I laze around with nothing to do, half-listening to Celica's chatter. We're both spending the day lying on the sunlit grass, right in front of the wall enclosing the entrance to the formerly Dwarven mountain fortress. It's a rare warm day, made all the more so by the contrast to the relentless cold usually dominating this valley. The same leisurely atmospehere has spread to the soldiers atop the wall, who are finding us a more interesting sight than the horizon.

Celica is even more cheerful than usual now that her hated enemies, those pesky dwarves are all dead. She's still recounting the battle we had, for about hundreth time now.

"Did you see~ it, Ais? Celica bashed that little bastard good~!"

"Yes. Truly you are the mightiest enemy of little hairy people living in holes."

Right after whoever thought of gassing them all, that is.

"You really~ think so? Ha-haa~! Praise the big sis~ more~!"

Celica fails sarcasm detection. She takes a smug smile and nudges me with her elbow.

"So Ais~, have you thought about following in big~ sis' footsteps and becoming succubusful~?"

"No."

"No~!? A lackluster~ lust demon lacks luster~, so why don't you~ try being less Ais-queen~ and more nAis~?"

"..."

Her puns are so bad I feel several of my brain cells commiting suicide after hearing that.

"Silly Ais~, you are too serious~-- Eh~? What's that voice?"

A distant thunder? No, it's different. We fly up to the wall appropriated from dwarves. A column of dust is approaching us. Or rather than column, a wall of dust cutting through the whole valley in that direction.

Soldiers around us hurry to the wall, all looking at the same direction. I squint to see better. There are low shapes in among the dust. Countless of them.

"Dwarves. Lots of dwarves."

And they look very, very pissed.

***

"How can there be a Dwarven army here!? Are your eyes made of wood!?!"

The general shouts at his scouts, who somehow managed to not notice the giant approaching army. I hope certain two sunbathing succubi weren't the reason... In any case, the imperials are in a difficult position. A good part of their forces are still scattered into the tunnels and hallways.

Was this the dwarves' plan all along, to crush the imperials with the now-approaching army as the hammer, and the fortress as the anvil? That would add up. The dwarves in the fortress were heavily on the defense, and their unwillingness to commit their main forces could have been exactly because they knew these reinforcements would arrive.

The imperial army is still not ready when the first of the dwarves are within range of the walls. They consist of shield bearers and slingers behind them. Haphazard imperial arrow volleys are caught by the big shields, and the slingers start bombarding the walls. Their bullets are peculiar ceramic balls, which break on impact. Do they contain nasty poison or burning liquid? No such luck.

These burst into spiders. Large, aggressive, and very poisonous spiders.

"What's with this world and biological warfare?!"

Those soldiers hit find themselves suddenly coated with spiders, and understandably scream and flail around trying to get them off. But spiders are too quick and small and many of them disappear inside the armors, biting mercilessly. They had fairly limited supply of spider bullets, but the damage it did to imperial morale was considerable.

By the way, I bolted into air the very second I saw the spiders. I'm not phobic and I do have a resistance to poison enchantment, but all animalkind seems to treat me with special hatred so I'm not taking any chances here.

Some demons standing on the walls were also hit, and the whole lot loses their patience and jumps or flies down from the wall to crush the puny Dwarven skirmishers. Their main force is still too far away, so it looks like dwarves overextended themselves and will lose this unit.

"Come on~ Ais, you got~ to kill at least a dozen~ with big sis~!"

"I'll pass-- Celica, stop."

"Nope~!"

Celica half drags half pushes me into the battle against my will. Come on, I don't even have a replacement swordstaff yet!

The dwarves, however, are not stupid at all. They have another set of ammo ready just for this possibility. The approaching demons get hit by bullets bursting into dry white clouds of powder. Soon after those hit start screaming. I see a lamia-looking demon coiling and trashing on the ground, clutching her eyes while screaming. What the hell did they shoot at us?

Then it hits me... it must be quicklime! Then it hits me literally, and I'm coated with a cloud of lime myself. I manage to fly out of it, but not before the lime powder got into my eyes, making them feel as if they are coated with acid. Well, technically it’s alkaline, but it hurts like hell all the same. This is another underhanded bit of chemical warfare, only dwarfed - no pun intended - by the imperials and their use of poison gas.

I can't see anything, but from the sounds of battle I deduce the dwarves are dispatching the blinded demons while being hard-pressed by the unaffected ones. I got separated from Celica, but judging from her vigorous cursing she is alright. ... I blindly fly to gain some extra altitude. I think I'll stay right here, high above the battle and safely out of slingshot range.

The clamor below begins to sound surreal, since it doesn't affect me and I can't see any of it. All my earlier worries seem rather pointless here and now. This is how things should be. Let others fight if they must, it doesn't concern me. My tranquil feeling is a little hampered by the flaring pain in my eyes though, but nothing's perfect.

I think by now the main part of Dwarven Alliance army has entered the fray, and is beginning to engage the imperials. It would seem this battle is dominated by the dwarves; even if I were not blinded, there's not much I could do to help the empire. And right now I'm not even sure which direction I'm facing anymore.

*SWIIIIISH*

That sounded far too much like a ballista bolt barely missing me. Of course, since I still can't open my eyes, that could have been another kind of special ammunition filled with disturbing death. Maybe one that bursts into tentacle monsters? They must be targeting me because they think I'm some kind of observer-coordinator for imperials.

I fly higher, much higher. The sounds of battle fade out completely, and then I'm surrounded by damp coldness of a cloud. I decide to stay in its comforting coolness until my eyes work again.

When I finally can look around without crying blood, night has fallen. The cold white light of the moon dimly lits the ground, and with demon's heightened senses I can see the result of battle. First, there are many small corpses surrounded by several human-sized or bigger. Those demons didn't die easily.

Then there is another pile of Dwarven corpses at the root of ladders set against the wall. On the wall there are lots of corpses of both armies, few of which are noticeably purple in color. And finally there's a stream of human corpses starting from gates and continuing with decreased density towards imperial border. If this battle were written on a book, it couldn't be any more clear.

I can see many living dwarves working furiously near the tunnel entrance, but decide to follow the imperial army, which had sallied and retreated. I follow the direction of the corpse trail, which points their direction like an arrow from my vantage point. After flying through series of valleys, I spot specks of light far away in sparse boreal forest. Remnants of the empire's army have camped here.

***

"Celica, you should get that removed."

"But it hurts~!"

I found Celica with a crossbow bolt through her thigh. She hadn't let a flesh wound stop her, but is now getting cold feet about its removal. ... I rip it off.

"IIIAAaaaaAAAAAAGH~!!"

"Oops, I should have cut off the tip first."

"Buuuuuu~ Ais! You did that on purpose~, didn't you~?!"

I got quicklime in my eyes thanks to her rushing me into battle, so I just answer her complaints with a smirk.

The dwarves couldn't catch the remains of the imperial army, which made its escape as the night fell. With less than half of its original fighting strength left, and large portion of demon summons gone, they are now forced to retreat and regroup in the imperial territory. Empire lost soldiers both when breaking through and because there wasn't time to get everyone out of the tunnels. Those can be crossed off as dead in action, vengeful dwarves make sure of that. Nothing was gained in the end, and both sides met heavy casualties.

While Celica rolls on ground screaming theatrically, I see that my occasional acquaintance Innwel is still alive and well. He notices me noticing him noticing me, and runs away blushing. I have a bad feeling his mental image of me is coalescing into something awful after his initial crush, several misunderstandings made and solved, and me flashing at him during the duel...

Since this futile campaign is effectively over, I one-sidedly decide it's fine for me to return to the imperial capital now. ...Huh. I spent weeks onto this and somehow I didn't actually directly fight a single dwarf, not even once.