Sixteen Feet of Steel Chapter 27

*Before…

We pass through the gates and they down close...arrows from above rain down only aiding our fighters and us, those they stepped off to save and buy time watch as the four of them cut every last Goblin and Warg sent after us.

Every last one.

I’m crying because… because they did this, because somehow they did it and they won and hurt or not I’m falling to get out of the wagon and running to meet them.

“Hawk! Nicole!”

I jump and land and hit Jessa who hugs and she holds us both up and Nicole.

Nicole has just gotten past the gate and she’s turned her Squire’sknight around and she raises her hand and I hear her yell. “Close the gates, close them all!”

Jessa and I limp to beside her and look at where she’s looking and it’s down the hill at the remains of the town and while we were fighting the Wargs and their Goblin riders the Hobgoblins rode their troops back down to where they had their encampment.

And there’s a line of troops marching with the riders and we can see the heavy shapes of huge forms in the distance.

We just stand there watching them coming in as the Keep’s doors and gate close and come down.

We slowly turn and the place is full, people have evacuated to here as best as they could and all around our ragged band of fighters and rangers are scared people, the old, the frail, the young.

I say it without even thinking about it. “Light and The Gods, We can’t fail here.”

*And Now…

John Holt catches me as my knees wobble and I’m hit with a wave of tiredness.

The wave of it hit me like a heavy wet laden blanket was dropped on me and I was being pulled down.

I even blacked out for a blink or two waking with him looking at me and Jessa there.

She says. “Too much, again too much and you weren’t even recovered.”

I offer a weak smile. “Seemed like there wasn’t much choice.”

And that set her off swearing and asking for water or wine and food.

John carries me further into the place and people are parting for us and the rest of my friends are following us as we’re heading in deeper and there’s murmurs from the crowd and folks doing gestures of faith and some are tearfully smiling.

But there’s refugees here from the countryside.

Broken families and a lot of pain here.

I’m stuffing all the things I’m feeling down and away and we’re being led to the main keep itself and we pass through the main doors and even here there’s more folks. These do look like they’ve been doing things to take care of people or to defend the place.

There’s a lot of folks here that look clerical, like monks but with all their hair and beards instead of the shaved heads that I’ve seen home.

These must be the druids.

There’s room made for us and one of them see’s Nicole’s squiresknight and points. “Take that to the smithy and get the armorers to start working on that immediately.!”

Others are coming over and one of them looks at me. He’s staring and studying me and I can feel him looking at me with his own magesight.

John sets me onto my feet carefully and the Druid passes me a flask he took from a pocket in his robes and I look at him and raise an eyebrow.

He says. “Tea, herbs and some painkilling, something for your head and some sweetener.”

I drink it and it’s pretty strong and bitter though he tried or someone tried to gentle it with spruce tips and something else and honey.

“Thank you, anything is a help.” I pass him the flask back and offer my hand. “Christiana Blackhand, from Lyonnes.”

He looks surprised. “Lyonnes that’s far from here and over the mountains.”

“I know.”

He puts a palm on his chest in a humble bow sort of gesture. “I am Harold.”

“Just Harold?” I smile.

He smiles back. “Well we shed our old titles and such and Harold the Druid is pretty much implied.”

Okay that made me smile.

“Well Harold I’m glad to meet you.”

He smiles. “You as well young sorceress, you need rest and food as well as healing.”

I nod. “I’ll not fight you on that.”

He smiles. “Can I spell you?”

“With?”

“I want to lay a sleep spell on you.”

“So Druids do do magic?”

He nods and starts by touching my forehead like he’s a healer gauging my temperature. “We do, it’s different that what you do and yet still in many parts the same.”

I feel him out as he’s touching me and I don’t feel ill intent if anything he’s very focussed on making me well and recovered.

I nod. “Please proceed.”

The wave of his power, of the spell he cast was like getting wrapped up in a warm blanket that seemed to soak into my bones.

I sleep deeply, deeper than I think that I ever thought possible woken only in brief times as...I’m getting undressed by women and Nicole and Jessa are with me and we’re getting bathed...then food, medicines...some felt powered?...Potions?

There were spelled herbs and such too with them pressed to my skin in places and then bandaged like a poultice.

Then more sleep, deep, deep blessed sleep.

I wake before Jessa and Nicole do and they’re wrapped like me and we’re sharing a room that’s literally small like a closet filled with things gathered to make a sort of makeshift bed for us on the floor.

I look with my magesight and I can see power coming from the herbs which are spelled and clear as day under the bandages. I can see the power leeching into them too fading into their injuries and mine.

“Oh I need to learn so much about healing.”

I move carefully because I don’t hurt too badly though I think that’s because of the healing I’m getting but as to not wake Nicole and Jessa as well.

Both look exhausted and I...I feel better, much better.

I head out after finding my bag or one of them and a robe to wear.

I’m naked save for my bandages and that would be kind of upsetting if it wasn’t for my time as a healer or stand in healer.

I stare with magesight at my bandages again fascinated by the power working there.

Sir Alaan would be so interested in this, it’s something so new to me.

I slip out into the hall and pad barefoot until I find the jakes and they’re basic but very clean and there are dried herbs here that are hung in the corners with more magic leaking from them when I look.

And...oh...I swear I think it’s keeping the bacteria and germs away.

The implications alone of how I could use this. The lives I could save or change.

“I need to learn this.”

There’s a tiny sink with a tap and there’s pressed leaves for wiping again with the power flowing from it.

I’m seeing reasons in this alone why evil would want the keep to fall.

That needs to not happen.

I clean up and head back out to the hall and make my way through the place until I see someone with a bundle of books tied with a leather fix and a basket of fresh herbs and some jars.

She’s an older woman wearing pants and a very plain brown heavy hooded tunic much like the druids and she has her hair in braids that are tied at each side of her head and pulled back with a top knot as well.

She gives me a nod. “Morning.”

“Good morning.”

“You look hale miss.”

“I feel better, I’m Christiana.”

“Adele.”

“A pleasure.” I offer my hand and we shake hands and i can feel power within her.

My stomach decides to snarl as I smell some of the herbs, more than a few that are used in cooking.

“You’re hungry, come we’ll get food you need more than the bits you’ve had.”

I look at her. “You were one of our caretakers.”

“I am, you’re still recovering or you should be?” Her voice changed like she was puzzled.

“Should be?”

“Well given how beaten up and exhausted you all are you my dear girl should be still asleep or at the least a lot more wobble-knee’d than you are.”

“Well I’ll agree I’m definitely not fully recovered I feel like I’ve worked all night unloading a caravan, my muscles feel like over kneaded dough.”

My stomach protests again, loudly.

Adele laughs. “Well if that wasn’t a sign I don’t know what is that you are on the mend, let us go and get you some food.”

She gestures for me to follow and we travel through some fairly narrow hallways that really says to me defense, you couldn’t really swing weapons in here and it’d be down to knife work or thrust weapons. The doors are strong too thick looking oak and fitted and joined and even bound.

You could defend this in a lot of places with a few spears and good shields.

Even the windows are mainly made as angled stone work with a slit no more than a hand wide on the inside of the castle walls it lets you see more and reduces getting shot.

It’s not much more than that and it is certainly an older structure you can see the age in the wear of the flooring and in places where hands have made parts of stone smooth over time.

We take stairs down three flights until we’re down on what looks to be a main floor and then we go through some halls that are filled with some injured or tired men-at-arms of some kind and the local warriors and fighters.

We get looks and we get nods and most are either sleeping or they’re cleaning and fixing gear and weaponry.

Then there’s a great hall with several fireplaces and it’s full of tables and benches and chairs and there’s people there that are doing chores, mending things and grinding grain, lots of grinding for the grain and there’s the smell of food coming from the kitchen that has a domed window and counter ledge so you can come up to it and see inside.

Adele gestures at a table close to the kitchen. “Wait here and I will bring you food….do you have any preferences?”

I shake my head. “I’m not a picky eater, anything is fine.”

She raises her eyebrows looking surprised but just nods instead of saying anything but it’s a pleased nod.

She goes and I’m getting looks and folks are...I can sort of feel it, there’s this sort of highborn thing that they’re unsure of and then there’s definitely me and my magic thing, apparently there’s a large difference in their minds of what my magic is and what the druids do.

I don’t feel hostility really just a lot of caution and I am fine with that I actually forego my manners and sit with my arms folded on the table and I rest my head on them and nap, or try to nap some more.

I can still feel the people and that’s still very distracting and new to me and I’m still feeling worn, it’s hard to tune the feelings out and at the same time part of my mind is way too curious about what they’re feeling towards me.

Adele comes back with a laden tray it is food that I’ve come to find over here in this part of the world more than home. Greens both cooked and stewed with other things and there are peas in the pods and a dish of stew that is closer to soup but the current situation has had it thinned out to stretch it but there are flavors of smoked meat in the broth and what looks like dried things added to it like the green tops of garlic and herbs and bread to dip it in and it’s the coarse but hearty kind that I’m getting used to and a small dish of mashed and boiled beans with vinegar and some herbs for flavor and a cup like dish of stewed dried berries.

I’m waking from the smells and the crockery is clay or wood and so is the spoon as well and I smile.

Adele says. “We’re trying to stretch things, we’ve decent stores for us but now there are so many.”

I try the soup stew and it’s good and best of all it’s hot and cooked with care and?

“This is fine, more than fine this is a feast.”

There’s power in the food too…? I can tell whatever they did to the herbs from before they did here.

I have no idea what that does but the food is very good.

Could I do this? I’d like to learn.

And unlike the table I grew up at I let myself make outright pleasure faces. I’m not really exaggerating I’m starved so it tastes double good. Except the beans, they’re strong, and an odd thing.

Adele sits as someone brought her and I mugs of tea large and heady with the scent of the very best tea. “We’d have all the go with it things but…”

I nod savoring it anyway. “But there are better uses for the milk or cream and the sugar.”

She nods. “Right now the children.”

Adele takes my bread and spreads the beans on it and adds a dollop of the greens then passes it to me. I pop it in, that’s much better, good even.

“You eat well for a highborn girl.”

“Mage work burns through a lot of energy, but so does my lightning powers.”

“Still someone highborn’d turn up their noses at the food.’

“They’d be fools then. Good food is good food fancy or fine.”

Adele grind and nods. “Good girl you’ll do well. When you’re done Harold would like to see you. You’ll find him out in the keep yard most likely.”

I nod and keep eating, I eat everything that they gave me and I thank everyone for the food and take my own dishes to the kitchen and thank the cooks who offer up more tea which I take and carry the mug out with me looking for Harold and nursing it as well.

Things here are...tight, they took in as many as they could as well as everything that they could.

I can see the faces filled with worry and with fear and just lean times on too many faces.

We have some supplies, I have some things that we can use to stretch things out at least a little bit.

I ask around and find Harold in the chicken coops tending and feeding and clucking to the hens that are here.

“You wanted to see me?”

He looked over. “Yes Christiana we have to get to work.”

I have the feeling that this is more of the wizardry sort of thing and not the hard labor part.

“I’m more that willing.”

He is petting one of the hens and I can feel him soothing her it’s not so much her reaction but the fact that I can feel it happening.

It takes a few minutes of quiet before I realize he’s teaching me or expects me to do the same thing. I take a few breaths and feel their feelings and I can tell that they sort of get that we’re agitated.

I look around and concentrate but not, sort of focus and flow more that anything of grain, yard grass, food, a good scratch in the dirt, warm sunshine.

She’s calmer then and we walk doing that with the others and some of the other animals before Harold says.

“Your control is good, you should be able to handle the line.”

“The line?”

“The Leyline.”

“Oh there’s one here? I never noticed.”

Harold nods. “That’s because of the key.”

“The key?”

He nods and we’re walking from the animals into the keep and through a few side chambers and then to a staircase leading down.

This is not the cellar.

I’m very new at this magic thing but I can see the protections carved into the walls and after three flights of stairs we’re descending into natural chambers made from caves.

And more protections carved into the walls and images of beasts carved with some of them and they look somehow linked.

I’m lost, as lost as I was going into mother’s tower.

There’s power here I can feel it and I see ahead of us a pool of water and there are more symbols in the stone there under our feet and there’s a chopped off no made? Molded? Stone pillar there like a small mountain with the top sheared off and there’s a piece of crystal the likes that I’ve never seen that looked like diamond and steel had a baby and a rainbow version came about.

A metallic, prismatic, sort of crystal and it’s a chunky thing really about the size of an apple and stunningly odd.

Then I can feel the power.

It feels like it’s a dam holding back a river.

Harold holds his hands over it like he’s warming them over a fire.

“This is the key, there’s six keys created by the light and the old spirits to aid us in defending the world. They have the power to stop leylines and hold their power safely.”

“How?”

“By shunting it to another realm, another dimension we think. This was long, long ago when Titan was deep within the wars that brought all of here.”

I’m reaching out and I can feel the power in there radiating.

“This is why it’s here, why it’s so remote but in a keep.”

Harold nods. “It is. It’s why we’re being invaded.”

I nod. “Such power anyone would want it.”

“Away from a ley line it’s merely a battery, but on a line it can harness it.”

“And all six together?”

“Off of a ley line they can close a gateway between worlds, that’s what they were used for. Closing the gates from invaders during the war.”

I ask. “On a leyline?”

He says with a bit of a frown. “Open one.”

“Oh...so they want it to do that.”

He’s nodding. “Very likely so.”

You ever have those days when things just sort of fall all into place even if they’re bad?

I stare at it.

We had the caves under us too, there was our cistern too….

We guarded a key.

That’s why they came.

“Harold...someone’s collecting the keys...the took ours, the one at Lyonnes.”

He’s nodding. “I was afraid of such.”

“Why though?”

“Your grandfather Rory Blackhand the one truly powerful male mage on this world was going to open a gate. Your mother warned us of that and that he was going to open it to become an immortal by making a dark pack and offering up this world as sacrifice.”

I stare at him, he said it so easily. “And he was stopped...but someone wants to do the same?”

Harold nods. “An apprentice or something, the keys are a secret, no one outside of that crusade knew of them and not even all of them just the best and brightest and strongest.”

“We’re all of his followers killed?”

“We thought so, but someone lived, somehow.”

I stare at the key.

“We can’t let them get through, not just for the people here but this...can we destroy it?”

“No, that was what was tried first back then. And it was deemed if there ever was such a gate opened without the keys they would be our only way to close it.”

I nod.

He looks at me. “So I have the distinct honor of teaching the daughter of the woman that entrusted the key to us in how to use it.”

I take a breath. “I’m ready.”

“No you’re not but I like the positive attitude. Now we start by learning how to draw off of the ley line through the key.”

We’re there for I don’t know how long really with me learning how to connect with the line, to feel the natural wild power there and use it. Then to use that power to fill me up and recharge me which got a little hazardous as harold was standing in water and at full power and more I started to spark.

Then arc.

Which became an arc with an oops.

He taught me that fully connected and filled with the line I heal faster.

It’s like sinking into one of those inlets or bends in a stream the power flows to the key and it spins, swirls around in a circle before it melts away to somewhere else I can’t feel really but being just there inside of the swirl it’s like the swirling energy fills me and it replaces the bad with the good by feeding my body with the power it needs to heal faster.

And I find out that there’s limits with that.

My body still strains, the healing still is my body only faster and that means food and water and that stops me more than other things.

Though Harold feeds me what he has while we’re down there with healing herbs that are filled with druid power and a few candies as my sugars are in need and a slice of bread with roast dripping fat that he was going to have for his lunch.

And he teaches me how to unlock the key...to touch power into the facets of the stone and that unlocks it from the line.

I remove it from the mount and feel the line whoosh past me and off in the distance and out to sea.

The power is still there and it’s a ready source but nowhere as strong as the pooling effect that the key had.

I feel something too.

A mind, several minds and it’s not contact but it’s like ripples?

People...but not people that I would ever have felt before...dark, so dark and hungry and violent and they lust for it, lust for power and to dominate and there’s even darker things...flesh...they want our flesh, the flesh and blood and meat of humans...men...and women...children…

I slam the key back into place and lock down the line.

I could feel them rage out there.

I’m breathing hard and shaking.

Knowing real evil is out there is one thing feeling it is another.

And they felt like the goblins did that we fought on my way to being safe but darker, deeper, stronger...they had power.

Harold says. “They have casters, they’re ready to have the key in their position.”

I nod and squat down and spoon water with a cupped hand over my face and head. “Three of them I think.”

He nods. “One will be a master, they alone will know how to unlock the key.”

I stand and look at him as i feel a shift in the feelings on a massive scale.

“They’re coming.”

He nods. “Unfortunately I knew that they might when I was showing you this. It was a chance that we had to take.”

“I have to go and help.”

“We both do.”

I can feel the conflict as we hurry to the surface, our foes and all of the aggression and our side with fear mixed with determination.

Once we’re up and out to the courtyard it’s raining arrows and I seize them by the heads and I reach out with my feelings and sense the force the arc and send them on a return flight to their archers.

It is a lot of weight...no strain the arrows are many but their light it’s the breadth of them combined with the force they had that feels heavy.

With a mental heave I sent them off.

Then I blast an incoming large stone to dust and gravel with me throwing power itself into the stone and then opening or casting a shield inside of it popping through every crack.

No, no lightning, the electric would not have done anything to the stone.

I head up to the walls and Martin and John are already there with some of the fighters and men at arms that we have and the enemy is out there.

Goblins and Hobgoblins as archers and crossbowmen there’s others too a line of Wargs and riders and what are these huge towering brutes bigger that Nicole’s Squire’sknight and they’re throwing stones.

“Trolls?”

Martin nods. “And their out of range too.”

I look and then focus and blow apart three incoming large stones.

John looks at me. “Feeling better?”

“Harold showed me the ley line.”

They both nodded.

I blow apart two more.

Martin says. “That’s handy.”

“And limited, I don’t think I could do this with much bigger or faster now without a lot of practice.”

“Well it’s working so far.”

I see their archers move and reach out gripping the arrowheads and snapping them sideways breaking them off at the shafts.

That’s easier but still the number makes it harder.

They try again and I do it again and this time push the arrowheads at them like I fired them like my bits from my wand.

It’s not lethal with their armor and the lack of speed and force but it scares them plenty.

They start to break ranks and I shove this wave of power at them with electric in it making things shock and spark.

The Goblins break ranks and flee.

The Hobgoblins too but slower and very angry.

The trolls fire off another salvo of large stones and I shatter them too when they come into range.

I will practice this somehow.

I will be able to do this with a siege stone like they attacked home with.

I have an idea.

I reach out and I touch John’s bow. I put magnetics through it and while that will do nothing I am just using the bow and string and the arrow too as a frame for shaping the force that I use to hurl metal.

“Draw your bow and try for the troll.”

“It’s out of range.”

Martin looks at me then him. “Just do it John, I’ve seen Aurora do the same.”

Oh…

John fires from his longbow and I push hard on it with him boosting the force instead of just pushing at the arrowhead.

It hits home and it stops picking up a stone and looks surprised.

Barely phased but surprised.

I switch places with John and get between him and Martin and I touch them instead of the bow letting them carry the flow of the electric and magnetic and I drop deeper and sink into the feelings as they focus on their archery.

Just that...lift, boost...be their aid.

Feel that feeling that aiming calm, the breathing, the honed arts of training to the bow for most of their lives.

And they speed arrow after arrow into the trolls and they’re not really that harmful with their hides but they do hurt and they flee from the little hurts they were not expecting.

And before they run out of arrows Martin shifts from the trolls to the Warg rider line and drops two Wargs and three riders and John drops the same and martin fires past the Warg line to these gathered Hobgoblins and one gets hit another in decent looking splinted mail blocks it with a large buckler and gives us a snarl and John’s arrow bounces off this...this dimness suddenly in the air.

A shield...not like mine but it’s there...like something dark or darkness itself given power.

She...yes a she in robes and with breasts says something and we sort of make eye contact too. She’s a Hobgoblin, black sort of thin hair with charms and what looks like harpy feathers in it and her skin is like the rest of them but a shade or three paler which reveals more spots and blotches, hooked nose, full lips, sharpish teeth and baleful yellowish red eyes.

She has a staff like mine but different and she keeps staring at me as they leave and get out of range and back to their camp.

I can’t see the other two casters out there but this feels...feels like it’s not over.

Martin says. “They’re come tonight, they’ll come harder too.”

I stop casting and sigh and I feel tired with the power that I used.

John steps to me and uses his body as something for me to lean on.

“We need to get ready and you need to rest.”

I can feel.

Both physically and from his feelings that he likes me, is aroused by me, wants me.

I nod and smile at him. “Food first and them let me check on the others and then maybe we can find a quiet place to rest together?”

John’s looking at me then colors a little and asks. “You felt?”

I smile and look at him and press my hip into his stiffness and raise an eyebrow. “So that’s a concealed dagger sheath then?”

“Chrissy…” he blushes fully this time.

I smile and take a last look around to make sure we can quit the wall and John escorts me down the stairs and towards the main hall.

There are people in the keep yard staring at me and a few of them tug at forelocks and offer little bows.

I’m not sure what to do about that so I smile and wave a little like my sisters did but I do stop an older man from bowing with a kneel.

“No goodsir, I’m no laird here just myself and I thank you for the respect but save your knees.”

He smiles and we make our way inside and Martin says. “The trick with the stone, that you mother never did, that and the arrows that was lifesaving Lady.”

“Martin it’s Chrissy.”

“Not right now it isn’t.”

He parts ways with us and Adele is there almost like she’s been waiting and as we sit down there’s food.

I smell the tea and that smell lights the fire for my stomach waking it up and smile at her as I take my first sip.

“Thank you this is wonderful.”

“What be wonderful is you stopping them trolls them stones be fifty pounds they don’t stop when they hit the walls or an animal or a person.”

I blush and she points at me. “And all that after doing that important work with Harold all the morning and past the noone. Ye needs t’eat what we give ye.”

I smile. “That sounds almost medicinal, my old healer would say such things.”

Adele gives that that same smile that healers give too.

It comes in a variety of things and most of it’s not bad actually.

There’s bread and still the rough sort of thing that they can only bake right now and with it there’s this mixture of jellied pig’s foot that’s in a bowl that looks as if it’s been canned/bottled. Then there’s broth with spelled herbs to infuse their good properties and two different bowls of greens that have the same and then there’s some baked bundle with grain filler that’s made with turnip, carrot, parsnip and cabbage then rolled in cabbage leaves then baked in a broth.

All of it good and the only thing for it being off putting was the broth which was very strong and feeling the power placed into the herbs.

John was looking at me as I heaped jellied pig on bread.

“You’re not fussy are you?”

“I keep getting that from people. It’s true in the castle we had a lot finer foods, well fancier foods but a lot of these things are still the same and we ate differently hunting or travelling.”

“Still and you’re not dainty for a noble girl.”

I blush. “Sorry, I was raised with manners.”

He waves me off when I was setting my bread on the plate reaching for a knife and fork. “No, no, don’t I like watching you eat with your hands. It’s...it suits you, makes you less the woman that throws lightning and blows up boulders.”

“I’m that scary?”

“Not scary, daunting...between the power and being educated which comes out in your carriage and speech and the fact you’re devastatingly beautiful it’s daunting.”

“I’m beautiful?”

“Are you fishing Chrissy?”

“No I fish with otters.”

He gives me this smile, he got that and must have heard stories.

“Yes, you are beautiful, slender though but young, fresh faced, very fit in body sleek hair, clear skin and good teeth and a nice smile. You’re a rarity and it shines through the robes and things you’re wearing now.”

I’m blushing. “It’s hard to tell honestly sometimes, I’m not my sister Gracia who loved her mirrors and curls and clothes and ribbons. In my head I’m not the person I see looking back sometimes I’m just me.”

He nods. “That’s most of us actually.”

We finish eating and John comes with me to check on Nicole and Jessa who are with Harold visiting and Marten and Taylor. Harold’s working power and healing them and by the light it feels a lot more complex used on another and it doesn’t look like much but at the same time in fighting terms having the exhaustion being dealt with and the bruises and other hurts like all the muscle strain Nicole’s body has been through. That changes things, much for the better.

I think he’s been here before doing this with her and she’s looking better.

Jessa too and there must be a definite difference in what I do and what the druids do for her because she’s actually at ease with him working on her.

John and I find seats and we jump into the conversation about the fight, the key and the fact that there are three casters out there and trolls but likely more harpies as well.

And it’s talking tactics and strategies and making plans as the girls eat and then take the opportunity to rest more and let the healing work with the food and the herb spelled broth.

And what was or might have been time with John and I became me getting dressed and getting my wand and my other things and helping Taylor and John and Martin be crazy and use my magnet force to feel for foes and then lower them over the walls faster that they could climb or use ropes and they stole off into the off side of the enemy seeking forage that we need.

I run a series of light spells that move and weave and look like characters from my grimoire at times in the air over the wall and down and try to fake it looking like I’m doing something to the walls.

All distraction.

Gods and light it’s nerve wracking though.

The three of them out there and out of range and the enemy out there too patrolling and roving the countryside very likely killing anyone they came across.

There’s just three of them and an army out there.

Oh father...I’m so understanding when you talked about sending our men at arms into places and having to do other things and not being there with them.

And it’s hours.

I feel them coming back and they’re moving as fast as they can and are carrying bundles of net wrapped around what they could forage and I feel metal in both as well. John and Martin running low and Taylor covering them with his crossbow and as they get closer I see the enemy noticing and are sending out Warg riders and it’s getting close as they run harder and the enemy is closing and I reach out with my power and deflect the arrows as the enemy riders start firing at the men and instead of waving them away I put a shield between them and John, Taylor and Martin and call to the men on the walls with me.

“READY BOWS!”

I make a smaller shield further out and it’s like a railing it’s not even meant to hold that strong it’s meant to be a stumbling block.

The Warg rider arrows hit my shield scattering and they keep riding and firing and then the Wargs in front hit the shield and the drop tripping and sprawling and like in any faltered cavalry charge the ones behind them are tripped up by them.

“WARGS FIRST, AIM FOR THE UNDERSIDES!”

They start raining arrows as much as they can and they are doing a lot of damage to the Warg riders sent out.

I let them fire and take whatever targets they can and I shift my focus on using my magnet force to pull our men up out of that danger as fast as I can.

It’s a lot of weight and I take them all at once.

I’m not risking them if I can help it and it doesn’t matter that it’s hard.

All three are bloodied and thankfully nothing bad and mostly it’s not theirs.

“Are you alright?”

Martin’s panting and so is John as they carried the bundles and Taylor nods. “Aye we’re fine just a few scratches it’s a fine bit of luck for us that the rangers bury caches from time to time.”

Martin coughs. “Not luck, experience. War, raiders, pirates, famine, disease we forage as we range and our apprentices craft and sew and preserve things all the time.”

We stay and we watch the men on the wall dispatch the Warg riders sent to stop our rangers from getting back and to a Goblin and beast they die.

Martin slaps one on the shoulder. “Take your cheers lads that was a fine piece of work.” then he shouts the all clear and the men are taking their cheers it’s a dozen of the Wargs downed and off the field forever and a rider as well as in a few cases a rider and an extra archer.

That’s less that we’ll have to face and that’s more morale as our rangers came through pulling off a spur of the moment dangerous mission.

We need rangers back home, we have huntsmen and woodsmen but nothing like these men and women out here past the mountains.

Even Taylor looks like he’s carrying a couple of extra satchels and we carry everything down from the wall and they start to undo the bundles.

Tight wrapped bundles of arrows smartly wrapped in cloth for bandages. The big bundles have frames on the outside edges with more arrows and what looks like tenting equipment and a few knives and small hammer and yes more arrows.

There’s also salted and dried meat, fish, whole animals like squirrel and rabbits as well and all manner of dried foods like herbs and mushrooms, berries and tubers and just about anything that you might harvest out here all wrapped tightly. There’s even things like dried homemade noodles.

And something I have never seen ever...bricks of flour pressed super hard and coated in wax and then salt. Flour that you can make back into flour with a rasping tool which they have with them.

In the large scale of things in a long siege it will not be much for food with all of the mouths here but it will stretch and more importantly it has a huge effect of the mood here, the mood of the place and all these things and a win versus the enemies outside it’s an advantage that we might dearly need tonight.

Taylor has satchels that he passes off to the Druids with more herbs that have been gathered and dried and some just for medicine but some of them for their other magics too.

I see Jessa and Nicole are up and smiling and looking better especially Nicole and we end up hugging and heading with the others into the great hall where the rations and medicines are being taken.

The very first thing I do is actually help the cooks grind the flour by using my magnet force to move and spin the rasps so they grind it all back very, very fine.

By that time there’s better tea made and there’s some more food out and there’s more food being made. I help some by heating the water to boiling fast for them and then head out and sit with everyone as we start making plans for tonight and talk of what they might throw at us.

We eat a stew for supper made from pretty much dried everything and it’s surprising good the stock which was from some of the salted and smoked squirrel and rabbit and that added much to the broth in terms of flavors and the noodles rounded everything out nicely.

Yet while this was a good thing we were still talking about things to come or rather to come at us and that was the bulk of the conversations for all of us in the hall and likely everywhere else too.

Nicole has us and people rally to the smithy and while her Squire’sknight is being repaired she goes through the job of a squire in these times. Checking armor it’s shape and fit for the fighters, checking weapons and the shields and getting others that know to do the same thing and then she’s walking the walls with the people she and Martin have selected to be the commanders.

I help Nicole with her rig as best as I can to bend plating back in place and to fold things together front rents in the armor and weld them. I make them strong too as strong as I can with the things that we have here at hand which isn’t much but after she’s done her best as a commander and squire we’re working with every workman that is skilled enough to do the job and that’s just three men plus Nicole and Taylor and myself.

And Taylor stops to make grenades with Lady Marybeth joining to help him but he is doing his own work not being taught.

Blasting powders is a secret it’s deadly stuff and even just making it can make it go off or so I’m told. There’s a whole guild for this with the firewriters that make fireworks that’s secret and even with the Dwarves it is held tightly within their guilds.

The fact that he knows how to do this is firming up that Lady Tatiana’s post rider and keep boy might actually be one of those people that get called agents of the crown….especially the way that he fights.

I know that he could have picked up many things but still he fights better than most, he fights like a professional.

We only see him when he comes into the smithy for a box of nails and steel wire.

Lady Marybeth is a knight of these realms and I’ve already seen they’re taught very differently.

Then it’s time for me to go with Harold and some of the other druids down to The Key and we tap the line to recharge and while they spell their herbs and sachets of mixes I read way at my grimoire and scribble away making notes.

I think I’m getting a handle of druid magic.

Not casting it but how it works.

All magic has properties, like my spell words with actual casting these are forces formed by the layering of what they have become in meaning.

Like cosmic impressions that have become so strong they are like part of whatever that is.

Well Druids have that with herbs and plants all mixed with real medical and science based knowledge and the rumored or folklore applications and they empower this by channeling magic into these things while also knowing the true words for these things.

And yes I could learn it most likely but to get to that point where knowledge meets faith and magic it would take a long, long time to be an actual druid.

I might be able to dabble and look forward to trying but I don’t have the time.

I see no young druids here not the ones able to do the magic.

I leave for a little while as they’re working to try a few small spells out and so as I don’t cross contaminate their work or unbalance it.

I get several nods and smiles of appreciation when I return and I recharge myself from the line and then head out with the others and get waved over by Jessa and Taylor.

They have gear there for me to use, made to fit and right there I undress and begin to get into the linen shift and under breaches then Jessa braids my hair out of the way and instead of trying to pin the rest down we take a sharp knife and we shave it away. Sorry but some things that people think women should do is idiotic when it comes to fighting.

Then over the linen a quilt mailed tunic with a long skirt to it and a thick but plain leather doublet over everything and I’m laced in and we test how I can move and once that’s fine I belt on my falchion blade and three daggers on my off side.

We head up the wall and there’s horns starting out there and then drumming and chanting, not spells but war calls, harsh and menacing and they’re working themselves up.

Jessa shows me metal buckets painted white for me to see better of what pitch we have and I take my place in the wall I had before where I can see the most things at once and the grenades are there close by.

Bound in steel wire so I can lift them through magnet force and with a wire fuse that I can ignite through my power electric. We don’t have that many of them it will have to do.

There’s some other things, arrowheads recovered from the enemy, some of their knives as well the smaller ones and two lengths of chains that we could spare close to ten feet long.

I have my wand with me and we wait and we wait and we wait.

The sun starts to set and they are coming from the shore side of things which means that the sun is in our eyes as it sets.

That’s when I feel them moving or rather the metal that they’re carrying.

“They’re coming!”

And the Harpies are in the air.

I can feel them carrying fighters Goblin sized ones from what I can tell but if they get close enough to drop them inside.

“Rangers! Harpies flying in bearing fighters!”

I shout. “Shoot at the purple!”

Once I say that I start painting them with a bright violet light spell.

Arrows start flying and they start to dive trying to get past our defenses.

I yell. “WARE MY LIGHT!”
I fire a blinding flash of light at them as bright as it comes from using my power and welding.

They scream pulling up and beating their wings madly and they’re falling as arrows are finding their marks the Goblins they carry fall with them to their deaths.

There’s no time to cheer them fall from the sky as they’re coming hard and fast and the first in the charge are several trolls wearing armor that’s been strapped onto them and they have huge axes and massive hammers.

They’re definitely seeking to breach us fast.

And behind them are more Trolls only they’re stopped far enough out of range for common arrows to strike them and they’re throwing stones.

I’m suddenly very busy throwing up a trip shield to slow the oncoming trolls then I’m exploding stones from the air.

Some I can’t there’s too many of them as they’re not scrounging for rocks but they have carts close to them so they’re able to throw them at us at a much faster pace.

The stones that get through are fifty pounds and they go through roofing or the walls inside past the thicker outer walls like paper.

The screams and the cries and the terror starts.

We’re firing arrows at the trolls from the rangers longbows trying to stop them as fast as we can but the armor is stopping them mostly and I’m moving between John and Martin to boost their bow shots again and then I’m running to Taylor as he has the arbalest we brought with us and shot and killed one of the trolls that was downed from the tripping shield I did and I use magnet force to pull back and reload it and he drops another one firing that siege crossbow sending a javelin sized bolt though the mouth as it righted itself and roared at us.

Then their on the march with Goblins rushing us on foot with scaling ladders and grapnels to scale the walls.

The ladders are lashed without nails and the grapnels are made of heavy bone.

I can only pull them off the wall by the metal the goblins are wearing.

And it’s soon that I can’t do that because of the stones being hurled and then there’s the trolls on the ground that are trying to breach us.

I can see their Warg riders holding back until we’re breached there’s other riders that don’t look like combat fighters with them as well.

I concentrate on blowing up stones, it’s the choice that I had to make until they come.

Goblins first scaling the walls their barbarians or shock forces to wear us down and soften us up.

Then I’m fighting, hard fighting with them on the walls as we’re being swarmed and all my old and new training coming to the fore as I’m trading blows and dodging and evading and then cutting and thrusting, chopping and when I can using magnet force to hurl them off the walls or to turn away their blades or to seize their metal in their armor and turn them just enough that their off balance and I get an opening.

The rangers pull their blades as they speak that sworn verse from before and I feel a glimpse of magic flowing into them sustaining them.

And they fight even harder and faster “The Oath” sustaining them to fight harder than normal men and women.

It’s helping...slowly it’s helping.

Lady Marybeth left the keep courtyard to join the push to fight and clear the wall joining Nicole who was holding the sunward western wall and even though they’re not master/mistress and squire they have the training and have fought and trained together and they are deadly as they slip into this dance of long training and teamwork.

Taylor shouts. “CHRISSY PITCH TO THE TROLLS BELOW US!”

I hurl the buckets at them with magnet force.

Then Taylor and I use the grenades.

Burning flesh of the trolls and leather and that of all the Goblins near them are splashed then burned and dropped as the nails inside the grenades cut through them and there’s blood and death and dying.

I start hurling the things set aside for me as fast as I can down into the goblins and use the chain lengths to try and strangle the trolls still standing, still alive and even burning they’re stripping off armor and snuffing flaming skin and they come at us again.

I’m strangling one down and then I’m hit with power.

Magic molding the very night itself into a force and I’m blown off the walls and a second casting with it tears at me with blades of shadows and I tuck into a ball and instinct takes over too as I fall.

Armor saves me getting shredded but I lose my falchion and my wand.

I shift power and control to my body’s own magnet force and I push away with my hands.

Stop my fall.

Their casters are getting in play and no one can stop them but me.

I push off and fly/lift myself back to the wall and I switch to magesight to see these shadows coming and I shield myself as tight and hard as I can and add light spells into it and flare up the night.

More shadow blasts are coming and I hit them with light and flashes and send them flashes right back at them pushing the power of the light hard so that light equals heat.

I yell at everyone around me. “GET CLEAR, LET ME FIGHT!”

I can’t afford the distractions of them getting hit as collateral damage.

I barely get more light up and blast apart more shadow/darkness spells and return fire again and they’re definitely using one of their three to be just on defense making shields.

I reach into my electric power and use it to push myself, move faster, move faster...push myself by pulling it through the electric in my nerves.

I make a shield to block a beam of darkness aimed at me like a lance so I make a buckler of force and light folded over and over on itself.

Think, think Christiana dammit woman think!

I need to do something more powerful, they’re literally casting real spells and I’m free casting on the fly which means weaker, harder to control and just unrefined.

Hurling lightning won’t reach them, and they have shields.

We have another exchange of light and dark and I get desperate and grab those damned stones they’re hurling and drop them on their troops and then I grab the ones I can reach to wrapping them in shields and lifting them with power and throwing them at their casters.

That definitely did some damage to the Warg riders and disrupted them casting as they scatter and I feel a shield out there pop.

I know what I need to do.

Not hurl lightning at them but to actually call it down.

I’ve read that lightning comes up, drawn up from the world’s power to the sky drawn by the conditions in storms.

I make shields...like my buckler large circles of light to fight against their darkness if they should try to destroy them and filling them with my lightning power and magic as I send them out over our foes and pour power and feeling into them as I call out to the power of the world.

~Come! Come Lightning! Come Thunder!~

The glowing circle spells generate small clouds as the energy makes the world react to it and there are flashes and huge booms and clashes of thunder and lightning erupts out there making flash and fire and energy pools as the power spills out electric seeking out all those close enough wearing all of that armor and carrying all those weapons.

I scream.

I scream with power and rage as people are hurt, we might have people, women, children hurt and dead or dying and they did nothing to warrant it!

Nothing!

I push off from the wall lifting myself into the air and I make more lightning strikes all around me as I head out over the battlefield blasting all those around me as I keep them from attacking me from below or the sides.

I pull in all that free electric power in the air now and I send it through me recharging as best as I can, redirecting the rest as hurled lightning hitting the trolls at the gate over and over and over until my power runs low and I land.

I’m getting rushed and I hear our gates opening and Nicole sorties in her Squire’sknight and she makes fast and final work of the trolls that are screaming and charred and stunned by my hurled lightning attacks.

She grabs a troll hammer and hurls it like a sporting shot chain into some goblins and the same with a troll axe too before stepping into the battle.

The rangers, Taylor, the men at arms we brought with us sortie as well and I turn to fight as well as one of of men tosses me a longsword and with the power I have left I move it with magnet force and coat it in shield power and make it a new edge as thin as a razor and I step into step with our forces gathering up a shield as we fight.

They run a Warg charge at us taking fire from our archers and running into the ruin that is Nicole in her Squire’sknight.

There’s so much power in her rig, in her purpose and all that momentum as an eight foot high war machine moves swinging a heavy broadsword and a shield. Fur, leathers, riveted armor plates part like nothing...and like back at the arena Nicole dances, the steps aren’t plodding or trudging instead they work with each blade stroke and arm swing letting her force move her steps as much as her legs working the frame and wires inside.

And the more graceful she moves the more momentum she builds and the more lethal she gets until she hits this peak.

Nothing in reach lives through it.

She pushes through them and keeps going as we follow killing the survivors fighting those flocking to us as we make for the Trolls at the wagons with the stones.

There’s four of them.

They try and throw stones at us to stop us and I explode them in their hands and they grab battle hammers and Nicole pushed it further by running her rig letting the legs swing and counter swing like an expert using the build up of speed of a heavy moving object to make the work of running eased.

Hard to do, hard to maintain, hard to not trip doing that.

They were not expecting her to get there that fast and she beheads one reaching for the battle hammer and drives her sword deep into another.

Then we’re there too dodging in and out and striking and cutting as best as we can with my spelled blade slicing deeply as Taylor harries and distracts it.

Martin and John taking one on as Jessa works with Nicole in well established teamwork and driving her axes or slicing with them into the backs of it’s legs.

The Trolls don’t work as a team.

We are and yet we’re still taking blows as battle hammers strike stone sending gravel and shards exploding outward from sheer power and then there’s glancing blows from their huge limbs like getting hit by a hardwood tree.

But one by one we cut them down...Nicole and Jessa first as their foe was stabbed hard and blood loss took effect and then they join Taylor and I and then the one facing John and Martin falls.

There’s horns, horns and drums as they’re blowing the retreat.

We watch them run, not just retreat but run from us and we just watch.

My body is shaking from everything and I feel so weak...tired but I can’t seem to sit or fall.

The longsword is glued to my hand by blood and heat from the spell.

More horns…?

No trumpets...bugles.

The ground shakes as cavalry rushes past us I recognize none of them as they chase after the Hobgoblins and Goblins and then I see the standard of Lord Caldwell.

And our Lady Tatiana’s standards as well...not many but a half dozen knights.

Adele’s there and she has some other druids with her sharing some power to me.

“Lady, Lady Christiana we’re done, saved….you can drop the spell on the blade lady.”

I look at her and Taylor passed me a skin and I drink deeply from it and drop the spell or spells from the longsword and it crumbles to pieces held together only by the shield.

I know it’s post battle humor but we look at each other and we laugh a little off.

Harold and Jessa are helping Nicole and she’s drinking a gagging through something in a gourd bottle he brought and Jessa has a big waterskin and she’s feeding Nic water and using some to spray her down.

Others are tending to us from the keep mostly the druids and I can see a train of wagons and pennants from our side in the distance and...I look to Adele.

“Help me?”

“Aye Lady.”

She lends me enough power that I reach out and make a light spell...soft light with Lord Caldwell’s standard in blue shimmering in it like a large moon to light their way through the battlefield and also that our people can see them.

The cavalry is meeting the enemy from everything we can hear.

There’s cheers rising off from the walls.

And The Gods and The Light is kind and the wagons come to us.

And John comes to me as they do and he picks me up and sets me on the tailgate of the wagon closest to us and he has a soaked cloth and he’s washing blood and filth and smoke from my face making me cry in the shock of a simple act of kindness and humanity in the aftermath of all of this and then...then he kisses me.

Deep, hard, passionate and a reminder that we survived.