******************************POV Marcus*********************************

I now had the power to turn Gillian into a city guardian, and I called out for her. Seconds later her ghostly body appeared before me and looked curiously at me, "You called? What is it?"

"Are you ready to become my city guardian, Gillian?" I said with all the seriousness I could project in my voice. Her often mischievous behaviour disappeared suddenly and she bowed her head slightly to me.

"I am yours to command, my lord. Your enemies are mine and your friends are mine too. I will guard your city and its citizens with all my power and will do so as long you keep your promise to the elves and the goddess Alvera."

I nodded, "So be it!" My power flowed into Gillian and she changed. I felt a new connection blossoming in my consciousness and mana rushing into me, her mana regeneration strengthening mine by no small margin.

Gillian smiled and laid her head to the side, "I got a nice boost to my stats and I can feel the new core in my body. Thank you for granting me your power, Marcus. I will train hard to make the vines at the wall an additional defence for us. And now that I'm a part of you I will be able to grow much faster than before, providing more shelter and protection for the elves."

"That would help us big time, Gillian. Please help the elves with the prayers to Alvera and create a holy site in front of your body. We'll need it for the sanctification of Andarin as soon as he returns."

My mentioning of the young elven man made her frown suddenly, "Speaking of him, I can see him and his group running in our direction. They are accompanied by some hunters and some of the group look injured. Perhaps we should gather our forces to be ready in case of a sudden attack."

Her elevated position as a tree gave her an obvious advantage when looking for any dangers. It would be good to make use of that and keep her tree the highest place in the city in the future. I sent my other guardians a warning to gather the troops and call back the people from the surroundings, accidentally causing a hectic scramble as everyone rushed back to the protection of the wall.

The elves with the best shooting ability and all the mages manned the wall, while the rest of the people stayed down around the hearth tree and my core. The ones with the highest mana capacity stayed near me to give me their mana. The others meditated to gather as much mana as possible as they always used at least some of it just to make their every day lives easier. Even without the mana manipulation skill, magic could be used to make your body warmer or heal some minor injuries.

I flew outside to watch the border of my domain myself, and was a bit disappointed once again that I couldn't see outside of it. Perhaps if I created an ethereal body like Gillian's for myself I would be able to watch the outside world again like in my former life.

After only five minutes I saw Andarin and his group entering my domain and examined them closely. One of them was heavily injured with a spear tip embedded in his back, and Andarin himself had many small injuries covering his body. The rest of the squad was almost without any injuries, which made me feel somewhat angry. Their job was to protect Andarin and make it easy for him to level, not to let him do all the work, but perhaps I should hear their story first before I rip their sorry asses off.

I used my new healing spell on them and held it focused on Andarin, watching their surprised looks as their wounds started slowly closing and the spear tip in the hunter's shoulders slipped out and fell to the ground.

'There don't seem to be any pursuers' I heard Gillian's thoughts and I relaxed somewhat. Then I went closer to the group and addressed Andarin, "As I see, you came back mostly intact, but why are you in such a hurry when nobody is following you?"

He was surprised by my sudden appearance, but stopped at once and tried to sense my presence. Much faster than I expected him to, he turned to face me and answered, "Mylord, we killed many goblins as requested, but we also discovered something quite disturbing and alarming. The goblins and lizards have somehow managed to tame forest drakes for their army, which could easily bypass our defence. We decided to warn you as soon as possible, so you could adapt to the changed conditions."

Okay, that was something I didn't expect and surely didn't want to hear, but he made the right choice in returning with the news, "Good thinking Andarin. Get yourself and the others back to the wall and then prepare yourself for the sanctification. Clear your mind and soul of any obstructing thoughts or wishes. In the meantime I will question your squad about your findings."

'Galen, gather all intelligence on forest drakes and how to defeat them. It seems the goblins have found someone who can tame these beasts like the humans did with theirs.' I sent the old mage a message which he acknowledged with a short 'Hmm, let me see'.

I turned to Ildara, who had watched my exchange with Andarin, and asked for her report, which wound up scaring me a little. The goblins had more numbers than I'd thought, better organization, and showed clear signs of improved intelligence. The more I heard, the more I thought that someone high up in the sky was using massive power to get my crystalline self in their grasp.

Ildara wasn't someone easily frightened, but she seemed worried enough that I could sense it in her eyes and voice when she reported their findings.

"Ildara, do you know how hard the scales of forest drakes are? Do you think my splinters could kill them?"

She reflected for a few seconds while we went back to the wall a bit more slowly than Andarin, "I think, they would wound them, maybe enough to slow them down somewhat, but only a lucky shot would kill any of them. The can take a beating and still fight on. We mostly evade them as soon as we discover them. Only if pressured or if they endanger a hearth tree will we attack them. Their skin is tough and thick, deflecting most arrows and thrown spears. To fight them you have to get in close range and try to hit them at their weak spots behind their legs and neck."

That didn't sound very promising, "How do they do against magic? Are they afraid of fire maybe?"

She shrugged, "Not more than any other beasts, rather less thanks to their dragon heritage, but they do not possess more resistance against magic than any other. A concentrated attack could penetrate their skin and injure them badly, I think, but that would bind most of our mages to specifically target the drakes while the goblins and lizards would mostly be safe from our attacks."

I got the same information from Galen seconds later with the addition of an interesting extra. The drakes had a weakness for something called Etnis, a herb growing deep in the forest, which drove the drakes somewhat crazy. The description reminded me a little bit of catnip and the reactions it created in my tomcat back on Earth. The poor guy has hopefully found a new can opener.

Now I had the question that decided how much of my precious time I would invest in counter measures to the new threat, "How many forest drakes do the goblins have?"

Ildara's shoulders sank and her head bopped down, "Sorry, but we couldn't find how many they have. We saw three of them, but I'm sure where there are three, there are more. You should feel proud of yourself that they consider you so powerful that they have to go all out." She smirked with a sad smile, because she could already tell that we will loose many of our people against these creatures. Her strange humour irritated me a slight bit, but I ignored it for now.

They saw three for sure and were sure that there would be more, but I was also quite sure that even with their big army the goblins wouldn't be able to support more than ten of these beasts. From the description I got from Galen they needed a solid amount of fresh food every day, and goblins didn't seem to be big logistic geniuses. At least I hoped they weren't, because then I would be in for a heavy fight.

"How much time do you think we have before the army arrives in full strength, Ildara?"

She looked up and frowned, "Maybe two days, but it could also be only one day. It depends how fast they move now their forward scouts have been killed. By the way, Andarin is a walking storm of death now that he has increased his mana pool. If it is possible I would like to learn this new skill of his as well. It would make my arrows much more deadly if I could use heavier bows."

I laughed in spite of the looming future, "You are right, but with the right technique you could imbue your arrows directly with mana to give them a harder punch. Imagine an arrow with fire mana infused. It would melt right through most armors."

Her eyes lit up like the sun and a wide grin plastered her face immediately. This girl really liked destructive skills, eh? If I could bind her somehow to Andarin and him to my city, I would have a nice couple of fighters. Add an additional healer wife for the two and maybe a rogue wife too, and I'd have a perfect adventurer team at my disposal. Poor Andarin might be a little overwhelmed from the womanly affection he might get, but that was his problem and not mine.

"Ildara how hard is the armor at their feet? Can it be cut, I mean right at their soles?"

She was bewildered by my question and spent a few seconds trying to recall her knowledge about the drakes, "I know that my father said that they feel movements in the surroundings through their feet, so the soles shouldn't be heavily armored, why?"

I dropped some caltrops from my inventory right beside her and she jumped in surprise. She looked closer at my constructs and examined them for their purpose, then a nasty smile erupted on her face.

"That is so evil! The drakes would cut themselves up with these things. The goblins might evade them after they make first contact, but knowing these little pests they will attack with everything they have at first sight of the walls, and the drakes will lead their advance."

I was pleased with her answer but something still nagged at me, "Will the drakes be out of the fight with their feet cut up, or will they just enrage and attack everything? I mean, they are wild beasts but they still have some dragon heritage, right?"

"Sure, they will perhaps run amok and attack anything in their sight, but that would mostly be goblins and their allies, so what?" She shrugged and her eyes wandered again to Andarin's back.

She was right of course, but to make sure, I will have to tell the mages to concentrate their attacks on any drake that comes too close to the wall. My work was cut out for me too, as I had to create more caltrops for the battlefield and especially bigger and sturdier ones. Every drake that could penetrate that defence would have to become a prime target for my casters.

My subminds began to create the caltrops while I started to create the minefield with mana infused stones all around the fields. I also made my specialized bombs stronger and covered them with more stone splinters inside for a maximized lethality, and then moved them a little bit farther away from the wall to reduce the risk of friendly fire.

When I looked back to the city I suddenly recognized a flaw in my defence. Until now I was certain that all the attacks would be coming from the forest, but as far as my fantasy lore reached, lizards were excellent swimmers, so the river itself would also be a possible route for my enemies to reach my walls.

The best strategy here would be to just cut as much stone as possible from the cliff to make it impossible to climb. With my stone cutting ability that should be quite easy, but it would also take a massive amount of mana.

'Galen, we will have to milk all the mana I can get from the citizens sooner than I thought. I need to cut the cliff down quite a bit. Correct me if I'm wrong, but lizards are good swimmers, right?'

The answer to my message took some seconds and I felt the old elf's sudden understanding what I meant, 'Damn it, you're right. I will gather the citizens and then mobilize the other guardians to help you with the cliff. There's just one small problem with that. Where do you want to dump so much stone?'

'Oh, for the stone itself, I have a nasty idea I can try. I don't think the goblins will like it very much.'