Chp.32: Nullification rune

General Fridya stood on a branch of the tallest tree near the military camp, watching the huge ogre army closing in ever closer. To say she was tense was an understatement. A real understatement. What was coming against them at that moment was probably the most difficult battle they would have faced in that war. Certainly the most difficult they had faced up to that point.

Up until less than a week ago, things had been going pretty well for the fairies. Her plan was working very well: by remaining on the defensive and always choosing the battlefield, they had always been able to repel the ogres with few losses, exterminating many of them on the contrary. Fridya was a skilled strategist and always managed to devise the best technique to repel their enemies. Continuing in this way, the ogres would have done nothing but lose, reducing in number, and in their ranks would have spread discontent that sooner or later would have led to a revolt by the soldiers. Then the fairies would have indeed attacked, and deal a tremendous blow to their opponent; by then, the war would have basically been won. Even if some ogres managed to retreat and take refuge in their cities, they would have been too few to resist their subsequent siege or assault.

But now, something had changed. Mysteriously, a city had been destroyed and the chieftain who ruled it, a certain Volgor, had come with the intention of revenge. When the ninjas had brought the news to her, Fridya had been suspicious, but still she had welcomed that event: it meant having the possibility of eliminating a third of the ogre army in one fell swoop. That chieftain, Volgor, had in fact apparently lost his mind and would have led to them a tired and disorderly army, forced to march without any strategy. Killing them all wouldn't only have been doable, but easy.

And indeed for the first part of the battle everything had gone as planned: the fairies had the advantage over their opponents and Volgor had been killed. Taking down that level diamond chieftain hadn't been easy, but in the end they had succeeded: after all, he acted like a rabid beast with no plan. Even though he was strong, he didn't stand a chance. After his death, the army immediately began to retreat, and the fairies would have to do nothing but chase them and exterminate the soldiers one by one. But that's where the problems started.

The ogres had completely changed their attitude: instead of acting as an uncoordinated and ragtag army, they had suddenly coalesced and worked together to form an indestructible shell of shields around them. Not only that, but they had also used considerable battle techniques, repeatedly attacking and retreating, killing thousands of fairies with minimal casualties and then managing to return to their military camp.

That event alone could have been considered absurd, but over the next few days the ninja had brought back more news to Fridya. Apparently, the creator of that new fighting style was an ogre named Sarpa, a simple soldier who very quickly had increased his strength and climbed the social pyramid. There had also been a series of riots in the ogre military which had led to the death of all of Sarpa's opponents. And in the end, Sarpa had revolutionized the ogres' training regimen, exercising them together despite being of different tribes and imposing serious discipline.

Everything that had happened was too strange to be just a series of coincidences. Fridya no longer had any doubts: the destruction of the city and the rapid rise to power of this Sarpa must have been the work of a third party. Someone else was intruding on their war. She didn't know who this third party was, but she was sure it existed. Whoever it was probably aimed at taking over the Karbraland Great Forest; according to her hypothesis, Sarpa was actually their puppet and this third party aimed to make him crush the fairies and make him supreme lord of the forest so that he would have ruled in their place.

It wouldn't have been such an unusual strategy. Many nations of the world did this, meddling in the wars of others to put on the throne the one who was easiest to control. They secretly helped in exchange for benefits. Perhaps the mysterious third party was not interested in the Karbraland Great Forest, but more in the treasures of the Kingdom of Tai-Chinn.

Who could it be? Perhaps the humans of the neighboring kingdom to the north. It was no secret that they had longed to gain knowledge of fairy magic for centuries. But there were others who would have done so, such as the Emperor of Death of the neighboring Angmar Empire, or some of the beastmen city-states that bordered the human kingdom. Or it could even be a nation far away from the forest, but interested in their magic. The possibilities were endless.

Unfortunately, Fridya had no chance to investigate now: the ogre army had crossed the forest and it used a battle formation never seen before, protecting themselves from all sides. All the fairy techniques had proved useless and on the contrary thousands of them had been killed. By now, the ogres had arrived near the military camp, and Fridya could see them from high up in the tree branches.

Now, the only thing she could do was think about how to defeat her enemy before they began to cut down or burn the trees above which the camp was located. If such a situation had occurred, even if they had finally put the ogres to flight, the fairies would have suffered too considerable a loss, and the fate of the war would probably have been sealed. She therefore had to ensure that this never happened.

Although the situation was quite critical and she had never faced such an armored enemy, Fridya wasn't a general for no reason. She had already figured out all of her enemy's strengths and weaknesses. A battle plan was rapidly forming in her mind.

The biggest problem was the enchanted shields the ogres used to protect the outside of their army. The normal shields, which instead protected the inner one, couldn't resist the magical attacks of the fairies for so long. Therefore, by eliminating the enchanted shields, Fridya could counterattack efficiently. Until then, any attempt by the fairies would have been futile.

Now, climbing down from the trees and forcing the shields out of the hands of the ogres wasn't exactly easy. However, there was a quicker way to destroy enchanted shields: to eliminate the magic on top of them. Without it, they would have become nothing more than ordinary shields. Ordinary shields that could have easily been destroyed by magical arrows, magical bombs, magical objects and any other weapons that the fairies had in abundance, effectively leaving the ogres defenseless.

To do this, Fridya had to use a rather special magic. It was a power that only fairies and a few other races knew: using a particular combination of runes, in fact, it was possible to generate a force that dissipated the mana contained in the objects it struck. Without the mana, the magic would have faded as well. The rune generated a strong light that could nullify all mana from any object it struck; basically, using a good number of them against ogre shields would have been enough.

The fairies called that thing a 'nullification rune', even though it was more a set of runes than a true rune. They'd tried to replicate the same process with real spells, but they'd never succeeded. The nullification rune wasn't used often: since ogres often attacked without specific training and were widely spread out, it could only have affected a few of them. Furthermore, ogres rarely used magic, preferring to use the mana in their bodies to strengthen themselves. As a result, it was ultimately useless in a normal battle. The fairies mostly used it as protection around their capital, as it nullified any magic directed against them.

But now, the situation was different. Against a compact and orderly army, the nullification rune could have hit a large chunk at once. While the ogres and their weapons would have been protected from it by their shields, those same shields would instead have been hit full blown by it. From enchanted shields they would have turned into normal shields. Basically, the ogres strongest defense would have been destroyed.

"All druids, get your nullification runes ready! Arrange yourself in an orderly line!". As soon as the plan was worked out, Fridya immediately began giving orders. Just like the ogres, she had to create an effective formation in order to prevail. After all, even without enchanted shields, the ogres would have been very dangerous.

If she wanted to defend the military camp, she and all her soldiers had to be fast and quick. Her plan came in three phases: first, a front line of faeries would have attacked, causing the ogres to open up their formation for spearmen to strike; in that way they would have been distracted. Taking advantage of that distraction, the druids would have came out and use the nullification rune on their shields, and then they would have retreated immediately. At that point she would have intervened with the bulk of the army and would have attacked them by any means at her disposal. The territory played in her favor: thanks to the branches of the trees, the fairies could hide well and take the ogres by surprise.

Fridya waited for the ogres to be in the right place, then she gave the order. In an instant, a large number of fairies emerged from the trees and attacked. As expected, the ogres followed the same pattern as before and pelted them repeatedly with their javelins. Fridya regretted seeing so many of her companions die, but sadly she knew she could not do otherwise. That was the reality of war: to win, something had to be sacrificed.

If only she could exploit the openings the ogres created in their formation… but unfortunately the ogres kept changing the position of those openings, preventing her from predicting where they would have occurred. That way she had no option to use the holes to bombard the ogres with arrows or attack directly.

At that point the second phase began. While the ogres were still closing the gaps in their formation, hundreds of druids appeared in every direction: from above, left, right, front, even behind. Each of them carried a large wood tablet on which they had engraved the rune of nullification. Using all the mana at their disposal, they activated them all at once. The ogre army was lit up from all sides.

"BE CAREFUL! DON'T LET THE LIGHT TOUCH YOU!" Sarpa yelled, and all the ogres immediately took cover behind their shields, making sure not even the toes of their feet were exposed. However, there was nothing they could do to prevent the shields from being affected. The magic that made them strong and resilient vanished in moments.

Now, the ogre defense was destroyed. Fridya blew the battle horn and the entire fairy army rushed down from the trees, ready to assault the ogres. Without the enchanted shields, they no longer had their extraordinary protection.

But then, something unexpected happened. No, it was better to call it inconceivable.

The ogres stood still until most of the fairy army had come out of the trees, then suddenly Sarpa yelled: "TURN AROUND!". All the soldiers turned their shields of the front line and revealed something extraordinary: on the back of them was engraved a nullification rune!

There was no time for dismay: a second flash of light illuminated the forest, but this time it came from the ogres. And the fairies, unlike them, had no way of protecting themselves. The luckier ones like Fridya managed to take cover behind the trees, but most of the soldiers were struck by the light. The mana contained in their bodies, their weapons and even their items vanished, leaving them without magic.

While they were still trying to understand what had happened, Sarpa's voice was heard again: "CHARGE!". In an instant, thousands of ogres completely dropped out of formation and ran like an avalanche at their opponents. Spears, nets and ropes flew in all directions, trapping the fairies and making them fall into the midst of the terrible enemy soldiers. And without magic, they had no way to defend themselves.

Fridya was distraught. How was that possible!? Only fairies knew that rune! They hadn't even used it against ogres before, there was no way they could have imitated it! What was happening!?