Kingdom Of The Weak

A week later, he was at the Legion camp of Frontier Town, building two ballistae.

"So now you know my background." He grunted, testing the crank of the one on the left. "Why do you ask?"

"Because, well…" Remian scratched his head. "You"re good. Very good."

The ballistae were easily three meters long, and just as wide. Each was like a crossbow, only much bigger. They used the "headless spears", that is, the simply steel shafts with sharp points for ammunition; Arnold said something about the consistent strength and weight distribution of the spears that made them more suitable and more powerful than arrow-shapes for direct fire.

What impressed Remian about the Ballistae were their loading mechanisms. Each had a pair of wheels similar to ship steering wheels on either side of the Ballista"s tail, and the spokes of those wheels carried sandbag weights. This was less to aid the grip of the operator than to help the turning of the wheel by allowing the momentum of moving weights to do most of the work. A single pull could therefore crank the bowstring back one third of the way given enough time. Or at least, one of Arnold"s pulls could do it. One of Remian"s pulls only brought it back one quarter of the way before it ran out of momentum.

The point was, using weights on the wheels meant even children could pull back the bowstring of the Arnold-style Ballista. Remian truly appreciated that.

"Join the Adventurers Guild." Remian blurted out loud. "Like Max. You don"t have to leave the Legion or anything. It"ll be like having a side job."

"And why would I do that?" Arnold asked.

"Because we need you?" Remian winced. "Because we really appreciate your innovation and inventiveness? Because we can pay you with Points that can be used to redeem useful stuff… plus you"ll be friends with some really big wolfcats."

"Wolfcats, huh?" Arnold raised an eyebrow.

"And a bear." Remian added hopefully.

"I"m actually more interested in girls." Arnold said after a moment.

"Ah… there are hunter girls. They love crossbows." Remian spilled out. He felt like he was babbling, and this likely wasn"t the smartest speech he"d ever made, and he was flailing, but he had to try no matter how silly he made himself sound. "Come on. It"s a nice way to get lots of extra supplies and good food. Just ask Max."

Arnold snorted. "You just want me to work for you. Out with it. What do you REALLY want?"

Remian hesitated. Then, he took out some drawings. "Repeating Scorpions. In the guard towers and on armored carts. Plus, on armored towers that can move."

Arnold lit up when he saw the drawings. "Now I am interested. Anything else?"

"Just these." Remian took out a vial of Mana Poison, and a Scroll of Wind Blessing.

***

The celebrations began at lunch-time at the Open Frontier Inn. It ran throughout the afternoon and half the Legion was drunk before dinner. Some of them were singing loudly and off-key, a few of them were weeping and bemoaning their fates, and somebody was even trying to dance on a table with only his pants on. The rest just seemed happy to have a break and to be able to take it easy.

Meanwhile, the ones really having the most fun seemed to be the kids and the wolfcats. They were running around screaming and playing and having a riot of a time. Then again, they were always like that. The difference was that today, they were doing so in the tavern area of the Open Frontier Inn, which was right in the town center, and half the pack of Carrie"s wolfcats were here.

There weren"t many other people about when they first brought the wolfcats into town, but those who saw them apparently didn"t see Tier 3 wolfcats as a threat when the Legion accompanied teams of them harnessed to cartloads of building materials and children. The whole set-up was just too similar to Frostwind Kingdom"s dog-sledding teams, plus, the children seemed completely unafraid of them.

Some of the townsfolk even joined the celebration, particularly the Burning Steel guys from the tool shop nearby. They all relaxed, chatting and hanging out and snacking together in a peaceful scene until something happened at sunset that completely destroyed their cheerful mood.

Someone blew the horn.

Markus" face fell. He looked at the drunk trainees messing around the tavern hall and grimaced. "This is rotten timing. Why did they have to come today? Why couldn"t they come tomorrow like we expected?!"

"Who? Who"s coming?" a tool shop guy asked. "What is that sound?"

"That"s the alarm." Markus got to his feet and roared. "Battle Stations! The Beast Wave is coming!"

***

Arnold and Remian were wrestling with a Ballista, trying to load it onto a cart when the sober half of the Legion arrived back at camp to gear up.

"Any fire?" Markus asked Remian, as he arrived, putting on his armor as he talked.

"Nothing from the Guard Towers." Remian answered. "I sent the hunters out to keep watch farther today, because of the celebration and all. That"s why we have a bit more time."

"Good." Markus nodded. He glanced at the Guard Towers. Still no fire.

They had stationed guards on the current roofs of those towers, along with tinder stacks. They were two unlucky Legionnaires who drew the short straws and therefore missed out on the celebrations. Once those guards saw red-eyed Wilds incoming, they were to light those signal fires.

Septimus dashed up, the fastest Legionnaire to put on his armor, and took over from Remian. More and more Legionnaires arrived fully geared up to help. They loaded the Ballista into the cart and towed it toward the towers.

"House it in the ground floor for now. We want a good roof over that thing." Markus ordered. "What of the second Ballista?"

"It"s not ready." Arnold shook his head. "You said I had more time! You said the Third Phase of the Towers would be when we needed them."

"I did. That"s right. So why are you loading the Ballista on the cart now?"

"Because it"s ready now, and there"s a Beast Wave on the way." Arnold scratched his head.

"Because I asked him to." Remian clarified then. "Think of this as some field-testing."

"I see fire." Septimus pointed. First one, then both of the Guard Towers had their signal fires lit. "They"re close enough for the guards on the towers to see."

"I see our hunter girls." Remian glanced once at Arnold, then back to two little figures in the distance running toward them. "They"re the ones who sounded the alarm early."

"We"re ready." Markus glanced about then grunted. "At least, as ready as we"re ever going to be, tonight. We"re only at half-strength, but it will have to do."

"What happened to the other half?" Remian asked, baffled.

"Inebriated." Markus said shortly.

Remian groaned. "That"s just… really bad timing."

"Yeah."

They had maneuvered the Ballista sideways in through the back door of the Legion"s tower by the time Candice and Denise arrived.

"Three Waves!" Denise gasped. "There are three Waves!"

"Three Waves?!" Remian stared. "How many Wilds?!"

"About… thirty." Denise panted. "Different… speeds."

That was new. Usually, the faster Wilds waited for the slower Wilds and so the entire Wave moved slower. For the faster ones to rush ahead this time… they were deliberately hurrying.

"Did they know? That we were having a celebration? Is that why they rushed it?" Remian suddenly thought the unthinkable. "They"re trying to catch us off-guard!"

The first "Wave" were already getting close enough for Remian to make out individual figures. Two Blood Rabbit Chiefs, three Spiked Cheetahs, and a Tier 4 Darkbok (an antelope Wild that was various shades of black with big sharp horns). All of them had gleaming red eyes visible even from this distance, like someone lit fire in them.

"Candice, Denise, to the Ballista." Remian pointed. "Where"s Joshu and Xia?"

"No idea." Denise threw over her shoulder as the twins hurried into the Legion"s Tower. "How many shots do we have?"

"I ordered thirty of those headless spears from the forge, but they"re not here yet." Markus told them. "Right now, all we have are the three from the Adventurers Guild!"

"That"s three boys without their Tier 3 spears tonight." Remian winced. "We need to get those spears from the forge."

"I"ll come with you, but I won"t be able to carry thirty spears back by myself." Max offered.

"The kids can help." Remian told him. "Tell them that"s their priority."

"You"re not coming?"

"I"ll be here." Remian scrambled to the Adventurers Tower.

The unfortunate guy on guard duty there was Brutus. He stood on the roof with a torch in one hand, a javelin in the other, grimacing at the Beast Waves coming at them. As Remian arrived on the roof, he said, "Second Wave in sight. Thirteen Wilds, two of them at Tier 4."

"Three Tier 4 Wilds. Three Ballista shots." Remian drew in a sharp breath between his teeth. "Every shot is going to count. Then there"s a Third Wave coming later. No telling how many Tier 4"s are with it."

"Can we manage?" Brutus asked grimly.

"We have more ammunition on the way." Remian a.s.sured him. "I just don"t know if they"ll get here in time, or what we"re going to do if they don"t."

"In other words… we"ll just have to hold them off longer." Brutus grunted.

"Yeah." Remian opened a chest on the side of the roof and carefully took out the contents.

"What is that?" Brutus asked.

"This? It"s a balloon. And a runic light sphere." Remian told him, then drew a sigil.

Filling the balloon was a simple task for wind magic, but the sigils were a bit complicated. The more complex a spell, the more sigils it would use. That basic Light Orb spell that Kairos first taught Remian, for example, only used one. The ice shard + wind vortex combination that Charlie used on the Cruel Rose back then had required entire sentences. Filling the balloon was somewhere in between, a six-sigil sequence that took Remian a few seconds to draw.

"Wind!" Remian casted the spell, and the balloon filled up with lighter-than-air gas. It began to float. Remian palmed the Runic Light Sphere and triggered its Inscription. "Light!"

The glow lit up the evening as the sun began to set.

There was a chugging sound. A silver streak lashed out. A five foot steel stake slammed into the Tier 4 Darkbok, inciting a screech that made Remian"s bones shiver. It stumbled; it fell, spasmed a while on the ground… and then it slowly got up again. It shrieked at the Legion Tower in pain and anger.

"Not good." Remian gulped as the balloon, anch.o.r.ed to the tower, took to the sky, and the Legion began to throw javelins.