Tales of Death´s Daughter

“Our ranks need to be closed before the enemy arrives! Keep watch for any underground or aerial movements!” I shouted out towards the soldiers around me. I didn’t like to say we were making a last stand, but that was basically it. With our four of our five strongest combatants gone, we were hard pressed against the enemy army encircling us slowly.

Except a few skirmishes between scouting groups though, they hadn’t attacked us yet, making gauging their numbers a rather hard task. There were a lot of them for sure though. Definitely more than we should face.

“The moat has been dug out on all sides!” A messenger soon shouted out from afar.

“Distribute our mana potions to them.” I said back, barely louder than the noises all around me.

“At once!” He said, right as we made enemy contact on the northern side. As our army wasn’t exactly large, even I could see the approaching demonic bulls once someone lifted me up piggyback. That wasn’t exactly honourable, but I was commanding an army, not going on a tea party.

Luckily, the intelligence of these demons was rather low and they directly charged towards us. No arrows or magic was fired from our side. We just waited patiently for our ‘trap’ to do the deed. And luckily, these bulls were far too heavy to jump over our most, making them fall head first into it. Some did manage to slow down a little, but they were still pushed into the moat by their peers.

Then, a second horn blew in the south with exactly the same scenes playing out as well. Luckily Lucy had told me a lot about the different common demonic races, including this one which apparently had very little intelligence and was prone to attacking its peers in battle. It only made sense to send them out first to deal damage and to test the waters, but that allowed us to exploit their fatal flaws as well.

“Milady! A message from the balloon!” Someone shouted and handed me a paper plane. Even though there were still a lot of reservations to accept me as the acting commander, they all did their work. We were stuck in this together after all and a mutiny in the middle of battle wouldn’t increase anyones chance of survival. Thankful, I took the plane out of his hands and read it carefully.

‘Big birds on the horizon. Possible size of army: 10,000. Several bigger enemies sighted.’

A force of roughly four hundred against ten thousand? For every single one of us there were 25 enemies. That was what I would call impossible. But we were trapped anyways, so I didn’t see any other way. Breaking through was also not possible as we had no clue what laid beyond the horizon.

Luckily, we still had several plans we could use to potentially make up for the difference.

At first though, we had to withstand their attacks. The demonic, pitch black birds were audible before we got another message from the balloon. Screeching loudly, they approached us fast with heavy rocks in their claws. They approached us far too high for us to retaliate, but we weren’t helpless either. In the middle of our formation, a rock grew out from the earth in the shape of a mushroom.  

But that sadly did not save the balloon. Even though the operator gave his hardest to descend, the stones hit him before he managed to do so. Even worse, the birds dove down to attack the balloon right away, attacking it with their sharp claws. The leathery texture was penetrated in a lot of places, making the balloon lose altitude quickly and crash onto the ground just outside of our defences. Quickly, two mages jumped across the moat and attempted to save the live of the man in the basket, but they apparently didn’t succeed as they returned empty handed.

“What do you think, Luna? Are these all of them?” Hannah asked, completely unbothered by the first death of the day.

“I think so.” I admitted, gazing at the last message this person sent. He stated that all were coming, even though he should have rather attempted to save his own live.

Hannah nodded quietly, strolled away from me and jumped on top of the mushroom easily. I heard the screeching of these massive ravens along with a loud thunder over us and then noticed the first few of them dropping to the ground, their remains charred to the point where it was hard to recognise them.

A minute later, Hannah was by my side again, seething her bloodied blade without saying anything.

She had defeated the second wave effortlessly, but that came at the cost of our scouting ability. And looking at her, she didn’t seem to be in the best shape either. Defeating a hundred enemies in one strike must have drained her mana reserves as well.

“Hannah, can you still fight?” I asked worried. For our survival, her strength was absolutely necessary.

“I was asked to protect you.” She replied and gazed towards the distance where hundreds and hundreds of demons charged at us.

“You will protect me much better when you are out there.” I stated worried, trying to gauge the number of races which were near uncountable. There were a lot of goblins, but there were also demonic scorpions, weird liquid like beings and a whole lot of trolls as well.

“Hmm … Lucy will be angry at me when I leave your side.” Miss Dove said, gripping her sword tightly. She really did want to fight out there, but Lucy’s order also weighed on her shoulders.

“I won’t tell her.” That seemed to convince her somewhat, but she didn’t head out until the first demons jumped into the deadly moat to fill it up.

“Ahh!” Miss Dove said, gripping her hairs tightly and ran towards the east side which was troubled the most. Effortlessly, she jumped over our line, drew her sword and stabbed it into some kind of acid spitter assaulting our men from afar.

Thankfully, I had her with me to help out at dangerous spots. She didn’t take out all of the enemies as she didn’t have the capability to do so. But she focused on the harder ones, leaving the rest to us.

“You four earth mages start construction right now. And you ten, circle around with Miss Dove on her opposite site. You, ask the northern troops if they can spare ten seasoned warriors to go to the south.” I knew I started micromanaging everyone which was usually very I’ll advised. But we weren’t that many to begin with, so I needed to give out orders to single persons as well.

These orders I gave were just to balance the attacking force with the defending one. With fifty more men at my disposal, I was hard pressed to come up with anything.

“There are no more flying forces around!” Louis said after a little while, confirming what I already expected.

“That means we aren’t fighting against a competent general.” The hot air balloon was nice to have, but strategically not that important. The enemy sacrificed all of his areal troops for this objective, which also means we now had a nice elevated position which our mages and archers could use to their full potential.

“Blow the horn!” Immediately, all of our long distance fighters ascended the quickly build staircases onto the stoney mushroom and started firing with all they had. Our last remaining mana potions were also bought up, allowing them to work longer than usually. They were our lifeline after all. With our cauldron of defence so thin that most of us stood shoulder by shoulder with only one or two rows deep, we had no other choice but to rely on our superior distance attacks. Still, two hundred close combatants weren’t exactly many and that number started to shrink once our moat was filled up.

The first injured were bought into the middle where they were treated and the first deaths also happened, concentrated mostly on the western flank the enemy had apparently picked out to attack heavily.

Even though everything seemed to go well on the surface, we were still vastly outnumbered. I needed to do something.

Closing my eyes, I felt the mana within me stir a little as I pushed it out of my hands and formed the blue ball our life depended on.

The sounds of battle seemed to grow quieter around me as I tried to figure out their strategy. They were trying to squash us, but they did it rather sloppily so far. It kind of remembered me of the way nobles lead their army hundreds of years ago. But send the cavalry to charge ahead without scouting first? Who were we up against?

My magic told me it could only be one kind of person. Someone who had no clue what he was doing. And that was underlined by the fact that corpses started piling up in front of our defenders, making it incredibly hard for them to attack us in the first place.

But there was still that army of trolls waiting in the distance which would be a real headache to deal with.

“Close our ranks!” Sadly, we were also losing men quickly certainly not in the necessary ratio to the enemies. Miss Dove was still out there, racking up kills left and right, but even she couldn’t make up for that difference.

Biting my lower lip, I waited a little while longer before giving out my next order.

“Blow the retreat horn and blast that moat with fire spells.” I said to the messenger by my side and didn’t have to wait long before Miss Dove joined our ranks once more. Then, we ignited the moat full of flammable material, creating a barrier which the demons weren’t willing to cross. But they didn’t have to.

As we were in a crystalline biome, there was hardly anything flammable around, which meant that we were only buying time and nothing more.

“How many did we lose?” I asked after everything had settled down and the demons retreated a little.

“Around twenty of the close combatants are dead with sixty more wounded. We can expect forty of them to recover quickly but the others …” I already heard their screams close by. I couldn’t bear to watch their treatment, but it was still obvious some of them wouldn’t make it.

“How is the construction going?” I asked, looking at the mushroom which had a suspicious hole in the ground near the base

“We are close to finishing.” He said and winced as another ear shattering scream erupted from beside us.

“Bring the wounded down.” I pressed out quietly. It wasn’t that I couldn’t bear their pain, but as harsh as it sounded, they were in our way.

Until dawn, we were protected by the flames but that slowly changed with time as well. The first died out and without any way to reignite them, the demons returned to howl at us.

“Back on positions. Give up on defending the moat and tighten our cauldron. I want three rows.” I stated, looking in the face of around one hundred and fifty close combatants. “Mages who have spent their mana carry the wounded back in. The archers do the same. We can win this.” Sadly, I wasn’t that good at motivating others, especially when I had seen the inevitable through my magic. It all depended on the actions of our heroes if we would make it out of here but sadly they weren’t that reliable.

Sighing quietly, another man took me piggyback once more while the demons charged at us yet again. This time, we hardly had any options left. Miss Dove still went outside the protected area to fight all the special demons which could wreak havoc in our ranks, but she was slowing down as well. Even though she was still fighting on, I could actually make out her movements which was quite impossible before. She was preserving strength.

And even though we switched the first row of combatants out as well, their arms also tired out slowly.

And yet, none of us thought about giving up.

“Is there anything you can do now?” The man carrying me asked quietly.

“No … we have to hope for the best.” We we’re out of arrows and mana we could use offensively. Gently, he sat me down onto the ground before throwing himself into the battle as well.

“Is there any sign of the worm?” I asked the nearest messenger, watching the steady stream of wounded being carried downwards. The nearest messenger immediately went down our little bunker as well and came back with a rather pleasing news. There were no vibrations.

At least, until the army of trolls started moving. I could feel the earth shaking beneath me as these giants made their way over towards us. As Miss Dove had spent most of her mana already, there wasn’t anything we could throw against a hundred of them, which was why I directly blew the horn to retreat.

Slowly but surely, the lines stepped backwards orderly and the first combatants already rushed downstairs. We weren’t finished with evacuating yet though as someone still on top of the mushroom came down to notify me.

“There are three humans fighting the demons!” He said, but I could only shake my head. We would need Miss Dove down there and other than her, we didn’t have anyone to sent them. “Make sure they know of our position quickly and head down as well.” I said, shortly before I took the rather crude steps downwards as well. I arrived in a round chamber illuminated with a single light shortly afterwards and went towards the wounded to help them as much as I could. There was nothing I could do at this point.

We would be able to fight two against two on the stairs and if we needed to, we could seal ourselves as well. In this bunker, we did have a small chance of survival but out there, we had none.