Chapter 72

Red Sands Desert, Principality of Rebirth.

City of Rebirth, Outer Defensive Line.

Allya swore as the mercenaries began pulling back...and smiled as she heard a battle cry resound in the valley between the mesas.

"ASARIA! ASARIA! ASARIA!"

The knights had arrived...finally.

She collapsed on her rear, her left hand dropping the dagger it was holding, before coming to press on the long gash on her right arm.

To say that she looked the worse for wear would be a considerable euphemism. She was honestly amazed she wasn't flat on the ground just yet.

The same could be said for her bodyguards. Valker had to be evacuated from the battlefield, his right leg cut off by a particularly vicious bastards with some kind of giant scythe, and another of the knights had been knocked out of the fight. That left her with three bodyguards, Éclair and Rogard, with a knight named Parnis.

She looked to the side at Pyn, and winced. Unfortunately some of the mercs had gotten to her girlfriend, although fortunately most of the elf's wounds appeared superficial...but only most of them. She was going to be limping until she got some serious healing spell for her knee.

As for Anders...he had simply dived into the breach, and his soldiers had given him a wide berth, and Alexandra had understood why when seeing him fight. Human blender indeed, the problem was that she was fairly sure any ally to close would be caught in his...unique combat style.

But it had helped hold the line, albeit with constant leakage due to some surviving past him to go and attack them. Unwittingly, their decision to deploy the kingdom standard might have saved everyone's lives, as the mercenaries appeared to be so focused on it they charged her bodyguards without thinking about widening the breach they had come through, or attacking the rest of her soldiers in the back. Which probably meant that their commander had offered a bounty for whoever took it down.

Well, their stupidity was Allya's savior.

"Well. It looks like it worked." Said Anders as he stepped back from the frontline, staggering as his left leg failed him, and only avoided collapsing to the floor because one of his men caught him. "Thank you lieutenant."

"My pleasure captain." Said the lieutenant, and Ally squinted, before almost gasping. It was lieutenant Estar, but the young man was almost unrecognizable, his face liberally splattered with blood, and what looked like bits of flesh from his foes. The lieutenant helped the captain down onto the floor, then looked at the redoubt, and the slowly retreating mercenary shield wall. "Should we pursue Captain?"

Anders nodded.

"We cannot leave the knights hanging in the breeze. We need to-"

Everyone froze as they heard the horns...and then the chanting.

"Oh fuck." Said Allya out loud.

*****

ALERT: SENTRY GOLEM REPORTS: ANOMALOUS SURFACE MAGICAL ACTIVITY

Alexandra stopped petting the puppy as her head snapped up.

"What's happening?" Asked Emilia.

In lieu of words, Alexandra gestured, and one of the newly installed screens in CQ's boss/throne room lit up, showing the battle outside...and the circle of fiery runes forming above the mages outside, as well as the faint, distant sound of dozens of throats incanting in unison.

"This. What the hell is that?"

"War magic." Said Sara, beating her mistress only by a fraction of a second. Alexandra looked at the maid questioningly, and the vampire shrugged. "It's a type of magic made to be used by a lot of mages in unison."

"Ah." Alexandra turned towards Emilia. "Why haven't you told me about it?" Her tone wasn't accusatory, just curious.

"Because it wasn't relevant?" Emilia shrugged under the Earth-born's questioning gaze. "War magic is flashy, sure, but it's less effective than regular magic. It's main advantage is range, and control. The spells can be used at absurd ranges, which allow the mage to stay back, and they're much easier to control, and avoid friendly fire. That's not very useful for a dungeon."

Alexandra bit back a retort. Right off the bat she could see several uses for her dungeon...and hundreds for the army she was preparing. Still, she contained her instinctive reaction, and nodded.

"I see...you'll have to tell me more about it at some point."

"Sure, if you want to." Emilia shrugged. "I won't be able to teach you any spells of course, but-"

"Uh, mom, mommy, what is that ship doing?"

They blinked at CQ's interruption, and looked back at the screen, and Alexandra's eyes went wide.

"That ship's captain is nuts!"

*****

Captain Calder pondered if there was something to the rumors that he had lost his sanity along with his command decades ago when his naval career had ended in catastrophy, before pushing the thought aside.

It was, after all, not relevant. Madness was just another way of saying 'creative problem solving skills'.

Still, he had to admit that this particular move was a bit more...'creative' than what he usually did.

He'd heard a long time ago of a technique used by aircrafts to attack targets with large amounts of anti air weapons and artillery, as well as increase the precision of a bombing run: a dive bombing.

And as he saw the mages begin their spell, he'd thought to himself, if it worked on aircraft...could it work with an airship?

He was honestly surprised his crew hadn't been horrified at the idea. But they were daredevils to the last skyer, or they'd never have signed up to be part of the crew of a wasteland expeditionary ship. Even his lieutenant, usually fairly level headed, had grinned at the idea.

And thus they were plunging towards the ground like a homesick meteor, only their ward protecting the people on the deck from being pushed off by the rushing air.

"Prepare to inflate the balloon and go to full thrust on my mark!" Barked out Calder to his helmsman, who was leaning onto his control panel like an adrenaline junkie.

"Aye aye Captain! On your mark!"

Calder watched the rapidly approaching ground intently. Almost...almost...

"MARK!" He yelled out, and almost lost his grip on the railing as gravity and physics suddenly remembered his ship existed. The balloon expanded in an instant, powerful enchantments and runes woven into it instantly filling it with lighter than air gases, and the propellers roared to life, canceling as much as their downward momentum as they could.

For an instant he thought they wouldn't make it...then the ship came to a halt, mere meters off the ground, its structure and runes screaming in protest at the stresses forced upon them...and one of its broadsides squarely facing the absolutely stunned artillery and mages, while the other was pointed at the reinforcements that had so recently begun to move out.

"FIRE AT WILL!"

The stunned silence was broken as the ballistas spoke. 12 bolts on each side collided with their respective targets. Most of them missed, his gunners hadn't had the time to properly aim...but they didn't need to.

Fireball enchantments came to life, and both enemy formations dissolved in flames and screams.

"Helm, get us out of here!" Yelled out Calder as the enemy artillerists suddenly remembered they outgunned the ship, and begun belatedly firing back.

The propellers reoriented, and the ship groaned as it began to ponderously gain speed. Calder winced, he knew his ship, and that...didn't sound good. Probably better if they never used that maneuver again, or at least not until they'd gotten it into a proper shipyard.

"Good girl." He said as he patted the railing, and smiled at his lieutenant, who grinned back. "Well, it looks like our work here is done."

"I sure hope so sir! I think we made quite the impression." He said as he nodded towards the ground, as the mages began throwing spells at them, and lightning bolts and fireballs joined the hail of ballista bolts.

"Indeed we did. Indeed we did."

*****

Allya wasn't ashamed to admit that she was staring, jaw wide open as the Alberta pulled its insane maneuver. And she was far from the only one. The fighting just...stopped for a moment as everyone stared at the impossible event.

What.The.Fuck. Was all Allya could think of. Then the ship began moving away, with its ward flashing under the hail of projectiles, magical and physical alike, and she shook herself out of her stupor. Calder had just bought them time. Time they couldn't afford to waste.

She turned back, and grabbed the kingdom's standards, before running at the top of the redoubt.

"COME ON LADS! Our good friend Calder just taught our enemies what it costs to mess with Rebirth! Let's hammer the point home! Who's with me?!?"

Her soldiers stared at her...and then a roar, somewhere between a pure animalistic scream and a proper war cry answered her, and she leapt off the half destroyed fortification, her entire army in tow, with her bodyguards belatedly rushing after her.

*****

Alexandra opened her mouth, then closed it, an repeated the cycle at least half a dozen time before managing to get a coherent word out.

"How-What-Is that even possible?"

Emilia shook herself out of her stupor.

"Probably? Airships have enchantments and runes to partially cancel gravity and manipulate momentum. Still, that's...insane."

"I can see that." Alexandra shook her head in amazement. She'd only seen a similar maneuver pulled off once, and that was when the European Federation army had arrived to relieve Alpha Centauri. Thousands of assault shuttles, dropping through the sky on pillars of fire...before stopping meters from the ground, spewing missiles and gauss fire. "Gods...And I thought I'd seen everything."

"Welcome to Alcheryos Alex." Said Emilia, her voice dripping with irony, and Alexandra chuckled.

"Right, magic, fair enough." She shook her head. "It's just that...I think I've seen it all, and then another new trick comes up."

"That's magic. Always a new possibility to learn, a new power to harness."

"I suppose so. I suppose so." Alexandra sighed. "Are you sure we shouldn't intervene? We could try asking for that ship as compensation for our help. Think of everything we could gain by taking it apart!"

That made the vampire girl visibly hesitate, before she shook her head.

"That would only anger the UDC and the adventurer's guild. So no."

"Oh well, had to try." Alexandra smiled, and then looked at the screen. It looked like the battle was coming to a head. "Let's watch this. At least it promises to be interesting."

Emilia nodded.

"And it'll be over soon. We can definitely spare a few minutes." Alexandra sighed in relief, before almost jumping back as Emilia shoved her finger under the Earth-born's nose. "But we will get back to that discussion about the throne's inlays afterwards, understood?"

"...Understood." Said Alexandra. She'd hoped the puppy would have proved enough of a distraction, but apparently not.

"Good." Everyone turned back towards the battle, as Jared seemingly materialized out of nowhere with a tray of treats and snacks, distributing them to those who could eat them, even tossing a few bits of meat to the manticore pup.

Alexandra shook her head at the antics, and took a handful of chips, popping them one at a time into her mouth. Her creations would never cease to amaze her apparently. Oh she'd prepared a snack reserve just in case, but she hadn't expected her bodyguard/butler to actually take the initiative on this.

Then again...he was close to her constantly, and had consistently behaved more and more like, well, a person. Maybe she should test if he could talk at some point, although given what it took for CQ to actually speak, she rather doubted it.

*****

Aline stared in disbelief at the departing ship. What...Who the hell were these maniacs? What kind of people were they messing with here? She'd been warned that the inhabitants of Rebirth might be a bit...unusual, but not freaking madmen!

She shook herself. Regardless, they were caught between the anvil and the hammer, and as she saw the baroness lift the kingdom's standard, and the enemy surge over the redoubt after their lady, she knew they were running out of time.

Evidently Gothram saw it too.

"Break the shield wall!" He yelled out! "And fall back!"

His soldiers roared, and obeyed. Aline winced as the first few began dropping from the projectiles, although thankfully most of the enemy's ranged troops seemed to have been swept up in their insane charge, and their pot shots while running forward were mostly ineffectual, a few had still kept their cool and were methodically working their way through the retreating mercenaries.

She turned around, and looked towards the knights. No matter what, the Order couldn't afford to have the Scarlet Swords fail. Not now. She closed her eyes, and plunged her hand in her spatial pouch. It looked like it was time to tip the scales.

Order style.