Chapter 99

It was pretty bad. We Mages had withstood the brunt of the battle and taken the greater casualties, although many were being held by Mage Xi in semi-stasis until specialised help could be brought to bear, which essentially meant a trip to Loegria for them. Still eighty-seven of us had fallen along with thirty-two of our Azuran colleagues and five wolves. Yet in return we’d taken down almost forty thousand Sidhe, mostly in the explosions on the walkway and with the mini-guns on the mad charge to get to the walls. Still nearly five thousand enraged Sidhe had managed to get onto the parapet to face just one thousand defenders, most of whom had been sniping from the opposing walls with only a couple of hundred involved in actual swordplay.

Many familiar faces were lost to me that day, including my friends Emily and Roger who’d died having fallen as they’d fought back to back and had their bodies desecrated by a maddened Sidhe afterwards, before Arch cut him down. Mage Alice was distraught over the loss of her journeyman and Mage Henry was only now learning about the loss of Emily. Róisín was sitting holding Mage Alice and both women were sobbing their hearts out as I numbly went about with Mage Roxanne picking up the bodies and placing them gently and reverently into body bags. Also helping was journeywoman Mage Kate whose master, Mage Ivor, had died during the siege and who was coming to terms with her loss and the probability of Roxanne being her new master. Other transfers were forced upon us too if the circumstances warranted it, as we came to terms to the limited extent of the constraints we were under.

Morgana was still consigned to a pallet until Mage Xi could assist her in repairing a badly damaged nerve cluster in her shoulder as she couldn’t feel it to repair it quickly. Arch was busy with the Seers getting their aid to drag more barriers to the front of the fort as well as assuring Jemima that he was OK, despite three missing fingers.

Róisín and I had come off unscathed physically; we made quite the fighting pair with my sword skills and her artistry with a pump-action shotgun. Still we knew we’d been lucky as far better Mages than us had fallen or been severely injured. Soon the Seers were able to open a series of shielded portals and replacements as well as aid poured through, including Simon, Rowenna and Benjamin. Rowenna immediately hurried over to Morgana and began repairs as others from Healing Magic rushed through to assist Mage Xi and Mage Tamsin with their duties.

“Mage Sofya has attempted to get the Council in an uproar over this,” Simon said to Morgana. “She’s demanding we withdraw our aid to Verenestra as we cannot justify the casualties we took.”

“We cannot do that, Simon. It would be dishonourable to stab our friends in the back like that,” Morgana snorted. “I rather suspect the Sidhe will not try anything like that again; their casualties compared to ours were disastrous. We’ve destroyed almost a fifth of their forces with very low casualties. If they hadn’t gone insane and charged us here we wouldn’t even be having this discussion.”

“Yet she claims casualties are far too high,” Simon nodded. “Then again I rather suspect even one would be too high for her.”

“She should come and see for herself!” a furious Mage Xi butted in. “I have never been so scared in all my life, yet I would fight tooth and nail against any measure to pull us out of here!”

“Mage Xi sums up all our feeling on this, Mage Simon,” I added in more even tones. “Mage Sofya is in no position to judge our actions, for she has never put herself in our place or asked us how we feel.”

“A good answer, John. Nevertheless I have to bring her criticisms forward as they were officially presented,” Simon acknowledged. “I rather doubt though that she has anywhere near the numbers to even call for an enquiry, nor the courage to stand and face those she accuses where they fought.”

“I’m having to resist the urge to tell you where she can stick her criticisms, my old friend,” Morgana chuckled as Rowenna worked unobtrusively on the nerve cluster in her shoulder.

“As did I,” Simon replied with a grin. “Yet a hundred and twenty-nine Mages are dead including a Bureau chief. Admittedly over forty were Æsir, but it gave fuel to her fire.”

“And in return we have culled a massive Daoine Sidhe army of over half a million by at least a hundred thousand and are currently the bait in the trap to destroy it entirely. Once done, and I have no doubt we can do it; they will not be able to put an equivalent number in the field again. Our numbers will be equal and they will not be able to hold us back,” Morgana stated, getting a spontaneous round of applause from the Mages who had gathered around to hear her speak.

“Well spoken, my friend,” Simon acknowledged. “I’ll take your word back and throw it in the face of those who would lose us this war by their timidity and hatred of your success.”

“You may tell her when she has fought at our side for this cause, then and only then will she be in a position to criticise us and my judgement,” Morgana replied.

“I will indeed, my friend, I will indeed,” Simon chuckled as Rowenna helped Morgana to her feet.

“You’ll be able to self-repair now, Morgana,” Rowenna confirmed.

“Thank you, Rowenna. It felt weird not to be able to sort it myself,” Morgana replied with a tired smile.

“John had the same issues after Indira had a go. Nerve damage is tricky to say the least if you can’t feel where it’s damaged,” Rowenna acknowledged then headed off with Mage Xi to tend to others in need.

“The Sidhe have sent out a herald and a request to parlay,” Seer Olwen announced as she came up with Dorry and Gindo.

“Guess we hurt them more than I thought,” Morgana mused. “Care to join us, Simon?”

“A pleasure, Morgana,” he replied as Morgana summoned her party to see what Diamantu wanted now.

It was the same party with the addition of Simon who were levitated over the swamp to the higher ground where Diamantu and his party were waiting. Our Seers had scanned the area to ensure there were no hidden surprises as we all felt that the Sidhe would be seriously unhappy as to how the course of their siege was going.

“I present to you, Diamantu, Prince of this world and seneschal of Queen Oonagh,” the Sidhe herald immediately introduced his master in great brevity, much to our surprise.

“I present to you, Mage Morgana, representative of the alliance opposing Queen Oonagh,” I returned keeping it short whilst wondering what they were up to.

“You have fought well and gained a great host of servitors for yourselves in the afterlife,” their herald went on. “Yet now you must see that you cannot withstand our might and we can breach your walls as it suits us. Hence my Prince, to save you further casualties and because of the honour you have won, will permit you to withdraw unmolested and is willing to swear a Calvagh upon this word.”

“No,” Simon stated startling us all.

“But thrice we have gained your walls, once even breaching them and that was with a fraction of our host. You cannot win!” the herald stated.

“Every day we hold you here gives our alliance more time to bolster its real defences. Every Sidhe we kill here means one less they have to worry about. It may be a fraction of your forces, but this is merely a fraction of ours and I do not believe you can tolerate many more losses at this rate of attrition. You have lost thousands, we have lost but three hundred,” Morgana stated making Diamantu and the others wince.

“You cannot win!” Diamantu stated, joining the talks for the first time.

“I beg to differ,” Morgana returned. “There are various levels of winning; some are far more costly than others.”

“Faugh! I should have known that honour would elude you. Very well, eschew my generous terms, but know that there will be no mercy and your people will shudder at the magnitude of your defeat and dishonour,” Diamantu snorted then about faced and marched off with his party.

“What was that about?” I asked once they were out of earshot. “I’ve never known the Sidhe to offer terms.”

“He is being pressured by his Queen. She believes our purpose here is as you stated and wants him to continue his march onwards to the liberated lands,” Adsila replied as she levitated us back to our lines.

“You read him?” an astonished Simon asked.

“No, but I could read the herald,” Adsila admitted.

“Wouldn’t be a trick,” Morgana mused. “He’d have nothing to gain by it.”

“Other than if we’d acceded,” Dorry added.

“True, well the good news is we only have to hold for another day, the Verenestran Sidhe will be in position to attack at dawn tomorrow,” Morgana acknowledged.

“So we’ve won?” Hinnit asked.

“Yes, now all we have to do is survive,” Morgana stated grimly.

“I’ll inform the Council. I’ll even suggest Mage Sofya comes with a fact finding party,” Simon chuckled.

“We should be so lucky,” Mage Clara replied with a laugh.

“We may just get him tomorrow, Clara,” Morgana replied.

“It matters not, I suspect his reputation will be all but trashed,” she shrugged. “Soon enough he will fall.”

“As far as I can tell he hasn’t recognised you,” Adsila added.

“I’m not surprised. I don’t think his spirit reported much, nor would he care as to who I was,” she nodded.

The next few hours were very tense as we dealt with the various repairs and new dispositions of our forces, expecting an attack from the Sidhe at any moment. Finally the Sidhe were spotted, they were assembling so that all their forces appeared aligned against our fort; it seemed Diamantu intended to walk over us by sheer numbers.

“Bring the spare mini-guns from the other forts here please, Jemima,” Arch requested of his wife. “Also send out the word for all their hand to hand bladesmen, we may just need them.”

“Yes dear,” a sombre Jemima replied. “They’ll be in range of the Loegrians no matter where they are, save directly in front of this fort.”

“Yes. Inform the Loegrians to open fire as soon as they are able,” Arch nodded. “Also bring up the artillery and if we have the A10s available, them too.”

“Yes dear. You be careful now,” Jemima replied and hurried off to the shelter the Seers were using, save for those on the front lines like Adsila.

My group were in the meantime dragging up several MK19 belt fed automatic grenade launchers with the M1001 canister rounds to supplement the claymores set amongst the spike bars. We’d also adapted a few of the adamantium shields to fit in front of the launchers to protect the journeywomen using them from arrow fire.

“Soon as they hit one hundred metres, give them hell,” I ordered.

“Yes, John,” came the replies.

At this moment the secure portal we used suddenly came online and all available guns we had swung towards it as we normally had a Seer warn us of incoming traffic. However to our amazement Mage Sofya and a few attendants stepped through, wearing nothing but what they considered their ceremonial Council robes which frankly made them look like the silly wizards you see in action movies.

“Mage Sofya, this is not a particularly good time for a visit,” Simon said as he and Morgana went down to meet them.

“Why, so you and Mage Morgana can cover up the evidence of your incompetence?” she sneered whilst glancing somewhat nervously around at the sheer amount of firepower pointing directly at her party.

“No, because we were in the process of shutting down the portal as we’re expecting a visit by up to four hundred thousand Sidhe,” Simon replied calmly.

“Exaggeration surely,” Sofya sniffed.

“See for yourself,” he replied, leading her up the stairway in one of the towers to the parapet.

I had to chuckle as did many others when Sofya took a look and nearly stepped backwards off the parapet her face white with shock at the army arrayed against us.

“Perhaps this is not a good time, Mage Simon. My party will return in a day to continue our inspection,” she finally stammered out.

“I’m afraid it’s too late for that. The portal has been disabled and our Seer group is preparing to meet the enemy,” he stated.

“But ... but...” she began.

“Always a risk when mounting a surprise visit,” chuckled Morgana grimly. “You never know quite who is going to be the more surprised.”

“May I suggest you put on some armour and take up weapons. You may very well need them,” Simon said with a grin.