Chapter Twenty Eight: Holding the Line
Buffy walked around the balcony area having a word here, a word there, trying to keep everybody's spirits up. Xander followed behind her, guarding her back and keeping a careful lookout. Nearly everybody left was spread around the perimeter of the area up against the rock walls that surrounded them on three sides.
The plan was to make sure that nobody was exposed unnecessarily by being out in the open. Anybody who moved away from the rock walls had to make sure that somebody was covering their back. The precautions were considered necessary in order to be ready for the next wave of attackers, the warlocks.
Buffy had distributed the defenders in groups so that an effective cross fire could be sent against anybody appearing in the middle of the area. The remaining loose rock had been piled up to give as much protection as possible against the fireballs that were the usual Warlock weapon. The description of the next horde as warlocks had at first caused some confusion until the Halliwells had pointed out that some of the demons that they faced were sometimes called warlocks.
The only people out in the open were two pairs of lookouts at the edge of the cliff, alert to spot any unexpected move by the enemy. Although the warlocks were expected to 'blink', that is to say teleport into the attack Buffy thought it best to take no chances.
Everybody was getting what rest they could. In particular the magic users were feeling the strain of repeated spell casting. Buffy walked past Amy who was sat with her back to the rock wall fast asleep and reached the Halliwell sisters.
"You know about these warlocks," said Buffy as she reached the sisters. "Why do you think they're taking so long?" So far several hours had passed since they had managed to kill the last of the monsters.
Phoebe shrugged. "The warlocks live on Earth," she said. "Not down here, at least most of the time. Perhaps it's taking the First a little while to round them up."
"The longer the better," said Xander yawning. "Maybe he's not paying them enough."
"We've probably messed up the First's schedule," said Piper.
"So by getting rid of these warlocks down here we'll help things back on Earth. Every warlock killed down here is one less up there after this is all over," said Buffy.
"I suppose," replied Piper. "If we win and if there is an up there afterwards."
"When we win," corrected Prue, trying to remain outwardly optimistic whatever her private misgivings. "There's no way anything's getting past us and reopening that Hellmouth." And no way anything's getting past me and getting to my littlest sister she thought.
Buffy continued on back to where she had started next to Dawn and Giles where Xander slumped down onto the ground, his back to the rock wall. Buffy had been the last of their pair to take a break so now she remained standing and on guard. As she did so she went through recent events and took time to mourn, however briefly, friends lost.
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As the rest of the monsters had arrived at the base of the cliff they had been met with falling rocks and a volley of crossbow bolts. This inflicted damage on the advancing enemy but no immediate deaths. The monsters were simply too big and strong to be destroyed quickly by such means and although many of them had roared in pain they had all begun to ascend the cliff face.
The first to the top had been an ogre, a twelve foot tall, green skinned, immensely strong brute wielding a large wooden club. Prue had stepped forward to sweep him back off the cliff with her power. After that the monsters had then seemed to appear in a rush and the fight against them had developed into a number of separate combats with the defenders.
Piper had managed to explode what could only be described as a slime monster. A large black lump of a creature which had oozed up the cliff face and had threatened to engulf a couple of the enhanced potentials who found themselves backed up against the rocks. Although the slime monster had completely disappeared it left behind it a very pungent smell.
Connor had tried to skewer a sort of super heavy weight yeti with his sword but either the creature had some sort of immunity to such an attack or its heart and other vital organs weren't in the usual places. Without removing Connor's sword from its body the creature knocked him aside with a massive forearm blow knocking him unconscious and propelling him back twenty feet.
That was the last thing the creature would ever do however as it immediately slumped to the ground dead. It wasn't that Connor's sword had finally been effective. It was dead because of the loss of its head which had been neatly chopped off from behind by a furious mother vampire.
Wood had been the first fatality of the attack as far as the defenders were concerned. A tentacle had slithered rapidly over the edge of the drop and pulled him over the cliff before anybody could chop it off. Just as he went over the drop he had thrown his axe into the back of a large goblin type creature that screamed in pain. Wood had disappeared from view and could not be found after the fight.
Gwen had found herself faced with a very large flightless bird with red plumage and a large hooked beak. Goodness knows how it managed to get up the cliff she thought but that didn't stop her from pretty well cooking it with her full electrical power. Unfortunately as she turned away to give help elsewhere she had been flattened by a falling giant. Like the others who had been lost her body faded away.
The combat was ended when Kennedy, now restored to health by Willow had led a group of the enhanced potentials in a furious charge which managed to drive the remaining monsters back towards the cliff edge. At this point Willow, Amy and Cordelia had combined to send a blast of fire towards the creatures which destroyed the remaining monsters and cleared them from the area.
"Sorry guys," said Willow to those around her after taking a deep breath. "We'd have done that sooner but I'm afraid we're all slowing down."
Unfortunately the cost of each battle continued to be higher than the last. As well as Wood and Gwen a check afterwards had revealed that Wesley, Ingrid and Molly could no longer be found. Nobody had seen them fall but then nobody had been standing around taking notes. Everybody had been concerned with survival.
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Voices, he could hear voices. They sounded familiar, as if he knew the people talking but he could not bring any names to mind. He couldn't bring his own name to mind. What's going on he thought?
For some reason he expected to be in pain, great pain, but he wasn't. He felt as if he had just woken from a long sleep and he had that comfortable warm feeling that it would be so easy to just turn over and fall asleep again.
"Wesley," said a familiar female voice clearly from the surrounding babble. "Wesley, wake up!"
Wesley? Who's Wesley? Then he remembered, he was Wesley and the voice was... Fred.
Wesley opened his eyes to see a concerned Fred leaning over him. Realising that Wesley was now awake Fred's expression of concern changed to her familiar broad smile.
"You can't just lie here you know," said Fred.
Wesley opened his eyes and sat up. "What...what's going on?" he asked wondering where he was, what was happening, how...? Then it hit and he began to remember.
"Fred?" said Wesley. "But I saw you... that is you uh..."
As he spoke Wesley looked around him. He was no longer in the same place he had been. As he looked he recognised more faces and then he realised where he was.
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At last the warlocks appeared. The fourth horde from hell had finally arrived. They blinked in as expected but not one at a time nor as scattered individuals. Instead they suddenly appeared in a solid group in the heart of the balcony area. As soon as the warlocks arrived they started to form and throw fireballs at the defenders spread around them.
Piper immediately used her freeze power and all of the fireballs and some of the warlocks froze. With so many warlocks present however many of them were unaffected. The unaffected warlocks continued to form fresh fireballs to send against their enemies unaffected by Piper's power.
Many of the defenders would have died early in the battle had the tactics of the warlocks not been expected and had precautions not been taken in advance to deal with the threat they posed. As well as ducking behind rocks as much as possible all of the defenders were already wearing an amulet as protection against Jasmine. In preparation for the attack the charmed sisters and the other magic users had enhanced everybody's amulet to provide as much protection as possible against the fireballs of the warlocks.
Immediately the warlocks appeared everybody who was not already standing jumped to their feet and everybody started firing crossbow bolts and throwing knives, axes, rocks and anything else that came to hand. Warlocks that were hit by the blessed and enchanted crossbow bolts mostly just disappeared in a blaze of fire. Others who were hit by thrown knives and axes generally disappeared just as promptly.
Piper now switched to her other power to explode warlock after warlock. With crossbow bolts, knives and fireballs flying in all directions Prue was careful in using her power, not wishing to send something the wrong way by mistake. She concentrated on defending everybody as much as she could and returning the fireballs back to where they came from. Phoebe, armed with a crossbow of her own took her own toll of the enemy.
Buffy and most of the others who were used to fighting hand to hand held themselves back from rushing into the crowd of warlocks and cutting loose with their weapons. They continued to fire from a distance and kept behind cover as much as possible with their backs to the rock walls. That way the warlocks were given no chance to blink in behind somebody.
The Halliwells had insisted that to go out into the open against warlocks would be disastrous. Prue had explained:
"They can disappear from right in front of you, appear behind you and hit you with a fireball or something else before you can turn round."
"And these are the enemies you usually come up against?" asked Kennedy. "How do you deal with them?"
"Sometimes I wonder," said Piper. "You really need to have eyes in the back of your head and you have to be pretty quick on your feet."
"The odd thing is that once we start chanting a vanquish spell, the right sort of vanquish spell, they just sort of freeze," said Phoebe.
"You mean like Piper freezes them?" asked Willow.
"No, not like that," said Phoebe. "They just sort of stand there and let us destroy them. It's like once we start chanting the right spell they have to wait for us to finish it."
"Like rabbits in the headlights," said Xander.
"Do you mind!" objected Anya. "We have enough trouble without bringing rabbits into it. Giles and Wesley said nothing about a horde of rabbits otherwise I wouldn't be here."
"So could you do a vanquish spell on them as soon as they arrive?" asked Buffy. "Sort of hello, goodbye, don't call back."
"I'm afraid it's not as easy as that," said Prue. "A general vanquish only works on the weakest of warlocks and then usually only one at a time. For most warlocks we need to know something about them in order to do a vanquish spell specific to them."
"And we often need to use more than a simple chant," said Piper. "We usually need the right sort of powders and potions as well."
"We're better off using our powers to fight them," said Prue.
The weapons fired by the defenders, because of the way they were prepared, were nearly always fatal to the warlocks even if the wounds inflicted would not normally have killed. The defenders however did not come off unscathed.
Whilst the defenders tried to avoid the hail of fireballs coming from the warlocks by dodging aside or ducking behind the rocks many of them were hit. The protection provided by the amulets was usually sufficient to prevent death or injury but not always. Sometimes two or more fireballs hit at the same time and this was usually too much for the protective amulets and resulted in the loss or injury of another defender.
The weapons on both sides were so effective that it only took a few minutes to bring everything to a climax. By now there were only the three most powerful warlocks left. They must have known they could not survive but they were clearly under orders to fight to the death and aware of presumably unpleasant consequences if they didn't do so because they made no attempt to teleport away.
As a last blast they combined to fire together at the cause of the death of so many of their comrades, Piper Halliwell. Prue managed to divert one of the three fireballs but the other two struck home even as the three warlocks dissolved in flame themselves because of the weapons striking them.
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Buffy stood and hugged Dawn. Neither of them could believe that Giles was gone. Nobody had seen him struck down but he was one of the missing after the last of the warlocks had been destroyed.
Others had their own grief. With Piper gone there was no more Power of Three and that could have serious consequences before the fighting was over. Prue sat with her arm around Phoebe, neither saying anything.
Darla had entered the Hellmouth knowing it was a one way trip for her. She knew all about not being to blame for the deeds of her unsouled self but she couldn't believe there'd ever be forgiveness for what she'd done as a vampire. She'd pretty well agreed to become a vampire all those years ago. She'd forgotten a lot, including everything that had happened after her previous vampire death but that was something she did remember just as she remembered asking to be remade into a vampire after she had been brought back.
Connor had been healed by Willow after the fight with the monsters and had taken his toll of the warlocks but had then been one of the last defenders to be struck down by the fireballs. Darla had remained by his side all through the fight and had not realised that he had been hit until it was too late. Now she was in a very black mood indeed.
Also struck down were two more of the enhanced potentials, the Australian twins Mary and Elizabeth. Mary had been hit by two fireballs at the start of the fight and her grief stricken sister had then charged into the group of warlocks striking left and right with her sword. She had taken down four of them before being hit by three fireballs at once and disappearing herself.
Willow felt exhausted. She'd just finished another round of healing. She knew that she must be drawing strength from Tara somehow because otherwise she didn't see how she could possibly still be standing. It was only as she had completed her rounds that she had realised that somebody else was missing; Amy.
Piper, Amy and Giles all gone thought Willow. She tried to put aside her grief. She'll have time for that later. Anyway she thought, as Buffy said we know they're in a better place. The immediate problem was they were running out of magic users. What'll we do? According to what Giles and Wesley said only magic will stop the next horde.
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"There they are!" called Faith from the edge of the cliff. "Three of them, just like Wesley said." The dragons were on their way. As yet they were distant specs in the sky. They gradually began to grow in size as they came nearer.
The plan had been for the charmed sisters to put up a magical barrier to the dragon fire which was the main and perhaps most deadly threat they faced from the dragons. If possible the charmed ones would use the barrier to send the dragon fire back at the dragons and destroy them.
Without Piper Buffy realised that there was no Power of Three and maybe no prospect of a magical barrier. On hearing Faith's warning call Buffy turned and hurried over to where Willow, Cordelia and Anya were talking to the three sisters.
Wait a minute thought Buffy, THREE sisters...what the...? As she got closer Buffy realised that there were indeed three sisters but that two of them appeared to be Prue. One of the Prues was sat on a rock seemingly unconscious with Phoebe holding onto her. "Two Prue's?" she asked, "how come?"
"Prue has the power to produce an astral double of herself," said Cordelia pulling Buffy away from the group of talking witches. "The problem is the astral double can't do magic so no Power of Three and generally Prue is inactive while her double is awake. Willow's trying to help them get round all that and link the astral double to Paige back on Earth so they can get the Power of Three back up and running. In the meantime the rest of us have got to keep the dragons away."
"Everybody spread out!" ordered Buffy as she walked away from Willow and the Halliwells followed by Cordelia and Anya. "Take cover if you can! Those things are like flying flame throwers."
"Anya and I'll throw what we can at them," said Cordelia "but I don't know how effective it'll be."
Meanwhile the dragons were getting a lot closer. As they did so it became clear that these were truly monstrous creatures. Suddenly the leading dragon dived and dipped below the level of the cliff at the front of the balcony area only to appear from below and land on the cliff edge. As it did so it opened it's maw to let out its blast of fire, intending to incinerate all the defenders at once.
What everybody had forgotten, including Buffy, was that there was another magic user present. As the dragon landed and got ready to blast everybody with its fire Drusilla stepped forward and threw a small black ball into its mouth.
The dragon, either through surprise or because of the effect of whatever was in the ball closed its mouth abruptly without sending out any fire. Clearly the attack from Drusilla had a serious and immediate impact on the monstrous lizard because it put its head back and roared in pain before turning away and leaping back up into the sky.
Now the dragon was heading away from the cliff as fast as it could go. Whether it had a plan to deal with what Drusilla had done or whether it was just rushing away from the source of its pain would never be known because only seconds after taking flight the dragon exploded.
This left two dragons remaining, two dragons that were now very angry at what they had seen happen to their companion and were looking for payback. They now dived together towards the defended area. Having seen what had happened to the other dragon the two remaining beasts sent their flaming breath ahead of them even before they landed.
Cordelia, with Buffy on one side and Anya on the other stood in the path of the approaching dragons. She held her magic wand outstretched in front of her in her right hand. Anya held tightly to her left. As soon as she saw the dragon flame appear Cordelia sent all the power she had left, together with all the power Anya could give her, through the wand.
The force coming out of Cordelia's wand diverted the dragon flame to either side, completely preventing it from entering the balcony area and doing any harm. Either because the dragons were only able to sustain brief bursts of flame or because Cordelia and Anya's magic had drained the oncoming dragons the flames went out after a few seconds. However the dragons kept coming and they were awfully big and had awfully big teeth and claws.
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Xander could stand it no longer. He knew he couldn't stop one dragon let alone two but he wasn't just going to watch while three women he loved were torn apart. He was determined to do something, to get in some sort of blow on the dragons so he rushed out in front of the three women right into the path of the diving dragons.
What Xander had not realised was that Willow and the Halliwells were now ready with their spell, a Power of Three spell plus one. As the dragons touched down on the top of the cliff looking completely unstoppable they were hit by the vanquish spell.
The spell, although effective was not immediate. The dragons began to roar and scream in pain, all the time flailing around with their tails and claws. Large boulders were knocked out of the rock walls and amongst the casualties was Xander who was hit by a dragon tail and propelled into a pile of newly fallen rocks. He started to fade even as he was in the air and quite disappeared soon after he landed.
Buffy, Cordelia and Anya tried to get out of the way of the dying dragons but all were struck savage blows. Only Buffy had the slayer resilience to survive. The dragons finally seemed to melt away until they were no more. Looking at the rubble scattered all around Buffy wondered if anybody else had survived.