
“That is the most likely scenario,” Remi said with a nod. “What can they do?”
“They have powerful spells woven into them, shields that can withstand much damage. Their turrets fire a concentrated blast of magic—much less explosive than your own weapons, but devastating nonetheless. There is enough of them to pummel us to dust.”
Remi had counted twenty-two airships. “I’ll send the mech-frames and my siblings out to harry them.”
“Tell them to be careful. The ships will have powerful magic users on board.”
Remi walked back, all the while sending orders.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Dario flew ahead of his siblings, heading toward the fleet of air ships. The mech-frames were following as well, although the enemy inside the city had been firing at them when they tried to leave the city, forcing them to use escape blinks in order to evade the anti-air fire.
As they reached the fleet, they settled in high above them, and then all of them targeted the same airship and fired. The rifles of the Dragons were dialed up to max acceleration, but the mech-frame’s rail-guns were much more powerful. The shots struck the top of one of the airships, just over their glowing crystals. A shield surrounding the airship blazed brightly, and the airship rocked, got pushed down, but it wasn’t damaged. Immediately he saw the reaction from the entire fleet: they were spreading out and accelerating toward the city.
The airships had two turrets on their tops, probably for fighting other airships, and those turrets turned toward them and fired. They scattered as the white bolts of magic shot at them. Dario targeted his missiles at the same airship, along with the rest of the Dragons, and they fired. The twelve missiles struck at the same spot and the shield faltered, he saw an explosion rock the ship and it start to swerve to the side, but the construction, for all that it was wood, held. He figured that there had to be spells, but they didn’t help enough, as the mech-frames took the opportunity when the shield was down to fire. The rail-guns hit, the wood splintered, and the airship’s stubby wing that held the glowing crystal broke away and the airship started losing altitude.
The other airships fired at them, one bolt catching Dario on his shields and breaking them entirely, searing his armor. He executed a blink and escaped, the others following. The mech-frames focused on another airship, firing their missiles to take down the shield before then firing their rail-guns at them. The first airship that they had damaged was falling, but it managed to level off and make a landing instead of just crashing. Dario could already see that they wouldn’t be able to take them all. They had no more missiles, and their other weapons alone were not enough.
The mech-frames took down the second airship, this one with shots through its middle that made it explode and splinter in the air. They were out of missiles, and there were more than twenty other airships left, but they stayed with them, firing and harrying them along the way to the city.
* * *
Remi wondered at just how quickly everything had turned. One moment they had been holding their ground, and the next they were losing, their forces being pushed back. The enemy ships reached the city and took positions over the northern side. The Archmage had their anti-air defenses target them, but it wasn’t enough. The airships fired from the distance and destroyed the defenses even as the ground forces charged the wall. They had to abandon it even before the enemy arrived. The airships were bombarding it, and it was taking too much power to shield it from their bombardment. The city had a shield, but the Rzan’s attack had made it unusable. It was tied to the walls, and with the part of the northern wall being destroyed, it couldn’t even be activated.
The Rzan had planned this assault well. They had intended to take the city in a day, but it was the UTS that had interfered, that had foiled their plans at every opportunity. The traitor on the council, along with the superior forces from the other factions at the summit had been meant to kill the council, and they had failed because UTS forces had been there. The assault on the city had been supposed to take far less time, but the UTS had slowed them down—on the bridge, on the dam, everywhere, and still the Rzan held the upper hand. With the airships there was now no chance for them to hold the city. They were bombarding everything. Clearly, they didn’t care to take the city intact.
Remi was inside the MCV as UTS troops retreated through the city. The Archmage and her son were holding off the army that had crossed the bridge and was spilling into the southern side of the city. There was nothing that they could do now; the reinforcements were too far away, the base had no missiles to fire. Their one fighter was flying up above them, striking at the airships, but their defenses were formidable. It had taken down two of the airships, but by then it had been too late. The enemy had crossed the bridge, and the fighting had spilled into the streets. The population had been pulled back to the inner walls around the academy days ago as soon as the fighting started, but by now even the army was retreating toward there.
She looked at the sky, seeing the airships rain fire down upon them. The mech-frames and her siblings were still doing attack runs, but without their most powerful weapons they weren’t very effective. They did manage to get through the shields a few times, and some of the airships bore the scars of those runs. Some were even burning in places as plasma ate away at the reinforced wood and pushed into the ship, but they were still firing. One of her tanks followed one of the airships, the crew coordinating with the air team, and then, just as the mech-frames and Dragons attacked, it fired a sunfire beam at nearly full power. A reddish beam of energy punched through the shield of the airship and the air team struck, burning one of it turrets off. An explosion rocked the airship, but it was still in the air.
The enemy airship fired on her convoy, and she cursed as it hit a building near their location, sending pieces of it flying at them. One large boulder hit the MCV, and she was thrown from the roof. She blinked above, and then activated the flight script and gathered herself in the air. The MCV had been pushed into the other building, and while it was otherwise fine, their path was now blocked.
Up ahead she saw the airship moving closer, its turrets setting their sights on them, and she wondered if she was about to die.
But then a thundering roar split the air, and the sky turned to fire.
INTERLUDE V
Overlord Emiriss, one of the greatest warlocks of the Rzan walked over the bridge connecting the two sides of the city. He was angry, his student had failed, had died. And the enemy had been inflicting too many losses on his forces. Now, he was paying them back a hundred fold. His airships had finally arrived, and with them he was bombarding the city, setting it on fire. Their original plan didn’t include that, they had wanted the city as intact as possible, it was to be their seat on this side of the world. But right now, he was too angry to hold back.
He was sending spells across the distance, smashing into the defenses. His great summons where thundering across the bridge, assaulting the enemy on the other side of the bridge. The enemy had finally run out of steam, their defense faltering. And now was the time when the Rzan would push over them and finally take the city.
He was looking forward to taking the necessary sacrifices from the survivors, usually they only took twenty percent of the remaining population. But for this city he would take more, teach them a lesson. There was no resisting the Rzan, and for every death they had inflicted on his side, he would return the favor a hundred fold.
