Spark of War (Progression Fantasy)

As Nidina shot ahead, Laze pulled an electrum-bow-focus off her harness and began the process of channeling the flame from her Spark up her left arm. Unlike the others – who ignited their weapons almost instantly – it took Laze nearly a second to bring the weapon to life. As soon as that was done, the now-formed pathway of flame connecting her bow to her Spark, Laze took the flaming string in hand and started the process of igniting an arrow.

Another second passed, the resistant flames trying to stay comfortable with her Spark, until Laze forced them away. Up through her chest into her shoulder, then down her arm past her elbow, and through her wrist and into her fingers. Whoosh, the arrow ignited on her bow, and Laze corrected her angle of flight to get a better line of sight on the pillar of fog climbing the east wall.

The process wasn't fast, five feet a second or so, and the fog would reach the top of the undefended wall in a few seconds more. The blue creatures they'd fought before had to be near the peak of that, but it was still almost ten feet wide. An explosive arrow should take care of that – or at least slow it down.

But, why settle for one explosive arrow?

Turning her attention on the flaming arrow resting in the taut bow, Laze did the same thing to it she did when she ignited her wings – she split the flame. At the tips of her right fingers, the flaming arrow seemed to grow wider, until all at once, it stretched apart into a second arrow sitting just above the first.

In practice, she'd tried to make a third arrow, but found it almost impossible to focus on one arrow to split while maintaining the other. Every time, it'd resulted in both arrows fizzling out. No matter what she'd attempted, nothing worked on creating a third arrow.

So, instead of giving up, she'd moved straight on to four.

With the same focus on the stream of fire running through her arm, Laze peeled the two arrows apart simultaneously, their twins joining them on the string of her bow. By now, the pillar of fog was only fifteen feet shy of the top of the wall, but still Laze didn't release her arrows. No, she split them one more time.

Now with eight burning arrows lined up on her bow, she took aim at the fog pillar – ten feet from the top – and released. Being magic constructs still connected to her Spark, the flaming bolts didn't fan out in a wide arc like normal arrows would. Instead, the eight arrows swirled around each other, like they wanted to go back to being one as they had been as part of Laze's Spark. Around and around each other they spun, the equal pull on each arrow keeping them from colliding with one another while they raced forward, like a flock of flaming birds.

Until they hit the wall.

Eight nearly synchronized explosions tore through the fog and shook the wall of the fort town. While one of Laze's arrows didn't possess the same destructive potential of one of El's – or even Nidina's – eight of them sure packed more punch. Fog, stone, and a mangled blue body shot out of the white mist, while the seemingly solid pillar instantly lost its cohesion. Wisps of the mist flowed out to the sides before vanishing entirely, while the other three pillars paused in their climb, as if shocked at what had just happened.

Then Nidina's charged arrow hit the next in line. An explosion much like Laze's bombardment obliterated whatever was hidden within the fog, the pillar collapsing on itself to tumble to the ground. There was a dull thud somewhere on the rocky ground at the base of the wall, though the remaining mist hid it from Laze's view. Not that she had time to deal with it, a push of power into her wings shooting her higher up into the sky.

Below her, Nidina quick-fired arrows into the other two pillars of fog, forcing one to swerve to avoid. The second pillar – or more accurately, the blue humanoid inside it – didn't appear so lucky. As soon as the flaming arrow pierced the misty veil, the whole thing tilted like it was drunk.

"Laze, what are you doing?" Nidina asked over the comms. "I've got this."

"Right, be careful," Laze responded, forcing her eyes away from the other woman's fight. With that done, she continued higher into the sky until she was hundreds, then thousands of feet above the town. With the size of the population centre, it was the only way she could get a good view beyond all four walls.

With the main force charging at the front door like they were, and the four blue mist-weavers at the back working to sneak in – Mist-weavers? Yeah, El would like that… – Laze had her eyes peeled for a third angle of attack. Those blue guys alone wouldn't be enough to wipe out all the soldiers inside the town. Yes, they could do a lot of damage, and add to the confusion, but that wouldn't be enough.

Because of the massive horde throwing itself against the western wall – well, before Nexin showed up like a fiery, seawyrm blender – most of the Pilish forces had rushed there to defend. Hundreds of soldiers lined the wall, weapons in hand, while hundreds more formed firing squads in front of the gate. The mist-weavers could've been aiming to reach the gate and open it from the inside, but that didn't add up. The creatures had shown more intelligence than that before. It wouldn't make sense for them to walk right into their enemy's main force.

Almost every able-bodied solider was at the western wall to defend it.

Which practically left the other walls undefended. Or, at least, distracted. Soldiers that should've been watching for another attack instead had their attention firmly directed to the west. There had to be another force. South of the fort was rocky terrain, and would no doubt be difficult for the short-legged creatures to easily travel. So, it had to be the north.

It didn't take her long to spot the problem.

Water bubbled along the northern shore like it was about to vomit another hangnail army. Maybe half a mile – at most – from the wall of the fort, waves crashed against jagged rocks, but as Laze watched, the waves grew taller and taller. And the thousands of shapes swimming within those rising waves was not her imagination. It wouldn't take them long to reach enough height to begin depositing their cargo on the relatively flat land between the water and the fort.

Not long, but hopefully long enough.

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"Nexin," Laze said into her communicator, already diving for the fort town. "You think you can hold that entire wall?"

"Already am," Nexin replied. "For the most part."

"Good. We've got another hangnail army coming in from the northern side. Doesn't seem like the Pilish have noticed them yet. I've got to get the soldiers to switch walls. All of them, from the looks of things."

"Do it," Nexin said, barely even breathing heavy despite the nearly constant flashes of blasting fire and heat.

"Nidina, come join us when you're done there."

"Won't be more than another minute," the other Firestorm responded.

With those orders given, Laze dove for the battlement of the northern wall, aiming for a spot between two of the massive, mounted cannons. Her heart clenched as her mind replayed what Tas had told her about the weapons – about how people were connected in a chain to power them through their Sparks. And how… unpleasant it was.

There was a reason they called those cannons "Screamers".

But, looking at the hundreds of buildings within the castle walls, and the tens of thousands of people who lived in them, there didn't seem to be much of a choice.

"Use what you've got to save people now, and reform the world of all its evils later," Laze half-scoffed at herself a second before flipping in the air to hit the top of the wall feet first. Her wings snapped out to steal most of the momentum from her maneuver, but it still blasted heat and wisps of flames in both directions. Nearby soldiers who'd been busy watching the flashes of Nexin's flames over the top of the western wall suddenly turned in her direction, eyes widening and jaws dropping.

Rifles that'd been held purposeless in their hands suddenly came up to aim generally in her direction, but Laze forced herself to ignore them as she stood straight and pointed north.

"Another army of those monsters is coming from the water," she shouted. "My friend," she emphasized the word to make sure they didn't get itchy trigger fingers, "will hold the western wall. We need to hold this one."

"Who are you?" one of the closest soldiers asked.

"Friends," Laze said. "But questions can come later. We need everybody we can to stop what's coming."

"I don't see anything," another soldier on her opposite side said. "Are you sure…?"

"Contact!" a third solider shouted. "Coming over the cliffs. The cannons, get the cannons firing!"

"We need reinforcements!" a fourth added, men and woman quickly taking position along the walls. "Send runners."

"I'll get them," Laze said. "Hold until they get here." With that, she blasted into the air and arched tightly for the raging battle. The top of the western wall was practically still, with the guns quiet as everybody watched Nexin slaughter the monsters in droves in front of them. Instead of landing in the middle of the soldiers as she had on the other wall, Laze instead raced hallway to the south, then zipped in front of the top of the wall.

With her bow still ignited in her left hand, she drew back an arrow with her right, then fired it straight across the line of sight of every soldier glued to Nexin's battle. Almost reflexively, as the fiery arrow whipped past them, their eyes followed the line of flame until they settled on the new threat crashing down within hundred-foot waves.

Water crashed down on the rocky stretch between cliff and wall, the slap of it loud enough to echo even above Nexin's battle. Then, as the seawater retreated back off the cliff, the first soldiers of the new attacking force were left visible. Three seawyrms and dozens of hangnails got to their feet from the rough disembarkment – half as many again left broken and crawling on the hard stone – then began their march on the walls. Behind them, the sea swelled again in preparation of delivering more troops.

"Rally to the north wall," Laze shouted as she flew down the top length of the west wall. "My ally will hold the battle here. You're needed on the north wall. To the north wall!" She repeated her message as she went, slowing to shout at those who looked in charge.

To their credit, as most saw the new threat, they began ordering troops to repel the new attack, until one shouted back in a loud voice.

"Why should we? It could be a trap! A distraction!" he entreated the soldiers around him.

"Don't think that guy down there needs a distraction," one of the nearby soldiers said.

"Distracting us from fighting seawyrms by fighting other seawyrms?" another asked.

"Laze… is that you?" a familiar voice asked as a new soldier pushed her way through the crowd.

At the sound of the voice, Laze pulled up short – even though she'd planned to continue on and ignore the arguer. "Macer? You're here?"

"Tas and the others, too," the woman said, giving Laze a quick salute. Looking like she hadn't slept since Laze had last seen her, Macer still carried her rifle with strong hands. "Who's that down there? Are they with you? They must be with all that…"

BOOOOOOM!

"That's El's brother," Laze said. "We can catch up later though. More coming against the north wall, and we need those cannons, now."

"On it," Macer said. "You lot heard her, get to the cannons!"

"Why should we listen to…?" the one who'd first questioned Laze started to ask – until Macer turned a look on him. Tired, dirty, and not even half the man's size, the woman's one glance nearly brought the man to his knees. "Ah, right. Of course. North wall people! Go like your life depended on it!"

"I think our lives do depend on it," another soldier said, glances going between the seawyrms and Macer. From the look, it was tough to say which was the bigger threat.

"Tas was already heading to the wall," Macer said, turning to Laze. "You'll probably find him there."

"Great. If not, we need to talk after we stop the attack," Laze said.

"Noted. Then, in Tas's immortal words – don't die."

"Always good advice," Laze chuckled, then burst up and over the wall to cut straight north. The troops that weren't needed on the west wall were already getting picked up by the ones she'd talked to, so she wasn't required to pass the message on anymore.

"Laze, there you are," Nidina said as Laze arrived.

"Mist-weavers taken care of?" Laze asked.

"Mist…? Oh, now you're naming things like El? Blaze help us. But, yes. One of them made me work for it, but none of them were terribly strong."

"Let's hope they're all like that," Laze said, igniting two, four, then eight flaming arrows on her bow. "You ready for this?"

Nidina didn't answer immediately, her eyes locked on the arsenal on Laze's bow string. When she finally looked up at Laze, an eyebrow went up that clearly said she wanted to ask about that later, but she nodded. A flaming arrow appeared on her own bow, quickly growing in size as she fed power into it. Within a few seconds it was almost as big as Nidina was, and the two women took aim at the approaching horde.

Waves had washed up more of the monsters – at least another ten seawyrms and hundreds of hangnails – but the cannons on the wall beside the two Firestorm were finally moving as well. Each with three barrels in a triangular formation, the huge weapons leveled at the oncoming monsters. As soon as they'd taken aim, a staccato of booms rang out. Lines of smoke trailed from the topmost barrel on each cannon – before the three barrels rotated one position to their left – and the cannons fired a second time.

Just as that second series of booms rang out, the first salvo hit the line of charging monsters. Explosions of stone, fire, and monster parts reached for the sky, but the oncoming rush didn't slow.

"Air support only," Laze instructed, releasing her payload. A nudge through her lingering connection to the arrows forced them to spread out slightly, and they crashed down across a space twenty feet wide. Two more arrows were already forming on her bow as she jetted up and to the left in the air to get a better angle – though she was very careful to stay above the cannons' line of fire. A quick check showed Nidina going up and right, then the two of them released their next shots.

Between the two Firestorm and the fort town's cannons, their opening attack had been devastating. But, as the waves crashed down and more monsters were left deposited on land, it was clear the battle was only just beginning.