64 Approach

The High Rock clan boarded the Sky Barge. The Desert Moon clan, however, refused.

They wouldn't leave the farm. "This is our home now. At worst, we'll just scatter and come back later."

Maybe it was just as well. The High Rock clan seemed to have an astounding amount of stuff to evacuate. At this rate, they alone would fill up the entire Sky Barge to the brim.

"Are you sure? There's still time. We can make room for you on the Sky Barge." Aren offered Taj.

"I am sure. This is it. Here is where we make our stand. Live or die, tonight is when it all changes." Taj drew a deep breath. "And should we survive this ordeal, should we be tempered by this darkness and emerge intact to greet a new day… it would be a new clan who greets the sunrise tomorrow."

"Charlie is almost here." Mindy reported.

"What about the Sky Barge?" Remian asked.

"The evacuation is almost done!" Zania replied.

"You've been saying that for the past half hour already!" Remian grunted. "Enough! Get your people on board! Launch the Sky Barge!"

The High Rock Clan clambered onto the Sky Barge, then untied it from the fastenings at the dock. The airship went floating up, up, high into the air, then slowly inch south as both Mindy and Remian casted wind magic at it from scrolls.

Charlie brought the Roving Albatross in for a landing, tossing down anchors which the airport crews (who were also the militia who trained with the Iron Legion) tugged upon to drag the airship down to dock. Charlie himself beamed down as they docked. "Hie, Remian! I brought the cows…"

"Charlie! We need the formation! It's a Tier 5!" Mindy blurted, as soon as he appeared.

"They're known for good milk… huh?" Charlie blinked at Mindy.

"There's no time! Hurry!" She all but dragged him to the next dock over, where the Foresight waited.

"Green smoke! Beast Wave has reached the mines!" yelps rang out around them.

"Legion, assemble at the towers!" Markus ordered. "Militia, secure the airships, and join us when you can!"

"Adventurers, board the Roving Albatross!" Remian glanced at Charlie. "Can we use it to tow the Sky Barge?"

"That should work." Charlie threw back at him distractedly, nodding as he listened to Mindy's plan. "Just unload the cargo and the cows first!"

"No time!" Remian grunted.

They hooked the Sky Barge to the Roving Albatross then began to tow it south-west. Meanwhile to the south-east, yellow smoke was rising in the air. The Guard Towers already had the Beast Wave in their sights and had engaged.

***

"Throw everything we've got at it!" Brutus roared.

"Are you kidding me?!" Max spluttered, seeing the figure coming at them. "We have to get out of here!"

"We're not leaving our station!" Brutus shouted. "We must fight!"

"We CAN'T fight it! You know it as well as I do! Trying to stop that guy by shooting at it with crossbows is a fool's errand!"

Max knew it. Brutus knew it. Every trainee and defender in the Guard Towers knew it. They couldn't stop the figure that was coming at them.

They knew it because they had already tried. This had all happened before.

The figure coming at them was Spike. Not 'something like Spike', it was Spike himself. The very same Spike-Back Lizard of Craggy Falls was once again sent to smash his way through Frontier Town, and once again, there was nothing in the Guard Towers that could threaten him.

"We have to evacuate! There's nothing we can do." Max urged Brutus. "The only weapon we have with even a chance of hurting Spike is the XL Ballista on the Foresight."

"Where is the Foresight, anyway? Where's Charlie's airship? What happened to our air support?!" Brutus asked.

"They're still over at the airport. I think they're up to something."

But meanwhile, Spike was almost on top of the Guard Towers, and all the bolts and javelins they shot at him simply wasn't doing much good.

"Sawdust and gravel…!" Brutus swore. "Retreat! Everyone evacuate! Get out of here, now!"

They scrambled, and not a moment too soon. As the two Guard Towers emptied and the defenders went scurrying out of the way, Spike stomped up to the west Tower and crashed directly into it. Pieces went flying as he trampled through, angling toward his left more and more as the whole thing went down under his feet.

Then, he kept stomping on, angling a little more to the left… then a little more…

"Wait. What?" Max stared. "He's… not headed for the town?"

No. He appeared to be heading west of town… toward the western settlement.

***

"Charlie, hurry! He's coming straight for us!" Mindy spotted Spike in the distance headed their way.

"Let me focus!" Charlie shushed her, concentrating on the formation.

On the floor of the Foresight, a hundred Wind Blessing scrolls were laid out in three concentric rings surrounding the XL Ballista. Twenty of the best scroll-casters stood around them, ready to trigger their power. Charlie himself stood in the center with one hand on the Ballista. He was drawing Sigils in the air, entire paragraphs worth of magic that connected the casters, the scrolls, himself, and the Ballista. "Now!"

"Wind Blessing!" Twenty voices triggered scrolls all around the Ballista. "Wind Blessing! Wind Blessing!"

Their success rates were dismal, compared to Mindy's own, only succeeding about half the time, but this was a formation designed for ten casters, and their numbers made up for their failure rates. Mindy herself gave them a hand, triggering six scrolls in rapid succession, helping them power up all 100 scrolls with extra time to spare.

"Assemble!" Charlie gathered the power of all the matching scrolls and focused them. "Fusion!"

Power melded into power and combined as Mindy watched, a hundred Tier 2 flows joining into ten Tier 3 flows, and then finally, a single, powerful, complex sigil of Tier 4.

"Noble Wind Blessing!" Charlie ignited the Sigil, pouring its power into the XL Ballista.

The Ballista began to glow blue. It was ready.

"Rise!" Mindy turned her wind magic to the Foresight itself. Then, she ordered her 'crew'. "Cast off!"

Charlie and fifteen of the casters jumped off the airship and back onto the airport dock. Five more withdrew the anchor, untied the securing lines, and freed the Foresight from the docks.

"Remember!" Charlie shouted from the dock. "Don't get too close!"

With that, he took a running leap, and summoned a jet of wind that basically shot himself through the air toward his own airship.

"Charlie can fly?" Mindy blinked, surprised to see it.

Well, not really, it was more like a jump, and he really couldn't alter his course once he was in the air… but with a dozen such wind-bursts, Charlie could make his way back on board his own airship which was five hundred meters away from the docks. They were flying past the western settlement now…

"Target in range!" one of Mindy's crew reported.

"Fire at will! Target his legs!" Mindy ordered.

"Um… No promises!" the guy aiming the XL Ballista gulped. "I'm not Candice! It's all I can do just to hit it!"

"Your target is ten times bigger than your house! How can you NOT hit it?!" Mindy spluttered.

"Exactly! That's why I'm confident I will! But to target a leg…"

"That leg is literally as big as a Guard Tower!"

"You want to do this yourself?!" he barked back.

"I can't! I need to fly the ship!"

"Then just let me shoot!"

He fired. There was a rushing wind; Mindy nearly fell over with the gust that followed. Three of the airship crew aiming crossbows were nearly blown right off the airship. The spear that shot out looked like a bolt of blue from the sky; it lanced into Spike's armored back and pierced into it partway.

There it stuck, while Spike bellowed in rage, but of course, they were so far away, the sonic power of his roars couldn't really reach them.

"Reload! Forget the crossbows, those things are useless in this fight! Help the Ballista!" Mindy barked.

"We're going to have to get closer!" The gunner requested.

"Not too close please!" the others pleaded, sweating.

Claps sounded in the distance. Charlie's airship was firing cannons, but they may as well have been throwing stones. Mindy scowled. "Cheapskate. Next time, buy the better cannons!"

It wasn't a fair assessment. Those cannons weren't weak or anything. Had they been fighting human troops or Tier 3 Wilds, they would have been overkill. The current cannons on the Roving Albatross would have massacred entire platoons of infantry, blown armored knights right off their horses, even maul Tier 4 Wilds. But against such a heavily armored Tier 5… such a level of firepower could hardly slow him down.

Of course, the XL Ballista wasn't doing much better. Even with a Tier 4 Wind Blessing, while they could injure Spike, they couldn't stop him completely.

Spike roared back at the airship, and headed straight for the western settlement and the airship behind it.

"We'll try to outflank him, hit him from behind." Mindy decided, gritting her teeth. That was going to be an especially demanding task of the pilot, but what choice did she have? "Maybe if we can get him to turn his attention on us, we could buy a bit more time."

Someone lit a column of red smoke. Spike was really coming in too fast.

"Everybody hang tight!" Mindy said, and sped up the airship.