Heroes of Magic and Might
Chapter 28 – This is how we do the raid
…
It was three hundred meters of open ground from the trees to the tower wall. A killing ground of open land, nowhere to hide, impossible to sneak up on.
"Whoever set this up knew what they were doing," Bill remarked as the group stood within the tree line, observing their objective.
Not that there was much to observe. The tower was as Hamma described it, façade like a skull. Today though the gate was down, as though they were expecting unwanted guests. Harry and Rosebud scoured the wall with their eyes, the vampires being naturally superior and Harry enhancing with his magic.
"See anything?"
"Just a wall, and those alternating bits at the top."
"Their called crenellations," the vampire corrected.
"Crenellations then. Unless their sleeping behind them, there's either no one up there, or some sort of magic is keeping us from seeing them."
"I'm betting on the second one," said Rosebud.
"Which means I have to bet on the first one I suppose."
"Would you like to admit defeat now?"
"No, I would not," she was already too smug to deal with.
The group was looking to him to crack this nut, and he was running through his ideas even as he matched wits with the vampire. The flat plane had potential, at least to him it did. There was a lot he could do with a gravel field, and he quickly brought it to mind as his wand slid into his hand.
He could transfigure without it, but the range combined with the quantity he intended made him reach for the crutch he'd slowly been weening himself off, to surprising results.
Those results showed in the ease the magic came to him. Rough angled slabs rose from the earth at various intervals between the trees and the tower.
"Everyone make for the first layer of cover," he ordered and dashed from the trees.
Rosebud skipped along behind him with Bill following a moment later. The wolf riders and the goblins came next, having shaken off their surprise faster than the lizardmen who followed shortly after them.
"You can move the earth?" said Hamma when he joined Harry under his slab.
"With the right visualization I can do a lot of things," he said, about to break off into a more in depth explanation of transfiguration till he saw the look of confusion and decided a simplification might be more appropriate. "Its transformation. If I can see it in my mind, I can turn anything into anything, with some exclusions."
This the big lizard understood, and he nodded, "How many of these magics can you do?"
Harry shrugged, "I've never tried to find a limit. Bigger things are harder than small things. Living things are harder than non-living. This," he said, tapping the slab, "was easy."
"I'm not seeing any motion from the wall," said Rosebud, peering around their rocky blind.
"Alright. Everyone, move up!"
Scrambling in apparent disorganization, everyone moved up to the next level of cover. Peering from behind the protective barrier they again saw nothing and moved up to the third.
"Anything?"
"I'm not seeing anything, but I am getting a scent," said the vampire. "And something else. Necro magic."
"Look! There by the gate."
The ground was moving, and it wasn't under Harry's power.
"The skeletons!" one of the lizards cried.
Hands of bone broke through the ground, hauling whole frames of what were once living things. As they cleared the crumbly earth, it was evident of the four, only two were human, while the other two had long whip like cords of bone extending from the spine, past the hip bone, and long skulls full of sharp pointed teeth.
"Our fallen." Eyes narrowing, Hamma drew the large war bow he carried, "Where must I shoot to kill them."
"You don't," said Rosebud. "Arrows are the worst weapon to use against skeletons. You need to smash them, before they smash you."
A proposition which became harder when small stones began to rain down on them from nowhere.
"This feels familiar," said Harry. "Your scent?"
"Not sure what it is," she said. "But it's definitely up there."
"The skeletons are coming!"
"Hmm." With a quick wave of his wand, the four skeletons were imprisoned by four stone walls eight feet high. "That should hold them."
And it no doubt would have, if the walls hadn't begun sinking into a boggy quagmire that appeared below them without explanation.
"We're being countered," said Rosebud. "Some sort of visibility shield, and a Bottomless Bog. They're no pushover."
"Neither am I," said Harry, popping around his cover a moment before turning to Hamma. "Can you throw me to the top of that wall?"
The lizardman looked at the wall, skeptical. "Perhaps if I were at the very foot of it. From here though? I am strong, but I am not that strong."
Harry expressed a briefly sardonic smile, then shrank, looking up at the biggest lizardman with shining black eyes.
Hamma chuckled, shaking his head, "I am that strong."
Collecting his projectile, Hamma came out into the open just as an arrow went flying past. The narrow projectile slid off his tough scales, drawing nothing more than an annoyed snarl from the lizardman. Reeling back, he hurled the squirrel like a baseball, arcing high over the wall.
From ground level they watching Harry open up, catch air, then maneuver like an ace around a hail of stones and arrows, before disappearing some ten feet above the wall.
They tried to watch for his reappearance, but the skeletons had overcome their imprisonment and moved on the group, forcing them to engage. Without fear the bones advanced, walking into and through attacks to grapple with the living.
The wolf riders managed to gang up on one and were in the process of tearing it to nibbles when Harry appeared floating from the wall, transforming before he hit the ground and sprinting for cover as stones and arrows began to fall again, better aimed and following him.
"Time to go," he shouted, throwing a powerful banishing charm at the skeletons which knocked all four into a heap they quickly began to collect themselves from.
"What is it? What did you see?"
Harry shook his head, "We need to go. Back to the tree line, NOW!"
In the chaos of battle there was confusion over the orders. The goblins scurried about unsure whether he really meant to run and the lizardmen, who up until that point had readily obeyed his orders, now turned to Hamma.
It quickly became a moot point when an enormous ball of fire appeared over the tower and descended on them like heavens wrath.
The shimmering shield that appeared over their head saved them from a fiery death and made up everyone's minds on the subject of taking orders. As one they fled back to the tree line, leaping behind bushes and trees, doing their best to get out of sight.
Hamma and Rosebud were the last in, Hamma carrying an exhausted Harry under one arm.
"That didn't go well," remarked Bill, holding up his water skin to Harry's mouth.
"No way was that just one person casting," said Rosebud. "Two at least, probably three."
"Is he going to be alright?" Gabby asked, hovering over Bill and worrying her lip.
"I'm fine," Harry mumbled, pushing away the water skin when the contents tried to go down the wrong tube. "Lost my sword though," he added, gesturing to the empty scabbard.
"What was up there?" asked Rosebud.
"Kinda weird, not sure what you'd call them," he said. "They were about my height, maybe a little shorter. They had a doggish look about them, though I couldn't pin down the breed."
"Kobolds," said Rosebud. "Their packish but they're not builders. If they're up on the wall they're serving someone else. Whoever threw that fireball most likely."
"There was probably thirty of them on just that side of the wall. They were very surprised when I dropped in on them, but not as surprised as I was."
"Did you kill any?"
"No. I was too busy getting my bearings and seeing what we couldn't see from down here. That's why I said to retreat. They've no shortage of ammunition. They could pelt us all day."
"Then we must find another way," said Hamma.
"We'll wait till nightfall," said Harry.
"You think it'll be easier fighting them in the dark?" Bill asked.
"Easier for me," said the vampire.
Harry only shook his head. "We tried the direct approach, that didn't work. Next, we try the sneaky approach. And for that we need dark, and I need to rest," he added. "You were asking about my spell limit Hamma. I think I just found it."
… Doom, doom I say
"The first two towers will be built to oversee the farms. We'll start building once we have all the materials and then build the walls between the towers."
"Thank you, Kohn. And what sort of timetable are we looking at?"
The dwarf stroked his beard, eyes gazing far off through time and space, "For the whole thing, six months, if all goes well. It is just wood after all."
"It'll do for now," said Co from the head of the table. "Thank you for giving this little presentation."
The dwarf nodded at the dismissal and swaggered out of the room.
"I'm not sure I understand why we need a wall," Flitwick opined once the dwarf was gone. "There's nothing out here a wall is going to stop."
"Perhaps. Perhaps not," the blue man said. "Call it forward thinking. Right now, we are cut off by the forest, but I marked the land as I flew here. The trade routes and villages. The roads do not reach this far yet, but in time, they will. We will make them."
"Can we really? I mean, well, of course 'we can' I just mean, oh, well, actually I'm not sure what I mean," Pomona Sprout babbled.
"Perhaps you should leave the thinking to others more qualified then," Umbridge sniped from her exalted seat to the left of Co.
"Now Dolores, let us not be unkind," the blue man chided. "You have concerns Pomona. I understand. It is a vast new world. I had similar concerns when I arrived myself till I discovered it was not so different than the last one. People are people no matter where you go. And it will still be a while before we can make these connections. We've still time to adapt."
Pomona managed a weak smile and nodded. It had to be said for the blue man, he knew how to read people. Though to McGonagall that still begged the question of Umbridge.
"He's right Pomona," Flitwick added. "After all, are we not wizards and witches? What's the worst that could happen?"
Ask a silly question.
"DOOM!"
And you shall have an answer.
"Oh dear Merlin, not her," McGonagall groaned.
"I am quite certain I had her expelled from this castle," said Umbridge.
"You tried to have her expelled, you only managed to get her fired," and wasn't that something she had mixed feelings on.
McGonagall had never been opaque about her feelings for Sybil Trelawney; and her feelings on Dolores Umbridge could not have been more clear if she'd written them across the wall in big red letters. It left her very conflicted when the toad had tried to remove the fraud, only to be stopped by Dumbledore.
It was even worse that his replacement for her had been so much more tolerable, even likable. More's the pity he had been out of the castle the night it decided to leap across the multiverse.
"Hello. I don't believe we've met," said Co, hardly put out by someone blasting in the room proclaiming 'DOOM'.
"Indeed, we have not, though I had foreseen your coming my good djinn."
The blue man smiled as the bedraggled looking woman sketched a rough curtsy, "I'm impressed. You are the first to have identified me as what I am. I had begun to think you people were unfamiliar with my kind. How is it that you know?"
Here it comes, McGonagall thought.
"The all-seeing eye shows all, in due time."
And there it is.
"A seer then. How interesting. And you say you foresaw my coming?"
She ignored the question, continuing to talk as she made her way around the table. "Doom approaches, this I have seen. It draws close, it watches, it's patience is great."
"Sounds dreadful," he said, not sounding like he meant it.
"Fear and dread, all shall be rent to ash. Scoff you may, but even you shall not be spared…"
The words at the end were mumbled, hardly a sound at all but for the moving of the lips. The choke, that natural reaction that came from having a sword against your throat was far better articulated.
None saw how it happened, they'd all blinked at the same time. Somehow Co had gone from reclining in his chair, to halfway across the table, holding his sword to Trelawney's neck while looking more fierce and furious than he'd looked when fighting Dumbledore.
"How, do you know, that name?" he demanded, chest heaving with unspent rage.
"The eye sees all," Trelawney whispered. "A moments time, in private, is all I ask."
And she did receive. His sword shaking in his hand, he dragged her into the small room at the back and slammed the door behind them.
"Well… that was unexpected," said Flitwick.
"I didn't even know she was awake," said Sprout.
"She woke just before… just before Mr. Potter was released from my care the last time."
Several heads bowed at the mention of the man who left. They had not been wracked with guilt as Dumbledore had, but that isn't to say they didn't feel it.
"He should have taken her with." And then there were those who wouldn't know what guilt looked like if it kicked them in the teeth.
The group of administrators sat in awkward silence for several minutes before the door opened again and the two stepped out. Co was smiling genially as Sybil carried on a conversation they'd been having, "It fog's my eye you see. The sooner I can get out of the castle the better."
"I'll have a few men get it together…"
"Coback, and two others. They'll be ready in two days. I'd also like to take a couple of the students with me. They showed some talent with the eye and I'd like to nurture that further."
"That will be fine," said Co, finally noticing all the eyes on him. "Yes?"
"Is, uh… is everything, alright?" asked Flitwick.
"Quite alright, but thank you for asking," said Co.
"Hm, not quite, alright," said Trelawney, eyeing the door. "Here he comes."
She no sooner said it than the doors again burst open, and Kohn rushed in. "Master Co!"
"Kohn. Did you forget something?"
The dwarf shook his head, "Problem. There's been fighting. One of the wizards, he attacked one of our men."
"I—see."
There was ice in that statement, a chill that Trelawney seemed entirely oblivious to, "No, not alright at all."
Doom… DOOOOOOOOOOOM!