C53: Second Clash

Cera found herself quite surprised to be waking up naturally in the morning rather than to some kind of alarm.  After peeking outside and finding the camp quiet, she shrugged and went back to the cot in the tent, sitting on it to meditate.  Since she didn’t have any pressing needs, she simply focused on her soul again.  There was always more work to be done on repairing it, after all.

Around an hour later, the alarm she’d been expecting finally came, a horn blaring across the encampment.  Fortunately, it wasn’t as bad as the alarm stone the prior day.  It still hurt, a little, but it wasn’t agonizing at least.  After shaking her head, she exited her tent and began making her way to the command area.

Upon arriving, she spotted the general speaking with Ann and the other three mages he’d had with him before.  He waved her over as he noticed her, and promptly began going over his plan for the day.

Apparently, their side had a much more successful night than their foes—the opposing supply line had been cut, most of the remaining mages assassinated, and all but one of the others fled overnight.  Similarly, several chunks of the army had also fled.  Two of their assassins were caught, but upon realizing it, the guild had sent several of their members back in to extract them and succeeded.

Oran admitted he was shocked at how well things were going.  Most of the plan didn’t involve anything Cera cared about, so she didn’t bother to try to memorize anything he said.  She was simply to remain at the command tent and protect it, as before, and possibly snipe new leaders as they appeared.

Right before they left to return to the defensive positions they had before, an almost perfectly average-looking individual raced up and delivered a note before running away again.  A quick glance at it sent the general’s eyebrows up, and he began chuckling for a moment.

“Well, it appears we’re even luckier than I thought.  It appears that the enemies’ communication and scrying enchantments were destroyed as well.  Without orders from home, it’s even more likely for retreat to occur,” he remarked as he gestured for them to follow him.

Arriving at the command tent, it was apparent that the enemy was still unprepared, and Cera paused a moment, then stated, “I suppose I should begin my own attack; it’d be pretty demoralizing to have people getting hit before you’re even ready to fight, after all.”

The general nodded, then waved the other mages off, Ann heading toward the center of the frontline with her golems as the other three moved toward the backlines this time.  Not long after, Cera’s ice spikes began sailing across the large gap.

As she’d expected, the sudden strike caused significant chaos, and she’d specifically aimed to maximize it as well, though her own morals limited her to only striking those who looked ready for combat.  She was sure it’d be more effective to hit other targets, like cooks, people going to relieve themselves, and those just emerging from their tents, but she couldn’t make herself do it.

While she was busy, however, she heard a shout behind her and spun, spotting two of the warriors surrounding the command zone under attack by three people with bows and four with maces.  She had no idea how in the world they’d made it so close, bypassing her shield, but it hardly mattered.  She already had a number of ice spikes about to fire, so she simply spun them around, new targets in mind.  She wasn’t quite quick enough, as one guard went down with an unlucky arrow through the visor, but the attackers only lasted a moment longer.

Only a few seconds later, she was shocked to find arrows slamming into the shield from the direction of the enemy army as well.  Spinning back around, she began scanning the army with her spyglass, and eventually found a single individual standing atop one of the sentry towers, firing a bow that had to be enchanted, given how damn far he was shooting.

It was odd that she hadn’t noticed him the day before, but it was easy enough to solve for now.  Having noticed the arrows, Cera promptly added two more layers of shield toward the front, just in case.  Considering that his bow was almost certainly enchanted, he may have defensive enchantments too.  As such, Cera decided on overkill.

Instead of an immediate attack, Cera began to gather her magic.  She kept thinking she must have enough ice spikes to be certain, but repeatedly shook her head, gathering even more.  Eventually, she had nearly forty of them ready, and finally nodded before launching the whole volley at once.

Ice went up, ice went to the sides, ice skimmed the heads of the troops, some spiraled, some curved, but all had the same target.  The man dived off the tower, but it hardly mattered.  Several of the lower spikes ended up slamming into random troops as their target dropped, but that meant that around thirty were still on target.  The first two he managed to deflect, but all had been timed to hit in a five-second window, and there were simply too many.  Seven shattered upon his armor, but that left half of the volley intact.

Several failed to pierce the armor, but her decision paid off, eight of the spikes penetrating, and one catching him in the neck to top things off.  No chance he survived that.

Cera glanced over at General Oran just to find that he’d missed the entire encounter, being focused on their own troops’ formation.  Turning back to the enemy, she found that, much as she’d thought, the man had been holding the surrounding troops together.  Morale was obviously rock-bottom, as people began trying to shove their way back through the army.  There were a few people outing themselves as commanders as they shouted and gestured, trying to enforce order.

That didn’t last long, however, another series of ice spikes nailed them a bit later, causing even more chaos.  Eventually, the backlines were forced to attack those trying to flee, and order was restored, for the moment.

Apparently, Oran had noticed by this point, and he decided that instead of remaining on the defensive, they were going to attack instead.  Given the loss of the opposing side’s mages, he had Ann send her golems ahead at full speed.

Cera found herself surprised at how fast the constructs could move, and watched as they simply trampled halfway through the enemy lines before losing momentum.  That hardly made them harmless, however, as they rapidly spread out, each creating zones of death as each swing pulped multiple enemies in front of them, bodies flying with each impact.

Rather reasonably, the troops around the golems were trying to get away, shoving at those behind and to the sides of them.  As Cera watched, the newest batch of leaders were cut down by their own troops, and large sections of the army began to break apart, significant numbers fleeing, even as others tried to rebuild their formations.

And by that point, their own forces had entered range, several fireballs and arrows launching toward the more stable groups of enemy troops, rapidly scattering them as well.  Cera found herself surprised as the entire enemy army collapsed suddenly, despite still outnumbering them over five to one.

Only about three minutes after the opposing army collapsed, Oran called for their troops to pull back, ending the pursuit of the enemy.  Cera wasn’t sure it was the best idea, as it would let them regroup if they tried, but she wasn’t the one in command, so she didn’t say anything.

Not long after, he turned to her and informed her that as soon as Ann and the other three elite mages arrived, she was to head toward the infirmary area and attempt to save as many people as possible.  They’d taken surprisingly few casualties, given the numeric disadvantage, but it was inevitable that there’d be some in any large-scale battle.

Cera was fairly tired already, having exhausted most of her mana in the past few days, but she nodded, and she much preferred saving lives to ending them.  A while later, the others arrived, and she jogged off as soon as they verified they could take over defense if anything occurred.

While she was able to help a fair bit with the wounded, she was saddened to find that one of the former-muggers-turned-mercenaries had died.  Only one other from their group was present, with a much less serious wound, and didn’t even need her assistance, having been helped already.  The rest of their group was waiting outside, uninjured.

Cera took a few moments to speak with them, and found that, surprisingly, they still preferred this to their prior lifestyle, remarking that even if they had to fight without pay, the guild did try to take care of families of those who died in defense of the city, so their companion falling didn’t mean his family was doomed.  They also stated that they were going to try to help as well.

Additionally, Cera was happy to hear that they’d been acting according to her deal with them, and had helped another gang out, most of the members joining guilds, while the ones who insisted on remaining had been reported to the city guard.

It was nice to know that her actions had done some good for the city.  But she didn’t intend to spend all her time talking with them, so she moved on.  The infirmary tents were being taken down after they’d helped everyone they could, with groups of unharmed defenders being assigned to help carry those who were still wounded back into the city and to the healers’ guild.

Cera was about to help when General Oran’s aide, the one who’d been pretending to be the general, arrived and ordered her to follow him back to the commander.

As she arrived, the man gestured for Ann to leave and turned to face her, then remarked, “Alright, now that things are calmer, I mentioned before that I’d be forced to report you.  As I mentioned, I do not particularly like the idea of betraying an ally, and even beyond that, you were quite important in damaging enemy morale.”

She’d completely forgotten about that, and began to feel nervous, despite the man clearly not being opposed to her, himself.  She hesitantly nodded, and was surprised to find the man chuckling at her expression.

“Relax, Cera.  I didn’t call you here just to tell you that.  I want to protect you just like you want to remain hidden.  Now then, I was told you can control your illusion, rather than it being limited to what it is now.  Could you please show me another appearance?” he promptly continued after shaking his head.

A little relieved by his statement, Cera nodded, then paused for a moment to think.  She eventually sighed, hating what she was doing, but she could tell he was going to report what she showed him, and nothing would be quite as good…

With a moment of focus, her illusion changed to match her old body, completely different from her.  Male, overweight, blond.  Hard to get further from either her new body or the illusion she normally used.

Meanwhile, everyone present looked surprised, and a few seconds later, Oran remarked, “Well, that’s certainly different.  Thank you, Cera.  I’ve memorized that appearance, and will report it.  Next, could you make an illusion as strong as you possibly can, blocking yourself from me?  No need for detail, or large size.”

Nodding, Cera dropped her illusion before reforming it as a small grey square just a bit larger than her hand.  After the general nodded, she went back to her typical illusion as he remarked that he was pleased to report that he couldn’t make out any colors behind the square she’d made.

He then dismissed her, and as she turned to leave, he heard him telling the three mages he’d brought with him that they’d be discussing how to report her, and anyone who didn’t follow his lead would earn his ire.  She was still worried, obviously, but she was hopeful that things would go well, given how he was clearly thinking about how to hide her true appearance.

Not wanting to deal with anything else for now, she simply went straight to her room in town and collapsed onto her bed for a while before getting back up and grabbing her brush and getting to work on her tail.