Two Halves: Chapter 48

A Chapter by aaaa

The final ram shot across the field as the final blimp veered off to it’s own staging ground. The wall, which by now was just a crumbling wall of stone burst into a cloud hundreds of feet high. Small chunks of mortar rained down upon them, and the dust swirled slowly as it settled into the gap. The first of the Guard Squads went forwards along the wall, while the others formed a defensive perimeter around the air ships so that they could finish deploying. The Cloud Walker ships had been arranged in a rough wall between the gap and zeppelins, and the shamans were in full regalia turning the air into a wind wall strong enough to block mostly anything that came their way. It opened up at strategic points for guard squads to make their way towards the gap.

As their command squad came through there was already ten groupings in front of them, in various positions by the wall. Most were moving quickly, but using over lapping firing lanes so that one half of the squad could cover the other as they moved up, and vise versa. The rubble from the wall’s pulverizing provided adequate cover as they made their way, and the dust was just finishing settling.

On the other side there was a flicker of movement, and the crack of a tesla gun. Though the rubble had only been down for seconds some of Salex’s forces had wedged themselves into the gap. A heavy tesla-cannon stood at the top of one of the piles of rubble filling the hole; it slowly scanned back and forth until it found its target. The air sizzled as the ray of electric energy crawled along the ground towards the first firing squad. Their battle mages answered with an attack of their own, two laying their hands on a third as he shot a column of static power towards Salex’s. They struck one another, charring the ground around them as the two effects neutralized each other. This seemed to be the signal for a full firefight.

Bolts from the Guard Squad’s cross bows rained towards the defense position. They burst against the wall converting the small sacks of magic powder tied to their shafts into ball of pale fire. It didn’t seem to have much affect other than forcing the Salex auditors to keep their heads down. Who responded with a hail of gunfire. For a few moments they were deadlocked as both sides tried to gain an advantage until one of the mage teams, which consisted of a fourth of the total squad, began chanting a long incantation.

“From down the mountains capped with white, and up from the plains smoothed with blue. From above the cleft spraying ribbons of mist, and from below the earth in the pits of blackness. U’hja Oli Pa’rashi Calpatu.” Said the lead wizard as the others fueled him with magic, and from behind the rock they were behind a wall of water swept forth. It continued to grow until a wall over fifteen feet tall rushed over the dead land between the two forces.

It climbed up the walls of rubble that contained Salex’s defense wall and swept over them, knocking over the tesla-cannon. A group cheered and the frontal two squads rushed forward, though Salex wasn’t going to give them any reprieve. A few well placed shots brought a few of them down, but the majority made it to a much closer position directly under the remains of the tesla-cannon. A few lobbed over small capsules containing a particularly volatile stone mined from under Cloud Top, which burst in as the magical energy ripped free of its material constraints. At least one was close enough to an auditor to some damage, as they could hear a cry of agony.

Nicolas looked behind him to see the shaman groupings advancing, bubbling the shield as they did so. They would have to secure the gap for the main body of their forces to make their way into the city, but at the moment having any more soldiers come in would just clog up the advance and turn the entire place into a shooting gallery. Nicolas looked back to see and auditor coming over the cleft, he was hefting the bulk of the fallen tesla-cannon. His armor was impressive as the rumors always said. Black metal plates covering him, and only his face visible, not them much of it was left. So many augmentations criss crossed his features that anything remotely human had been bred out long ago. This particular auditor was bulkier than any human had a right to be, standing at something approaching eight feet tall with biceps as big around as Nicolas’s torso.

He shot downwards at our the team advancing up the hill, the lightning charring three in the first blast, while the others had enough time to duck behind something. Jento reared back, pulling the crystalline spear back before letting it go. It arced towards him for a moment before blurring into a bolt of light. It shot forward at speeds surpassing even that of a bullet, skewering the auditor. The shield generator didn’t even have time to react before his armor was punctured. The spear had gone through mid chest, and the man fell back over the outcropping.

“Well that’s at least two down,” said Zeckle casually. She seemed unconcerned at the carnage around them, merely creating the crossbow she had used before and loading in a dark crystal bolt.

With the large man down the troopers swarmed over the outcropping, and rained down more arrows into the space beyond. Nicolas realized that this single outcropping wasn’t the only place that had dissolved into combat, indeed their left flank had engaged in a group of non-power armor wearing Salex troopers. Jento signaled for them to make an advance, and Nicolas fell into place. Bestalel had activated the chameleon suit, but Nicolas new that he was close behind. They made their way around the cleft so that they could flank the enemy grouping, and used the same wall that Salex had used earlier as cover of their own.

Nicolas was not much use in the battle, and realized it. He simply kept back as the soldiers did their work. The grouping of ten or so Auditors on the other side slowly succumbed to the rain of magic and arrows. Their force shield generators slowly overloaded from the sheer weight of the attack. Though they were able to take out fair amount of Guard’s man in the process. The entire group was wielding an issue of kinetic guns nick named the rock borers, which would carve out small chunks from the debris every time one stuck. One was even wielding the heavy kinetic gun with one arm, and reeled back every time he tried to shoot, making him horribly inaccurate. The reason for him doing so became apparent as he turned, and was missing the other arm. It looked to have been blown off at just below the shoulder, and bits of shredded flesh hung off limp stump.

Nicolas was disgusted by the display, not that the man continued to fight despite bleeding all over the place, but by the fact that his face was a blank mask of unconcern. In fact all of them did not show the slightest bit of emotion even when one of their chests was blown open by an explosive arrow. Not a hint of surprise, or malaise, of even anger at their comrade’s downfall. Nicolas had to look away as they forced their was forward through the debris field. Taking several more Salex positions as the shamans advanced into the gap behind them. He had fought hundreds of enemies before, and sure he had needed to kill, but this. Those faces were haunting. He finally rallied as they were moving in the central grouping of forces, which formed a spearhead towards the actual city.

Zeckle seemed to unperturbed, for she merely fired a few shots occasionally into the fray, but otherwise just followed like Nicolas. Jento on the other hand was taking command at, his voice amplified to shout out orders in an archaic tongue unique to the guard squads, so that they could pass out orders without their enemies being able to determine what they were doing. Since his amplified voice marked him as a commander, the enemy often tried to take pot shots at him during their advance. He had retrieved he spear from earlier, and it extended a protective field around him, which some how curved the bullets enough for him to skirt out of the way.

They finally made it to the other side; the ground was littered with the remains of both their comrades and the enemy. Behind the Shaman’s shield line field medics carried away their wounded. They finally let the shield wall over take them, the shamans sealed them off from the inner city, more shamans came to the front line and continued to strengthen the barrier until it was strong enough to hold back everything short of direct artillery impacts. Behind them was the rumble of the carts bringing in their own siege devices. Behind each machine pulled along by two krignals was a Renma-jukaku, the dragon lance.

Their forces piled into the gap, each guard captain rallying their troops and separating them for the next advance. The krignals were unhooked from the Renma-jukakus after they had been pushed to the front. The shield warped to allow a hole for the first firing of the lance. Behind each of them many wizards whispered quietly the spells to activate the devices. A dozen different auras snaked along the ground to the carts. The multi-barreled copper cannon glowed as its storage tanks over flowed with the magicians’ power. Then it let lose, one after the other, dozens of shots. Each was the shape of a dragon, the wings slowly shifting as it soared over the city. The wizards controlled them as they forked along the air searching for targets. Soon more than a hundred were in the air, ranging from black to yellow. Each darted into buildings, searching for Salex troops. Soon many found their marks, as Nicolas could see the explosions burst rooms in the buildings.

Beyond the small area they were cleansing Nicolas could see the enormous bulk of the Salex enormous artillery batteries. They were slumped now, for when the shield around the city had been broken magic had flooded into the gap destroying all unshielded electronics. Something as massive as what had to be used to power the artillery batteries could never be shielded, so luckily they would not have to deal with Salex using them to bring the buildings down around them.

Nicolas looked away from the carnage, and saw that they had already set up several tents behind the shield line, and were even beginning the shift the rock into a more effective barrier between them an the city. Nicolas entered the largest tent to see Jento standing over a map with Bestalel at his side. For some reason, throughout the entire operation Jento had seemed to take control of most of the commanding. The other captains stood back as he directed them to their separate load off points.

“We can’t open a portal large enough for us to move through without going closer towards the ICO, which is near the center of the city. We will be sending squads one through five on their designated paths through the main streets. Since six is no longer at fighting strength due to their losses on the Red Crag they will supply the rear guard here. Everyone else will be fanning out through the buildings to hunt down the individual troopers. Hopefully most of the civilians have had enough sense to go underground by now, and the Renma-jujakus should have taken out most of the sniper positions by now.” The others stood silent as he spike. Each captain projects an aura of authority that permeated every corner of the room, and the high shamans of the Cloud Walkers did not do much to help the matter. The tent contained what was probably the most powerful grouping of people on Earth-2, and it was starting to make Nicolas feel a little inadequate.

“Yes, but how shall we deal with Salex Loyalists if they start to riot. We know there are at least some here who enjoy the Salex occupation,” said one of the captain, a large broad shouldered man, that if Nicolas remembered right was the captain of third squad.

“They are few in number, and those who are here are just wealthy tourists, they won’t be of any trouble,” cut in Bestalel who was examining the map. The four staging grounds were marked up in a rough circle around the ICO. Jento’s group was to make their was to the closest, and be the first into non-space.

“Well,” said Jento with a smile. “It seems the Renma-jujakus have stopped. Whether we like it or not, it’s show time.” He pulled his spear out of the ground, where he had thrust it for safekeeping. Fist squad was taking the main street, down which you could see all the way to the ICO main office. Despite the turmoil around it the generators were still belching steam towards the sky. The shamans drew back to behind the makeshift fortifications before bringing down the shield. The near by buildings were silent, most of the windows had been blown out from multiple strikes from the dragon lances.

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