44 Smoke

This time, Remian thought, they were going to be ready. This time, for sure, they would stop the Beast Wave entirely.

Things had gone well over the week. The dorm and the barracks were built; the Legion got their stone, and Remian got his wall. Four Guard Towers were raised, two to completion with Ballistae and Repeating Scorpions, and two just at Phase 1, but able to shelter archers and crossbowmen.

When the day came for the Beast Wave to strike, Remian had a prepared force of forty mercenaries, a dozen Adventurers, and over thirty Legionnaires on guard while he himself went to greet another shipment of reinforcements coming in with the airship at lunch-time. As Charlie promised, they came early.

"Any word from the scouts?" he asked Mandy, who stood at his side.

"No sign of a signal fire. It seems the scouts haven't spotted anything coming." Mandy said. "I thought you said they usually didn't attack until sunset. It's high noon out here."

"Best to be wary. You never know, with these Waves." Remian grimaced. Then he frowned. "Does the airship seem a bit… light?"

"What do you mean? There's a hundred people on it." Mandy said.

"That's exactly the problem. There's only a hundred." Remian grunted.

He asked the same thing of Charlie.

"I'm sorry, Remian. I don't know what happened." Charlie sighed. "The Desert King got wind of your offer and took steps to retain all the mercenaries. He made his own ranking system which beats out your offer on every level. We couldn't get a single mercenary to join up this time around. All I could get were workers, and the offer had already been limited to a hundred a week, so… these were all I could get."

"Any magic books?" Remian asked next.

"Those would take more time. You asked us to rush." Charlie pointed out. "What about the Wave? Is it here yet?"

"Not yet. Would you be able to help us out when it arrives?"

"I'll see what I can do. I can help as a personal favor, just to keep you alive, but if you want the airship to turn cannons on the Wilds, you'll have to pay for it."

"How much?"

"To hire an airship for a battle? Even a commercial cargo hauler? Ten thousand Lir."

Remian let out a low whistle and shook his head. "That is way too expensive."

Twenty more mana potions found their way into Charlie's hands, along with a small wooden box…

"How much do you think this is worth?" Remian asked, as Charlie inspected the crystals inside.

"I'll bring them to the refinery and find out. But I'm guessing easily a million Lir." Charlie said in a low voice. "Goodness, Remian, how many people know about this?"

"Very few. Unless the Wilds count?" Remian chuckled. "Don't worry, the secret is safe."

"Talking about secrets… how's the search for the spies going? Any Wilds headed south?"

"Not in the past week." Remian assured him. "Nobody was allowed to go south of the new wall, human or Wilds, except for the four scouts, and they only went south an hour ago. Wherever the Beast Waves come from, they were more than three days south of us; by now the Beast Wave would have had to be on the march for days. Even if one of the scouts was a traitor and leaked the information, it would be too late for whatever's commanding them to make any changes."

"No Wilds? Are you sure?"

"Very sure. If a Wild had leaked the information, it wasn't one of ours. All the rest of the Wilds north of the new wall are below Tier 3; they don't have the kind of intelligence it would take to be spies. And even they weren't allowed to go south. We've shot them all down."

"All?"

"All."

"Then why do you still have that look on your face?"

Remian let out a deep breath. "Because I still have a bad feeling about this Wave. It's actually getting worse."

"Then we better change the subject before you kill yourself with a heart attack. Worrying too much could be bad for your health." Charlie advised. "How is Mindy? How is her magic progressing?"

"She's working very hard." Remian said. "I'm not sure why she's having so much trouble, but at least there is progress."

"Difficulty with magic is normal." Charlie shot him a dark look. "You're the one who's not. Who the heck learns fire magic from reading through a basics book in one day?! Who the heck learns light magic within minutes from an old priest right in the middle of a pitch battle at night?!"

"Uh… I did…?"

"Exactly!" Charlie barked. "You're the one who's abnormal! What are you, a Draconian Sorcerer?"

"A what?" Remian blinked.

"There are different kinds of magic. What I use is the orthodox, scientific-approach, learn-from-a-school type elemental magic. This is orthodox wizardry. But there are other kinds out there that are completely out of logic or reasoning. Magic that can't be learned or even studied. Sorcery is one of those kinds. Those Draconians I was talking about? They can use fire magic without even learning. There's some kind of bond between them and dragons. We're not exactly sure what or how, and they're not telling us. As far as I can tell, draconians are all related to the Imperial bloodline of the Rising Dragon Empire. That means, somewhere up their ancestry was a Dragon Emperor. Given the amount of wives and concubines and children each one of them had, after so many generations and emperors, Draconians are not exactly rare, but most of them stay comfortably in the Dragon Empire where they're treated with veneration. A lot of them become Dragon Knights. Some become Sorcerers."

Bloodlines. Remian felt a chill when he heard that word, like an echo of Death's voice. "What other kinds of non-orthodox magic are there?"

"Spirit magic? Those involve summoning spirits and such. There's necromancy… ugh, don't even get me started on that. There's Theurgy, or so they claim, but I'm not sure it's even real. There's illusion magic, but from what I've seen, a lot of it is light magic and clever usage of magic tools. There's even psionics, though some people don't think it qualifies as magic, since it's related to one's innate mental abilities."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean it's about mind-reading, and talking in thoughts, and moving things with your thoughts. Some people suggest that it's just a sort of mutated ability in people, like having six fingers on a hand."

"Or like being able to talk to animals with your mind?" Remian suggested.

Charlie froze.

Remian wasn't sure if he was a Draconian or a Sorcerer, but he was most definitely a Psionic.

"Can you read minds?" Charlie whispered.

Remian shook his head. "I can only 'hear' the thoughts that the Wilds want to send to me. If they don't 'send' me anything, I don't 'hear' anything. It seems that talking to animals is all I can do."

"What do they say?" Charlie asked.

"Usually? They ask for food. They ask for food all the time." Remian said seriously. "Even the bear keeps on chanting 'honey' non-stop."

Charlie burst out laughing.

"I'm serious! He does that, literally!"

Charlie only laughed harder.

Then the laughter stilled. "Is that… smoke?"

"It is." Remian said grimly. "It's a signal fire. The Beast Wave is coming."

Another column rose up as they watched. And then, another.

"Is there any point to lighting more than one?" Charlie asked.

"Yes. I asked them to gauge the severity of the attack." Remian said. "Three fires means they're serious. We might not be able to keep them out of the town."

Then a fourth column appeared.

"What the…?" Remian stared. "This is bad. We might be in for a rough night. Better call the priests for medical support. We're likely to take heavy casualties."

And then a fifth column rose up.

"Oh, scrap…" Remian's bad feeling suddenly came back in a rush and this time he understood it fully. "Charlie?"

"Hmm?" Charlie asked, looking at the rising smoke dubiously.

"Tell your airship to prepare their cannons. We're going to need them for this battle."