218 Chapter Two Hundred and Eighteen – Down the Walls (1/2)

There were now two lines of Disks forming steps racing up to the walls. The dragons all waited until they were together, and then used the Amulets of Spell Knowledge they were wearing. The spell within, naturally enough, was Spider Climb.

It was like we planned how to get dragons up over the walls in a no-fly zone, or something.

The dragons swarmed up the side of the basalt walls every bit as quickly as the xenosyms could, poured themselves over the battlements at the top, and triple lightning breaths scythed through the masses on the walls in their arcs of fire. Silver jaws reached out to crackle and crunch a couple 'syms who were too close and too full of themselves.

They went over the walls, and started down them, and suddenly the wall-crawling xenosyms found some really big competition for wall space, and some big-ass tails and wings flinging them down fall-go-splat.

The Valor dragons didn't bother wasting their breath weapons, as the syms were quite resistant to cold damage. They just bit, clawed, buffeted, and smashed while on a vertical plane, not at all put off, and bulldozed a path through shrieking 'syms.

The Torcs their Amulets were hanging from flared repeatedly as mind-control magic went the dragons' way. Betrayed by the psionic displays, the guilty 'vores and their rides were promptly hatracked by archers waiting for those very signs. The dragons were also very curious about how the 'vores were going to taste...

The Rockborn, being the slowest of the troops, arrived last, with one of the Priests with them whipping up a wall of stone in spiral stair format, forming a tight rising stairway to the top of the walls. The dwarves tromped upwards tirelessly, their Spears held tight, their cadence on point with every step, reaching the top at a trot and pouring out onto the battlements in a steady stream.

An elf dropped over the side of the wall, immediately followed by a dozen berserkers. Five feet from the ground, the gentle white cube of a Featherweight Zone went off, and everyone hit the ground softly in the midst of writhing xenosyms.

Berserkers zerked, jumping away as another dozen of them came leaping down with excited cries, hit the ground, springing away as the next wave came down.

Right after them came the dwarves, to set up the relief line behind them. Brawling berserkers found Rockborn Spears driving into the guts of the writhing aliens they were hacking into, and soon the hedge of Spears was up and the dwarves were taking ground, as the berserkers pulled back to get healed.

The scampering dragons made every effort to catch up to AA and Sama as they made their way around the walls in explosions of black carapaces and glowing green blood. Everyone made mental homage to the Casters who'd doled out the Mass Resist Acids for everyone, given how acrid the air was becoming, and as the dwarves and berserkers below followed after Briggs, the rest of the troops secured the walls and battlements.

The griffons and the Hellpoodles were the last ones to come up the Disks, following in the tracks of everyone else. The griffons were annoyed by the Null Interdiction keeping them from flying, and occasionally got to mix it up with a xenosym and further realize why they didn't like not being able to fly. Captains Fido and Shirley stayed alert for any surprises to the flanks, which their slavering jaws and massive claws were more than happy to greet with fire, cold, and lightning.

With Errant keeping his flanks solid, and dragons playing flick-the-wallcrawler below him, Ancientaxe made very good time, his Glaive Zeitgeist happily vivisizing a bunch of angry Aberrants. He naturally didn't give a damn about the 'vores in charge, their psionics finding him less substantial then a ghost, and he picked them out anywhere in his Helix, no matter how hard they hid, painted them into the Mark-Up Display, and the Archers hatracked them if they were out of his reach.

Sama reached the far side, sent three shrieking strokes of Tremble through the door in front of her, psionic energies shattered shrilly in protest, some things inside started boiling out at her, and she went right in after them.

Quaver and Tremble's ominous notes didn't stop at all, and the sounds of whatever was inside there contributing a stanza to their Song would probably have caused a lot of nightmares if everyone wasn't humming along with Heaven's Elevator Music.

The great drawbridge over the naturally unfathomably deep moat slammed down, severed chains with jagged ends falling down to dangle above the depths. The dragons slithered up over the walls, down the outside of them, along the gatehouse, over out onto the bridge, and across it quickly, facing the new xenosym and 'vore forces coming up from the settlement below.

A good number of the cerebrovores were riding sentients instead of 'vores, including humans, apes, lizardfolk, anthros, orcs, ogres, and even a couple Jotuns, Drakes, and other monsters.

That was totally fine. AA, Errant, and Sama bounced off the walkway, skipped along the walls, leapt out to land lightly on the dragons' backs, bounced again, and Void and Null landed right in front of the walkway just in time to meet the barrage of spells, psionics, and natural abilities from suborned hosts getting tossed at the dragons.

It was an explosive display, very colorful, eye-catching flames and crackling arcs of power, rings of energy, mind-bending auras and waves. When it was all done, and people could open their eyes easily, Sama and AA stood there unharmed, his Helices up and spinning blacks and greys, while Sama just looked annoyed.

The heads of five dragons rose behind them, looking very smug, while Errant just looked amused.

And then all the spells went off from the elves on the walls.

Acres of ground vanished from sight under a lot of fireballs singing with banefire, swallowing every part of the small army out there. Although the cerebrovores riding the skulls of their hosts were mostly unharmed by the magic, the same thing couldn't be said for their host bodies. Overlapping flames tore into them from every direction, burning to ash what was only still living by psionic energy, and suborned throats screamed in irritation at this event happening, and maybe just a little pain from the feedback... which was a new and splendid experience, and so not nearly as off-putting as it should have been.

What it did do is get rid of a whole bunch of xenosyms, and Brother Ancientaxe and Sama were off like launched bullets. Lines of 'syms in the way parted ways like cloven waves, gouts of corrosive blood flew into the air... and no, the stolen bodies weren't immune to the blood, either. Might they possibly be taking the splash effect into account when cleaving? My, they would have had to be pretty damn good to do that...

Glaive, Swords, and Autobows went hunting for 'vores, shearing through skulls and splitting them inside their rides. For those whose rides had died and were extracting themselves from their carriages of charred bone, streaks of spinning Helices and wrathflame divided them, and their wielders kept going.

The dragons, however, were bellowing for attention, and the surviving xenosyms reacted to the stimuli, swarming toward them in a wave of gleaming, writhing black alien bodies.

Dragon tails and wings are incredibly strong and quite heavy. The dragons flowed into a five-part circle of motion while Errant began picking off 'vores here and there who, it just so happened, were not immune to The Light of Heaven, and Purity blazed like a small star as chained Rays of radiant energy speared out and let their thoughts out into The Light.

Massive wings and slamming tails scooped and hurled xenosyms sideways with great energy, lunging jaws grabbed and hurled them like sides of beef. They hiss-wailed strangely as they went hurtling over the side of the moat, were pounded past it with crushing tail-swipes and swept flying with hurricane-force winds picking them up and sending new offerings down to whatever Thing existed down there in the darkness.

The wind coming up from the moat stopped, too...

Standing up there on a small Ward Wall just above them, Errant ripped Walls of glowing fire right and left, chained bolts of Wrath, and picked out the 'vores for the archers ready on the walls behind him to hatrack with True Seeking Arrows. There were a lot of them, but ten of them were basically dying every breath, stolen skulls transfixed by quintets of arrows as their wounded host bodies staggered and tried to attack before being brought down by uncannily accurate arrow fire.

But AA and Sama were moving with appalling speed, zigging and zagging from 'vore to 'vore, narrow lines of destruction exploding in passing, and 'vores were getting to investigate Life's Final Mystery in numbers as the two zipped hither and yon, and split skulls and the squirming things within were flying in their wake.

Cold swallowed a cluster of 'syms, two of them, doing scarcely no damage to them, but the follow-up lightning bolts went through them as if supercharged, blowing many of them apart violently as superconductivity did its thing. Valor and Shield dragons glanced at one another, made little neck shakes that amounted to 'hee hee hee!', and continued flinging 'syms and some overconfident 'vore host bodies over the lip of the moat and down to their doom.

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The inner gates groaned slowly open, and Briggs marched out at the head of the infantry corps and the griffons.

He saw me glance at him, his helm opened slightly so I could see his grin, and he patted his chest. Probably three or four pounds of gory remnants of things fell off his Skinplate with a hissing, wet squelching.