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Board & Conquest 6: Cold Shower
🕑 Added 2024-12-12 08:34:56 +0000 UTC-----
Narc wasn’t ready.
Victoire knew it the moment Lord Wepwawet’s wolves woke her up, long before her god warned her that almost a hundred enemy soldiers were moving toward the village with the intent to raze it. She had barely had time to give its people rudimentary lessons on how to hold a bow and wield a spear, and some wounded militia members hadn’t even recovered from their last battle. Her paltry force would disintegrate at first contact with the enemy.
“This is all we have?” Victoire asked upon examining the underwhelming amount of spears and arrows at their disposal. There was barely enough to equip half her ‘troops,’ if she could call her militia that.
“It’s the most I could forge on my own,” Lourson replied with a sad sigh. “I am truly sorry.”
“It will have to do,” Lord Wepwawet said through a shimmering projection of his lupine spirit overseeing Narc. “Everyone who cannot hold a spear or bow, grab a pot, an urn, whatever container that can hold water, then follow the archers onto the cliffs!”
Victoire’s jaw clenched at the implications. “I suppose that if you ordered us to take battle positions, Lord Wepwawet, then it means that you cannot smite them all?”
“I will smite those I can when the time is right,” her god replied, which was an elegant way to say no. “But worry not. Follow my orders, fight well, and Narc will prevail.”
He’s not as almighty as he pretends to be, Victoire thought. She had had that gnawing suspicion for a while, which she supposed made sense. Her new god wouldn’t need to train them for battle if could solve all their problems on his own. Let’s hope he’s wise and mighty enough at least. We’re in too deep to flee now.
The silver lining was that the early alarm allowed Narc to close their new gates and forced the enemy into a maddened march to cover the distance separating them from the village. This ought to exhaust them and give the defenders a slight edge, though not enough to make up for the disparity in numbers, experience, and equipment.
It was a struggle for Victoire to stay hopeful even inside her own head.
“Victoire, Filou, Lourson, I shall bestow upon you the same gift of speed I gave Mistouffe and imbue your weapons with the kiss of winter,” Lord Wepwawet declared. “Take the best and quickest spearsmen to help you hold the outer walls.”
“Our ditches and defenses won’t hold long against their wyrms,” Victoire warned.
“The wyrms won’t be a problem,” her god said with a confidence that took Victoire aback. “Their slingers will prove more threatening. From my experience, those hit hard and true. You must hold out until our archers can take them out, alongside soldiers trying to climb the village’s cliffs.”
Filou, ever the loyal squire, nodded with nervous resolve. “We’ll hold the barricades with our lives, Lord Wepwawet!”
“What? No!” Lord Wepwawet waved his hands at them in protest. “No, absolutely not!”
His response took everyone aback, least of all Victoire herself. “You don’t want to stop them at the gates, Lord Wepwawet?”
“No!” her god replied to her utter confusion. “All you have to do is buy time! When it looks like they’re going to break through or if it gets too tough, you retreat back to the second layer of foritfications!”
“And… when they threaten to break that one?” Lourson asked calmly. “What happens next?”
Lord Wepwawet glanced at the village’s new hot water source, his grey lips stretching to reveal the rows of sharp canine fangs hiding beneath them.
Victoire had never seen a wolf grin like that before, not even a wereling.
It was quite the frightening sight.
—-
The village was in their sight when rain suddenly began to fall.
Clouds formed out of nowhere to obscure the rising dawn and pour water on Jasper’s brave troops. The air was so cold that it turned to hail before it hit his body. The witch said his magic sword would protect him from the wolf-mage’s sorcery, and she had spoken true; the half-frozen droplets bounced off an invisible force shielding him from danger.
However, that protection did not extend to Jasper’s soldiers.
“Chief, it hurts!” one of his magmorians swordsmen complained as he shielded his life-flame with his hand. The rain turned to steam on his stoneskin, blackening it and slowing him down.
Water was rare in Lavaland and very much feared. The heavens might as well be raining poison on the magmorians, forcing them to raise shields to protect themselves. At least the magma wyrms and kobolds had blood instead of fire in their veins, though they still found the rainfall unsettling nonetheless.
Worse, the steam their own bodies produced dimmed their visibility. Jasper could barely see a great wall of wood flanked by two sets of rocky cliffs. The witch instructed him that this corridor led directly to the village. He could hardly see any further, but he would have bet his life-flame that the defenders had put archers on a higher ground.
“Follow my voice!” Jasper shouted at his warband’s forefront. A leader did not ask his men anything that he wasn’t willing to do himself. “Best climbers up the cliffs! Slingers, cover us–”
A lightning bolt struck the muddy ground in front of Jasper, and a spirit arose from the smoke.
The magmorian stopped dead in his tracks. A phantasmal, translucent mirage of a wolf-faced humanoid floated in front of the magmorian army, his arms crossed, his expression colder than ice. Jasper immediately recognized the entity as the statue’s likeness.
“Begone, magmorians!” he said with a thundering voice carried by the rain. “You face Wepwawet, god of this land! This place is under my protection!”
“Our Eternal Flame shines brighter!” Jasper raised his scimitar in defiance. “You frighten me not, mage! Behold this sword! It protects me from your sorcery!”
The wolf-mage studied the weapon for a moment, his eyes briefly squinting in frustration. “Who gave you that?”
“I don’t know!” Jasper swung his blade at the phantom. “But I’ll deliver it to you right now!”
His sword phased through the mage as if he wasn’t even here, inviting his mocking laughter.
“All I will say is this,” the wolf-mage said with a grin full of sharp fangs. “If you dare to persevere in your madness, I’ll flush you out of my land like mere trash. You’ll find death with each step.”
Jasper burned with anger, but froze upon noticing a startling detail. These barbarians had dug a deep ditch in front of their walls and at the foot of their cliffs; a rift which the rainclouds slowly filled up one drop at a time.
“He’s trying to delay us until their moats overflow and block us!” Jasper shouted to his troops before charging. “Onwards!”
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” the wolf-mage said with a shrug as he vanished in a puff of smoke.
Jasper and his soldiers rushed at the defensive wall to smash their way through it, while the fastest magmorians among them began to climb the cliffs bare-handed. Their claws dug into the stone with a strong grip, only to be suddenly pushed down by streams of water or falling pots.
Jasper saw figures atop the cliffs hidden by the rain and his troops’ own steam. A hail of arrows swiftly followed, their tips bouncing off his strong skin and the wyrms’ scales. His ranged troops answered the volley with stones and javelins. Almost all of them either missed or failed to reach the clifftops.
“I can’t see anything through the steam, chief!” a kobold slinger complained. An arrow hit his throat on the spot a second later, the archer having roughly pinpointed his position from voice alone.
Jasper grit his stone teeth in rage at his soldier’s death. He had begun this fight in love’s name, but he would finish it for vengeance’s sake!
He quickly stepped into the ditch below the defensive wall. The wyrms behind abruptly stopped their charge upon noticing sharp stakes at their feet, throwing their riders into a knee-deep moat or causing the soldiers behind them to stumble. Walking into the waters felt like wading through poison to Jasper, but he persevered.
He had barely reached the wall when he saw a human female peek over it, a silver spear in hand. She thrust her weapon at Jasper’s skull with the intent to kill. He managed to raise his shield to deflect the blow at the last second, the weapon’s cold tip instead piercing deep into his left shoulder.
And it hurt. It hurt so much!
A terrible cold flowed through his burning veins and filled them with ice. His entire left arm became numb as lava no longer flowed through it. A blow to the face would have extinguished his life-flame in an instant.
Jasper roared, pulled back his wounded arm, and answered with a swing of his burning scimitar. The woman retreated behind the fortification for safety, while his sword sliced into the wooden wall. The weapon’s flames would have set it on fire without the rain, but it at least left a deep cut.
His soldiers rushed forward to hack at the fortification with obsidian and stone axes, wading through steamy waters with faces twisted in pain. Werecreatures rose from behind the wall to repel them with spears. Some of the weapons swirled with searing cold that let them pierce through magmorian skin with ease. Jasper watched with horror as one of his men was struck in the chest and collapsed dead into the rising moat.
My poor soldiers! Once he had married Princess Topaz, he would give every fallen ally a king’s funeral. Damn these barbarians! These cowards would rather strike from behind their walls than face us in the mud!
Unwilling to let more of his men die, Jasper protected a fellow soldier from a spear thrust with his shield. His left hand wouldn’t move, yet he did not despair. A single kiss from his beloved princess would set it ablaze again!
His soldiers hacked at the wall the best they could while the defenders’ spears forced them to retreat now and then, slowing them down. Slingers attempted to cover their comrades as best they could with suppression fire, but low visibility and arrows caused them to miss more often than not. Their enemies were protected by magic too. Jasper saw a slung stone that would have busted anybody else’s skull bounce off a shining shield protecting a werebear spearman’s head.
Nonetheless, the magmorians didn’t give up, and their leader least of all! Jasper struck the wall with all his strength until his scimitar carved out a small opening. His axemen slowly opened a breach on their side too. Eventually, the defenders vanished behind the walls and didn’t strike again.
“They’re fleeing!” Jasper shouted, his voice louder than the downpour. He and fellow magmorians rammed the fortification with all their might. It eventually collapsed into a breach through which Jasper stepped first. “Victory awaits!”
A gauntlet of muddy ditches and water-filled trap holes leading to another set of wooden walls awaited them on the other side. Its defenders had likely vanished behind the second set of fortifications in an attempt to slow down their advance.
Just one more charge, Jasper told himself. The witch’s intel showed that the village and slopes ascending to the nearby cliffs should be right behind that last line of defense. These savages would fold the moment they lost the benefit of the high ground. All for you, my beloved!
His inflaming passion gave him the strength to advance. He waded through the mud, walked around the overflowing pits, leaped over moats, and powered through the stupid downpour. His soldiers slowly followed after him and filled the cliff-flanked corridor with their numbers. The sheer steam their bodies produced from the rain clouded the sky above.
At long last, Jasper finally reached the final set of fortifications. He stuck it with his scimitar with a roar, challenging any spearman to strike him again.
None did.
Jasper paused for a second, half expecting a surprise attack or an arrow to the face. None came. The deep cut he carved into the wooden wall went unpunished.
Water leaked through it though.
Something’s wrong. An ominous feeling sank deep in Jasper’s fiery gut. Something’s wrong.
He turned around to stare at the cliff-flanked corridor behind him. His men had rushed to fill it with their wyrms and struggled to avoid the defensive holes and traps. Their numbers clogged the area. Their position allowed Jasper to notice a worrying detail.
The corridor was a slope.
Each ditch had been subtly built one step taller than the next, like an ascending staircase; a process that started with the first fortification. His soldiers’ own steam had prevented Jasper from identifying the trick earlier.
Terror and doubt overcame Jasper. He turned his focus back on the fortification and noticed water leaking through its thin cracks and his own cut; far too much for dripping rain alone. Only then did he finally realize the cruel snare he led his warband into.
“It’s a dam!” Jasper shouted in horror as he desperately attempted to warn his troops. “Run! Ru–”
A bolt of lightning smote the wall, shattering it.
The dam burst open and a torrent of water swallowed Jasper.
—--
Wepwawet watched his trap flushing the magmorians away with no small amount of satisfaction.
A devastating tide of water hit the Lavaland soldiers with immense strength. The flow propelled them back into the trap holes and ditches, snuffed out their flames, and drowned their wyrms. A poor few kobolds attempt to leap onto the nearby cliffs to avoid the flood, only to be carried away like the others. Victoire and the others observed the slaughter from above with a mix of awe, relief, and pity.
Drowning was a cruel death, but Wepwawet did give the magmorians a chance to walk away.
“You thought you could beat a god of war at his own game, mortals?!” Wepwawet boasted from the clouds above. “I’ve been winning battles since the first dynasty!”
The plan had been as simple as it had been devastating: use his Raincloud Miracles to cause the hot spring source to overflow, hold it behind the second set of fortifications–hastily reinforced into a dam with his Barricade Kit Miracle–and then unleash it on their enemies once it reached critical mass. Instead of taking cover behind the walls as the enemy thought, Victoire and the others had instead used prepared ladders to ascend to the cliffs before pulling them up after them; a manipulation cleverly hidden by the steam produced by the magmorians’ own bodies.
Soldiers fought wars, but engineers won them.
Of course, the plan had come at the cost of flooding most of Narc’s buildings along with the magmorians. Wepwawet considered it a small price to pay for sparing his worshipers from a massacre. Homes could be rebuilt, not lives.
I hope the titan that sent this fool is watching, Wepwawet thought as he trailed Jasper. The current had caused the magmorian leader to let go of his weapon while both were washed away. Let’s observe that sword more closely.
Flamefang
Category: Weapon (Sword)
Quality: B
Bonus: + 12 STR
Accuracy: + 8 AV
Weight: 8
Effect 1: Lesser Miracle Immunity (2 Spots): The user is unaffected by Miracles of Rank 3 or lower unless they wish to be.
Effect 2: Flaming Weapon: Inflicts Fire damage.
This divine assassination weapon has saved countless Champions a fortune in torch budget.
Divine. So it was indeed an assassination attempt by a godly foe. Wepwawet would ensure his worshipers would preserve that weapon for further study later.
The war had only begun, but it was always good to open it with a victory.
---------
