Chương 116: Poison Clouds and Falling Suns

Sieghart remained on the wall for several minutes longer, watching the attacking groups rotate while the defenders struggled to maintain their positions. What had initially looked like harassment gradually intensified until another wave reached the base of the fortifications without immediately retreating. Ladders slammed against stone while several enormous orcs simply jumped, their reinforced bodies carrying them high enough to grab the upper edges before defenders stabbed downward.

Others climbed using axes driven directly into cracks between the stones. The relatively controlled exchange quickly became something much uglier. Once enough orcs reached the battlements, the fighting stopped resembling ranged warfare and transformed into dozens of vicious melees scattered across the northern wall. Steel struck steel. Axes shattered shields.

Aura flashed repeatedly through the darkness while defenders and orcs slashed, stabbed, punched, and kicked at one another with enough force to send bodies flying from the battlements whenever somebody lost their footing. Sieghart watched an orc swing an enormous cleaver into a guard's shield hard enough to split the wooden reinforcement. Another human immediately drove a spear through the attacker's side while the first defender desperately retreated behind him. The orc barely reacted.

It grabbed the spear shaft, pulled the surprised soldier forward, and attempted to bite his face before three arrows struck its neck from somewhere farther along the wall. Sieghart narrowed his eyes while studying the attackers more carefully. They looked much like the orcs he remembered encountering near his grandparents' farm years earlier, possessing broad bodies, large jaws, tusks, and muscular frames considerably heavier than ordinary humans. These ones were different in one obvious way. They were hairier.

Thick dark hair covered their shoulders, forearms, backs, and sometimes sections of their faces, giving several of them an appearance halfway between the orcs Sieghart remembered and unusually muscular apes carrying weapons. Their bodies also seemed tougher. A Fireball crossed the battlefield from one of the towers and struck an orc directly in the face, spreading flames across its head and shoulders before exploding against the stone behind it. The orc did not even stop climbing.

It shook its head once, apparently more irritated by the flames than injured, before pulling itself onto the wall and immediately swinging an axe toward the nearest defender. Another Fireball struck a different attacker. The result was almost identical. Sieghart frowned. The orcs he had killed near the farm had been physically durable, but they had not treated direct magical attacks as minor annoyances. These warriors apparently possessed considerably greater magical resistance, specialized defenses, or both.

Perhaps they represented a different tribe. Maybe a bloodline. Maybe the warriors currently attacking had undergone some kind of reinforcement specifically because they expected human mages to support the walls. It did not matter yet. Sieghart had already learned one important lesson from the Firians and the unfinished Dungeon Guardian. When an enemy resisted a particular type of magic, repeatedly casting the same thing harder was not always the smartest answer.

Unfortunately, several nearby defenders had finally decided that the mysterious teenager standing silently beside the battlement was becoming suspicious enough to deserve attention. Two soldiers approached from behind while Sieghart continued watching the fighting. One was the same bowman who had questioned him earlier, while the other carried a short spear and possessed several fresh scratches across his armor.

"Hey." Sieghart glanced over. The bowman pointed toward him.

"I asked who you were." Sieghart returned his attention toward the battlefield. That was apparently not the answer the man wanted. The second soldier stepped closer and reached toward Sieghart's shoulder, probably intending to pull him away from the edge before demanding an actual explanation. Sieghart moved first. Wind exploded from both palms. The sudden downward blast launched him into the darkness above the wall before the soldier's fingers could touch his illusory coat.

Several nearby defenders shouted in surprise while Sieghart rapidly gained altitude. He immediately reduced the strength of the spell once he cleared the battlements, allowing the remaining momentum and carefully controlled currents to keep him suspended rather than sending him unnecessarily high. Flying was still an exaggerated description of what Sieghart could accomplish. He could propel himself upward. He could slow falls. He could redirect momentum.

Maintaining altitude required constant adjustments that felt considerably less graceful than the effortless flight he imagined whenever thinking about how Wind Magic should eventually work. Still, darkness helped. From below, anyone watching probably saw only a shadow rising above the walls before disappearing against the night sky, especially while Phantom Image altered his clothes and apparent body enough to prevent easy recognition. Sieghart moved farther from the wall. The soldiers did not follow.

That simplified things. From his new position, he could see considerably more of the battlefield than before. The active fighting formed a chaotic strip between the walls and the first several hundred meters of open ground. He still could not find the Orc King. Several larger warriors stood among the enemy formations, but none immediately looked important enough to command the entire army.

Finding a single individual among thousands at night would require considerably better eyesight than Sieghart currently possessed. That was unfortunate. He had wanted to see exactly what made the Orc King so dangerous before doing anything particularly noticeable. Challenging someone powerful enough to break the northern field army without understanding his abilities sounded unnecessarily suicidal. For now, Sieghart remained above the fighting and studied everything else. The wind immediately became important.

It was blowing south. Toward the town. Sieghart grimaced. That made widespread Fire Magic considerably more dangerous than usual. Flames created near the walls could spread backward, while smoke would drift directly toward the defenders and civilians inside the northern districts. Ordinary Fireballs remained manageable because their effects disappeared quickly. Large-scale flames did not.

Sieghart briefly imagined filling the battlefield with hundreds of Fireballs, then watched the wind carry smoke from an already burning siege ladder straight toward the wall.

"Bad idea." He needed something else. Water Magic could interfere with movement, especially if he created enough mud, but covering a battlefield this large would require concentration and probably create problems for the defenders as well. Ice suffered the same issue. Lightning might work beautifully against concentrated enemies, except Sieghart had never developed enough control to guarantee that large electrical attacks would not jump toward armored humans once both sides became mixed together.

Then he remembered the smell still haunting part of Vessa and Orin's workshop. Poison. Sieghart looked toward the rear of the attacking formations. The wind was moving south. That meant anything released behind the orcs would naturally drift toward the battlefield. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

If Sieghart placed Poison Spheres among the enemy backline, the spreading vapor should move toward their advancing fighters before eventually reaching the walls. Probably. That final part was troublesome. Sieghart still had only a few hours of practical experience with Poison Magic. He knew the basic spell created dizziness after entering through the nose or contacting exposed tissue, but he had never tested how far the vapor could travel. Would it dissipate before reaching the town?

Would the wind dilute it enough? Would it remain dangerous after several hundred meters? Sieghart did not know. Guessing would not teach him anything. He looked down at the battlefield.

"Only one way to find out." Sieghart drifted farther north while maintaining enough altitude to remain difficult to notice. He avoided moving directly over the active melee, instead circling toward one side where darkness concealed him from most defenders and attackers. Once he positioned himself several hundred meters behind the current orc assault, Sieghart raised both hands and began shaping Poison Magic. One sphere formed. Then another. Then five more.

Creating a giant Poison Sphere immediately proved considerably more difficult than simply producing several ordinary ones. Maintaining the tense, invasive property throughout a larger mass required much more concentration than Sieghart wanted to spend while floating. Smaller spheres were easy. Sieghart preferred easy. He summoned ten. Then twenty. Purple globes appeared around him like floating bubbles, each roughly the size of an apple and leaking faint trails of foul-smelling magical vapor into the night.

Even with Enhanced Smell disabled, Sieghart immediately regretted surrounding himself with them.

"Still disgusting." He released the first group. The spheres fell toward the rear enemy formations. Several struck the ground between resting orcs and burst into purple mist. Others hit shields, tents, supply carts, or warriors who happened to stand beneath them. Nobody reacted immediately. Sieghart created more. Mana was not the problem. Concentration was. Fortunately, casting numerous simple spheres required considerably less effort than maintaining one massive construct.

Sieghart established a rhythm and began producing them as quickly as his control allowed. Ten. Twenty. Thirty. He dropped them across a wide section of the enemy rear rather than concentrating everything in one location, hoping the wind would merge the resulting clouds while carrying them south. Purple mist gradually became visible between the distant fires. Several orcs started looking around. One coughed. Another covered its nose. Sieghart smiled slightly.

"That seems promising." He continued. More Poison Spheres fell. Some orcs finally noticed the attacks coming from above and pointed upward, but darkness and distance made locating Sieghart difficult. A few arrows flew vaguely toward him without coming close. Sieghart shifted position anyway. There was no reason to become predictable. For nearly two minutes, nothing meaningful changed near the wall.

The melee continued exactly as before, with defenders struggling against physically superior attackers while the larger orc army remained safely behind. Then the first effects appeared. An orc running toward the wall stumbled. Another slowed suddenly and shook its head before continuing. Several warriors began coughing while their formation lost some of its earlier coordination. The purple vapor had reached them. Sieghart watched carefully.

The effect was weaker than direct exposure to Poison Sphere, which made sense after the wind diluted everything across hundreds of meters. Even so, thousands of repeated breaths were apparently enough to matter. The attacking orcs became slower. A human soldier ducked beneath an axe that would have struck his shoulder seconds earlier, then drove his sword through the attacker's throat. Another defender pushed an orc from the wall after the creature misjudged its footing. Archers started landing more shots.

Spearmen regained several sections of battlement that had nearly fallen. The change spread. Sieghart watched the defenders begin pushing forward along portions of the wall while confused orcs struggled to maintain their earlier aggression. Several human Aura users even jumped down from the battlements and attacked the retreating enemies below, using the momentary weakness to destroy ladders and clear space around the wall. That was considerably more success than Sieghart expected from a Level One spell.

Then one of the humans stumbled. Sieghart's smile disappeared. Another defender coughed. A woman near the wall pressed one hand against her forehead and stopped advancing despite several companions continuing beyond her. The wind had kept moving. Of course it had. The poison reached the defenders next. It was weaker by then, but not harmless. Sieghart watched the human advance stop almost exactly where the purple haze became thick enough to affect them.

The defenders remained capable of fighting, yet nobody wanted to chase the retreating orcs deeper into contaminated ground.

"That answers that." Poison Magic could control space. Unfortunately, it did not care who owned that space. Sieghart stopped creating spheres. The remaining vapor would continue moving toward the walls for some time, although further dilution should reduce its effects considerably before reaching civilians deeper inside town. Probably. Sieghart decided not to increase the experiment. He had learned enough. The defenders had recovered part of the wall. The orcs were retreating temporarily.

Now Sieghart needed something that could punish the enemy without creating another cloud moving directly toward the humans. He looked farther north. The backline. Most resting orcs remained well beyond the contaminated area, especially those positioned around distant fires and supply formations. The wind still blew south. That made Fire Magic dangerous near the defenders. It did not make Fire Magic dangerous behind the enemy. Sieghart's expression changed.

"Right." He could simply attack somewhere else. The solution was embarrassingly obvious. Sieghart rose higher while drifting slightly farther north, putting additional distance between himself and the walls. From here, any flames spreading with the wind would move through enemy territory before losing enough intensity to threaten the town. Ordinary Fireballs would barely matter against the resistant warriors he had observed earlier. Sieghart did not intend to use ordinary Fireballs. He extended both hands.

Mana gathered. A huge sphere of flame appeared overhead. The night brightened instantly. Orcs below finally looked upward. So did humans. Sieghart continued feeding mana into the spell until the Giant Fireball expanded several meters across, its surface roaring violently while heat distorted the air around him. Several arrows immediately flew upward. Sieghart released the spell before any reached him. The Giant Fireball descended. For a moment, everyone simply watched. Then it struck the enemy backline.

The explosion illuminated the entire northern field. Flames erupted outward in a massive circle, throwing orcs, burning tents, supply crates, and fragments of earth through the air while a thunderous impact rolled toward the walls. Sieghart heard shouting from both armies. He ignored it. One Giant Fireball was impressive. He started creating another. Then another. The second enormous sphere appeared before the first explosion completely faded.

The third followed seconds later, leaving several miniature suns floating above the battlefield simultaneously. Silence spread strangely through nearby sections of the fight. Not true silence. The battlefield remained filled with screams, impacts, drums, and roaring flames. Yet enough people stopped what they were doing that the difference became noticeable. Orcs looked upward. Defenders looked upward.

Even soldiers currently fighting on the walls hesitated long enough to follow the sudden orange light moving through the sky. Sieghart released the second Giant Fireball. Then the third. Both fell toward separate portions of the enemy rear. The first struck a cluster of supply wagons. The second landed among resting warriors. Two enormous explosions followed almost simultaneously. Flames climbed high enough to be visible from anywhere inside the town. Sieghart summoned more. There was no reason to stop at three.

Each Giant Fireball required concentration but essentially no meaningful resource expenditure. Sieghart simply needed enough time to shape them before allowing gravity and momentum to handle the rest. The battlefield transformed. What had been a dark plain filled with scattered campfires suddenly became illuminated by enormous descending spheres of flame. To the defenders, it probably looked like burning stars were falling from the sky. To the orcs beneath them, it probably looked considerably worse.

Sieghart adjusted every target carefully. He avoided the active frontline. He avoided sections where humans had advanced beyond the walls. He concentrated upon the enemy rear, where thousands of waiting warriors had previously stood safely outside normal magical range. That safety disappeared. Another Giant Fireball descended. Orcs scattered before impact. They were fast. Not fast enough. The explosion swallowed dozens. Sieghart immediately targeted somewhere else.

Several particularly durable warriors survived direct exposure to the flames, just as Sieghart had observed earlier. Their bodies burned while they continued moving, proving that their resistance was indeed impressive. The explosion itself remained physical. Pressure did not care nearly as much about magical resistance. Several resistant orcs were thrown through the air by the blast, colliding with companions or crashing into supply structures before they could recover. Sieghart noticed that. He created another.

The reactions below became increasingly chaotic. Enemy officers shouted commands. Archers fired upward blindly. Several orcs threw spears with enough strength that the weapons climbed disturbingly high before falling short.