Preemptive Pt3

Almost as if the closing of the gates had summoned them, there was the blowing of horns from the city walls not even ten minutes after our retreat had been cut off. Less than a minute later, shadows could be seen moving among the distant trees. Much further down the road were disjointed clusters of large and small bodies.

From my position just a few tens of yards back from the trench in the highway, it was a simply matter of trickling mana into my eyes until I could make out the finer details of the visible enemy. These were mostly goblins and their various evolved forms, though the evolved forms in the center of every cluster were large and physically inclined.

The goblins at the back were the problem.

The biggest living entity there was probably the leader, a massive gray-green skinned behemoth that stood seven feet tall. Although the body was naturally two-armed and one-headed, there was a second humanoid head that was a blueish white in color growing out from the side of its neck and shoulder. As well, folded across his abdomen were a pair of bulky and gruesome multi-jointed skeletal arms that were a dark gray in color

This mountain of augmented flesh sat upon a skeletal throne on a large platform bore on the backs of several grotesque animal-based abominations. On this platform were several smaller bodies dressed in fleshy and bony robes or sheets who tended to the leader's weapons or relayed orders off of the platform. One of these figures in particular wore a headdress of feathered skulls and walked with a staff of twisted spines topped in a crude crystal skull.

On either side of the platform were heavily armed and armored hobgoblins in somewhat orderly groups of twenty. The big guy and the robed figures were probably the magic minds and muscle controlling the troops and they used their own species as a final assault force and honor guards.

The troops in question, though, were now also coming into view.

There was no order to their approach, they all simply walked forward with a depth of field that stretched out to either side of the highway for nearly twice our own troops. There was a combination of lesser undead and middle tier abominations from both animals and people making up these numbers. Many of them stood tall with multiple arms that looked like transmuted blades and clubs.

Some of them were given long serpentine necks with arrow shaped and sharpened heads and crawled on their bony bellies like reptiles. Most of the human based abominations, however, were made into quadrupedal monsters with four upper bodies mashed back to back. While most had their legs fused into only four limbs, each of them retained their individual arms which had been turned into mantis-style scythe blades where hands once existed.

Once the undead exited the trees, however, they began to slow in many areas and in others would outright stop and scream. These cries were chilling to the spine and grating on the ears, but they filled the air with the news that our artifacts were effective.

As they drew deeper into the field and came across more and more, the shrieking became more numerous as more bodies met more holy resistance.

This caused the undead capable of changing direction to move closer and closer in to one another as they met more and more artifacts. The rest were left blocked or even locked by others in place. By the time their goblin masters came into view of the troops they sent ahead, they had already been clustered into vague triangles half of the way across the field.

Not long after the giant ogre stood up from his throne, the little guys all started raising their arms with whatever tools or weapons they had. In response to this, the undead stopped advancing and slowly retreated while spreading out from their positions. Eventually they met resistance from the aura of the artifacts until the undead could no longer move forward.

From these points, the undead reformed into holed blocks of bodies surrounding the artifacts in their way. After they started moving forward once again, they would once more stop and go around the new artifacts until they could advance in 'proper' grouping. Until they once again reached roughly halfway across the cleared land only a little more than one hundred yards away from the trench.

Now, the goblins continued their way almost leisurely up the highway. The fire noble and my father had been muttering bets about and rights to fight the big guy, passing the time until the enemy were within range. Sadly, the goblins only advanced halfway through the their army a few tens of yards beyond 'effective' range.

Even further than the cluster of assault troops was their leader and the necromancers. I could totally still reach them with A slash, but reaching them through so many other bodies would be a miracle. If there was not so much of my mana already in the area, even with the blessed holy water I would probably never get close to the boss.

Suddenly, from off to the side, I hear the words, "Get your sword, saint, and wait for my signal." Somehow, both the head priest and I reached for our weapons, one hand entering a leather pouch and the other the depths of a sleeve. "I thought the little saint was going first."

"Old habits," Old man murmurs in response to the fire noble's remark. "Go on, Chuck, your moment is nigh"

Gripping the hilt of my ivory shortsword tighter, I pull the sword out of my pouch until the circular guard above the hilt and the top of the scabbard are exposed. With my other hand, I draw the bottle of divine mana from one of the chest pockets of my traveler suit. Creating a barrier of mana around the bottle of divine energy, I raise the temperature of the bottle well passed the point of boiling and use the surface-tight barrier to hold the vaporizing 'liquid' inside even as the bottle starts cracking and breaking.

Either because I had exposed the divine mana in plain sight or because they could detect the workings of magic, several of the necromancers on the distant platform began calling out to the ogre. Just a moment later, the necromancers began relaying orders to both the goblin forces and the undead army.

"Now, little saint."

"To the celestial throne I pray," I say softly as I relinquish my barrier containing the divine mana, unleashing a spray of shattered glass outward with a rush of thunderous mana. "Bless our soldiers our attacks with your divine power." I consciously broke the seal on the scabbard while drawing my sword, unleashing a vacuum that began sucking up the cloud of shimmery air obstructing my view. "In the face of overwhelming odds, against this legion of profane, to deliver our families and neighbors from fear."

Once the divine mana in the air was gone, I finished drawing my sword to reseal the vacuum as a rush of white-hot mana flooded through my body and into my sword. "In Rayen's name of balance I pray, amen."

The sword in my had was vibrating and softly thrumming with barely contained energy, the materials used were not meant to sustain this kind of power. The naked ivory hilt in my hand was even scalding hot so that steam rose from my suddenly sweating palm. Probably the only thing allowing the sword to maintain form and control was the fact that the divine and ambient magics had been channeled through me first.

Stepping forward as the enemy's tactical retreat order was taking affect, I draw my sword back across my chest and force no less than sixty-percent of my mana pool into the already charged attack. "Slash," I say breathlessly, finding it hard to focus my mind enough to both control the sword and unleash its attack and thus expressing my will vocally.

A wave of raw energies focused into a cutting edge of kinetic force rushed out in the wake of my sweeping sword, blinding in its intensity with the light of various elements empowered by divine mana. For about thirty yards, it stretched to either side by several feet until I reached the trench and simply disappeared. Then, for a brief instant, the entire trench for as far as the eye could see shone with the same blinding light before a horizontal wall of religious elements flooded out from the trench.

I had intended for the attack to just keep traveling and stretching until it finally made contact with bodies and started breaking down, but instead THIS happened. I could not even see WHAT had happened while the second phase of the attack shot forth from the trench, but it swiftly met the front lines of the enemy and then was gone. In its wake fell hundreds of undead and abominations, the whole front line of the undead simply toppled over in large, charred pieces of bodies.

"He used the trench… to transition the slash to full size to conserve power?" My father asked my mother as I finally slowly sheathed my sword, before my blade had even met the scabbard, the fire noble was walking passed me while two funneling yellowish flames grew above his palms.

Only a dozen or so of the goblins and their superiors were reached, but they two were completely divided where the slash struck. However, as living being, only the light element actually damaged them and the other two healed both the living and the dead parts. Goblin-esque shrieks and squeals could be heard even from over a hundred yards away, but soon only the roar of rushing fire could be heard.

Even though only a few were actually struck, it seemed most of the living creatures exposed to the brilliant slash were blinded and disarrayed. The ogre in the back, though, could clearly see the twisters of nova-like flames building up on the opposing side of the trench. Just as they began roaring orders even louder than the cries of its underlying, the fire noble threw his small tornadoes of fire like spears out to either side where they flew out toward the motionless undead.

This was all I got to really see, though, as Gryn recovered from his shock and grabbed me about the waist to throw over his shoulder. Once I was secured, he turned and ran back toward our forces to a midway point in the highway. Even bouncing and jostling about, I could plainly see the tornadoes touch down and snap to with a shower of burning debris.

After upsetting large groups of undead with their impacts, the tornadoes rushed forward into the masses while slowly but surely shrinking down. By they time they had shrunk down to half of their initial mass, the undead finally began retreating despite the fiery trails spanning tens of yards through their ranks. Then, I was unceremoniously sat on the ground where I promptly lay back on the ground with my sealed sword clutched to my chest.

From the sound of more roaring hot air being focused into a single point, I could tell the fire noble was far from finished with just that one attack. I was simply too shocked and too tired from mana consumption to sit up and watch the show. Physically, I was fine- hell, I was better than fine! My body was undamaged and flooded with unspent adrenaline.

Mentally, I was half-awake and giggly thinking about how bright that light had been. Gryn was looking at me with the craziest expression on his face, as if he did not know whether to laugh or to cry. Finally, he broke down and just laughed as he stared down at me rolling idly from side to side almost deliriously.

I still had plenty of mana left, but channeling that divine energy was like taking the biggest hit of whatever drug. Couple that brain-frying euphoria with the insane amount of energy from adrenaline and you had a five-year-old who was high as shit. Eventually, though, I was able to sit up and survey the damage as the sounds of fire tornadoes died down.

Walls of fire left in their wake still burned, but the third tornado appeared to have been sent straight down the middle where it consumed most of the clusters of blinded assault troops. All undead still on our side of the burning walls and capable of moving simply walked into the fire, but from the shifting number of mana signatures on the other side I could see that dozens of them were still dropping like flies.

Most of the dying were only the lesser undead, though, because the abominations seemed unphased by the magic fire.

As the town's head priest stepped up to the plate, though, everything changed for both sides of the field. Old man never said a word- at least anything I could hear- but simply raised and stretched out his arms. In response to this, a wall of golden light as bright as my own slash rose up along the distant treeline.

This wall not only stretched out further than even the enemy's army, it also closed in around them and reached all the way back to the sides of the trench encircling our town. The enemy no longer had the option of retreat probably even if they managed to kill the priest, their only choice was to attack the town. More roars could be heard coming from the four-armed ogre, bringing an end to what should have been a retreat out of range.

They could have kept going all of the way to the wall, but there was nothing but wall for them.

*