Late nights
Chapter 50
01. Reskeme hid behind the wall and grimaced, He heard a scream as another Darva javelin hit someone. The damned scouts were extremely difficult to see in the dark and moved quickly, they would sneak into range and throw a spear before retreating. Reskeme would try and point them out, but soon decided it was pointless. The reason they would instantly retreat is they had to come out of crouching to properly throw their long javelins. This would give the archers on the walls good target practice. Reskeme was surprised that everyone injured so far who had been hit by a javelin wasn't killed. Most of the wounds looked extremely painful, Kellar had informed him that in the war most of the victims weren't killed by the strike they were killed by infection or improper treatment of the wound. That was why doctors and life mages were so valued, they were always in high demand and there were never enough.
02. luckily for them, the soldiers that didn't die were being patched up by the overworked medicine man. The healer mage left most of the minor injuries to the medicine man as he needed to save his mana for people who had life-threatening injuries. Reskeme had created his new shield in front of Kellar, He cast it after a spear almost killed him as he wasn't prepared for the Darva to sneak that close. The thirty-second long cast time had not impressed Kellar, the mage had gone oddly silent at the rushing mana of the shield and actually stood confidently behind the shield after it was created. The shimmering green wall of mana acted like a window for Kellar to stand behind and cast spells, judging by the occasional flash and spark of mana the Darva scouts were using it as target practice.
03. Kellar was letting the archers on the wall shoot back, Reskeme had wondered at this, Kellar had firmly stated he was here to fight the mages and hold of warriors, not waste his mana when arrows could kill the scouts. His bright barrier would light up the wall every time it took a strike illuminating the kill zone. When it did the archers would shoot the scouts who here brought into view, Judging by the angry howling in the distance the Darva were not pleased that 3 of their scouts were dead. Reskeme asked," Why do they get so angry when a scout dies." Kellar said," The scouts are the young of the Darva, and the Pack always retaliates when one of their young dies." Reskeme had thought they were a different type of Darva as all of the scouts he had seen were smaller than the warriors.
04. He hadn't realized that they were simply the younger Darva in training, no wonder they always showed weakness to the warriors, they weren't cowering they were showing their respect for the older stronger warriors. This realization made him realize why the Darva got so angry and retaliated whenever the scouts were killed. As killing the young was not acceptable no matter what Race you are. Reskeme was getting nervous, Kellar made a gesture and channelled mana causing a ball of fire to bloom on the open area. Reskeme felt the heat and felt the whomp in his chest. Kellar made an odd gesture As the figure on all fours darted to the side of where he had just hit.
05. Reskeme was stunned into silence that casual attack was enough to turn The Darva to ash in a few moments. A massive series of runes formed above them over the wall, Kellar noticed and created a barrier of his own underneath it. The ball of fire clashed with Kellars fizzling out, Reskeme was sweating and wondered if his eyebrows were gone after that close attack. Kellar channelled his mana again, He formed a dome around the Darva on the field. The dome of fire solidified and went off with a boom that shook the fortress. Kellar said," that will teach him to come close again," Reskeme said," Did you kill him?" Kellar laughed He could see a burning corpse in the field, Kellar clicked his tongue, He said," It appears an arrogant mage wanted to attack by himself to get revenge."
06. The unexpected loss of a mage with just one attack caused an unexpected retreat of the Darvan scouts, Kellar didn't leave the wall, he leaned against a pole and drank water while eating food. Reskeme was sent to fetch it, of course, he didn't want to miss the excitement but was told by Kellar this was how battles always happened, long moments of excitement followed by long gaps of nothing. Reskeme had run down the stairs both terrified and excited, the kind of destruction he had just seen was scary. He ate his own food and relaxed standing out of sight, He had been sticking his head above the wall and was rudely informed by Kellar that he was being an idiot by standing still.
07. Reskeme was sitting down and just waiting, The Darva still hadn't returned and were just making lots of noise from the forest. More than once Archers had fired at absolutely nothing, everyone was jumpy. The humans were lucky the Darva had to attack from one general direction as the treacherous terrain in the rear of the fortress wasn't a good idea to try and attack from. Kellar was a master mage but he couldn't protect the entire wall by himself, A group of 3 Darva walked on all fours from the tree line, they stopped in a group and a shimmering red barrier wrapped around them. This protected them from the extremely powerful torrent of flame that sprung from around them at the gesture of Kellar. Reskeme could see the runes form at the feet of the Darva from Kellar's spell at a truly astonishing rate, then a massive torch of fire shot into the sky.
08. After 5 seconds of burning and a flame that was hard to look at the fire fizzled out and disappeared leaving the three Darvan mages completely unharmed behind their shield. All three of the enemy mages had rune-like patterns covering their leather armour and were painted in different colours. The Darvan mages started channelling mana, Reskeme could feel it from his spot on the wall, all three of them working together rivalled the power of Kellar. Reskeme witnessed the rapid battle, all he could do was watch as Kellar would attack only to be blocked by the slowly tiring enemy. Kellar wasn't doing soo well either, His clothes were singed and he looked exhausted, Reskeme spotted an archer who was hiding behind the wall and occasionally shooting at the enemy shield.
09. Reskeme scoffed, all the man was doing was wasting arrows, Reskeme had an idea, he waved the man over. Reskeme informed the archer of his plan, He said," alright I'm going to put runes on your arrows and pump mana into them you shoot at the Darvan mages, The archer looked happy to shoot magic arrows and took off his quiver of arrows. The fortress shook when a portion of the wall further down fell apart after taking some sort of attack that pulled the earth up against it in a spike. Reskeme placed a flame rune on the first arrow and channelled as much mana as he could. The archer wearily picked up the slightly glowing arrow and was going to touch the point. Reskeme quickly told him in no certain term that he would become a torch if he did that. The archer fired the first arrow, the enemy shield actually flickered. Kellar took this slight opening and made one of the mages turn into a burning crisp by forming a rune at his feet while the Darva was distracted.
10. Reskeme started frantically creating runes on the arrows and passing them to the now much more enthusiastic archer. The man was shooting arrows at the shield of the Darva while Kellar was channelling spells that rocked the fortress causing massive booms. Reskeme was almost out of arrows to rune after ten minutes of frantic fighting, the Darvan mages retaliated at one point causing apart of the wall to catch on fire. Kellar did something that put out the flames much to Reskemes surprise. With two members instead of three Reskeme could tell Kellar had the advantage. Reskeme was running out of mana and he could tell Kellar was in the same predicament.
11. Reskeme powered one of the last arrows with three runes instead of one wincing at how bad that hurt to channel that much mana. Kellar was ready for any sign of weakness and took the opportunity to singe the armour of both remaining mages. Kellar said," do that again, they are finally down a member and we might be able to kill another before they retreat. Reskeme took in a long breath and Did something only a fool or a genius would do. He created 4 runes on the next arrow and almost passed out with the mana required to channel too much mana into the weapon.
12. He smiled and gently gave the archer the brightly glowing arrow. The man who appeared to be having way to much fun poked his head up and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow streaked across the sky and crashed through the sputtering shield, it lodged itself in the left on one of the Darvan mages. Kellars channelling increased and the ground trembled with the power of his spell. Everything went red as the master mage put all of his remaining mana into his attack. Kellar collapsed to the ground and lay on the wall, he looked worn out and completely exhausted. Reskeme crawled over and checked over the wall he couldn't bring up the courage to break the new silence.
13. Where the mages had once stood was a burning crater, Reskeme gulped the crater was twice the size of a house and looked like something had taken a large scoop out of the ground. Reskemes ears were ringing and he looked from the archer beside him to Kellar who was laying on the wall. Reskeme was now much more terrified of the master mage than he had previously been, Reskeme walked over and offered his new master some water from his water flask, He made sure to keep low as the scouts could still be hunting for humans to kill. Reskeme heard screaming and crying and only now noticed that in all the fighting the injured on the burned section of the wall were finally being carried to an open section.
14.The only reason that Reskeme hadn't been burned was Kellar's quick reaction with making a shield to block one of the fire spells. Reskeme easily noticed when he started hearing, the man next to him was talking, the ringing in his ears slowly faded. The archer said," good job, without that distraction it might have been us turned to a burning crater right now. Reskeme shuddered at that thought, He glanced around and felt an odd sensation, he noticed the dog standing over one of the soldiers who had been unlucky, the man looked dead. Reskeme felt slightly better and wondered what had just happened. He brushed it off as he was happy that his familiar was alive and clearly well.
15. Kellar said," you are lucky that he shot that arrow, casting four runes on low-quality iron is a good way to blow yourself up. Good job Apprentice Reskeme, you're advancing quite well if I do say so myself, Help me down to the tent I need some rest, that 7th layered attack spell was a pain in the ass to channel." Reskeme smiled happily as he let the master mage lean on his shoulder, he almost dropped the man but was happy Kellar only leaned a little weight on him. Reskeme and Kellar passed the commander who strangely was climbing up onto the wall probably to take over in case of further fighting.