The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (37 page)

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 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.

Over the next ten months they engaged in simulated battles during about a quarter of their days and nights.  The rest of the time, life went on as usual:  Chores, learning, training, sports, games, music, dancing, crafting, fabricating, building, visiting, picnicking at scenic sites around the islands, hiking, climbing, boating, enjoying one another’s companionship and love.

Valentia developed another specialty beyond magic; Mark found her to be an exceptionally promising student of the Ranger’s skills and trade he had learned and practiced for most of his life.  He taught regular classes in the trade that were attended by a few of the other children and citizens of the colony on an informal basis, letting the regularity of their attendance be decided by their interest.  His young human cousins were among his most regular students, but only Valentia attended every session with him out in the forest, and the two of them often went out to the woods for more advanced study.  He knew she was the only one of his students that showed the aptitude and interest to make a career of it, or even a second career.

His abilities as a Ranger that he’d learned at his father’s side were supplemented and dramatically improved by the use of magic, and Valentia invented as many new techniques in this area as he did.  They also developed incredible stealth.  Within six months, she was as good a Ranger as he’d been when he was invested as a professional, and knew most of what he’d learned of it before living among the elves.  Psionic teaching methods and adding his Rangers skills to the Skills of Visinniria spell had sped things up considerably.  Valentia then suggested they take instruction from Theramin, to learn the elven versions of the skills of caring for a forest as well as the magical horticultural aspects of it, so they worked four hours per week with Theramin into their schedules.

Ten months after the four children joined the community war games, which was six years and eight months after the time-bubble was cast, they spent their weekend secluded in an emplacement inside a mountain on the north coast of Hiliani, making plans.  Valentia was five, the twins had recently turned six, and Karzog was nearing twenty-one.

After breakfast on Firstday Reggie, Helemia, and Valentia began packing provisions, readying their armaments, and donning their armor.

“Going somewhere?” Mark inquired as he and his wives prepared to go to Yazadril’s house.

“We’re going out to play with the Sylvan kids.” Helemia replied, and she and her siblings burst out laughing.

“I see.” Mark nodded with a smile.  “I doubt you mean that you’re going on a play date with some adult Sylvan and their dependant children, so you must mean you’re going out to play with the ones that’ve already been thrown out of the house because they’ve become too dangerous for their parents to keep them around.  The ones about fourteen to twenty-four years old, who are already serious warriors and wizards, who spend almost all their time killing one another in order to raise their status, reduce the competition, and avoid being killed themselves.  Those kids?”

“The very ones.” Helemia giggled.

“And what exactly are you planning?” Talia inquired.

“We’re gonna conquer ‘em.” Helemia grinned.  “It’ll be fun, and besides, only one in eleven of them lives to reach twenty-five, which is a huge waste of resources that we might need to help fight the demons.  After we conquer all the crazy young ones and stop ‘em from killing each other, we’re gonna get all the adults together and teach them about the state of the world.  They still don’t know about The Just Alliance, or that Zarkog doesn’t rule Serminak anymore, or about the gods ending the Withdrawal, or about the Triax, and most importantly, they don’t know that the demons are coming.”

“They deserve at least a chance to prepare to defend themselves against the demons, if it comes to that.” Reggie stated.  “And they breed extremely quickly, faster than any other humanoid race.  If we stop the kids from killing each other, there should be about a hundred thousand of them here when the time-bubble ends, and they could help a lot against the demons.  If we can convince the adults to work with us, and we’re sure we can trust them, we’ll start training them with everything we know that they don’t.  And of course, we’ll also learn everything they can do that we can’t yet.”

“I admire the noble, practical, and adventurous nature of your endeavor, but I can’t help questioning the wisdom of it.” Alilia stated.  “There
are
a few thousand of them, you know.”

“Oh Mother, you are such a mother!” Valentia laughed as she skipped over and gave Alilia a kiss on the cheek.  “We won’t be in any danger and you know it!  I mean sure, the oldest Sylvan here are a lot more advanced than the Sylvan on Serminak were before they got conquered, but their young aren’t.  The older ones are only better because their god makes them stop killing each other when they get to be twenty-five years old, so they have more time to improve.  And they still don’t use any of the modern spell techniques at all.”

“Besides, we know that if any of us actually get killed, you’ll Resurrect us.” Reggie pointed out.  “And if that happens, we’ll thank you for having done so.  But please don’t interfere other than that.  We want to do this ourselves, well us three and Karzog of course.”

“We’ll take Stripe and Scout with us too.” Helemia added.  “They’re great scouts, and they could use the exercise.”

“Here.” Mark said as he held out his hand, and a Truthstone of Falgaroth appeared in it.  “You’ll want one of these.  This one’s a tagging stone; just touch ‘em with it and they’ll be sworn to justice.”

“I’ll take it I guess.” Reggie said as he took it, and tucked it into a pack.  “It might be useful as a last resort if we really need it, and it doesn’t weigh much, but we don’t plan on swearing them to justice unless we really have to.”

“Oh?” Alilia inquired.

“They don’t deserve it, so it would be an injustice to do it to ‘em.” Reggie explained.  “Osbald was justified in swearing the northern kings by force, because of the threat of impending war and the evidence that supported that.  Father was justified in swearing the Serminaki because they were a conquered enemy, and as such a legitimate threat.

“But these Sylvan haven’t done anything except run away so they could live the lifestyle of their own choosing.  They haven’t threatened anyone else except when Vanakit made a bunch of them try to kill me and Helemia, but that was personal, it wasn’t something the rest of them or their people as a whole wanted to do.  So long as we think we can trust them to stay on Hiliani and not bother our people here, I don’t feel right about swearing them to justice.”

“Besides, it’ll be a lot more fun this way!” Helemia laughed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be back for lunch.” Valentia giggled.

“What, you think you’ll be done in four hours?!” Mark teased.  “I mean, you’re an impressive quartette, but that may be a little ambitious!”

“No, it’ll take at least a month, we know that.” Reggie informed him.  “And we need something from you and Mother.  We’d like your legal authorization as reigning monarchs of this territory to act on your behalf in Hilian relations with the Sylvan of Hiliani.  Please?”

Mark laughed.  “So you’d be what, diplomats, generals, overseers?”

“Yes, all of those, as necessary.” Reggie nodded, in the same manner Mark always did.  “And for a while, Governors.  I’m pretty sure we can get it all done without killing any of them, but that’s hard to say.  If we’re not swearing them to justice, then we have to play this by their rules, which basically means that there aren’t any.  We’re not included in their god’s restrictions against killing since we’re not Sylvan, and they’ll resist us just on general principles, just so it doesn’t look like they’re obeying us in any way.  That would reduce their status in their estimation of things.  We’ll be as nice as we can, but you know that we’ll have to force their respect or we won’t get any, so we won’t really be able to be very nice.”

“Maybe a few of the senior ones will have the sense to realize that what we’re doing is smart for them, since the demons will do a lot worse to them than we will, and we’ll help them be more dangerous against the demons.” Helemia theorized.  “But their god only said not to mess with the colony here.  I’m sure he didn’t tell them not to defend themselves against four kids who come to take them over, at least temporarily, so we expect a strong resistance from most of the adults, and of course there’s no question that the young ones would fight, since it’s basically all they do.”

“So really, you’re going to do the same thing to the Sylvan here that they left Serminak to avoid?” Mark inquired.  “I mean really, it sounds like you’ll be doing exactly the same as Zarkog did.”

“As far as what we’re doing goes, that’s true.” Reggie nodded.  “The difference is, Zarkog didn’t tell the Serminakis that he was taking them over so he could prepare them to defend themselves against the demons, which is what we’re going to do.  He just said; ‘do what I say, or you’ll be beaten for it.’  Once we’re sure that they’ve stopped letting their kids kill each other and that they’re working hard to get ready to fight the demons, we’ll relinquish our control over them and leave them alone.”