The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (18 page)

A Sylvan who was stationed on the ridge on the east side of the valley moved over a couple of meters to get a better view of the shed, but one of the rocks he tried to step on was an Illusion covering a crack in the slope.  He fell heavily and cried out before his face smashed against the rocks, and he tumbled down the steep slope for a while before sliding to a stop, unconscious.

The Sylvan woman who was stationed eighteen meters to his left stood to see what was happening, and started to move to assist him.  Before she’d gone three meters the same thing happened to her.  She yelled and tumbled and slid until she struck a tree, and lay there moaning from the pain of a broken arm, as well as numerous serious cuts, scrapes, and bruises.

All the Sylvan on the top of the cliffs heard the cries and the crashes of the fallen tumbling down the slopes on the far side of the valley, and stood as they tried to crowd forward to get a better look, as much as they could without crowding the ones near the edge off the precipice.

At that moment Scout flew over the southern group from behind, unseen and unheard, making his best speed.  He swooped down at the last moment and slammed into the back of the second row of Sylvan from the edge.  He hit two of them in the backs of their heads with his wings, knocking them into the ones at the very edge in front of them.  He sank his claws into the scalp of the one between them, and drove his sharply-pointed hooked beak into the scalp of the one in front of that.  His momentum dragged the one he grasped completely off the edge, knocking off those in front of him, and all the ones who were falling tried to grab the ones around them for purchase.  Eight Sylvan fell, yelling and screaming all the way down.

The cliff was just over eighteen meters high, and none of them had the time or the wherewithal to cast Flight or Levitation before they hit.

On the cliffs on the north side the pass, the Sylvan crowded forward even more to see what had just happened.  Stripe bounded out of cover and charged through them, knocking as many Sylvan off the cliff as he could.  He reached the far side of the formation and turned.  The rest of the Sylvan had backed away from the edge, but he grabbed six of them one by one by the arm or leg with his mighty jaws and threw them over before they had backed up enough to make that impractical.  He leaped into the midst of them, biting and clawing and tearing amidst a cacophony of screaming, yelling, and confusion.

Scout had circled around for another pass.  Most of the Sylvan on his side hadn’t moved back yet, instead they stood staring as Stripe, silent and invisible, tore through their fellows on the opposite side of the canyon.  Scout took four more off the edge on his side, and the rest of them moved back, yelling in fear and confusion.

Though they couldn’t see him or hear him, the Sylvan around Stripe backed away from where their fellows were dying, and they brought their weapons to bear.

Then Stripe stood among dead and dying Sylvan, surrounded by a ring of spears, swords, and knives.  He leaped over the weapons pointed at him and started laying waste to them again.

Many of them broke and ran, but Vanakit Lamitkeze was bellowing in rage and organizing them.  “They’re not demons, you superstitious idiots!  It’s only their animals, hidden behind some kind of Indetectability spell!  Now bunch up and defend yourselves!”  Soon they were huddled in small clumps of eight to ten with their weapons sticking out in all directions, and many were casting Force Shields and other spells.

Stripe has sustained numerous small wounds, but nothing serious.

“Stripe, go.”
Reggie called, and the Sleng cat bounded out of the Sylvan formation and ran to his next assignment.

“Crap, we have to move NOW!”
the twins realized as they slid out the back of the goat shed, hissing and gasping as they tried to maintain silence while the bark of the log wall scraped the delicate skin on their fronts through their light summer clothes, and the pine thatch poked and scraped their backs.  They rolled around in the dry and dusty bed of pine needles behind the shed to further cover their scents, gritting their teeth against the continuing painful and itchy irritation of it.  Then they ran diagonally up the slope under the trees to the north-east.

Both were angry at themselves.  Their plan had called for them to move right after they tripped up the two Sylvan to the east, but they hadn’t.  Instead they’d been concentrating fiercely on the fight above the cliffs; tracking all the Sylvan’s locations and movements, passing that information to Stripe and Scout, and hiding the animals from the Sylvan’s perceptions.  They now realized that they’d planned on doing more multitasking than they were capable of, and they’d left their bodies lying on top of the shed wall feeling half-squashed under the prickly pine thatch while they conducted the fight.

“They know we’re here!” Vanakit Lamitkeze barked as he cast a Speaking to the Sylvan stationed on the ridge around the valley.  “Kill them!  Kill them now!!”

For the hundredth time he cursed the weakness of the power field since the settlers had come, and the cost in power of the mighty Shield they’d cast around the valley, and of deceiving the Wards that had protected it.  Few of his Sylvan had enough power left to fly for more than a few seconds.

Over three hundred Sylvan readied bows, arrows, spells, and swords as they ran down into the valley toward the goat shed.

The twins had not put as much distance between themselves and the shed as they’d planned at that point.  The converging Sylvan running down the slope toward them would be much closer together when they passed.

The two paused behind a tree, panting hard and concentrating.  They tripped up two Sylvan on the far side of the valley with Illusory footing, which was easy now that they were all running downhill.  Then they continued running uphill and north-east.

“All of you get down there and block the pass!” Vanakit yelled to the remaining Sylvan atop the cliffs.  “Our prey will try running home, and you might not be able to detect them!  Block the canyon from wall to wall with your weapons presented!  And sharpen your damn psionics!  Find those two little brats NOW!”

The goat shed exploded as it was struck by multiple spells.

The twins paused again and tripped up two more Sylvan to the south-west, waited a moment for that distraction to take effect and for the Sylvan running down-slope toward them to get close, then tripped up the three Sylvan closest to them, just as they ran past their quarry’s hiding place.  The twins ran upslope through the underbrush past the tumbling and cursing Sylvan, found another hiding place, and tried to trip up all the Sylvan who were still running downslope.

“Stop running, damn it!” one of the Sylvan called.  “They’re hiding the ground with Illusions!  Check your footing with every step!”

“They killed all our goats.”
Helemia angrily realized as they ran up the slope again.

“And half the chickens.”
Reggie added, just as angry.

They paused again a minute later, and checked on the Sylvan.

“There’s nothing here but burnt goats, they weren’t here!” a Sylvan reported to Vanakit as she inspected the smoldering wreckage of the goat shed.

“Kill everything that moves, or even seems to move!” Vanakit commanded.  “We’ll find them by psionics soon!  Meanwhile try to track them from the shed they were in!”

A few trackers gathered around the wreckage of the shed, but the twins’ tracks were everywhere around the area, and the blast had obliterated the sign where they’d rolled on the ground.

Most of the Sylvan in the valley began wandering around at random, swinging their swords around them, or casting arrows and spells at anything that caught their attention, while testing the ground by feel in every place they planned to take a step.  More than a few were angrily aware of how ridiculous they all looked.  Some of them slaughtered the rest of the livestock.

The twins drew within thirty meters of the ridge above them, and started slowly and stealthily moving across the slope to the east, farther away from the pass.  Every few minutes they paused to continue their war of attrition against the Sylvan.

They continued tripping the Sylvan occasionally by hiding things.  Rather than casting an Illusion of a rock over a hole or something similar, they made the Sylvan not notice a crucial root or rock that really existed.  Some banged their heads on tree branches they hadn’t seen.  This served to keep the jumpy Sylvan on edge, though it didn’t produce many serious injuries.

Every few minutes they helped Stripe or Scout kill or disable one of their enemies.  It was fully dark now, and they no longer had to hide the animals from the Sylvan, they only had to show where the chosen Sylvan was.  Stripe’s natural stealth and inherent psionic unnoticability served him well in the darkness, and Scout could swoop down to make devastating attacks on the face and eyes of his prey with his talons and be gone a moment later, or pull any Sylvan on a steep slope to a nasty tumble.  Though he could only lift a fraction of the weight of a Sylvan, he had enough strength to drag them down a steep slope by one leg or one arm until they were incapacitated or dead.

Then the twins tripped one, who was immediately shot with an arrow by the nervous and startled Sylvan closest to her.  That inspired the twins to a new tactic. 

A minute later one of the Sylvan thought he saw the twins trying to sneak by him out of the corner of his eye.  He immediately turned and cast Force Bolts at them, only to find that he’d killed another Sylvan.

Reggie and Helemia reached their chosen hiding place; behind the top of the low peak in the ridge at the north-east edge of the valley.  The Sylvan Shield dome was less than two meters behind it, so they knew they could not be snuck up on from behind.  They peered over the peak into the valley below and inspected it with their psionic senses, and sharpened their plan.

Over the next few minutes; by tricking chosen Sylvan into killing each other, they precipitated a battle between two groups of them.

“WHAT IN ALL THE HELLS DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!!!  EVERYONE STOP!!!” Vanakit yelled at them in absolute rage, his voice magically amplified to booming volume.  “These cursed children are making fools of you, and turning us on each other!!!  Everyone just hold where you are, and put all your concentration into finding them psionicly!”

The twins withdrew their awareness as they ducked down behind the peak, and lowered their psionic activity to the minimum.

“Okay, Stripe and Scout got fifty-one of them up on the cliffs, and their little battle there took out another thirty-four.”
Helemia mused. 
“And almost a hundred ran away.  Plus the rest of ‘em that we got.”

“There’s still more than three hundred of them left, three hundred and nine, actually.”
Reggie counted.  
“And we’ve still got at least half an hour before anyone comes looking for us.”

“I don’t think any of them are maintaining the Shield dome.  I think they just pre-charged it and cast it.  If we had some magic, we could just pound on it until it’s energy was all used up.”

“But that means that we can’t get rid of the dome by taking the ones casting it, like we thought.”

“Let’s just wait for a while.  Maybe they won’t find us.  Mother and Father are bound to come looking for us soon.”

Sixteen minutes later one of the Sylvan chuckled to herself, and quietly made her way to Vanakit Lamitkeze.  “I have them.” she reported.

“I have the cat and the bird by their body heat.” Vanakit quietly growled, his eyes closed in concentration..  “They’re keeping their distance.  But I can’t find the prey.  You found them psionicly?”

“No, by their auras, of all things.” she chuckled.  “And impressive auras they are, too.  See through my spell, and look at that peak.  You can see their glow behind it.”

“Ah, good work.  They’re just inside the Shield.  Can we reflect spells or missiles off of it?”

“No, it doesn’t work that way, it just absorbs the energy.  Though if we hit the Shield with arrows or rocks directly above the prey, they’ll fall straight down.”

“Bah, it’s only a couple of meters above them.” Vanakit spat.  “We’d have to Move a big rock.  They’d have time to avoid it, and I want the girl alive if possible.

“Crap on it.  You keep an eye on them.  We’ll need to know if they move.”

He waved his lieutenants over.  “Pass the word.  Our prey is hiding behind that peak, and we’ll know if they move, so disregard any other sightings of them.  Have everyone except those at the pass form up into a tight formation.  We’ll just march up there and get them.  Warn everyone to be careful of their footing and to beware of Illusions.  Once we start moving, I expect the cat and the bird to resume their attacks, and I doubt I’ll be able to follow them by their heat once they start making speed.  Keep weapons out at the flanks and rear to ward against the cat, and keep your daggers high to ward against the bird.  We’ll take the girl alive if possible.  If anyone has the power left to cast some Shielding, have them stand ready to cast it as needed.”

“If we hadn’t spent so much of our magic on the big Shield, we’d be able to protect ourselves properly.” one of the lieutenants grumbled.

Vanakit back-handed him across the mouth, bloodying lips and loosening teeth.  “You’ll follow your damn orders!” he growled.

The lieutenants nodded and backed away, and went to their tasks.

“They’re moving.”
Helemia noticed a minute later.
“They’re probably either leaving or they’ve spotted us somehow.  They’ve spotted us, I’m sure of it now, I can tell from Vanakit’s emotions.”

The Sylvan finished forming up in the center of the valley.  They made a fairly tight bunch in an oval shape about ten wide and almost twenty deep, bristling with weapons.  Vanakit moved to their head with his spotter beside him, and they began advancing up the valley to the north-east.

As they reached the top of the meadow and began entering the trees, Vanakit turned and shouted to his troops; “The animals are on the move, be on your guard!”