The Fire and The Storm - The Nexus of Kellaran #2

Chapter 61

Part 11

The colonists soon wiped out the demons who had landed in the community, then it became siege

warfare against the three hundred or so enemies outside the ridge, who outnumbered the surviving

defenders by three-to-one. The engineers’ recent works proved their worth, for now the demons had to

scale a steep slope and a sheer wall to get into the settlement, or go around the edge of the ridge and

approach from the channel. Few chose the latter course, as the demons were uncomfortable and

generally ineffective in water, though they could all swim to one degree or another. Those few died on

the beach, skewered by arrows and huge bolts from the ballistae.

The siege went on for nineteen hours, with three-quarters of the defenders on the walls and the rest

defending the beach. Mark and his family stood and fought together atop the wide walls, defending

against the occasional rushes of the demons with bows, swords, and throwing darts, and they were

glad that the spells on their armor and weapons were permanently or semi-permanently charged. They

were also very glad for The Skills of Visinniria.

They fought between the dragons, with the four children in the middle to take advantage of their many

hours of sparring together, and their family training in the evenings paid off handsomely as well. They

kept a fairly tight formation; Kragorram on the left end with Talia and Alilia beneath him or to his right,

Karzog in the middle with Helemia, Reggie, and Valentia in front of and beneath him, then Mark with

Povon above him and to his right.

The dragons wore chain vests, knee and elbow covers and gauntlets of plate armor, thin steel blades

on the leading edges of their wings, steel spikes on their tails, and wielded light swords, knives, lances

and crossbows sized to their mighty proportions. Kragorram had crafted all of these items, sometimes

with his mate or his son’s assistance.

Mark and his family all wore their finest armor and bore their finest weapons. The children used the

armor and weapons they’d received as birthday presents, while Mark and Talia wore mismatched full-

plate armor that they’d assembled and fitted from many different sets in order to ensure that each piece

they wore was the most functional and comfortable of its type that they owned, from their gauntlets to

their boots. As they’d learned in their first course of training with Quewanak, appearance was irrelevant

once battle was joined. Mark’s hands bore only GrimFang; the great black two-handed sword that cut

any material without resistance. Talia alternated between Ria and a highly spelled short bow, while

Alilia distained armor in favor of an elven Belt of Protection with seemingly infinite charge that turned

every weapon that struck at her before they could reach her skin. She wielded a black staff of power

topped with a diamond as big as her fist, and it struck with a Concussion capable of blasting the

biggest Greater Demon off the wall. She remarked during a pause in the battle that it held enough

charge to keep doing so for centuries, continuously.

Perhaps the finest benefit of their training was that none of them ever hit each other, despite fighting

with so much weaponry in the confined space atop the wall.

Most of the demons were efficient climbers, finding purchase in the tiniest cracks with their claw-tips,

and could swarm up the rougher sections of the wall as fast as a tall man could walk. They tended to

attack at one or more narrow points on the wall, to concentrate their attack and try to gain the top of the

wall before the defenders could shift enough force there to prevent it, and it was a more effective tactic

after darkness fell. They would erupt out of surrounding forest in a disorganized mixed pack of demons

of every size, and when this occurred on Mark’s section of the wall, his squadron of nine would quickly

move to meet them while keeping their formation. The largest demons had no choice but to face

Kragorram and Povon, who would bracket the demons attack point. As the big demons faced the

dragons, Mark, Talia and Alilia would strike at them from below. Their formation funneled the smaller

demons into the middle, where the children duplicated their parents’ tactics. The medium-sized demons

had no choice but to face Karzog, and the smaller ones who scrambled around those confrontations as

they tried for the top of the wall were met by Valentia and Reggie. Only Helemia had the quickness to

deal with the very smallest demons, and she did so with fierce alacrity.

The unicorns formed the other heavy-response team. They wore full plate barding armor with swords

mounted in front of their horns. When the demons mounted a concentrated attack on their half of the

wall, the unicorns would gallop along that section of the wall, one right behind the other, striking at

every demon they passed with their head-mounted swords. When they were past the attack they

turned and ran back on the inner half of the walkway, then did it again over and over, like a continuous

looping chain of death.

Meanwhile the rest of the men and elves dealt with the smaller sudden attacks that the demons

launched occasionally, with the larger men wielding lances and pole-arms, the rest with swords and

bows. When a large attack came, they all provided supporting bow-fire to the two heavy-response

teams.

Occasionally a combatant on one side or the other would recover enough magic power to do

something with it, which the demons generally spent on magic attacks, and the defenders used for

temporary Shielding.

Between rushes, the demons would occasionally toss one of their smaller fighters onto the wall to raise

havoc until it was killed, for even a single small demon could kill or maim a few people in a few seconds

if it caught them by surprise.

After so many hours awake and fighting, everyone was bone-tired, dirty, and stinking of demon blood.

The defenders’ ordeal was made more frustrating by the need to clean any demon-matter from their

skin as quickly as possible to avoid being poisoned by it.

Finally the demons tipped a tall fir tree onto the top of the wall and used it as a scaling ladder, after

cutting it down in some silent manner.

“Prepare to evacuate to the main shelter!” Mark announced as he stood in the thick of the battle where

the tree crossed the wall, cutting demons down with GrimFang like he was harvesting wheat.

“Wait, let us do this first!” Reggie called out, then he and Helemia quickly seized control of the

Command Link and enough power to Translocate Helemia to the nearest of the underground

emplacements that were distant enough to have not been used in the recent battles.

“She’s the lightest.” Reggie explained, and a moment later Helemia was back with all the diamond

power-batteries the emplacement had contained. She left all but one, and used that one to power her

Translocations to the rest of the unused emplacements and shelters, and Send their batteries back to

her father. The amount of power the batteries contained wouldn’t have been significant at the beginning

of the battle, but at this stage they made enough of a difference that Mark had already wiped out the

rest of the demons with a massive Lightning attack before she had Sent the last of them.

“The exercise is finished. Well done.” Quewanak announced.

“All right everyone, eat, clean up, and sleep.” Mark instructed as he looked around at his blood-soaked

family and Helemia arrived back from the last shelter. “We’ll de-brief in the hall in the morning after

breakfast.”

He used the remaining power in the diamonds to re-cast the Wards, though they were weak indeed,

then he and his family wearily walked home.

None of them had sustained a major injury after they ran out of power to Heal them, but they were all

beaten and bloody, they were half-sick from the stench and poisonous offal of dead demons, and all

their armor and weapons were in need of maintenance.

They spoke little and were subdued as they cleaned up and ate, and they all felt the need for a lot more ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

hugs and personal contact than usual. Finally all six of them went to bed together in Mark and Talia’s

huge bed, where they cuddled together.

“Sleep well, my loves.” Alilia murmured. “Remember, it was only an exercise.”

Then they slept like they were comatose for almost ten hours.