20. N #5
A pair of maintainers sprinted out of the sheds to work on the one that had failed.
Haldeen rolled onto his right side, where he could see through the hole in the battlement torn by one of the creatures, possibly the tentacled one he had killed.
A single gargantuan Creature emerged through the trees.
He’d seen this gargantuan monster before.
It had a single foreleg in front, set in the middle of its chest, and two large rear legs.
It moved with a smooth and ground-eating gait, extending its foreleg, then stepping forward with the rear legs, one at a time.
It appeared aswarm with smaller creatures.
He could just see the copper shot, no longer glowing hot, but trailing smoke, strike the vast thing. For a moment he feared the shot had cooled so much the thing would shrug it off, but the impact had some kind of an effect, as it opened a mouth the size of Triana’s cave, and let out a vast roar.
Triana. The last time he had seen anything this gargantuan at the wall had been during the last major attack …
the attack on the day Triana had arrived.
He levered himself up onto one knee, and discovered that while it hurt, he could bear it now.
He hobbled away from the fighting, each step a fresh symphony of pain.
A tiny part of him was embarrassed at having dragged himself like an invalid when he could have walked.
More of him was glad he’d stayed down, as the fighting raged across the city walls.
The monsters would press home their attack, driving the city’s defenders back.
The defenders would then rally, and kill the monsters, recovering portions of the battlement.
Haldeen was no military specialist, but the see-saw battle looked to be a stalemate, the type that would be resolved when one side ran out of bodies to commit.
So far, the wall had held, but the Monsters had the edge in number.
Haldeen looked to see the behemoth had closed half the distance to the city. He could already see it well above the battlement height, and it still had considerable distance to travel.
Once it gets here, and without the wall shield to hold it off …
we are finished. He thought of his lab, the Gate to Triana’s world, the four guards with enough ordnance to blow the cave mouth open.
He would take them with him, go there, and wait out problems here.
If the monsters killed the city, he … with four guards at his back, he could make a fresh start. But, he needed to get to his lab.
He hobbled to the back wall, and made for the stairs.
Fresh troops swarmed up just then, and he turned to one side to give them room.
His weight came down on his injured leg, and it collapsed under him.
He reached up to the battlement’s rear wall to raise himself back up, and glanced twice before he recognized what he saw.
Directly overhead, he saw blue sky, and puffy white clouds.
Just one side he saw the usual greenish hues and watery star when seen through the shield.
The only part of the shield that had failed had been this section …
his section …. This was important. There was something tickling his memory, something just out of reach.
The last of the reinforcements swarmed past him, leaving the stairs clear.
He raised himself up, and started down the broad steps built into the battlement that led down to the courtyard.
The grassy area behind his main house had become a hasty staging ground and improvised field hospital.
Dozens of wounded lay in groups, some screaming, some lying quietly, others being tended by too few Healers.
He saw another group off to one side, discarded like old rags.
The dead, and those too near death to save.
He worked his way down as best as he could, hobbling on his injured leg and hissing with pain as his heel slipped from one step to jam down to the next.
The approaching behemoth let out another howl.
Haldeen couldn’t see it through the walls’ bulk, but it sounded closer.
A lot closer. He looked up and could just see the high-flying Skydancer tip over into its attack run, diving at a steep angle for where the massive Creature had to be.
Haldeen could follow it for a moment or two, before the wall blocked his view.
Haldeen saw the silver cylinder tight to its belly just before it passed out of his view. They’re doing it. It’s happening now.
He knew he had the bulk of the wall between him and the actinic when it detonated, but he had no idea if the wind would pass harmlessly over his head or wrap around the wall.
He flung himself down onto the stone steps, heedless of the pain and the risk of falling.
His feet went out from under him, and he tumbled down the stairs, striking the bottom with enough force to drive the breath from his body.
A moment later the courtyard lit up with a vast and impossibly bright white light, that left those places receiving mere sunlight to look as if shaded. Even the reflected light from his tower and the upper stoneworks proved too bright and he squeezed his eyes shut.
Now comes the wind. He took two breaths before a wall of heat and a vast wind blew over the courtyard.
Nestled against the base of the wall, he was well within its lee, and caught none of the direct effect.
Many on the nearside, closer to the wall, were similarly spared.
Those further way, towards his office, and the wing where Triana had been initially kept, did not fare so well.
Those caught in the open either burned in the intense heat or were swept away by the howling wind.
He closed his eyes to avoid looking at the carnage.
After a dozen heartbeats the worst of the wind passed.
Once it was done, he opened his eyes. The courtyard had been burned to cinders, and was now filled with the debris, the dead, and the few, terribly injured.
A relative silence spread, and he realized that the sounds of battle had stilled.
The closest sound to him were the moans of an elf and the crackle of a fire burning in some piece of wooden jetsam torn free by the wind.
Haldeen knew he should leave now, and make for the lab, and for safety.
He shook his head. He wanted to see, and to bear witness.
Here, where for the second time in a century elves had used their most awesome, and most terrible, weapon.
He slowly got to his feet, feeling the protest of every joint and muscle.
He started upward, keeping to the inside of the stair and next to the wall, so that he had some support.
It took several minutes to reverse his hurried flight down.
Once he arrived at the top, he used the battlement wall as a lever to raise himself the last step and hobbled back onto the battered city wall.
The gargantuan Monster had vanished, replaced by a crater in the ground.
The dirt had been stripped bare for a considerable distance, with everything beyond that scorched to ash.
Trees on the far side had been blown down and set alight, and a distant fire raged along the tree line …
that was now considerably further away. The Monsters that had swarmed across the ground were simply …
gone. No bodies, no bones, nothing left behind, not even ashes.
He looked slowly around. All of the elves that had been on the battlement had either been blown into the back wall of the battlement, or been blown over to fall to their deaths.
The stones had been swept clean by the wind as well, the scorched and burning bodies piled like leaves against the back wall, monster and elf alike.
The Machinas were gone, blown well into the city.
He felt a twinge of surprise that they had not been blown into his courtyard.
The sheds had vanished as well, blown away by the heat and storm from the actinic.
He laughed one time, a single dry “huffing” noise.
Expensive way to conceal a bit of larceny.
He tried to take a step. The pain in his leg flared again.
He looked down, and saw that the primitive cautery done by his contact with iron had failed.
Blood had soaked through the crude bandage.
He felt tired and weary, and had no further desire to walk anywhere.
He found a place to slump down by the wall, and favor his injured leg.
The Skydancer had brought the king’s final argument … the light of the star … here, and King Alliard had it placed upon the ground to do its terrible work. And not even the largest of the Monsters had a reply for that.
He saw a glimmer of movement in the distance. Something stirred out there, beyond the circle of destruction. Then again, perhaps they do after all.