Urien walked up beside the two of them and scanned the region below with a frown."Worse than reported." He said flatly. "We don"t have the numbers for a siege break. Not if we want to have any chance at attacking the camp proper afterwards."
"I think the main issue is going to be the archer towers. If we can get those down, things should be a good bit easier." Jack said.
Urien turned his attention to Jack.
"You sound like you have a plan." He said.
Jack nodded.
"I do. I"m not sure it"s a great one, but its better than nothing." He said.
Urien crossed his arms.
"I"m listening."
Jack motioned towards one of the towers.
"The towers are made of wood. I can cast magic. If I can get in range long enough to cast my spells, I can set the towers on fire and take them out of the fight." He said. "I just need help getting close enough and staying alive long enough to make it happen."
Urien thought for a moment, then nodded.
"That would work. And we can definitely keep you safe from a ground a.s.sault. But, their archers are going to be an issue. Not many of us are adept in the use of shields, and if I"m thinking correctly, any shield that can block an arrow from striking you is also a shield blocking your aim to the target. Do you have the ability to shield yourself with your magic?"
Jack shook his head.
"I don"t. Abjuration magic is not something I know how to use, unfortunately. But, I do have this" He said, pulling the small silver cube out of one of his belt pouches.
Urien looked at the object and frowned.
"What is it?"
Jack inspected it, turning it this way and that as he spoke.
"It"s called an Arrow Magnet. It will apparently redirect anything fired at me away from me and towards itself instead until it"s destroyed. I don"t know how long it"ll last, though, so I may not be able to rely on it for more than a few moments." He said.
"I see. Well, it"s better than nothing. But I would be hesitant to expect much from it if you"ve never used it before." Urien said. "Magic items vary wildly in quality."
"Well, that"s what I"ve got." Jack said pocketing the cube again. "I would try to attack the towers from here, but that"s easily a half mile or more away, and even if my spells could reach that far, I doubt I could accurately hit my targets from here."
"Maybe we could create a distraction?" Rose said, speaking up for the first time. "Like, keep the archers" attention focused somewhere else so Jack can have a chance to act?"
"Maybe." Urien said, then added "Though that does place whoever is providing the distraction in the unenviable position of being the focus of all of that arrow fire. Which returns us to the core problem."
They all stood in silence, puzzling over what to do, when Jack spoke up.
"I have an idea of how to fix that." He turned to Urien. "Have every person who is adept in the use of a shield, whether they currently have one or not, to separate themselves out from the rest of the group. We"re gonna use some old-fashioned Roman siege tactics."
Urien turned to his father for an explanation, and Farlo frowned.
"What are Roman siege tactics?" He asked. "I"m not familiar with this term."
Jack hand-waved the question away.
"Don"t worry about it. That part"s not important. Can you get them together?"
Urien sighed and nodded.
"Aye, we can do it. Give me a few minutes time." He said, before turning and heading back down the hill towards the rest of the a.s.sembled ma.s.s.
Within ten minutes, two dozen or so of the a.s.sembled ma.s.s had been separated from the rest. The majority of them seemed generally confused by the whole thing, and murmured amongst themselves about what was going on. Jack surveyed the group. Many of them didn"t have shields at all, and of those that did, the majority were either bucklers or triangular heater shields, which wwould not really work for what he was hoping to do. Finally, near the back, he spotted a single person carrying a large, curved rectanglar shield. Perfect!
He motioned for the young woman to step forward, and when she stopped in front of him he asked "Can I borrow your shield?"
She looked at him, confused, before handing him the large wooden shield. It, when rested on the ground, rose to about his collar bone, and was shaped in a roughly semi-circular manner. All told, it was pretty similar to an old Roman scutum, which meant it would be exactly what he needed.
Now, the question was- just how much magic was it going to take him to duplicate it? And would that leave him enough to take down the towers? There was only really one way for him to find out.
As a test, he ran through spellwords in him mind until he landed one ones for "copy object", and recited them out loud as he focused his attention on the shield.
To his surprise, he felt almost no drain whatsoever as the shield magically separated into two copies of itself. He handed the copy to the now even more confused woman as he cast the spell again. Within a few minutes, every member of the a.s.sembled group held matching, identical copies. Based on how he felt, Jack estimated he"d used about 20% of his magical reserves in the process, which was less than he"d expected, but more than he wanted to use. At least he still had the Potion of Vigor if he needed it.
Now that everyone had what they needed, Jack motioned for everyone"s attention again. It took a few attempts to get silence, but once everyone"s focus was on him, he spoke again.
"Alright everyone! I"m going to show you how to form a Testudo!"
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