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