Minzkala Read online

  The amount of damage he could take was just as great as the other Warlords and his magic was nearly uninterruptable. We nearly exhausted all our efforts on this one target.

  Zarathustria and Alusia were trying to hold off the Orcs with their mesmerizing spells, but they became overwhelmed by their numbers. It was too much for them. Alusia fell to the ground, under attack.

  Mank placed a protective shield around her, preventing her from taking damage for a moment or two, as the rest of us tried to take the Warlock down. Stheta tossed a few heals on Alusia, but she kept her focus on the King and the two Champions. Cyrow and Vamble were ripping through the Orcs they could reach, but they tried to keep most of their attacks on the primary target.

  The Warlock produced a spontaneous combustion spell, emitting an explosion from his body that left first degree burns on those of us in the immediate area. It was, however, significantly less than what his spell was meant to do, for the King was with us.

  Raffe called on healing waters to cleanse our light wounds as Sigge drew the sound waves from the Warlock, preventing him from casting another spell for at least ninety seconds.

  King Naethan was repetitively causing earthquakes and blinding the Orcs behind us. Occasionally, he would choke the life from one, causing it to fall to the ground, lifeless. But his choking effect proved useless against the Warlock, who was able to hold off on breathing for the duration of the spell.

  Welkin had come to Alusia’s aid, seeing the Enchantress lying on the floor off to the side of us. Old Bleu was hard at it with him, trying to pull the Orcs off her.

  Welkin was joined by his partner, Vamble; and the four of them together (for Jasi had begun to fight as well) were able to do away with the three Orcs on top of Alusia as well as those coming toward the piled-up heap of bodies. Vespa focused on healing Alusia to full health.

  Valkryiex and Loren stood behind us, constantly playing Songs of Slumber and Battle Drums. With each marked thump on the drum, I felt invigorated. My strikes fell harder and penetrated deeper into the targets.

  With endless effort, we were able to finally watch the Warlock stumble. He had taken a direct hit through the skullcap from a Singing Sword that belonged to Valkryiex. He then fell to the ground, his body limp.

  Most of us did as the King had ordered and began to make our way further into the corridors. We ripped through the Orcs trying to make our way back around to the surface.

  Before the King had a chance to figure out the chamber’s door mechanism, we were already turning the corner at the end of the corridor, dead Orc bodies lining the path between us and the King. It was like a maze of tunnels that would lead all the way around the underground area of the tower. It surfaced once again on the other side of the tower’s floor.

  We met the Luminomes as they had found their way into the tower, driving some of the Orcs through the corridors. We stepped off between a few stacks of crates and let the Luminomes work their magic, killing a few as they passed. Then we headed toward the surface level.

  When the King looked into the window of Malakael’s Chamber, Shift rose from her position in the cell that hung from the ceiling. Her eyes widened and a smile overcame her unlike any she had worn in her two years of captivity. King Naethan looked at her as if to say, you’re going to be all right now.

  Turk

  Just after the horns sounded, Solecreation let out a war cry and centered himself among a group of Orcs near the northwest walls. The Champions in the other groups followed his lead and spread out, drawing the attention of the Orcs stationed on the ground.

  Jaerra immediately fired poison arrows through Solecreation’s targets as I stood next to her making sure he and the others stayed healed.

  Ryan threw out a paralyzing blow that struck the whole group of Orcs on Solecreation. They sat dazed for a moment, their heads spinning, which gave Solecreation the chance to leave two of them dead from his mortal strikes.

  The Luminomes removed their cloaks and began to push the Orcs back toward the wall. The bright light helped us see better to fight, but it also allowed us to become spotted by the Carrion Drakes, who were starting to take to the air for battle with Digvi’jan Riders on board. Swooping in from above, the Drakes did their best to grab us, but we had the advantage by staying in the lower lying areas of the landscape.

  Some of the Luminomes immediately took out their repelling gear and began to board the Drakes. With three or four at a time, they would distract the rider enough to knock him down to the ground. Some of the Luminomes grabbed the reigns and steered the Drakes close to other groups of Orcs and then jumped off and did their thing. They were able to kill a few of the Carrion Drakes, but many of the Luminomes lost their lives in return.

  Alysias leapt into the air and spun her way around another group of Orcs, putting her sword all the way through the back of Solecreation’s main target. She sliced through another almost instantaneously.

  Aurala sent fireballs into the crowd of Orcs. Then she used her combustion spell to blow another to smithereens. As she finished the Orc, Winge caught the one behind it with a mind blasting punch, leaving the Orc incapacitated as Alysias came back around the circle of beasts and cut it to shreds.

  I love my job. Standing back and watching all the action…what could be better? I simply ran behind them healing their wounds. I almost felt like a spectator for the whole event.

  I saw Jaerra throw her grapple over the wall. The light from the Luminomes had given us a chance to climb up to the battlements. We took turns on her rope and scaled up. Solecreation was first; I was second.

  When Sole reached the wall’s ledge, he immediately began to take hits from several more Orcs on the wall. Being higher up also caused him to be targeted by the Carrion Drake Riders. One Drake managed to grasp Solecreation’s arm with its large dragon teeth and pulled him off the wall and dropped him onto the ground below us, just inside the city.

  Jaerra let down another rope and hooked it to the stone wall as he struggled to get back up to us. Several more teams were now breeching the battlements.

  Ryan and I watched as one of the Champions near us was picked up by a Drake and carried to a tower on the northeastern wall. I couldn’t see anything beyond the battlements on the wall. I just knew the Drake that had him looked intent and was furiously going at him as he lay on the floor of the tower. He’s gone. I thought to myself in horror.

  Chesed’reg stood furiously on the top of Killian’s Tower, “They have us surrounded. Free the Slickers and call in the Orcs from below. Wake all the Warlords. Where are the two Demon Masters?!” He sounded frantic.

  “They are already on it,” Lucache shouted back.

  Over the walls, they could see the Grosteques coming to life and taking to the skies above. They were the size of a full-grown Dwarf, muscular, and hard as steel.

  As they caught a warrior standing back away from his group, normally a healer or an Archer, they would fly in at an incredibly fast rate and strike the target, almost as a Peregrine Falcon would. Some of the warriors were carried off and suffered the attacks of the demon’s sharp claws and teeth.

  The Demon Masters from Rhalas began to do what they could to counteract the efforts of the Grotesques, petrifying two and submitting another to their control so that it could attack a fourth.

  It seemed to confuse the Grotesques to have to fight one of their own. Maevesk and Rhea were hard at it, trying to instruct them to go beyond their natural instincts and to defend against the subjugated demons.

  The glowing warriors who had been lost at sea met up with Captain Kellerson near the city’s entrance. They stepped inside the gates together and began to take out Slickers roaming the city streets. Captain Kellerson was amazed to see the new skills of those who had died.

  Darian and the Luminomes had done a terrific job on the south side. Decloaking and walking as a wall of light toward the city, they cau
sed all the Orcs in the area to flee.

  Darian had a small group stay near the entrance to Aheb’an to prevent the Orcs from entering or exiting the city. After those outside had been taken care of, they would move into the city and try to drive the Orcs into the tunnel system below ground.

  King Ederich sent in three teams and two extra Demon Masters to the entrance area. As piles of Slickers and newly awakened Warlords poured out into the streets, the warriors did their best to maintain.

  They found that the light from the Luminomes was also working on the Slickers. Now they were able to concentrate their efforts on the Digvi’ja, so long as they stayed closer to the entrance with the Luminomes.

  The teams on the eastern side and those to the northwest with Solecreation caught the Orcs as they were coming around the walls. They would drop down on large groups to strike, then returned to their position up high. Wherever the Luminomes were, they stayed in groups of about twenty or more and lit up brightly together to blind the Orcs and the Slickers. Even the Carrion Drakes were avoiding the spots heavily encompassed with Luminomes.

  When Darian saw the Slickers reacting to the light from his people, he had them move into the city streets to fight them. Because of their efforts, the Slickers were cornered. The warriors above would drop down to finish them off.

  The Luminomes used their swords to attack the enemies the warriors skipped over. The light acted as armor would for a normal warrior, adding just enough protection from an opponent’s hits by blinding them so that they could fearlessly strike the target.

  Once the enemies on the northern wall were taken care of, Solecreation moved his team and the teams around him into the city. They jumped down and began to appear from behind the buildings, attacking the Slickers and the Digvi’ja Warlords.

  The battles with the Digvi’ja were long. They weren’t hard one on one, but the amount of damage it took to pull one down allowed for very little time to spare. Even the Clerics began to contribute to the damage dealt.

  Twenty-Seven

  Fighting till the Break of Dawn

  Turk

  We followed Solecreation through the streets of Aheb’an, killing any and all enemies that lie in the way. We managed to make it through the crowds without losing anyone, which was more than I could say for most of the other teams. Left and right, we watched as others suffered casualties. Whenever possible, I tried to assist the other groups, but in many cases, I didn’t see death coming until a body fell to the ground.

  A few yards away, I heard a Digvi’jan Warlord call out to his cohorts, “Open the vials! Let the Zemylan Hag deal with them!”

  I searched my memory. I had heard this story before somewhere. The old Hag with the Undead Army. Yes, it was coming back to me.

  I looked over to see some of the Warlords opening the vials from the Hag. As they did, the souls of some of the men would slide right out of the bodies that once contained them, a ghostly image of the men, floating up into the air.

  The souls were normally from warriors caught in a seemingly hopeless fight, or from those who had just suffered a loss. You could tell by the looks on their faces. Sometimes, a warrior with a prideful heart would be caught up, his hope lost…for pride is hope in oneself alone, and is prone to fail with every mistake, shortcoming, or inadequacy.

  Whatever the source of the missing hope, whatever the cause of selfish ambition, the souls would glide through the air like an apparition and make their way into the vials. Once filled, the Digvi’jan responsible for the vial handed it to a Carrion Drake Rider, who flew it back up to the tower.

  Natasul confided in me that his job was getting more and more difficult, “Every time we see a fallen warrior, I have to work harder. It’s making our spirits spiral downward.” He was constantly reapplying eternal hope to avoid having any of our team members taken by the vials.

  Winge was holding his own and assisting the other teams around us. He would have one target mesmerized, hasten another group and confuse yet another target by disguising himself as one of their kind for a brief moment.

  Ryan was just as effective in large groups of demons. In addition to taking on the four required of each DM, he would let out his mass paralyzing blow spell to stun entire groups of the Legion’s minions, all the while commanding his subjugated demon to attack and kill more than just one target at a time. He was indispensible because his work allowed us to focus primarily on the Digvi’jan Warlords.

  As I was admiring his work, a Digvi’jan Warlock appeared in the streets before us. Several of the warriors lost at sea had been targeted by him. The warriors had the increased skills from Minzkala and thus posed a greater threat. Plus, there was little the other Legion members could do against these men, so the assignment was delegated to the Warlocks who could.

  With a scepter in hand, the Warlock hurtled purple blasts toward the glowing Minzkalans. The blasts completely disintegrated them, their armor and weapons falling to the ground. Those who were struck were sent back to Minzkala and would no longer fight in the war with the Digvi’ja. The battles with the Warlocks took a substantial amount of time away from fighting the other beasts around us, but it was necessary.

  I could see a group of Luminomes further down on the streets of Aheb’an driving in the Orcs from the south like herded cattle. Without their help, it’s likely Rhalas would have lost twice as many men as they did.

  When the Digvi’ja noticed what was going on with the Orcs, I heard them ordering the Cerapithali to attack the Luminomes. The giant beasts took off after the little people, following some of them into the corridors.

  One by one, they picked them off, slowly working their way through the thousands of lighted Nomes. They were able to decrease their numbers significantly before the attack was thwarted. The Luminomes’ numbers proved to be in their favor, and with much effort from our group behind them, we were able to kill the Cerapithali that had followed.

  The Archers throughout the city were doing as instructed, sometimes followed by Spirit Healers. They attached their grapples to the necks of the Carrion Drakes as they swooped in to pick up a stray warrior. Mounting the giant Drakes, they often threw the rider off onto the ground below, killing him instantly. Then they commenced to attack the Drakes with their swords, striking the kill spots and sending the Drakes crashing down.

  The body of the beast normally served to cushion the fall, but at times, they would have to leap into the air with perfect timing to avoid colliding with the ground. Occasionally, I saw the Archers attach a zip-line to the walls and follow it back to the city, toting any healers who had been assisting.

  Solecreation yelled out to Natasul, “Adrenaline!” and hopped on with Jaerra to mount a Drake just as Natasul got the spell off. He forced the beast with his sheer Champion’s strength to fly toward the balcony where Maevesk and Rhea stood.

  When he fell to them, he immediately began to attack the weak Demon Masters. We followed him up using the rope Jaerra had put in place for us.

  I had a pretty hard time healing Solecreation after the time it took us all to get there. But Solecreation was fighting as if he didn’t have a scratch on him. The adrenaline rush had served to make him nearly unstoppable for the brief window of time.

  After the two Demon Masters were dead, the Grosteques began to fly around with less direction than before. They were confused and did only half the work they could have done with the direction of their masters. When we dropped back to the ground below, we found ourselves surrounded by a crowd of Slickers, two of them were giants.

  “I knew we should have aimed closer to the Luminomes,” Ryan muttered as he fired off two petrification spells and subjugated yet another.

  Winge held one giant Slicker mesmerized while we began to take on another in the group. Solecreation was beginning to slow down a little, but Winge hastened his movements once more and his actions sped back up.

  Alysias made
her flips through the spiraling tentacles above until one caught her and slammed her down into the ground. I took care of her by placing my healing hands on the puncture wound.

  Aurala caused the giant demon to combust from within, but with its massive size, the spell only deterred it momentarily. With a concentrated effort from the rest of us—including Ryan who had managed to kill the remaining smaller demons—the giant Slicker fell to the ground. The other giant went down much the same, freeing us up to make a move to the Tower.

  As we drew closer, we met Kal and the other Minzkalans near the entrance. The Sun was starting to light up the sky from the east again, but it felt like we had been fighting for several days. We continued to bring down the forces of the Legion around the bottom of the tower.

  “How are things going out here?” Kal asked Solecreation.

  “Terrible. We can’t get those Drakes down like we would like. As soon as I think they’re all gone, they either fly back or more come,” he replied.

  “The Digvi’ja are causing quite a problem, too. They’re pretty tough,” Natasul added.

  While they were discussing things, we fought together, trying to keep the entrance to the corridors cleared.

  Fouad proved to be worth his weight in gold with the Slickers. Not only could he petrify and submit the demons, but he had Slick taking on a Digvi’jan Warlord off to the side single-handedly. Ryan noticed his work and was both amazed and jealous.

  “How do I get one of those,” he called out with a smile.

  Fouad just laughed and said, “You can’t, kid. You don’t have your permit yet.”

  “Where’s King Naethan anyway?” Winge shouted out at Kal.

  “He’s down there with the others. They’re on a rescue mission, top-priority.” He pointed into the tower.